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OPINIONS
Ken Hechler reflects on his 1958 congressional campaign
Prior to Ken Hechler's famous Red Jeep, the onetime congressman and secretary of state used a red Chevy convertible in his campaigns, like this in this picture with Marshall Young Democrats in 1958.
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Editor’s note: Ken Hechler represented southern West Virginia in the House of Representatives for nearly 20 years. He was elected in 1958 and retired from Congress in 1976 to run for governor. He lost in the Democratic primary to eventual winner Jay Rockefeller. In this column, Hechler looks back at his first campaign 50 years ago.
Aug. 5, 1958 — Exactly 50 years ago today — West Virginia had a primary election that resulted in an almost unbelievable upset.
Many people falsely assume that the only reason I came to West Virginia in 1957 was to run for Congress in a district with an 81-year-old Republican incumbent. The issue is far more complicated than that.
In my position as associate director of the American Political Science Association in Washington, D.C., I had pioneered in two programs: First, to establish a credible placement service to respond to requests to fill vacancies in political science departments; and second, to supervise competition for a Congressional intern program to give young political science teachers and journalists the experience of working in Congressional offices. In 1956, I was given a leave of absence to work as a research director for Adlai Stevenson's 1956 presidential campaign. In the high-octane atmosphere of 16-to-18 hour days, it was a letdown to return to my APSA job where the staff had a "manana attitude" toward their jobs, and Vice President Richard Nixon, whom I detested, was coming back for a second term.
Late in November 1956, Professor Conley Dillon, chairman of Marshall College 's Political Science Department, wrote me about candidates for a temporary, one-term vacancy. Instead of sending him three candidates with references, I sent him only my name. I told him I wanted to get back in the classroom.
In coming to Huntington, I personally felt that I also wanted to become active in the community, but realized that there was little chance to run for Congress in that area, where coal was king, the district was conservative, and the obvious 1958 Democratic nominee was former Marshall political science professor M.G. "Burnie" Burnside, who had won three terms in 1948, 1950 and 1954 but been defeated by Will Neal in 1952 and 1956. Also, I wondered whether students at Marshall would respond to the exacting standards I had set while teaching at Columbia and Princeton universities. The response of the students was sensational, and by 1958 Burnside decided not to run again.
I finally decided to take the plunge and get back in the classroom, as well as taking the political temperature in the community. So my decision was a chancy one and not based exclusively on the hope for a future in politics. In the back of my mind was also the advice given me in 1941 by former Supreme Court Associate Justice Louis Brandeis. When I brought my Columbia University students to meet with Justice Brandeis in Washington, D.C. he had asked me why I was teaching at a huge metropolitan university when I could have a more meaningful experience at a smaller institution in a smaller community.
Pundits and analysts had all predicted that the sure winner of the 4th Congressional district Democratic primary would be native son Huntingtonian Tom Harvey, endorsed by organized labor, plus all the political organizations and Democratic leaders.
I had arrived in West Virginia only a year before from an upbringing on Roslyn, Long Island. I taught for only one term at Marshall — then a college with only 3,500 students. On March 28, 1958, I announced I was running for Congress in the conservative Ohio River district comprising 10 counties running north from Cabell and Wayne counties up to Tyler County and almost to New Martinsville.
A third candidate, Bill Jacobs of Parkersburg, entered the race, hoping to split the vote between the two Huntington candidates.
Harry W. Ball of The Associated Press in Huntington labeled my campaign for the Democratic nomination "the shrewdest personal electioneering I've seen in 23 years of campaign coverage." However, my friends, opponents, and neutral observers sneered publicly at what they characterized as a futile effort.
Professor Conley Dillon, who had hired me to teach at Marshall, was joined by professor Paul Stewart in denouncing the sanity of my "fruitless" candidacy. Democratic leaders kept alleging that mine was simply an upstart candidacy because "you haven't paid your dues." One Democrat labeled me a "suitcase politician; after the primary he'll just pack his suitcase and slink back to New York."
My Marshall students jumped in to counter their negative comments. Their fresh enthusiasm appealed to voters of all ages. In my classes, I had required them to circulate in their home communities, interviewing voters and advocating what I termed: "The Politics of Niceness" — positive comments on what you stand for, instead of whom you are against.
To attract attention — prior to my addiction to red Jeeps — I had a fireengine red Chevrolet convertible with a big "Hechler for Congress" sign.
