Ike Flayed By H.H.H.
Says Employment Act Ignored
April 10, 1960
MADISON, W. Va. (AP) - Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey Saturday night accused the Eisenhower Administration of flouting and ignoring the 1946 Full Employment Act.
"It's not only immoral, it is in violation of the law of the land that we have four million jobless workers today," the Minnesotan said in a prepared speech at the end of a second day of campaigning in West Virginia.
Humphrey faces Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts in a rematch Democratic primary in West Virginia May 10.
The Minnesota senator made 10 recommendations to bring what he called economic revival to West Virginia and other areas suffering from chronic unemployment.
He said the Full Employment Act is being flagrantly violated in West Virginia, where, he added, the average rate of unemployment is 13 per cent and ranges up to 40 per cent in some mining counties.
"Full employment and full and expanding production go together," Humphrey said. "In the words of the popular song, they're like the 'horse and carriage' - or like 'love and marriage' and 'you can't have one without the other.'"
He urged voters to hold the administration accountable for "failure to obey" the 1946 law by turning it out of office in November.
Humphrey proposed policies to insure economic growth at the rate of 2 per cent; an area redevelopment program, a coal research and development commission, federal standards for unemployment insurance with extended coverage and greater benefits, a $1.25 federal minimum wage, a mandatory food stamp program, tax reforms, a standby public works program, a youth conservation program, and a program to improve the tourist business.
MADISON, W. Va. (AP) - Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (D-Minn.), like a Main St. Pied Piper, strode briskly through a round of sidewalk campaigning in Southern West Virginia Saturday.
He came here to speak at a Democratic dinner Saturday night after stops by his campaign bus earlier in the day at Hinton and Princeton.
The Madison appearance was the windup of a two-day Humphrey tour in the state's southern counties. It was the first swing in his campaign for the May 10 primary election, in which Humphrey and Sen. John F. Kennedy (D-Mass.) will test their popularity as presidential candidates with West Virginia Democratic voters.
Humphrey leaves the state to make a television appearance in Washington tomorrow but will be back Monday for more campaigning. Kennedy will come into West Virginia Monday to start his campaign.
Humphrey told a courthouse lawn crowd at Princeton that the Kennedy forces are taking advance opinion samplings to find out "what he should say when he come[s] in."
In that connection, Humphrey did not name Kennedy but simply referred to him as "my competition."
Humphrey referred also to a poll taken for Kennedy reportedly having shown that Humphrey would lose in West Virginia by a 2 to 1 margin.
"Don't let a poll decide for you," Humphrey said, urging his listeners to make their choice for themselves.
His Princeton stop also included a visit to a brassiere factory.
Speaking at a luncheon at the factory, Humphrey discussed the interdependence of different segments of the American economy.
"When you read that there is trouble on the farm, you'll find out that there is unemployment in the city," he said, adding that the reverse also is true.
He said that any time government "plays favorites or indulges in special privileges" for one segment of the economy at the expense of the other, the economy is thrown out of balance.
He got a big laugh in his brassiere factory speech when he observed that he was "trying to uplift the economy."
While in Mercer County, the Humphrey party made a side trip to Concord College at Athens. He avoided any partisan references in speaking to a secretarial group that was meeting there and refrained from passing out campaign buttons or literature during the campus appearance.
Humphrey got a warm reception in the railroad town of Hinton. In a speech in the courthouse park, he took the side of the railroad brotherhoods in the dispute as to whether diesel locomotives need two men in a cab, as the union insists, or only one, as management contends.
He said the argument should be settled by negotiation and that the American Assn. of Railroads should stop taking newspaper ads "condemning its own workers."
After the speech Humphrey led his aides at a fast pace as he worked his way on foot through the business district.
The reaction in Hinton, a town of 6,000, had the look of a Humphrey triumph.
In front of a 10-cent store, Humphrey pinned a campaign button on the lapel of C. D. McCormick, a former member of the state Legislature, where he served as chairman of the House Education Committee.
"I think I'll go along this time," said McCormick. "But I'll also be for Kennedy if he wins."
McCormick added that he thought Humphrey would carry Summers County, of which Hinton is the seat.
In front of the First National Bank, Humphrey was stopped by Eric E. Fox, a Chesapeake & Ohio railroad conductor, Fox, 62, told Humphrey:
"I just heard you speak and then changed my registration from Republican to Democrat."
This was the last day to register for the primary.
Here are some sample comments from men and women who met Humphrey as he campaigned along the sidewalks of Hinton:
"There's the next president."
"He looks bigger than his pictures."
"That's our man."
"He wouldn't be out playing golf."
A youngster, peering into a store, tugged his mother's arm and said, "Mom, Humphrey's inside."
Another C & O conductor, O. T. Lively, said of Humphrey:
"He'll carry this state 4 to 1."
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