Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, several years ago when I chaired the Economic Development Subcommittee in partnership with my good friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger], we held hearings here in Washington and throughout Appalachia and elsewhere around the country in distressed areas. One of the witnesses, the mayor of Sneedville, KY, said to the committee, ``Before the Appalachian Regional Commission came along, we were so far down, we had to look up to see bottom.'' What characterized Appalachia for the nearly 100 years before 1965 was 80 acres and a mule. It was isolation. You have heard about the hills and the mountains of Appalachia. People being isolated. It would take 30 miles for one community to visit another, to go around through the hollows. And why there were generations of intestinal illness from people drinking their own sewage because of the hard pan that would not allow the sewage to filter through, and they needed advanced sewage treatment systems and they could not afford them.”