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Don't Buy Another Vote, I Won't Pay for a Landslide: The Sordid And Continuing History of Political Corruption in West Virginia

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From vote buying to sexual assault -- when it comes to political corruption, this book has it all!

It is incredible to me that so many politicians from just one state could be so crooked and flagrantly criminal. From false testimony under oath, to money laundering, to sexual assault on a minor, these West Virginia politicians do it all and in many cases continue, after being caught and often convicted, to serve the people of this beautiful state. Practically every day on the national news another politician bites the trustworthy dust with the announcement of yet another scandal or misuse of the public's money and trust. Read this book and then imagine mulitiplying all of that corruption by 50 (states) and then feel confident when you vote in the next primary or general election for a judge or governor of your state. Don't Buy Another Vote . . . gives detailed, well-researched and unbiased information in an easy to read and understandable verbage that makes you look forward to the next chapter of sleazy political corruption. The fact that the forewords are by a Democrat, Sen. Robert C. Byrd and a Republican, Sen. John McCain, show the independence with which this book is written. Because some of these stories are so incredible, I think anyone who enjoys political talk shows and books of political humor would enjoy reading this book. Also, law students and political science majors should have a copy for it's historical significance as well. For readers who don't know the primary characters, senators, presidents, congressmen, governors, judges, magistrates, etc., there is a huge section of photos including pictures of John F. Kennedy, John D. Rockefeller, Arch A. Moore, Jr., etc.

The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past.

William Faulkner

Reviewed By David M. Kinchen

Huntington News Network Book Critic

Hinton, WV (HNN) - The history of West Virginia is more or less a sordid history of political corruption, with the entire state a rotten borough. That's the impression this constant reader comes away with after reading "Don't Buy Another Vote: I Won't Pay for a Landslide" by Allen H. Loughry II (McClain Printing Co., Parsons, WV, 658 pages, illustrated, annotated, indexed, with forewards by Robert C. Byrd and John McCain, $34.99)

The "rotten borough" reference comes from Carey McWilliams, the legendary editor of The Nation magazine, and was made in 1946. A rotten borough in England was one that was thoroughly corrupt. It certainly makes Faulkner's comment about the past appropriate, because not long ago I did a story about more than 6,000 dead voters - or at least dead people who are still on the state's voting rolls - in West Virginia. I've got to say this for the Mountain State: I feel at home here, having spent much of my childhood and early adulthood in Illinois. There's a saying that if you're dead, you should move to Chicago because the dead can still vote in the Windy City.

The book's catchy title comes from a comment attributed to Joe Kennedy during the 1960 presidential primary in West Virginia that pitted John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, against Hubert H. Humphrey, a Protestant. Sensing that a state where 95 percent of the residents are Protestants of varying sects, the JFK campaign, masterminded by his father Joseph Kennedy, decided to play by WV Rules and buy the votes necessary for the charismatic young senator from Massachusetts to win the state on May 10, 1960 and the Democratic Presidential nomination at the convention in Los Angeles later that summer.

No less an authority than President Harry S. Truman believed this story and is quoted by Loughry, a law clerk to WV Supreme Court Justice Elliott "Spike" Maynard: "He [Joe Kennedy] bought West Virginia," Truman said. "I don't know how much it cost him; he's a tightfisted old son of a bitch; so he didn't [spend] any more than he had to, but he bought West Virginia, and that's how his boy won the Primary over Humphrey."

Kennedy won the state by an 84,000 vote margin and was particularly strong in the state's southern coal counties, where Catholics aren't particularly thick on the ground. Throughout the book, Loughry states that while political corruption and vote buying is evident in all 55 counties, it's particularly strong in coal counties including - but not limited to Logan - probably the champion - Mingo, Wayne, Lincoln, McDowell and Boone - "all of which were dominated by political factions."

"Factions" isn't a word I would use to describe Logan Sheriff Don Chafin or one of two nose-biters cited by Loughry in his tome. A particularly "cornpone" one - who could have been created for Al Capp's "L'll Abner" -- came from the southern part of the state and was a Democratic Party worker named Harry "Geets" Johnson who was caught by a revenue officer in "Coal Branch Creek with a load of moonshine. Geets was arrested and sent to jail, although not before he had bitten off most of the revenuer's nose."

