In a message dated 05/16/06 12:46:58 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, suebod@tampabay.rr.com writes: If this has been going on so long, it can't be just the current governor and government. What? Big money buys WV's government? Sick. Sue Nothing new, Sue. WV has had two governors in my lifetime who were sent to prison. Did you ever think about why WV schools were completely racially integrated after Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision? I was always proud of that. Read about the Governor who DID want to tax the energy companies fairly--Governor William C. Marland. Sharon Lee Gates Apopka, FL West Virginia's Taxicab Governor: William C. Marland This article first appeared in the Political Collector. For more information about the Political Collector newspaper, write to The Political Collector, Box 5171, York PA 17405 ____________________________________ On March 12, 1965, newspapers all over the country carried an almost unbelievable story. A reporter in Chicago had discovered that a cab driver in that city was actually the former governor of West Virginia, who had left office eight years earlier. At the time the reporter found him, ex-governor William C. Marland was eating fried chicken in the basement of the YMCA where he rented a room. Other reporters soon jumped on the story, asking Marland what had happened. He had a two word answer: "Got drunk." For several days, Marland was the talk of the nation. Perhaps the story made some people feel a little superior—even if they had never been elected governor, at least they had never fallen as far as Marland had, from governor to alcoholic cab driver. After a few days, however, the nation forgot this novelty news story. Marland deserves better, however, and his story includes elements of heroism and tragedy. William Casey Marland was the son of a coal miner, who had himself worked as a young man both in and around West Virginia mines. He worked his way through college and law school, finally winning election to the state Attorney General's office at the age of thirty. Four years later, as Governor Okey L. Patteson prepared to leave office, he anointed Marland as his hand-picked successor. Marland still faced a tough election battle in both the primary and general election of 1952, but he triumphed in November. At age thirty-four, the Democratic politician was the youngest governor ever elected in West Virginia. The first three days were the only calm ones in the four years of the Marland administration. On January 22, 1953, Marland did the unthinkable. He presented the state legislature a proposal to tax the coal industry to raise some $18 million per year for West Virginia's woefully inadequate schools and roads. There was no interest group more powerful in West Virginia than the coal barons, but Marland took them on. He argued that only adequate roads and schools could help bring prosperity to the Mountain State. As might have been expected, legislators went running for cover, and most observers described the youthful Marland as inflexible and unwilling to compromise on his bill. The bill never made it out of the legislature, and the Marland administration never recovered. Marland did continue to try to build up the state, even without the millions of dollars of development money he had hoped for. He became a sort of industrial ambassador for West Virginia, seeking new factories and other investments. By one count he traveled 50,000 miles to "sell" West Virginia to industrialists in seventeen states. He did manage to land one very large aluminum plant, and helped attract dozens of smaller factories. While some Southern governors bitterly fought the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, Marland took the common-sense attitude that Brown was the law of the land and must be enforced. While racism was far from uncommon in West Virginia, Marland stuck by his guns and the state's public schools were integrated almost without incident. Toward the end of his four year term Marland began to consider his future. When U.S. Senator Harley M. Kilgore died early in 1956, the governor announced that he would run for the seat. After a difficult primary campaign Marland did secure the Democratic nomination, but his Republican opponent, Chapman Revercomb, scored an upset victory in the general election. When his gubernatorial term ended in January 1957, Marland returned to the practice of law. About a year later the death of West Virginia's other U.S. Senator, Matthew Neely, gave Marland another chance to enter the upper chamber of the national legislature. This time, though, he went down to defeat in the Democratic primary, losing to a man who had just been defeated for reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives, Jennings Randolph. Undoubtedly feeling the sting of rejection, Marland took a job with a major coal company and relocated to Chicago. In a short autobiographical piece Marland later wrote for the Associated Press, he explained that after moving to Chicago "my drinking had resolved itself into a 24-hour-a-day proposition." Marland decided to check himself into "the alcoholic ward of a mental institution," and he apparently never took another drink for the rest of his life. Still, he felt far from rehabilitated when he left the hospital. The former governor took a new position as a corporate attorney, but found that his interpersonal skills were now quite poor, and he wasn't able to keep the position. Marland was undergoing great inner turmoil. As he later recalled, he could neither make himself go back to the world of being a successful lawyer, nor return to the world of the drunkard. He decided instead to enter a "neutral zone" between the world of prestigious attorney and alcoholic failure. He began to drive a white Ford taxicab for the Flash Taxicab Company. Although he seemed to intend this to be only a temporary job, he found himself liking it, as his competence at the job restored some of his confidence. Occasionally old friends from West Virginia would happen to climb into Marland's cab while visiting Chicago, and would recognize Marland, much to their astonishment. Marland always managed to get them to agree to keep his new life a secret. Finally, though, Chicago was rife with rumors that one of the Flash Company's drivers was a former governor, and a local reporter finally verified the story. Marland in March 1965, at the time he was "discovered" Marland reported he had been almost ready to return to corporate or legal work, and the news stories only hastened his decision. A number of old West Virginia friends and political allies were shocked and probably a little sheepish to learn of Marland's circumstances, and he received a number of job offers from his old home. Finally he accepted one with James F. Edwards, who owned a number of mattress factories as well as two West Virginia horse tracks. Despite the laughs that many Americans got as they read about the taxicab governor, Marland was generously honest about his recent past, and used his experience to help others who were battling alcoholism. Asked if he had triumphed over his drinking problem Marland explained patiently, "We never say we've licked the drinking problem, but I like to believe mine is arrested. I haven't had a drink in four years. I'm getting myself together again." Perhaps the most charitable headline Marland got was the one the Charleston Gazette used over Marland's short autobiography: "Marland Tells Own Story. Found Self Before Newsmen Did." Marland's new life as a corporate executive seemed to go well, but fate was not going to give William C. Marland a happy ending. Only months after the world rediscovered him, Marland was diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas. He died in November 1965, eight months after leaving the taxicab company. He was with his family at the end. As he had wished, his ashes were scattered over a favorite West Virginia apple orchard. The fates did not leave Marland's widow to live out her days in peace, either. In 1977 she died in an apartment fire. Even today in West Virginia, William C. Marland is most often remembered as the "taxicab governor." It is sad this young executive is not also remembered for his own brand of bravery, daring to take on the coal companies, being willing to enforce an unpopular Supreme Court desegregation case, and finally battling the demons of alcohol and winning—or at least coming as close to victory as was possible. © 1998 by Stephen Cresswell ____________________________________