AFFLICTING THE COMFORTABLE: JOURNALISM AND POLITICS IN WEST VIRGINIA

25. A Lifetime Commitment

Chapter 25 A LIFETIME COMMITMENT GOVERNOR JOHN DAVISON ROCKEFELLER IV melded the personal philosophy of the original John D. with his own in his first inaugural message. A guiding precept of John the First was that "willful waste makes woeful want." John the Fourth, who went by his nickname, Jay, adhered to his greatgrandfather 's principles, telling the people of West Virginia, "As taxpayers, you are going to get your money's worth ... We are going to give you efficient, carefully planned government- government without frills or fat." The new governor launched his first effort at eliminating frills shortly after his inauguration. He went to the legislature and asked for authority to cancel his predecessor's parting political move, the late-hour executive order that shifted more than seven thousand employees into civil service. Rockefeller also began a slow and methodical reduction in the number of state workers through attrition and the elimination of unneeded or overlapping positions. During his years in office Rockefeller removed five thousand employees from the bloated bureaucracy that Moore had created. On the governor's recommendation, the Health and Mental Health departments were merged, the scattered agencies dealing with the state's historical and cultural heritage were brought together under one umbrella, an office of economic and community development was established, and such institutions as the women's prison and boys' industrial school were closed as no longer cost-effective. THE STATE'S TWENTY-NINTH GOVERNOR was born in New York City three weeks after the death of the original John D. Rockefeller, then known as the richest A LIFETIME COMMITMENT 257 man in the world. A founder of Standard Oil Company, Rockefeller had made much of his wealth in oil, a legacy passed down through the years to a host of heirs, among them his great-grandson Jay. Jay Rockefeller enjoyed a higher quality of education than probably any other West Virginia governor. After completing his elementary schooling in New York, he was enrolled at Phillips Exeter Academy, an elite private school in New Hampshire. He earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard with additional studies in Chinese at Yale. He also spent several years in Japan studying the language and culture. While majoring in history at Harvard, he had developed a serious interest in the Far East. He was one ofthe top-ranked students in his class at Tokyo's International Christian University, often devoting fifteen hours a day to his studies. "I really worked at it," Rockefeller recalled later. In a trade-off with the university, he also taught English. Rockefeller began his public service career in Washington as an unpaid assistant to Peace Corps Director R. Sargent Shriver, brother-in-law of President Kennedy. Shriver had been intrigued by an article Rockefeller had written for The New York Times Magazine and offered him a position as his special assistant. Rockefeller spent his first year with the Peace Corps recruiting volunteers to serve overseas and most of the next organizing the content of the Philippines program. During these years he also got to know the Kennedy clan. Of the three brothers, Bobby was his favorite, and they developed a close friendship which lasted until the former attorney general was assassinated in Los Angeles during the 1968 presidential campaign. With Rockefeller's interest in foreign affairs, it was only natural that he would gravitate to the State Department. Also, he said, he wanted a mainline bureaucratic experience, which he received as desk officer for Indonesian Affairs in State's Far Eastern bureau. In early 1964 he talked to a friend, Charlie Peters, then evaluation director for the Peace Corps, about finding something more closely related to America and its problems. Peters, a former Charleston lawyer and member of the House of Delegates , advised Rockefeller that if he wanted to see a side of the United States he'd never been exposed to, there was no better place than West Virginia. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Peters said later that he tried to limit his efforts to encouraging Rockefeller rather than pressuring him, but he was determined to recruit Rockefeller for West Virginia, and apparently he was convincing enough. In May of that year, this scion ofwealth and privilege spent a week in Charleston, then returned to ride up Cabin Creek and talk with residents there, seeing firsthand problems resembling those in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and New York's Harlem. Soon afterward , Rockefeller decided that...