I remember stories about the other nose-bitter while on the staff of The Register-Herald in Beckley. This dude was called Joseph Troisi and he was a circuit judge in Pleasants County in 1997 when he stepped down from the bench and bit off a piece of the nose of 29-year-old defendant William Witten (Page 291). I'll grant him this: He was a considerate nose-biter: "After biting Witten, Troisi ordered him to be sent for medical attention and began to adjudicate the next case..." A very un-Pleasants County for Witten and others who faced the judge, a prime candidate for anger management.

Some of the book's material would seem to be unrelated to the subtitle's thrust: "The Sordid and Continuing History of Political Corruption in West Virginia." I particularly point out the very entertaining material on the Hatfield-McCoy feud and the Matewan Massacre of 1920, immortalized in John Sayles' magnificent film "Matewan" which had in its cast a friend and colleague at the R-H, the late, great Neale Clark.

I think Loughry is trying to make the point that the ethnic makeup of West Virginia - predominantly people from the largest and poorest of four migrations of "Albion's Seed" - contributed to the violence and corruption of what was less than a state and more of a chattel colony of Big Coal, Big Steel, the railroad and other outside interests.

("Albion's Seed" is a seminal 1991 book by David Hackett Fischer that explains the European settlement of the United States as voluntary migrations from four English cultural centers. Families of zealous, literate Puritan yeomen and artisans from urbanized East Anglia established a religious community in Massachusetts (1629-40); royalist cavaliers headed by Sir William Berkeley and young, male indentured servants from the south and west of England built a highly stratified agrarian way of life in Virginia (1640-70); egalitarian Quakers of modest social standing from the North Midlands resettled in the Delaware Valley and promoted a social pluralism (1675-1715); and, in by far the largest migration (1717-75), poor borderland families of English, Scots, and Irish fled a violent environment to seek a better life in a similarly uncertain American backcountry. West Virginia represents the latter. This summary draws on the Library Journal description of the book.)

Too, the companies of Big Coal to this day continue to control the votes of the residents. Today, Don Blankenship of Massey Energy (Pages 202ff) represents this effort, Loughry cites. In fact, in my old paper - The Register-Herald - on Friday, July 21, 2006, there's a story by ace political writer Mannix Porterfield headlined "Casey Accuses Blankenship, GOP of Collusion in House." The Casey in question is WV Democratic Chairman Nick Casey.

In Chapter 8, Loughry discusses the strange case of Arch A. Moore Jr., a member of the "Greatest Generation," a WW II war hero and probably the most corrupt figure in the state's history. He's one of two governors to have served time in prison - the other was Wally Barron. (I'll have to look this up, but I think Illinois leads in the category of governors going to prison.).

As described by Loughry, Moore, of Glen Dale, Marshall County, was a six-term congressman from 1957 to 1968 when the state had five members of Congress (we're down to three now, including Moore's daughter, Shelley Moore Capito, R-2nd District). At the start of his first term in 1969, Moore promised to clean up the corruption that had pervaded the state almost from its inception in 1863. This obviously was an empty promise as Moore went on to be convicted in 1990 "of numerous criminal charges and convicted in federal court in 1996 of additional civil charges." Loughry is particularly scathing in his account of Moore's attempt to regain his law license.

After covering several election cycles in the state, I've come to the conclusion that the Mountain State's poor voter turnout - especially for primary elections and off year municipal ones - comes from a sense of cynicism from the voting - or rather, nonvoting - public. The argument is "what good does it do: the election is bought and paid for." All too often, as Loughry cites in this well-document book, this is the case. Some of the southern coal counties have more registered voters than people and a few dollars and a half pint of whiskey is all that's necessary to buy a vote.

Loughry covers recent corruption in the state, including disgraced Del. Jerry Mezzatesta from the Eastern Panhandle and Bob Graham, who parlayed a senior citizens center in Wyoming County into a job that paid four times what the governor is paid. Mezzatesta has finally (according to news reports on July 22, 2006, paid his $2,000 fine) and Graham was indicted on Jan. 26, 2006 on 21 counts of embezzling, illegally transferring money and filing false tax returns.

