Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1913-04-24
An Unique Ceremony.
West Virginia viii Celebrate Her
Fift,eth Birthday In An Original
Manner

West Virginia. the Great Little
Mountain State. will be fifty years
old June 10th of this year.
The state will fittingly celebrate the
event, the celebration centeriug at
Wheeling. where there will be state
exposition, golden jubilee. city cele-
bration, and the usual-pardon-more
than usual entertainment: pageants,
4 parades. triumphal and memorial
arches, etc., with music galore; one
feature, however, the state ceremony
proper, will be so unique as to merit
brief description.
| West Virginia will be fifty years old
June 10th at exactly IL o'clock noon.
Around this moment has been grouped
a commemorative service. at which it
is proposed to re- enact the stirring
scenes of fifty years ago. then accom-
panied with bitterness, but now as
great family and friends, showing that
while West Virginia may be the only
spot on the map that remains of the
Civil War, no rancor remains in the
hearts of her citizens.
While this will bring to mind the old
times, science has been called up to
bring the ceremony itself up to the
minute
For the first time in the history of
the world the people of an area of 300
by 400 miles will be enabled, without
leaving their homes, to hear every
word and sound of the ceremony en-
acted at one point.
To make this possible. not only have
the latest developments in electric
science been called into use, but the
state has made this hour all absolute
holiday; all business within the state
an far as possible will be suspended.
The lines of all the great transportation
telegraph and telephone corporations
will be turned over to the state.
/ These wires are to be connected with
mammoth. especially erected receiv-
ing board. into which the President of
the United States, the Governor Of tie
State, the speakers of the day the poet
who composed the ode, and the musi-
clan and the singer who voiced the song
will speak; and their voices will be car
RED over these wires to evey city. VII
lage, and hamlet of the state, where
similar appliances are Installed repro
ducing eveYz information and =nate=of the
voices of those at the central station.
A great bard of 200 pieces will accom-
pany a chorus of / 600 voices singing
the new state song composed for the
occasion. The leading stanzas to be
/ sung by the choir at Wheeling and
choirs at five or six other cities. by pre-
! concerted arrangement. will sing the
succeeding verses; the whole state lis
tening to the performance of each verse
allotted to the several stations, and
then as wind-up the population Of the
state will sing in unison under the ba-
ton-beat Of the chief director of music,
producing, it is believed in unison, a
telepathic. emotional heart throb that
has never been equalled, on the princi-
pie that where two or three are gath
cred together in one name, the spirit
will be in their. midst aud so when
three or four hundred thousand people
are gathered together in one name and
with one thought the souls of all will
be brought into tune.
The President, Governor and staff,
all living ex-Governors, and all those
who participated in the preliminary
proceedings and the final ceremonies
creating the state are to come from
near and far as guests, and at the ex-
pense of the state, thus illustrating
that old Virginny'1 hospitality is still
inbred in the sons of the hills of West
Virginia.