Eugene Siler, a life revisited (part 8)

With the 1950’s coming to a close, it was business as usual for U.S. Representative, and Williamsburg’s own, Eugene Siler, Sr.

Always looking for ways to bring more industry to the Eighth District, Siler played an integral role in the Small Business Administration conducting a survey in the area.

“In an effort to ease the pinch of unemployment now plaguing several Southeastern Kentucky counties, Congressman Eugene Siler announced today that the U.S. Small Business Administration will conduct surveys in his Congressional District,” read a report in the March 5, 1959 edition of the Whitley Republican. “The objective is to interest new industries and business locating in the area, and to assist enterprises located there.”

The report went on to shed more light on the planned surveys, saying, “It is Mr. Siler’s plan to set up a series of meetings in several county seat cities in his district, these meetings to be attended by business, industrial, farm and civic leaders of the area. SBA representatives will be present at each meeting to explain the extent to which SBA can help in getting new enterprises located in the area, or extend help to those already there.”

“I believe a great deal of good may come from this survey,” Siler was quoted as saying. “The assistance and advice of a trained SBA survey expert will be appreciated by business, industrial, and farm leaders of our area. I am sure we have several possibilities for development, and the people who reside in Kentucky’s Eighth District comprise a very high-grade labor market.”

“It is my earnest hope that all business and civic leaders of the district will cooperate to the utmost in this effort,” Siler added. “I invite them to contact me with whatever ideas they may have.”

After spearheading this effort, Siler announced his retirement from Congress in July, saying, “Many people have told me that I could be re-elected, but I feel that six years should be long enough in this service to my country and I now wish to return to my home in Williamsburg and enjoy private life again.”

“Some men seem to want to stay in Congress until they are beaten, bitter and broke,” Siler continued. “I do not want to stay that long. It has been a good experience and an outstanding honor to represent so great a people for three terms.”

Siler would later reverse course, and decide to answer the call to run for a fourth term, but in the interim he once again seized upon an opportunity to invite new industry into the area. As explained in a story appearing in the December 10, 1959 Whitley Republican, Siler wrote a letter to the Tennessee Valley Authority after hearing that landowners in Muhlenberg County had filed a lawsuit in order to prevent the construction of a new $100,000,000 steam electric plant.

“Consider this as your official invitation to locate and build it (the plant) on Cumberland River here in Southeastern Kentucky. We have enough surplus labor right here… to rebuild the pyramids of Egypt and the Taj Mahal of India.”

Siler would go on to serve two more terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before finally retiring in 1964. During his last four years in Washington, he submitted regular newspaper columns that informed readers back home about important happenings in the nation’s capital, his personal involvement, and how they would affect the citizens of Southeastern Kentucky.

The columns, originally called Washington Reports, eventually morphed into the “Head or Tales” columns that have been discussed throughout this series, which will be coming to a close with next month’s installment.