At one meeting of Marshall Young Democrats, I became acquainted with Marshall freshman Bobby Nelson, recently discharged after a hitch with the Marines. Bobby alerted me to a group of four Marshall coeds, named "the Quartertones" who had won a singing competition with a rendition of the popular McGuire Sisters song "Sugartime":
"Sugar in the morning
Sugar in the evening
Sugar at supper-time"
They went on the campaign trail singing:
"Hechler in the morning
Hechler in the evening
Hechler at election time"
For a fee of $1, the copyright owners gave me permission to use this parody, requiring that it be sung "early and often".
Bobby Nelson was a key supporter who went with me on my campaign trips and organized visits to sororities and fraternities on the Marshall campus.
Some of my partisan supporters, eager to make some sparks fly, wanted to attack Harvey and Jacobs, and I cautioned them "always remember that we want today's opponents to be tomorrow's allies."
The publication of my war book (”The Bridge At Remagen”) gave a big boost to the campaign. My publisher said, "We've never had an author run for Congress before, so why don't we put out a campaign edition?" They put my name in screaming letters on the front cover, along with the slogan "THE TOP WAR BOOK OF THE YEAR, Written by a Leading West Virginian." Instead of an introduction, they had me write a campaign piece titled "Why I am running for Congress."
The back cover had a big color photo of me plus the dates of the primary and general elections.
The paperback book was selling for 50 cents, but they could print copies for ten cents apiece. The best investment I ever made was to buy 10,000 copies for $1,000. To counter Harvey's endorsement by organized labor, I visited plant gates on shift changes at big employers up and down the Ohio Valley, like the nickel plant and ACF Industries in Huntington, Goodyear near Point Pleasant, Kaiser Aluminum near Ravenswood, and DuPont and Marbon in Washington Bottom (Wood County). Union members who got a free, autographed book soon began to desert the directives of their union leaders and flock to my support.
The book provided an entrée to schools and colleges, plus service clubs, Bible classes and groups interested in speakers. It led to radio, TV and newspaper interviews throughout the district.
The Sunday New York Times ran a special feature on how my book helped win the campaign, supported by a clever cartoon depicting yours truly autographing my book for an admiring voter and her small son.
The Times observed: "Seems that author Hechler, a newcomer to politics and almost a newcomer to W.Va., campaigned against two others. They baby-kissed as did he, they addressed Rotary as he did. Where he had them, however, was invitations to give addresses on ‘The Bridge at Remagen.’ Nonpartisan, of course, and only as a bookman to readers, but if any voter wanted to connect a coincidence of names, that was his right."
The brisk sales of the book throughout the country, plus purchases by network television and movie options brought in cash to buy TV commercials and pay for campaign literature, gasoline, and other expenditures. A war book also blunted the criticism by conservatives that I was too liberal for the district.
Another boost in my standing among conservatives fell into my lap when a conservative coalition asked Marshall to invite Raymond Moley to speak. Moley, an original FDR brain truster, had broken with FDR in 1936 because he sharply disagreed with Roosevelt's attacks on business. It was my good luck that I had won Moley's friendship by enrolling in one of his classes at Columbia University and being chosen by him to teach one of his classes at Barnard College.
After Moley had finished his formal remarks, I arose during the question period and before he answered my question, he observed, "I just want to say that the gentleman who asked that question — Ken Hechler — is a great teacher and a great friend." His remarks, of course, helped me among conservatives.
I overheard Tom Harvey mention that he was going to concentrate where the votes were — in Huntington and Parkersburg — and not waste time in the smaller counties. This led me to spend lots of effort in the smaller counties such as Pleasants and Tyler, which paid off.
Tom and his able wife, Fann, were also pioneers in coding individual voter preferences. They were way ahead of their time in encoding "historic voters" — those who always voted. This led me to decide I would concentrate on empowerment — to convince non-voters that their voice was important. As a result, I won many of these people to my side as enthusiastic supporters. I searched out voters in unusual occupations, such as railroad engineers.
In Wood County, where it was obvious Bill Jacobs would run the strongest, I had many talks with a politically savvy man named Robert McDonough, who owned the Park Press near the flood wall and freight tracks. McDonough's major objective in 1958 and 1960 was to elect John F. Kennedy president, at which he was successful. However, I went into his print shop and persuaded his Linotype operator, George Lee, to round up support in Wood County.
McDonough not only supported but also contributed $300 to Tom Harvey. During the final week of the campaign, Bob and I were chatting outside his shop when a freight train stopped, and the engineer climbed down from his cab and asked me to autograph a copy of my book which he had just bought. McDonough said to me, "You may not win this primary, but I assure you that you have a great future in West Virginia politics."
