Tough Testing Ground

In the presidential year of 1960, bagpipe-shaped West Virginia (pop. 1,976,000) is a political enigma. Through the generations between the Civil War (when West Virginia was amputated from Virginia) and the great Depression, the mountainous state was usually a Republican fastness. After 1928 it was Democratic--until 1956, when thousands of registered Democrats switched allegiance, and Dwight Eisenhower carried West Virginia back into Republican ranks. How West Virginia will vote at any given time is anybody's guess, and it is in that battleground state that Democratic Candidates Hubert Humphrey and John F. Kennedy have entered into a primary fight that might yet make the Hatfields and McCoys sit up and take notice.

At a glance, West Virginia hardly seems worth the effort or the risk of a major primary campaign. Its voice in the national convention (25 votes) is small, and its May 10 primary is no more than a popularity contest (the delegates are not bound to support the winning candidate). Yet West Virginia's peculiarities provide a fascinating testing ground.

Persuasive Poll. The supporters of Humphrey see West Virginia as their big chance, because a large portion of the state lies within the Southern Bible Belt, with an electorate composed mainly of mountaineer Protestants likely to be wary of a Roman Catholic candidate. Catholic Kennedy minimizes religion as a political issue, and to prove his point, he produced a private poll last week, taken in West Virginia last January, which showed him ahead of Humphrey by 70% to 30%.

Actually, if religion is to become a key issue, it will probably be in West Vir ginia's two southernmost election districts (most of the state's 95,000 Catholics live in the four central and northern districts). "We don't expect the Bible Belt preachers to hold meetings and pledge their congregations against Kennedy as they did to Al Smith," said a politician last week, "and we don't expect crosses to be burned in the hinterland, but the preachers will be talking and so will their congregations." Humphrey's backers have already made a less-than-subtle move with a campaign song, I'm Gonna Vote for Hubert Humphrey, which, the instruction sheet notes, is sung to the tune of the spiritual, Give Me That Old Time Religion.

But religion is by no means the only--or biggest--issue in West Virginia. Most voters are more deeply concerned over economic matters. The state has never really recovered from the Depression, ranks as one of the least privileged members of the Union. Each year upward of 10,000 West Virginians migrate to other states in search of a better life; 70,000 men are unemployed, and the relief rolls are so distended that only authentic "unemployables" are eligible for public assistance. The chronically depressed coal mines have cut their payrolls from 125,000 men to 50,000 in little more than a decade. The welfare statism of the New Deal still carries a lot of magic in the mountain glens. Yet the voters also retain a back-country suspicion of foreign entanglements, and Kennedy and Humphrey, both liberals and internationalists, must walk a fine line as they campaign there.

Navy Credentials. In the mystique of West Virginia politics, liberalism can sometimes be too much of a good thing, and Humphrey's all-out liberal record may prove to be a handicap. "He's so liberal he'd sell the Capitol," commented a West Virginia Democrat last week. To push his own campaign along, Kennedy plans to use a special ploy: he is a certified war hero--an important credential in a state where American Legion and V.F.W. halls are important social-gathering centers. Before the campaign's end, Kennedy hopes to have his picture, in Navy uniform with ribbons, displayed in every V.F.W. and American Legion clubhouse and office in West Virginia.

Both candidates plan invasions of West Virginia as soon as the Battle of Wisconsin is over. Humphrey will wage an intensive 13-day campaign; Kennedy will bring along his sisters, brothers, mother, wife, and possibly some in-laws to help out. The Kennedy organization is already setting up clubs in each of the state's 55 counties. Last week Kennedy made a flying trip to West Virginia (his seventh in 18 months) to open his Charleston command post, shake a few hundred hands, and eat lunch with 50 stony-faced labor leaders (both the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the United Mine Workers have proclaimed their neutrality in the impending primary) before buzzing back to the Wisconsin front lines.

Behind him, he left Larry O'Brien and Ralph Dungan, two of the ablest members of his Washington staff, to work on the unionists. A few blocks away, in a single room with bath at the Daniel Boone Hotel, Humphrey's lone advance man, Rein Vander Zee, was busily plotting strategy. From all the signs, West Virginia, scene of classic feuds and four major battles of the Civil War, is about to become a dark and bloody ground once more.

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