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Sen. John F. Kennedy (D-Mass), to be accompanied by his wife, Jacqueline, has completed a three-day schedule for his second intensive campaign tour of West Virginia.

The Kennedys will start from Clarksburg early Monday and finish their tour at a Huntington reception Wednesday night. He is in this state's presidential preferential primary against Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey.

Kennedy will be in Clarksburg until about noon Monday, when he will arrive at nearby Fairmont. He'll go on to Morgantown later and spend about seven hours there before leaving for Wheeling.

Tuesday will be devoted to appearances at Bethany College, West Liberty State College, a television program and various other campaign chores in Wheeling. Kennedy will make the long trip from Wheeling to Beckley at about 10:30 p.m.

He'll start out early Wednesday for Mt. Hope, Oak Hill, Fayetteville and several other communities en route to an afternoon appearance at Charleston. Kennedy will be expected at Huntington at 8 p.m.

Kennedy headquarters here also announced he will continue his West Virginia travels April 25-27, going to Huntington, Wayne, Williamson, Logan, Mullins, Welch, Bluefield, Princeton, Hinton, Alderson, Ronceverte, Lewisburg, White Sulphur Springs and Charleston again.

WASHINGTON - (AP) - Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey announced plans Saturday for a stepped-up drive in West Virginia, and a campaign aide denied the Minnesotan is involved in any ganging up against Sen. John F. Kennedy in that state.

Humphrey and his Massachusetts rival for the Democratic presidential nomination are engaged in a vigorous drive in the Mountain State leading up to their popularity test in a May 10 primary.

This week Humphrey will leave the state to Kennedy. He will return April 25 for almost continuous campaigning by chartered bus until the primary.

Robert Barrie, executive director of the Humphrey for President Commitee, said the schedule will add three full days to Humphrey's West Virginia campaigning.

In making public the new schedule, Barrie said:

"We're not in this election to stop anybody. We're in it to stop the shameful neglect of West Virginia. We're in it to stop the aimless drift at home under the Eisenhower-Nixon Administration and the decay of our position in the world.

"We're going to deal with issues and not with personalities - and we're going to talk straight, hard-hitting Roosevelt-Truman liberalism."

Humphrey himself last week denied a ganging-up charge by Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., a Kennedy supporter. Roosevelt said although only Kennedy and Humphrey are entered in the primary, Kennedy is running against the combined opposition of Humphrey, Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson and Sen. Stuart Symington and Adlai Stevenson.

In denying he had any part in such a move, Humphrey said he wished Kennedy would "grow up and stop acting like a boy...what does he want, all the votes?"

Barrie said Saturday he will spend all his time in West Virginia through the primary test. Meanwhile, he added, Humphrey's Washington headquarters will be directed by James Loeb, co-publisher of the Adirondack Daily Enterprise at Saranac Lake, N.Y.

Muriel Humphrey, wife of Democratic presidential aspirant Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, will make a three-day campaign tour through West Virginia on behalf of his candidacy.

Humphrey is running against Sen. John F. Kennedy (D-Mass) in this state's preference primary May 10.

Mrs. Humphrey, who has four children, will go from Charleston Monday to Clendenin, Gassaway, Sutton and Buckhannon along W. Va. 4. She will end the first day's tour in Clarksburg.

She'll take part in the formal opening Monday night of the Humphrey-for-president headquarters for northern West Virginia.

Her travel plans Tuesday and Wednesday were not complete, but Mrs. Humphrey will concentrate her efforts in the northern and central parts of the state.

(The Sunday Gazette-Mail has been publishing a series of written interviews with the Presidential candidates. The interviews with Sen. John F. Kennedy and Sen. Stuart Symington have already appeared. Today's interview with Sen. Hubert Humphrey completes the series as both Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson and Vice President Richard Nixon declined to participate.)

Q - Since it seems virtually certain that the House won't pass the big depressed areas package:and that the President would veto it in any event:which of the various alternate proposals would you favor to encourage rehabilitation of those areas?

A. It is absolutely essential for Congress to pass vital legislation to assist depressed areas. I think there has been entirely too much talk from the White House about why we can't do what we should do. Instead, we should be finding ways to do what we must to stop the grinding poverty and unemployment which still face too many Americans.