Early on, I resolved to resist all efforts to persuade me to "contribute" to any organization in return for political support. I was approached for such contributions in Huntington's Second Ward, in southern Wayne County and in Williamstown, in Wood County. In notorious Lincoln County, I was informed after the primary election that the night before the polls opened Tom Harvey and Bill Jacobs had a bidding war at the home of the sheriff and county chairman, Claude Stowers of Garrett's Bend. The bidding was finally won by Harvey at 2:30 a.m. at a cost of $2,500. Harvey carried Lincoln County by a 2-to-1 majority. I was informed that I was not invited to the bidding, "because we knew that you would not contribute."
I was advised to visit Junior Ellis in Huntington's Second Ward. We conversed amicably on the lawn of his house and I didn't change my pitch from my usual discourse about the issues I stood for. I could sense that Junior was unimpressed. Logic never affected his decisions; the almighty dollar always ruled. He was an employee of the city of Huntington's street department, but his major occupation was the absolute boss of the Second Ward. When the results came in on Aug. 5, I was clobbered 113-2 in one of Junior's precincts and 63-18 in another.
Since incumbent Congressman Will Neal had his name on the ballot as Dr. Will Neal, I simply filed as Dr. Ken Hechler because of my Ph.D. status. After that election, the Legislature outlawed the use of occupational titles.
Sometimes if you are attacked on issues it produces publicity. I knew I would be attacked when I printed and distributed campaign cards to establish the "Hechler for Congress Club." To join the dues-free club all you had to do was sign your name to a pledge to vote for me in the primary and general elections.
"This card will reward you with special attention by Congressman Ken Hechler after his election" constituted grounds for negative editorials. But it helped center more attention on my candidacy.
On Saturday, June 24, I drove to Sistersville in Tyler County to attend a Democratic rally at which the main speaker was Democratic National Chairman Paul Butler. Walking back to my vehicle in the dark after the dinner, I heard someone say that the campaign "would be blown wide open by an old Time Magazine article which stated I was working for the Republican Party at the time I had claimed I was in the Truman White House." I was so shocked by this news that the next day I boarded a plane to Long Island to see if I could resurrect a Time Magazine article written about my teaching prowess at Princeton University. I found the article, which was favorable, except it referred to me as a "left of center Republican." (which was accurate in 1948).
I immediately telephoned Clark Clifford, one of Truman's top advisers, who laughed and said he would write a public letter testifying to the good work I did at the White House for the Democratic Party. The letter, dated July 2, 1958, quickly helped me answer the allegations but not before they caused a big stir in the press. Clifford wrote, "If Ken Hechler was good enough for Democratic Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, I'm sure he's good enough for West Virginia Democrats."
The results on August 5 were beyond my expectations. Despite a poll conducted by Professor Dillon's students, released the day before the election, which showed that Harvey would win Cabell County with 59 percent to my 41, I carried seven of the ten counties, Harvey had a 2-1 lead in Lincoln County, and Jacobs carried Wood and nearby Roane County.
On the morning after the primary, I got up at 5 a.m. to thank the workers arriving at the nickel plant for their support. The local head of the United Steel Workers had defied the AFL-CIO by publishing the inaccurate news that the steel workers were endorsing me.
Some years after the 1958 election, A. Michael Perry, an assistant in Marshall's Political Science Department in 1958 and later Chairman and CEO of Banc One Corp. sent me this letter:
“When I first heard that Professor Hechler was contemplating running for the United States Congress in the Democratic primary against the local favorite son, Tom Harvey, an attorney from a prominent Huntington family, I was surprised to say the least. The head of the department, Dr. Conley Dillon, phrased it best when he said that he didn't feel that a carpetbagger coming in from outside the state would have a chance running in a West Virginia election against a prominent local person. … I learned a very important lesson during that campaign as I watched him take what was purported to be a negative, the fact that he was a carpetbagger, and turn it in to what was probably the most effective part of his campaign — mainly that he could have gone anywhere in the country following his activities in Washington and he had the wisdom to select Huntington, West Virginia, and Marshall College. ... I still remember the lesson I learned from that campaign: One can take a negative and turn it around to a positive if it is dealt with forthrightly and aggressively as Ken Hechler did."
On Sunday Aug. 17, 1958, as part of my "Politics of Niceness," I published a large thank-you ad in the Huntington newspaper, also congratulating Congressman Neal on his primary victory. This generated an amazing response from a former Republican Party publicity director in West Virginia named Sam Mallison, who wrote me:
“I take my hat off to you as a master of the art of public relations. In my opinion, you rate so far ahead of the Madison Avenue boys that any comparison would be ridiculous. This opinion of mine is based on the paid advertisement which you ran following the primary. I thought your paid advertisement was the smartest bit of political advertising I have ever seen. I had it photostated and had copies sent to a number of my friends in Washington and all of them echoed my opinion."
