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Daily Mail columnist Dave Peyton forwarded this "ancient document" found in his
files:
The Wealth of this state is immense.
The
development of this wealth will earn vast
private fortunes far beyond the dreams of a
modern Croesus; the question is, whether
this vast wealth shall belong to persons who
live here, and who are permanently
identified with the future of West Virginia, or
whether it shall pass into the hands of
persons who do not live here and who care
nothing for our state except to pocket its
treasures which lie buried in our hills.
If the people of West Virginia can be roused
to an appreciation of the situation, we
ourselves will gather this harvest now ripe
on the land inherited from our ancestors; on
the other hand if people are not roused to an
understanding of the situation in less than
ten years, the vast wealth will have passed
from our population into the hands of
non-residents and West Virginia will be
almost like Ireland and her history will be
like that of Poland."
- J.M. Mason, E.A. Bennett and Joseph Bell,
from the West Virginia Tax Commission's
Second Report, State Development, Nov. 22,
1884.
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