To those who say we can't afford aid for depressed areas, I say we can't afford the terrible waste of people out of work. We can't afford to deny any good American the right to make his contribution, the right to earn a decent living, the right to provide his family with food, clothing and shelter. We have a moral obligation to provide these opportunities to every American.

I believe our first duty is to improve our system of unemployment compensation. Many state programs are simply not meeting the needs of the people who are out of work and their families. Too often, a worker will find he is not covered by the program. Too often, unemployment benefits are not big enough to keep a family going. And too often:as you well know in West Virginia:unemployment benefits run out before the breadwinner can find a job. We must help our fellow Americans who are out of work to tide them over until they can find a job.

An American who loses his job after the age of 40 has a terrible time finding re-employment, largely because employers fear added pension and welfare costs. Under a bill I have proposed, these additional costs would become a tax credit, and thus would cost the employer nothing. This would help end tragic, wasteful discrimination against older workers.

My Youth Conservation Corps, which Senator Randolph so magnificently piloted through committee and a favorable Senate vote, would help provide jobs for young men up to age 22, and there is a specific provision in the bill calling for preferment in recruiting for the Corps to be given to areas with high chronic unemployment. I am proud to have had the vigorous support of both West Virginia's fine Senators in the passage of this bill.

But we should not let a White House veto scare us away from the action we must take on the Area Redevelopment bill. This program will bring new life, new industries, new job opportunities to West Virginia and other states of the Union. Industrial areas with chronic unemployment and rural areas with low farm income desperately need job-producing loans and grants. We must provide opportunity for vocational training:with family support payments:to help unemployed workers prepare for new jobs.

And we must make sure that America's food abundance is used:rather than sitting in warehouses when there are hungry people any where in this country. We must get this food to where it is needed most:in the depressed areas where hunger too often walks the streets with unemployment.

The Marshall Plan was a wise and warm-hearted program to give new life and new hope to the people of Europe. Certainly we owe no less to our own fellow Americans who also need a helping hand.

Appraisal: We particularly like Sen. Humphrey's plan for aiding the unemployed who have passed 40 for these men make up a large portion of our own technologically unemployed.

Q - Do you believe the Democratic party must continue to reply [rely] on the support of the "Solid South" or can it run on a liberal platform in 1960, secure in the knowledge that the South has nowhere else to go?

A - The Democratic Party is a liberal party:it is not a regional or a minority party. If the objective is a "go-slow, not-now," conservative party, the Democratic Party just cannot compete with the Republicans.

There is room on a Democratic liberal platform for citizens from all sections of our country, and I hope my friends in the South wills tick with the party of Jefferson, Jackson and Woodrow Wilson:all Southerners and good Democrats.

Certainly the Democratic platform will not ignore the needs and wishes of the South. Much progressive legislation raising our standards of health, education, and welfare is the result of Southern leadership. TVA and REA are two good examples among many.

I have never hesitated to make clear my belief in extension of basic civil rights throughout the nation. There may be differences of opinion about how we guarantee these rights, but we can settle these differences within the structure of the Democratic platform and the Democratic Party.

Appraisal: The Senator's position on civil rights and his voting record in support of that position is one of the outstanding features of his career in national politics.

Q - If elected, are there steps you would immediately press for toward disarmament? Do you have plans for an inspection system which you consider both effective and acceptable to the Russians?

A - Controlled disarmament is essential if we are to survive and build a peaceful world for our children, grandchildren and generations still unborn. There are five basic steps to be taken in arms control.

First, we should try to ban all nuclear weapons tests under a workable, effective control system. If the Soviets won't agree to a comprehensive control system, we should be prepared to consider agreement on stopping those "dirty" nuclear weapons tests which are easiest to detect and which release most radioactive contamination. With improved methods of detection, we should be able eventually to set up a control system to stop nuclear testing.

Second, we should work for guarantees on peaceful use of outer space and control of long range missiles and bombers. This means inspectors and control posts at air bases and launching sites. We should start studies on control measures by ourselves and jointly with other nuclear powers.

Third, we should set up a world-wide system to prevent any kind of surprise attack by one country against another. This system might include withdrawal of troops, controlled demilitarized zones, and the use of international police or neutral observers.

