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Tireless Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (D-Minn) got a head start on his West Virginia presidential primary rival today with a fastpaced handshaking tour in Southern West Virginia.

Humphrey, defeated by Sen. John F. Kennedy (D-Mass) in the Wisconsin primary last Tuesday, meets Kennedy again in the West Virginia Democratic primary May 10. Kennedy will come to the state the first of the week.

Humphrey flew into Charleston in the middle of the night and, with only two or three hours sleep, left there on his campaign bus at 7 a.m.

The first stop was the big Libby-Owens-Ford glass plant on the eastern edge of Charleston, where 1,800 persons are employed.

He spent an hour prowling through the vast plant, seeking out workers at their machines to shake their hands and pin "It's Humphrey in '60'" buttons on their shirts.

"You get a paycheck and a Humphrey button," he would tell the men. It happened to be the plant's pay day.

Humphrey aides followed the senator, passing out campaign literature. They had trouble holding the senator to his schedule.

He would spot some workers in a corner or in another room and say, "How about those boys there. I'd like to say hello to them."

In the boxing and packing department Humphrey paused to demonstrate that he can drive a nail with competence and be photographed doing it. There he met a worker with almost, but not quite, the same name as his own.

"We Humphreys have got to stick together," he told the worker J. S. Humphreys.

On the way out, Humphrey stopped to chat with plant manager A. W. Swillinger about the glass industry's competitive problems in this country.

Swillinger told Humphrey the industry has trouble competing with foreign glass produced at low wages and imported into this country. This is especially true, Swillinger said, now that imported glass comes directly to the Midwest via the St. Lawrence Seaway.

The Humphrey bus rolled into Marmet, eight miles east of Charleston, at 8:30 o'clock. On hand to meet the bus where [sic] Mayor George Buckley and about a dozen men and women lined up in front of a supermarket which had just opened for the day.

The party stopped for breakfast in Marmet. Humphrey was to make about 24 stops between Charleston and Beckley, where a big rally will be held tonight.

Summers and Mercer counties are on his schedule tomorrow, then the return trip to Charleston by a different route. A dinner stop is scheduled in Madison, Boone County.

After resting on Sunday, he is to take in Logan, Williamson, Welch and Bluefield the next day, the last he plans to be here this time around.

Sen. Kennedy will be coming in Monday to push his campaign. He will make stops at Parkersburg, Charleston, Huntington and Beckley.

During the intervening days, Kennedy has Franklin R. [sic] Roosevelt out touring the counties for him.