Newspaper Articles


Hinton Daily News
April 27, 1960

Kennedy Cuts Tour Short, Doesn't Appear In Hinton

Senator John F. Kennedy today abruptly cut short the third day of an extended campaign tour of southern West Virginia to hurry to Washington to vote on a coal-mine safety bill.

He left Princeton after a tour of a brassiere factory where his opponent Sen. Hubert Humphrey had spoken two weeks ago and drove to Bluefield to catch a chartered plane to Washington.

Addressing a gathering of about 100 at predominantly Negro Bluefield State, Kennedy said "everybody should have an equal chance to develop his talents," adding: "What we are will speak far louder than what we say."

He was asked for his opinion on Negro "sit-in" demonstrations at segregated lunch counters, etc., and said, "As long as it is peaceful, and respects the rights of others, I believe it is in the great American tradition of peaceful protest."

However, he plans to keep a date tonight at Charles Town where he is scheduled to attend a rally and visit the Shenandoah Downs race track.

On his campaign bus from Bluefield to Princeton, Kennedy said the result of the Pennsylvania primary Tuesday, where he received some 134,000 write-in votes, was "very gratifying" and "seems to indicate what the people want."

He did no campaigning there.

After leaving here, Kennedy turned the rest of today's campaign agenda over to his brother Edward (Ted) Kennedy.

Kennedy, who says he believes he'll win the West Virginia primary and go on to win the Democratic presidential nomination and then the general election, harped again on what he described as Eisenhower administration failures to help West Virginia out of its economic doldrums.

He said President Eisenhower and other administration officials have "turned a deaf ear and a blind eye" to the state while being more concerned with nations abroad that have economic troubles.

He accused Agriculture Secretary Ezra T. Benson of shipping overseas many items of food that could be best used to feed the needy in West Virginia's distressed coalfields and other parts of the nation.

During a day of campaigning Tuesday in the Logan, Pineville, Mullens and Welch areas, Kennedy received several big receptions, best of which were at Pineville and Mullens - the sister mining towns of Wyoming County.

Residents of those places seemed as taken, however, with a Kennedy campaign companion as the candidate himself. Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. joined Kennedy in Wyoming County and the crowds went for him.

Roosevelt - a name that holds magic in the West Virginia coalfields - didn't treat Kennedy's opponent with the kid gloves that Kennedy himself usually did.

Roosevelt told a crowd at Mullens that Humphrey would not stand a chance of getting the Democratic nomination even if he won the West Virginia primary, "A vote for Hubert Humphrey would be a vote down the drain," he said.

At Welch, Kennedy did say he thought Humphrey "has a strange array of political bed fellows."

There and at Bluefield Tuesday and today he accused Humphrey of accepting support from Sens. Stuart Symington and Lyndon Johnson, two other aspirants not entered here.

He also said Vice President Nixon has requested Republicans of West Virginia to try and stop Kennedy.

He said Republican Gov. Cecil H. Underwood, "who has ignored West Virginia's problems, attacked me and did not attack my opponent because I am the only Democratic candidate ahead of Richard Nixon.

"Underwood has no other reason to get our Democratic primary. I am delighted because it means he knows we will win."

At Bluefield College today, he said Underwood attacked him "to serve his party. I think the button was pushed in Washington and he took off."


| Campaign Summary |
| Visits by Date | Visits by County |

| Advertisements and Cartoons | Audio-Visual | Documents |
| Newspapers | Oral Histories | Photographs | Reminiscences | Speeches |


West Virginia Archives and History