Harry F. Byrd

At 79 years old, Harry F. Byrd physical status not available right now. We will update Harry F. Byrd's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

As a businessman, Byrd had several operations: publishing newspapers, running a local turnpike, and selling apples and apple products.

In 1903, Harry Byrd took over his father's newspaper, the Winchester Star. Under his father's ownership, it came to owe $2500 (equivalent to $75,000 in 2021) to its newsprint supplier, the Antietam Paper Company. The company refused to ship more newsprint on credit, so Byrd cut a deal to make daily cash payments in return for ownership. As Byrd would later say, "when you have to hunt for them that way, you get to know how many cents there really are in a dollar." He eventually bought the Harrisonburg Daily News-Record and several other papers in the Shenandoah Valley. His family operated these papers until April 1, 2018, when they were sold to the Ogden Newspapers Inc. of Wheeling, West Virginia.

Thus started what would become Byrd's famous "pay-as-you-go" policy. He developed a lifelong aversion to borrowing money and any indebtedness. "I stand for strict economy in governmental affairs," Byrd proclaimed. "The State of Virginia is similar to a great business corporation ... and should be conducted with the same efficiency and economy as any private business." In a fifty-year political career, no statement of Byrd's ever more succinctly spelled out his view of government.

In 1907, he founded The Evening Journal in nearby Martinsburg, West Virginia. He sold the paper in 1912 to associate Max von Schlegell.

In 1908, at the age of 21, he became president of The Valley Turnpike Company, overseeing the Valley Turnpike, a 93-mile (150-km) toll road between Winchester and Staunton. Earning $33 a month, he was required to drive the entire route at least twice a month to inspect it and arrange any repairs. As automobile traffic increased, he ensured road conditions were maintained within the available revenues. He held that office for seven years until his election to state office.

Byrd also owned extensive apple orchards in the Shenandoah Valley and an apple-packing operation which was among the largest on the East Coast. He later pointed out that he paid his African-American workers the same wages as his white farm workers.

In the 1950s, Edward P. Morgan's assistant visited Byrd's Northern Virginia farm during the apple harvest and was outraged by the living conditions of the migrant workers. This prompted Morgan to take up the issue of migrant labor in his CBS Radio Network commentaries. Producer Fred W. Friendly then prompted his close associate Edward R. Murrow to produce the television documentary Harvest of Shame on this issue.

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