Uneven Ground. Ronald D Eller
Kennedy in the Mountain State, had raised concerns about economic conditions in the coalfields as early as January 1960. In a speech before the West Virginia Legislature, Humphrey attacked poverty in affluent America as “a national scandal,” but he failed to reach the people with his message, and he could not compete with the Kennedy money and political organization. Kennedy, who seemed genuinely stunned by the conditions he witnessed in the coal camps, turned the economic issue to his advantage, suggesting that he was the only candidate who could provide relief for the state, if West Virginians would send him to the White House. Tying himself to the memory of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the patron saint of Democrats who had brought the union and relief programs to the mountains during the Great Depression, Kennedy campaigned alongside Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., who assured hungry coal miners that the Massachusetts senator would follow through on aid to depressed areas. On the eve of the May 10 primary, Kennedy went before television cameras and promised the people of West Virginia, “If I’m nominated and elected president, within sixty days of the start of my administration, I will introduce a program to the Congress for aid to West Virginia.” The next day Senator Kennedy received over 60 percent of the votes of West Virginia Democrats for their party’s presidential nomination, and Senator Humphrey withdrew from the race.3
While Democrats campaigned in West Virginia, state and local leaders in other Appalachian states pressed for federal assistance to the region. In January 1960 newly elected governor Bert T. Combs of Kentucky endorsed Program 60’s recommendations as priority objectives for his administration, including the call for a meeting of Appalachian governors. Later that spring, concerned with the special problems of Maryland’s Appalachian counties, Governor Millard Tawes invited the governors and representatives of seven Appalachian states to convene in Annapolis to coordinate state development efforts across the region. The first Conference of Appalachian Governors met on May 20, 1960, only ten days after the West Virginia primary and a week after President Eisenhower vetoed another depressed areas bill sent to him by Congress. The governors reviewed a report on economic conditions and population trends in eleven Appalachian states prepared by the Maryland Department of Economic Development.4 They resolved to push for further cooperation among the states, but they were unable to agree on support for federal action.
Democratic governors at the Annapolis meeting favored special legislation to assist the self-help programs being developed within the Appalachian states, but Republican governor Cecil Underwood of West Virginia defended the president’s veto of the depressed areas bill. “The President was 1,000 percent right to veto this bill,” he argued, “on the grounds that it sets up another federal agency. We already have enough departments in the federal government.” Adding that the “magic” of depressed areas legislation was “not the answer,” he complained that politicians and journalists who had publicized the plight of West Virginia during the recent primary had not given a balanced picture: “It is true that 20 per cent of our workforce has been displaced. But we still have a strong, vigorous economy. We are not as bad off as Michigan. We have not had to borrow for unemployment compensation as Pennsylvania has. We are still teetering on the brink of solvency.”5
Despite his opposition to the depressed areas bill, Underwood supported the idea of interstate cooperation, and the group agreed to hold a second Conference of Appalachian Governors to be hosted by Governor Combs the following fall. Meeting in Lexington, Kentucky, on October 17–18, 1960, the governors of five states and the representatives of six others discussed mutual problems facing their Appalachian areas, especially the challenges of highway construction and water control. Present were Governors Luther Hodges of North Carolina, Buford Ellington of Tennessee, and Lindsey Almond of Virginia, as well as Combs of Kentucky and Tawes of Maryland. Also attending were representatives of several federal agencies; Willis Weatherford of Berea College, who outlined the goals of the Appalachian regional survey then underway; and Perley Ayer, director of the CSM, who pledged the support of his organization.
Again Governor Combs called for the passage of federal area redevelopment legislation that would help address the “acute problem of unemployment in the region,” and he appointed a committee chaired by Governor Tawes to draft a “statement of principles” that might serve as a framework for cooperation and “might be able to get the interest—and possibly some commitments—from both the presidential candidates [Richard Nixon and Kennedy] and from candidates for Congress.”6 Notwithstanding the reluctance of representatives from Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and Virginia “to yield even a portion of state sovereignty” to any new federal program,7 the governors approved the “Declaration for Action Regarding the Appalachian Region.” The resolution pledged to form and continue a “voluntary association of the states” to advance “a special regional program of development,” and it called for candidates for national office to support “appropriate federal participation” in the solutions to the region’s problems.8
The conference and the declaration for action bore the distinct mark of John Whisman. Serving as aide to Governor Combs, Whisman had helped to organize the Annapolis meeting and had coordinated planning for the Lexington conference. The Lexington resolution drew extensively on Program 60 for both its language and its strategies for action. The resolution, for example, avoided the phrase “depressed area” that was popularly associated with urban redevelopment efforts and instead pointed to the “chronic condition of underdevelopment and severe unemployment” that existed in the region. “As a result [of underdevelopment],” the declaration read, “many people [of Appalachia] are denied reasonable economic and cultural opportunities through no fault of their own. In addition, the productive force in both physical and human resources is severely limited in its contribution to the nation, while the costs of essential welfare services are steadily increasing.”9
By characterizing Appalachia as an underdeveloped region rather than a depressed area, the governors hoped to draw attention to Appalachia’s special problems and to distinguish the needs of the mountains from those of urban areas that had achieved development but were now suffering from temporary economic decline. “By underdevelopment, we mean that basic handicaps to development of adequate facilities involving transportation and water resources have in turn hindered the local ability to support necessary public services and private enterprise activity. Because of such basic deficiencies, the success of local development activity in all areas of life is severely handicapped.” What Appalachia needed, the document suggested, was temporary public work and job training programs similar to those being proposed for the rest of the country and the creation of modern economic infrastructure such as key roads and major water control facilities. Planning for this basic infrastructure should be connected to a “comprehensive state and regional development program . . . in appropriate fields of activity, including forestry, agriculture, mineral resources and tourist travel, industrial and community development, education, health and welfare.”10 The declaration attempted to move policy discussions beyond relief programs and toward the use of federal resources for the comprehensive development of the region. Effectively, the Lexington resolution outlined the issues that would shape efforts to create a special Appalachian development program over the next five years. The conference also adopted a resolution endorsing an Appalachian development highway system and elected Governor Combs as chair. Whisman was designated to head a permanent staff committee to plan future meetings and actions.
The recommendations of the governors’ conference in Lexington took on additional significance three weeks later, when John F. Kennedy was elected to the presidency of the United States. To prepare his domestic agenda, the president-elect immediately asked his brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, to put together a series of twenty-nine teams that would meet to draft a legislative program for the new administration.11 Fulfilling Kennedy’s pledge to the people of West Virginia, one of the first teams created was the Task Force on Area Redevelopment, appointed to formulate specific recommendations to assist people in economically depressed areas. Generally the Kennedy task forces comprised academics, business leaders, congressional staff, and members of the Kennedy team, but the ten members appointed to the Task Force on Area Redevelopment included seven labor and industrial leaders from West Virginia, the secretary of labor and industry from Pennsylvania, and the assistant to the president of the UMWA in Washington. Kennedy asked Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois, who had led congressional efforts to enact depressed