The Legacy: JFK’s Logan County, WV Connection

By F. Keith Davis

LOGAN, W.Va. - The important legacy of our nation’s 35th president, beginning with his bid for his party’s nomination, has a distinct Logan County connection.

Forty-nine years ago, the world’s focus was on Senator John F. Kennedy’s primary campaign in West Virginia.

From the instant he announced his candidacy for the President of the United States, on January 2, 1960, he faced a wide range of unique challenges, but perhaps the greatest obstacle for him to overcome was the negative image of him because of his Roman Catholic faith.

In a 2003 interview, Claude Ellis, who led the John F. Kennedy for President campaign in Logan County in 1960, stated, “At first no local officeholder … was willing to risk being too closely associated with John F. Kennedy because he was Catholic.”

In a March 2008 story, reporter Jake Stump, of the Charleston Daily-Mail, may have best explained the times when he said many pundits believed anti-Catholic bigotry would prevail in heavily Protestant West Virginia and promise Hubert Humphrey, the junior senator of Minnesota, Kennedy’s opponent in the primary, a strong victory.

However, in spite of early pessimism surrounding the Kennedy campaign, the senator and his family members—including Edward (Teddy), Robert (Bobby), Rose and others—diligently campaigned throughout the Mountain State and spent much of that time here in Logan.

Through a well-organized, heavily financed campaign—and with JFK’s personal charm and the charisma of his large family—the tide of public opinion began to turn.

Meanwhile, a flood of national reporters and photographers followed the Kennedy clan through the state—including representatives from publications like Life Magazine, The New York Herald-Tribune, Wall Street Journal, United Press International, and Associated Press. They documented the Kennedys’ every movement.

“First, [Senator Kennedy] sent brother Ted and others [like Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr.,] in here to try to help,” Ellis stated in 2002.

Handsome and lean in those days, with a head full of dark brown hair, Ted took the podium at numerous political gatherings—from rallies in Triadelphia District, Island Creek District, to the streets of downtown Logan—and spoke confidently about the many things that would be accomplished in Logan County under his brother’s administration.

“Logan people liked Teddy and [our faction] wanted to keep him here as long as he could stay since he knew how to support his brother,” Ellis added. “He spent several months traveling between Wisconsin and West Virginia campaigning. When in Logan, he spent much of that time at the Aracoma Hotel and the Smoke House Restaurant.”

Ellis reminisced about the first time he met John Kennedy: “I remember meeting him on April 25, 1960, when we brought him into the county. He came in by way of Williamson and then on down through Omar. His first stop was at Bill Abraham’s Shaheen’s Shopping Center, where he held his first political assembly in the county.”
On this occasion Senator Kennedy came in without his brothers. In addition to Ellis, local dignitaries—Bill Abraham, Tom Godby, Dan Dahill and Alex DeFobio—introduced the candidate to the community. Once the motorcade arrived, the crowd cheered wildly as the car door opened and a young, handsome JFK stood and waved to the people.

“After he finished speaking to the crowd, we formed a string of vehicles and traveled up the creek toward the City of Logan,” Ellis said.

In the Summer 2000 edition of Goldenseal Magazine, Author Topper Sherwood described Kennedy’s abilities on the campaign trail: “This is a world that John Kennedy understood very well. His grandfather, John F. ‘Honey Fitz’ Fitzgerald, had been a bare-knuckles contender in the rough-and-tumble world of Boston politics. And his father, Joe Kennedy, was legendary for his political maneuvering during and after the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. Wood County industrialist Robert McDonough, who coordinated the Kennedy campaign in West Virginia, called JFK ‘the smartest politician in the crew.’”

In The Kennedy Men, author Laurence Leamer added that with West Virginia’s primary looming ahead, the Kennedys were in what they considered the most crucial campaign of their lives, and they threw every weapon they had into the fray.

It can be said that Senator Kennedy intuitively knew how to campaign in the Appalachian Mountains. Since receiving lifelong instruction, campaigning was in his makeup—so when he reached West Virginia soil, the mannerisms and approach came naturally.

After Main Island Creek, Kennedy and his entourage ended up in the City of Logan that evening, holding a gathering at the courthouse steps.

Local attorney Dan Dahill, of West Logan, a powerful politician of the time period, recalled that rally: “The whole city came together. It was a carnival atmosphere. Everyone came together—except for Raymond Chafin’s faction, that is.”
It was factional boss Raymond Chafin, of Cow Creek, who headed the Hubert Humphrey for President campaign at the time.

“Raymond and his candidates were all brooding up in their Aracoma Hotel headquarters that day,” Dahill added. “Judge C.C. Chambers was especially steamed by the way the county received Kennedy.”

From that day forward, Senator Kennedy’s popularity began to soar locally, and Senator Humphrey’s early lead diminished. Of course, near the close of the primary campaign season, public opinion throughout the Mountain State shifted to Kennedy’s corner.

In Logan County, amazingly even Chafin made a last-minute swap of allegiance from Humphrey to Kennedy—the day before the state primary. To explain the extremely controversial move, Chafin later confessed that, through a series of circumstances, his political faction had received a $35,000 “cash compensation” at that late hour from the Kennedy campaign, which convinced him and his faction to swing their support toward JFK.

The Kennedy campaign was well aware that winning the West Virginia Democratic Primary was imperative. The primary represented an experiment, of sorts, for many to see if religious bigotry would defeat Kennedy in a heavily Protestant state. Even more importantly, it was also a test of the senator’s viability as a presidential candidate, to see if he could demonstrate broad popular appeal.

On May 10, 1960, Senator Kennedy won the West Virginia Democratic primary by a wide margin—garnering 60.8% of the Democratic vote.

Riding the crest of the Mountain State victory, with the skillful political maneuvering among members of his campaign team, Kennedy eventually won his party’s nomination at the 1960 Democratic Convention, held in Los Angeles.

From there, he ultimately campaigned hard and moved on to win the general election on November 8th, 1960, narrowly defeating his Republican opponent, Richard M. Nixon, to become the 35th President of the United States.

“After Kennedy was elected,” Ellis said, “I think he showed his appreciation to all of West Virginia. He especially recognized our needs and spoke loud for our state in Washington.”

Without the state’s initial support, the Kennedy primary campaign could have unraveled entirely. However, history confirms that the win in West Virginia became a defining moment for the future president.

To that end, Logan County and its populace will always share in the legacy of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

---- (The above story was originally published in The Logan Banner as part of their annual John F. Kennedy Legacy publication in conjunction with Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College, located at Mount Gay, WV. F. Keith Davis is the author of WEST VIRGINIA TOUGH BOYS, a state bestseller that is primarily the account of mountain politics, which also focuses on the 1960 primary in Logan County, West Virginia.)

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Submitted photo information: Senator John Kennedy meets with reporters at the Smoke House Restaurant, in Logan. Among the attendees in this photo: Clifford Ellis (brother of Claude Ellis) stands directly to the left of JFK, along with, far left, Al Otten of the Wall Street Journal; and Rowland Evans of the New York Herald-Tribune is on the far right. Others are various representatives, reporters and photographers of the media.