Fourth, we need an international system to control production of fissionable material for weapons purposes. This could be done, perhaps, under the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Fifth, we need a government agency charged specifically with the solving of such highly technical problems as nuclear test ban control. There are many complex problems ahead in working out agreements with the Soviets and other nuclear powers on a mutually acceptable test ban control system. I have proposed a National Peace Agency:a Manhattan Project for Peace:to develop the technological basis for inspection systems to enforce disarmament agreements without jeopardizing any nation's national security. I would place such a project:well-financed and vigorously supported:under at least an Assistant Secretary of State for Disarmament and Atomic Energy. The ultimate objective of all our planning:both in defense and in disarmament:is the creation of an international security system, a force for peace, a substitute for the huge national armaments consuming so much of the world's wealth.

Appraisal: Disarmament is a little like Will Rogers weather:everybody talks about it but nobody does anything about it. Sen. Humphrey has obviously devoted a good bit of time and careful thought to his proposals and all of them sound as though they would help advance the cause.

Q - Many people consider the farm surplus our most pressing domestic problem. What program, if any, can you outline as a solution?

A - The revolution in farm technology has brought soaring production. But agricultural plenty and falling farm income have not been generally reflected in either lower food prices for consumers or higher income to farmers: Farmers, despite a marked increase in their efficiency, have fallen behind the general population in net income.

All efforts to return agriculture to the so-called "free market" have failed. Removing both production controls and price supports have only demonstrated that the farmer:like the laboring man:cannot bargain individually on an equal basis with the overpowering forces that dominate his market. Every time this price per pound or bushel drops, the farmer automatically tries to raise more to stay even. Hence, the glut today in our warehouses.

It is, of course, sheer economic idiocy to produce simply to fill warehouses. Production must be used. There are many great things that we could do in the world by using part of the so-called "surplus" food and fiber production now glutting storage facilities at an increasing pace each year. Food for Peace is more than a slogan. It is the possibility of a vast new program to expand economic opportunity, improve health and education and housing among the emerging peoples of the world.

Yet, even a greatly broadened food for peace program, and a greatly expanded program of raising the nutrition levels of our own needy is not enough. American farmers have the technical capability, for the near future at least, of far surpassing our needs.

Production goals are required. They must include a vigorous food for peace program, an intelligent and humane domestic nutrition program, adequate emergency supplies of food and fiber, as well as for the needs of normal export markets. These goals should annually be estimated. From that point, farmer-elected representatives working with the Secretary of Agriculture should work out ways and means of approximating production to meet these goals.

Bringing supply and demand into at least rough balance would require planning and cooperation. But it can be done. It is in the national interest:just as it is in the national interest to ensure that farm families who are cooperating in this great effort are not driven off their farms in the process.

Farm price supports should be extended only when farmers accept production and marketing controls. There should be no supports for products or producers who fail to comply with necessary production regulations.

The objectives of the Secretary of Agriculture must be three:to bring agricultural supply and demand into balance, to maintain a fair income for farm families, and to bring down the enormous present costs of the farm program to the taxpayer.

Appraisal: As far as we know, the idea of enlisting the aid of farmer-elected representatives to work with the Secretary of Agriculture is a new one and it certainly sounds worthy of a trial. Certainly the programs which are currently in effect have proved themselves incapable of handling the problem.

Q - In many of the depressed areas of our nation most of the trouble can be traced to automation and mechanization. The remedies so far proposed for area redevelopment are essentially stop-gaps and don't touch on this phase of the problem. What permanent remedies for this increasing problem can you outline?

A - Depressed areas have more serious problems than other parts of our country:but an expanding economy will bring greater prosperity to these areas too.

A growing economy has more job opportunities and our rising population is creating a growing market for all we can produce. I believe we must get rid of the "trickle down" thinking of the big business interests which dominate the Republican Party. Instead, we need more of our nation's wealth "percolating up" through the working people, the family farmers and the small businessmen.

West Virginia's coal mining industry has been hit hard by automation, by new mechanical techniques, and we must do some long range planning to create job opportunities, to attract new industries and to diversify the industrial and agricultural foundation for the state's prosperity.

Prosperity in depressed areas depends basically on the prosperity of the whole country. We need steady, solid economic growth on a national scale if we are going to raise the economic level of the depressed areas. But our economy is not growing as it should, due to the Republican tight money strait jacket.

We can bring prosperity to West Virginia and to many other areas:but we must have a positive, long range program. Federal-state cooperation will be necessary, and every local community will have to do its part in an active campaign for new industries, better schools and better vocational training, tourist facilities, development of home crafts and skills. The President's veto of the coal-research legislation was a blow, but Congress will press forward on new legislation to speed research which will help West Virginia and other areas with tragic unemployment.

