AFFLICTING THE COMFORTABLE: JOURNALISM AND POLITICS IN WEST VIRGINIA

24. Moore Controversies

Chapter 24 MOORE CONTROVERSIES ARCH ALFRED MOORE became the third member of the 1952-53 House of Delegates to ascend to the state's highest elective office. As West Virginia's twenty-eighth governor, he followed former delegates Underwood and Barron into the chief executive's suite. Underwood's path had been direct; he went straight from the House to the governor's office. Barron made his move in stages, by way of the Liquor Commission and attorney general's office. Moore detoured to Washington for six terms as a U.S. congressman before running for governor. Although Barron, a Democratic governor, supported Moore, a Republican , during his gubernatorial campaign, Moore sought neither the advice nor support of his predecessors after the election. Elected governor the same year that Richard Nixon, also a Republican, became president, Moore was in high clover. The state's economy was sound. He inherited a balanced budget . Barron and Smith had bequeathed him enough road bond authority to continue the highway modernization program they had launched. There was also enough revenue on hand or available through new taxation to improve the state's education system, provide health-care insurance and pay raises for state employees, begin a statewide kindergarten program, increase workers ' compensation payments, and fatten unemployment and public-welfare checks. No governor since Patteson had been as well-positioned fiscally to improve governmental services, and no governor in state history had had such unrestrained budgetary power. The Modern Budget Amendment was ratified in the same election that put Moore in the governor's office, shifting budgetary control from the Board of Public Works to the governor. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Yet where Patteson and Barron had both cultivated an atmosphere of collegiality and compromise with the legislature on sensitive and controversial issues, Moore was a hard-liner. He vetoed more legislation than any previous governor. When he couldn't win with a veto, he often took his differences to the Supreme Court. The Statehouse became a legal battleground during Moore's years as governor. Despite this argumentative atmosphere, two years after Moore took office , lawmakers again passed legislation plaCing gubernatorial succession on the ballot. Barron had been unsuccessful in even getting the issue through the legislature, while Smith had lost on the succession question in the polling booth, but Moore was able to leap both hurdles in his bid for reelection. During his first term, the legislature also gave him the authority to issue revenue bonds for the construction of a science and culture center- an idea that had been Boating around since the early 1960s-passed tax legislation that Moore wanted, and authorized a second medical school at Marshall University and a school of osteopathic medicine at Lewisburg, both ideas supported by the governor. Moore was tough in combat. He sometimes got bruised in a close encounter, but he was resilient and tenacious, and he got things done. He was able to commit more than a billion dollars to highway modernization alone during his first term in office. MOORE CAME FROM ASTAUNCH Republican family with strong political interests . His grandfather on his father's side had been mayor of Moundsville, and his uncle, Everett F. Moore, had been minority leader and a long-serving member of the House of Delegates. Moore himself had been an overachiever from early youth. While growing up in Moundsville he had a paper route, worked as an usher at a movie theater, and, during his last year in high school, worked an eight-hour shift in a local factory. He attended Lafayette College and West Virginia University, and at both institutions he won office in service and social clubs. During World War II Moore served as a combat soldier in Europe, where he was severely wounded. Shot in the face, he spent a long time recuperating in an Army hospital, trying to regain his ability to speak. Later in political life MOORE CONTROVERSIES 247 one of his greatest assets would be his talent for public speaking and his ability to woo an audience with his almost evangelical style. He was one of the best orators ever to serve in West Virginia public office. This ability paid off handsomely during his 1962 race for First District congressman. Due to a realignment of the congressional districts, Moore found himself pitted against a seasoned public figure, Congressman Cleveland M. Bailey. Bailey's age became an issue during his campaign against...