Newspaper Articles

The primary election campaign tempo was being stepped up in West Virginia and Jackson county this week with interest rapidly being switched to the race between Senator John Kennedy and Sen. Hubert Humphrey as preferential presidential candidates in the Democratic primary.

Both have opened their campaigns in the state and from now until election day will be criss-crossing the state, speaking at meetings, meeting groups and in other ways getting their claims before the people.

Carroll Hawkins, of Fairplain, is heading the Kennedy drive in Jackson county but up to this week no manager for Humphrey had been announced.

Humphrey may mave [sic] the edge over the Massachusetts senator in this state. He has his supporters, and in addition the Democratic big wigs in the state such as the two United States Senators, the National Committeemen and others are either favoring Senator Lyndon Johnson or Sen. Stuart Symington but will likely lineup behind Humphrey against Kennedy.

Nationally the state primary is looked upon as a good testing ground for Kennedy. The state is more than ninety per cent Protestant and Kennedy is a Catholic and he has said that he will consider it a good testing ground to see whether a Catholic can make a good showing in a Protestant territory.

The Titler endorsement of state candidates backfired. Titler, head of District 29 of the United Mine Workers came out with his endorsement which he said was for the combined labor forces of the state backing W. W. Barron, Democrat, and Harold Neely, Republican for Governor. It was repudiated the following day by the CIO-AFL organization. It was the first setback for the Barron candidacy and most observers looking at the statewide picture said that Treasurer Orel J. Skeen had been helped by the fiasco. On the Republican side they saw no immediate effects because it is their belief that Senator Chapman Revercomb will win that nomination easily.

All the gubernatorial candidates, except possibly Revercomb, will appear at a joint meeting at the Kaiser plant on April 20 which is being staged for employees and their families. Sen. Revercomb has commitments for every day until the primary and may not be able to be in this county on that day.