We must be willing to experiment:but we should also try successful experiments from the past. Like the CCC of the 1930's my Youth Conservation Corps would not only provide jobs. It would create a more attractive tourist area in the publicly-owned lands, rebuild forest, soil, and water resources, and help in forest fire prevention.

The long run solution for the depressed areas comes down to this:new industries, new job opportunities, better schools and vocational training, and above all, a willingness to more forward through joint federal, state and community action.

Appraisal: We are afraid that Sen. Humphrey is all too correct when he says this will take a long-range program:which of course leaves us with the pressing problem of the technologically unemployed workers for some time to come.

Q - Several prominent public opinion analysts consider the prevailing public mood to conservative. Do you agree?

A - I emphatically do not agree that the prevailing public mood is conservative. There is a good deal of confusion, a general uneasiness about the way things are going. Despite high employment levels, our people see great sections of our country in poverty. The surface glitter of our suburbs cannot mask the cold and bitter facts of life on most American farms, in the slums of our metropolitan cities, and in the hill country of our mining areas. Our people are quite depressed about the emerging facts that demonstrate how deliberate economic policies and do-nothingism on the part of the party in power have permitted us to come in second-best in many ways to the onrushing Communist powers.

Our people do not like the injustice, inequality, and lack of opportunity that still spot our nation. They don't like to know that while we may have more bathtubs and automobiles, yet we are slipping to second-best in military strength, in power and prestige in the world.

These people of ours, these Americans, are no different from their fathers and grandfathers who have risen to greatness when powerful calls to greatness were sent out. Why, we are the very people of change and growth:the standard of the world, a society which is forward-looking, optimistic, experimental-minded, always pressing to do things better. We have always been able to discover within our midst, when we had to have them, leaders who expressed that basic, natural determination to go ahead, leaders who have electrified what appeared to some observers to be a nation of apathy and indifference.

Conservative? No, just waiting. This powerful, virile, imaginative people is waiting only for the call to action. They can hear something, but the call cannot for some months yet be heard from the one man to whom our people instinctively turn in times of crisis:the successful candidate for the Presidency of the United States. When the call comes:clear, unequivocal, ringing:our people will respond.

Appraisal: We agree with Sen. Humphrey that a great deal remains to be done:and we also agree that time's a-wasting. Furthermore, we agree that it will be up to the next President, whoever he is, to provide the determined leadership which is needed to bring action in these areas.

The co-chairmen of the West Virginia Humphrey for President Committee on Saturday accused Sen. John F. Kennedy's supporters of "deliberately stirring up doubts as to the fairness and tolerance of our voters."

They said the objective of the supporters was "to create a climate that makes it appear unfair not to vote for Kennedy, regardless of whether or not he is qualified." They said Kennedy himself "seems to think everybody who doesn't want him to be president is a bigot."

The co-chairman, William Jacobs of Parkersburg and Marshall West of Oceana, made their accusations at a news conference held in the Charleston "Humphrey for President" headquarters. The immediate provocation was a story Washington columnist Joseph Alsop wrote about Slab Fork, W. Va., where he found a great deal of anti-Catholic sentiment.

Alsop - and many others - believe that such sentiment in West Virginia may hurt Kennedy seriously in the May 10 Democratic presidential primary. Kennedy's opponent, Sen. Hubert Humphrey, is a Congregationalist.

"The consistent press attacks on the probable judgment of West Virginia voters makes it obvious that a powerful public relations campaign is under way, either to pave the way for Jack Kennedy's withdrawal to avoid defeat, or to provide an advance alibi for that defeat," West and Jacobs said in their joint statement.

"It is difficult to find any other explanation, as the sources most actively accusing the West Virginians of intolerance are and have been consistent supporters of Kennedy.

"It is a ridiculous insult to our intelligences for such columnists as Alsop, a consistent apologist for Kennedy, to infer that it is only among the ignorant that Hubert Humphrey finds his support. Just because they may be working people and not all have the wealth or social privileges of Kennedy or Alsop is no reason to assume our Humphrey supporters lack good common sense . . .

"Sen. Humphrey has taken the lead to take religion out of this campaign, and fight it on issue of importance to our state. We respectfully suggest that John Kennedy call a halt to his current line, stop complaining about voters being against him, and start trying to win some legitimate support by telling the people how he's voted in the past and what he will stand for in the future."