The husband and wife lawyer team of Mark Hrutkay and his wife (now ex-wife) Lidella Wilson Hrutkay is discussed in detail. She's still in the legislature, representing the 19th District, which includes Logan County and she attributes her lack of knowledge of her multimillionaire husband Mark Hrutkay's vote buying involving Logan Sheriff "Big John" Mendez to Mark's not including her in his life (Page 117). Lawyers like the Hrutkays, Lidella's disbarred father Amos C. Wilson, Moore and many others do not come across as shining examples of probity in Loughry's volume.

The author himself has four (!!) law degrees, in addition to his bachelor's in journalism from West Virginia University. He's in his mid 30s and grew up in Parsons, Tucker County, and includes a great deal of his own background. While some might object to all the photos he includes of himself with numerous political figures, including Bill Clinton, Robert C. Byrd and Gaston Caperton, I found it charming, including the story of how he met his attractive wife Kelly. To sum up, I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn of West Virginia's trail of corruption that led to one tongue-in-cheek commentator suggesting a "West Virginia Politics Hall of Shame" recognizing the state's convicted political felons.

Publisher's web site: www.mcclainprinting.com

This is a fascinating read! Not only does it have true stories that read more like fiction, it has great photos and most of all thought-provoking ideas for political reform that should not only be considered for WV, but for all states. It's probably the most non-partisan book I've ever read on politics that does more than just complain about the problems, but actually gives good ideas to start fixing them. Plus, I found it to be well-researched, well-thought out, funny, endearing, and astonishing. I was very impressed!

As a person who was not born and raised in West Virginia, Loughry's book was an eye-opener. It takes the reader beyond the flippant comments and sound bites that emerge every political season, to give one a baseline, if you will, of the sordid past of politics in the state. The political shenanigans occur on both sides of the aisle, and some of the strange bedfellows that emerged at various times are truly fascinating.

The book begins with the Kennedy campaign and how a largely Protestant state voted for Kennedy, a Catholic, and changed the balance between Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey in a primary season very different from what we see today. Loughry takes us into the inner workings of the political machines, lubricated by money from Joseph Kennedy (who is responsible, verbatim, for the title of the book).

From there the book shifts backwards to the development of political bosses of the distant past and then takes us through to some of the aspects of politics in play to this day.

I cannot verify Loughry's claim that everything he has gathered is verifiable through media excerpts, but I can say that it is a fascinating read that is a must for any armchair politician in the state, and a great read for anyone interested in how our the voting process works or does not work

After having this book recommended to me, I was a bit skeptical, figuring it too dry for my taste, but I was immediately drawn in and had trouble putting it down. Growing up in West Virginia I was startled at how deep the corruption in politics has been and its continuing nature. The book examines corruption itself in a very fair and even manner without attacking any particular group. After reading this, the need for election reform and accountability in public office is obvious. Not just for West Virginia but for the country. I found the book to be interesting, informative, entertaining at times, and very thought provoking. I would recommend it to anyone, whether or not they have an interest in politics. I can even see the value of the book as a required text for high school students because it provides a taste of history that is sometimes buried, along with a plan for the future.

Dr. Allen Loughry's "Don't Buy Another Vote, I Won't Pay for a Landslide" is truly a breath of fresh air in a genre that sorely needed it. Most books written these days about the political arena and the corrupt nature attendant to it are riddled with shortcomings and philosophical pitfalls and, in the end, simply don't deliver. More often than not they serve to advance the agenda of their own writer, and the most painful part of the whole experience is how patently transparent that writer's intentions are. They provide little more than a laundry list of rants by an author perched high atop his/her soap box driven by a far greater concern for hijacking the pages of his/her own publication to simply rail against the establishment. The greater problem with this is how rarely they provide anything substantive in the way of suggested remedies for a very broken and morally bankrupt system that rules the day in American politics.

With "Don't Buy Another Vote" Loughry breaks that mold. His writing is not only to the complete contrary of such a dissatisfying style, but it downright hits home. This is the political narrative that we've all been waiting to read, and it was well worth the wait. Unlike may authors who complain about the proverbial weather without doing anything to change it, Loughry does plenty, or at least he inspires us to do so. Not only does he call nearly 150 years worth of corrupt West Virginia officials out on the carpet for their egregious misdeeds, but he also provides suggestions for the type of reform he feels is necessary to correct this longstanding crisis.

