claimed; denuded areas can be
reforested; unnecessary stream pollution can be prevented; and in our
purified watercourses fish can be made to thrive.... For our posterity
and ourselves, we must restore as much as possible of the matchless
heritage which we wasted as improvidently as the base Indian who threw
away a pearl that was richer than all his tribe.... If to West Virginia
scenery, which is surprisingly diversified and transcendently beautiful,
we add the lure of fully restored forests, fish and game, the State will
eventually become a happy hunting ground for the sportsman; a paradise
for the tourist; and the home of prosperity more abundant than we have
ever known.'

"Progress toward these aims is being made under the direction of various
heads.

"In addition to mining areas producing more soft coal than any other
state, plus our varied manufactures, we have fertile valleys and slopes
from which ... an increasing harvest is reaped. The State's diversity of
activity should, in the fullness of time, make West Virginia the most
progressive, the most socially balanced, and therefore the most truly
civilized State in the Union.

"Our road system is being rapidly improved.... Many of our historic and
scenic spots and recreational areas, hitherto locked in the uplands, are
easily reached as more and more tourists travel pioneer trails on modern
highways.

"All these things now are being discovered, or soon should be, by the
whole Nation. Ours is the Vacationland at the Crossroads of the East.

"Just as in other times of national peril the human and material
resources of this region figured indispensably, so today its great
strength will be used against the Hitler menace.... West Virginia, with
its industrial development and strategic isolation from attack, may
become the Defense Hero of a war in which states little and large have
fallen before the juggernaut of tyranny. Again, as in the time of
Washington, the Nation may look to these West Virginia hills, and plant
here the oriflamme of freedom.

"Let us sing of the soft, folded beauty of the Alleghenies; of rivers
roaring with primeval discontent and streams crystal-clear (save those
running red from wounded hills); of Edenlike forests in Monongahela's
million acres; of Ohio's fertile valley, placid and hill-bordered, where
once 'warwhoop and savage scream echoed wild from rock and hill'; of
clean-trimmed rolling landscapes of Eastern Panhandle, famed for histo