By most home-grown estimates, Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (D-Minn) has narrowed the gap with front-running Sen. John F. Kennedy (D-Mass) in the West Virginia popularity contest for president.

West Virginians had their first opportunity last week to see, hear, and to contrast the two senators who have focused national attention on the state's May 10 primary election.

They were appearing for the first time in full battle dress after the wisconsin contest, which Kennedy won by a popular majority of more than 100,000 votes.

With bird-dog eagerness, Humphrey plowed through the populous southern coal mining counties for four days, flushing out voters in coveys ranging from five to 500, suiting his oratory to the hard times that ever haunt the coal fields.

The youngish looking Kennedy flew into Parkersburg and touched several urban bases, including the principal cities of Charleston and Huntington, where unemployment doesn't hang so heavy and whence much of the Kennedy support is expected to come.

The consensus in Charleston was that Sen. Humphrey had gained the most ground by his personal campaigning, but as one observer put it, "he had the most ground to gain."

Whether rightly or wrongly, Sen. Kennedy already had been established as the favorite when underdog Humphrey arrived three days ahead of Kennedy to get his campaign bus on the road.

Seasoned newsmen on the scene got the definite idea that Humphrey rather likes that role of underdog. In other words, the bigger Kennedy's image the louder would be the crash if he lost West Virginia.

Some hard facts emerged from the first week of full-scale campainging:

(1) The question of Kennedy's Roman Catholic religion is here to stay. Only 4.9 per cent of West Virginia's church membership is Catholic. "I don't think we can escape the religious issue," sadly concedes Mrs. Vioilet Snedegar of Elkins, Democratic national committeewoman for West Virginia.

(2) The reported "ganging up" on Kennedy by other Democratic hopefuls has come out into the open.

On this latter point, Mrs. Snedegar thinks any such campaign strategy could be overdone - it might put Kennedy in the role of underdog and win votes from people who just felt sorry for him.

It has been accepted political fact in West Virginia for some time that other candidates for the nomination would give Humphrey whatever subtle support they could push under the table to help him knock off Kennedy before the Democrats get to the Los Angeles convention this summer.

A prominent Charleston Democrat who is not taking sides in the Kennedy-Humphrey fuss said this week, however:

"I just don't believe that defeat in West Virginia would necessarily put Kennedy completely out of the running. I don't think West Virginia is that important. No matter how much it has been built up in the national press, it is still out of proportion to the influence our state has to offer." West Virginia has 25 votes at the convention. It's [sic] delegates are unpledged, regardless of how the Kennedy-Humphrey contest comes out.

Neither is Mrs. Snedegar taking sides, as becoming a member of the national committee, but she neatly balances one against the other:

"Sen. Kennedy has a far better organization and he has been in the state longer. Sen. Humphrey has a faculty of selling himself."

Sen. Humphrey demonstrated his selling technique last weekend as his campaign bus jostled over rutty side roads into mining camps where no candidate for president ever had campaigned before.

He buttonholed people on the street, popped into beauty shops to introduce Mrs. Humphrey around, pinned buttons on countless lapels and the grimy bibs of overalls. Some crowded around to receive them; others were passive; still others seemed not the least bit anxious to wear a Humphrey insignia.

Wherever Humphrey went, the religious issue always came up. With intense sincerity, Humphrey repeatedly disassociated himself from such an issue. Still, it came up.

"It was Humphrey's coming stirred it up," declared a Charleston Democrat.

Democrats compared notes in the dust of the campaign bus. The editor of a daily newspaper in the area Humphrey covered said it was unfortunate but true that the religious issue transcended all others.

Reminded that Alfred E. Smith, another Catholic, carried West Virginia in the Democratic primary of 1928 against rather formidable opposition, the editor said: "There was one difference; prohibition also was a big issue at the time."

A little old lady in Bluefield has been a member of the Methodist church since she was a child. She's 90 years old, frail and spry and with a surprising insight into current affairs. She said:

"I don't think too much of Humphrey but I'm going to vote for him. I just can't vote for a Catholic for President."

An advertising man in Welch put it this way: "I don't see anything immoral about being against Kennedy on religious grounds. If West Virginia was preponderantly Catholic, all the Catholics would be for him, and nobody would say they were bigoted."