Stop Signs

As the 1960 battle of the Democratic primaries moved from the plains of Wisconsin to the mountains of West Virginia, the character of the struggle changed. It was most noticeable in the state's southern half, where shutdown coal mines left company towns grimly trademarked by "Eisenhower curtains" (windows boarded up), families living on "rockin' chair" (unemployment compensation) and "mollygrub" (surplus-food handouts). Despite prosperous factories in the northern half, the state's labor force is 15% unemployed, worst in the nation.

Against this background, each candidate tried in his own way to put his name upon the New Deal legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose picture still hangs on the wall of any county's judge, clerk or sheriff's office.

Hungry in Bed. Riding from stop to stop in a chartered bus with HERE COMES HUMPHREY emblazoned on the front, Hubert Humphrey concentrated on the shabby little mining towns in the Fifth and Sixth districts, making what an aide calls his "F.D.R. speech," a ringing cry for a new deal. At Logan (pop. 5,000), Humphrey had some advice for President Eisenhower: "The next time you take a trip, don't go just to India. Stop off in West Virginia." Said a shopkeeper in Welch (pop. 6,500): "I think he's stronger than Kennedy. He's more what the little people, like me, want--somebody who can help us out of this." Said Humphrey of his reception in the string of coal towns: "I felt like Caesar--one long triumphant procession."

Fortnight ago in Indiana, Jack Kennedy had said that "17 million Americans go to bed hungry every night." In West Virginia he promised a new deal for the state, including federal loans and a "fair share" of defense contracts. To make use of the old F.D.R. magic, he sent Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. on tour to persuade West Virginians that Jack Kennedy is an authentic New Dealer at heart. But even with F.D.R. Jr.'s help, Jack Kennedy can hardly outdo Hubert Humphrey as a convincing promiser of New Deal benefits. Even when Kennedy and Humphrey were saying much the same things, Humphrey, by some chemistry of intonation and rhetoric, sounded much more like a genuine damn-the-deficits liberal.

Anger in Unions. Since it seemed that Kennedy was thus being slowed down, there was talk that a movement to "stop" him was forming. Word spread in the press that United Mine Workers' ex-President John L. Lewis would never forgive Kennedy for his role in passing the 1959 Landrum-Griffin labor-reform bill (called Kennedy-Landrum-Griffin in the UMW Journal). And West Virginia's freshman U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd, a strong Lyndon Johnson man, announced openly: "If you are for Adlai Stevenson, Senator Stuart Symington, Senator Johnson or John Doe, this primary may be your last chance to stop Kennedy. I'm voting for Humphrey."

Kennedy also heard the talk and said: "If they want to stop me, why don't they come and run themselves?" Humphrey, happy to throw off his underdog role, chortled: "Poor little Jack. I wish he would grow up and stop acting like a boy. What does he want, all the votes?"

Pastors in Politics. So far, there had been little talk of the candidates' religion, although much talk had been prophesied in view of the fact that West Virginia is 93% Protestant. The pastor of a United Brethren Church in Parkersburg told his flock that if Kennedy wins, "the Pope will be running the country," and the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale, stopping off in Charleston, doubted that a Catholic could remain independent. That was all, so far. And everyone remembered that in darkest 1928, Al Smith won West Virginia's Democratic primary (81,739-75,976) against Missouri's Protestant Senator James Reed.

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