Loughry's "Contract With the Voter" is as innovative and well thought out as it is groundbreaking. Before the smoke settles, don't be surprised if this model for change might very well be adopted as the accepted norm for those seeking office not just in the Mountain State, but in any state. It's prolific in its simplicity and after reading it you'll find yourself saying..."Yes, why can't we implement something like THAT!?" From cover to cover Loughry's message resonates and his voice is true to the mark. A crisp writing style that goes a long way toward walking us through a murky history in which nothing sacred holds. A must read for all of us, irrespective of our own political affiliations. Loughry points out that corruption is not confined to party lines. Neither, for that matter, is the book now chronicling its long and ugly history in West Virginia.

Dr. Loughry has accomplished what very few individuals in the world of politics have ever been able to. He has written a book about politics from a no-bias point of view. Dr. Loughry pulls no punches in this book. He adresses the short comings of a corrupt political culture in both the republican and democratic parties. So many times you read a book and it either sways heavy to the right or left, Dr. Loughrys book does not sway, he appears to be an indidual that does not see left or right, but just sees right and wrong. Finaly we have someone that is not afraid to speak his mind and say what is right. We have a very corrupt political culture in this country and as voters we sit back and allow it to happen. Dr. Loughry gives us numerous examples of just that. Although this book is written about West Virgina politics, you could very easily substitute any state into these stories and be accurate. Corruption in politics doesn't draw a line in the sand at the Wild and Wonderful signs leading into and out of WV. Political corruption is nation wide, and we as voters are allowing it to happen. Politicans will play by whatever the rules are, if we as voters change those rules and start holding our politicans accountable for what they do and say, they will have no choice but to change the way they do buisness. Dr. Loughy not only documents numerous accounts of political corruption, he also has a plan to fix it. A real plan, not just lip service. His "Contract with the Voter" is just what this country needs. If you buy this book for no other reason, buy it just to read the "Contract with the voter". I have meet Dr. Loughry and he is a very impressive man. You can just tell from talking to him that he has a passion for what he beleives in, and he truely beleives that we can change, but it has to start with each voter and at the grass roots level. This book is a must read for not only West Virginias but for every person that takes part in elections in this country. Politics in West Virginia is no different than politics in California, Texas, or even Alaska. Political corruption will not end until we as the voters put an end to it and stand up for what is right. Dr. Loughry has given us a blueprint for how to stand up for what is right. I highly reccomend this book.

I commend Loughry for his equal opportunity assault on political corruption in West Virginia, regardless of party affiliation. While the state is unique in its history, and the specifics of corruption particular to the state, West Virginia is a bell weather state for the rest of the Union. It's hard to believe that such corruption can't be properly prosecuted, but Wild West Virginia proves the need for strong public servants like Loughry to call the culprits out.

I just finished "Don't Buy Another Vote, I Won't Pay For A Landslide" and find it to be one of the most amazing books I have ever read! I started reading and surprisingly, I couldn't put it down. Being a political junkie I thought I knew just about everything about politics, but this book breaks it down to a much more detailed level in a very comprehensive, yet readable way. The detail is mindboggling, but the conversational style of the author is refreshing.
In all of my years of reading political books and following politics, this is the first time I have ever read a book written in such a non partisan manner. I was skeptical at first because individuals often proclaim to be non partisan and write without bias, but that rarely is ever the case. The author is an equal opportunity offender, but it is clear that he doesn't pick on anybody. Instead, he tells the story of incredible corruption broken down at a state level. It includes amazing information about Mother Jones, the Hatfields and McCoys, the Coal Mine Wars, governors going to jail, a state attorney general hiring hit man to kill one of his deputies, another governor having his wife bribe a juror, a judge who bit the end off of a defendant's nose, and countless other stories. What makes this book different, however, is the that author provides a step-by-step way to fix the system that can be applied to all fifty states. This guy should run for Governor or U.S. Senator because we lack these types of visionaries in state and federal government these days.
This book should be read by everyone with any interest in politics, history, psychology, elections, etc.... I was overwhelmed and have told everyone I know. Every single high school student in America should be given a copy of this book as they graduate. This book changed my life! READ THIS BOOK!!!!

Don't Buy Another Vote....is a wonderful, easy to read, eye-opening book. I think everyone including college students, West Virginians, people that follow politics very closely, and people that just vote should read. It is a very honest look at political corruption with a little humor along the way. Very well written! Go get a copy!!!!