1939: West Virginia

Area and Population.

Known locally as the 'Mountain State,' and elsewhere as the 'Panhandle State,' West Virginia was admitted conditionally to statehood on December 31, 1862, and began to function as a separate state on June 20, 1863. Its area is 24,282 sq. mi. The population according to the 1930 census was 1,729,205, of which 1,613,934, including 51,520 foreign-born, were whites. The urban population then included 491,500. As of July 1, 1937, the estimated population of the state was 1,865,000.

Charleston, the capital, had a population in 1930 of 60,408. Other urban centers in the order of their size are Huntington (75,572), Wheeling (61,650), Parkersburg (29,623), Clarksburg (28,866), Fairmont (23,159) and Bluefield (19,339). Weirton, with a population of approximately 25,000, is one of the largest unincorporated cities in the United States.

Education.

Attendance in the free public schools of West Virginia is compulsory for all children between seven and sixteen, who do not attend parochial or other approved schools. The attendance in the public elementary schools for 1938-39 was 318,286, and for 378 high schools it was 132,458. The number of teachers was 11,334 and 4,838, respectively. For their training the state maintains seven teachers' colleges which for 1938-39 had a total enrollment of 3,307 and a total faculty personnel of 351. Teachers are trained also at State University at Morgantown, State College for Negroes at Institute, and at private and denominational institutions. For 1938-39 the total appropriation for state teachers' colleges was $910,250, and the income for the university and the state college was $2,428,488 and $231,229.38 respectively. The budgetary appropriation for elementary and high schools for 1939-40 was $13,300,000, which, together with the general school funds, brought the estimated state expenditures on education to approximately $14,075,000. The total expenditure for free public schools was estimated at $27,825,000.

Agriculture.

In the five-year period, 1930-1935, the number of farms increased from 82,641 to 104,747 and the number of full-time owners from 60,581 to 68,981, but farm values declined approximately $82,000,000. There was also a noticeable increase in the number of farm tenants and share croppers, but the total farm acreage increased only 620,000 A., which indicated a trend to intensive culture. The most promising development was in gross farm income which in 1935 was $10,500,000 greater than for the preceding year. Milk was the chief source of income, being 29.5 per cent of the whole. Crops, other than apples (6.6 per cent) and farm gardens (8 per cent), made up 15.8 per cent, and the remainder was credited to livestock: poultry and eggs, 14 per cent; cattle and calves, 12 per cent; hogs, 8.5 per cent; and other livestock, 5.6 per cent.

Mineral Products.

Due to the industrial recession of 1938, production of bituminous coal, the product in which West Virginia leads the states, was decreased by 21 per cent from the 1937 total of 118,646,343 tons (value, $223,055,000), or to about 92,922,000 tons. The manufacture of coke also dropped from 2,097,380 tons in 1937 to 1,513,888 tons in 1938. The flow of natural gas in 1938 was estimated at 132,000,000 M. cu. ft., and of petroleum at 3,684,000 bbl., the latter comparing fairly well with the amount for 1937, which was 3,845,000 bbl. (value, $8,800,000).

Industry.

Excluding plants with production values of less than $5,000, West Virginia in 1937 had 1,057 industrial establishments. They employed a total of 83,464 wage earners, paid approximately $102,511,473 in wages, and produced a total product valued at $480,526,030, which was $113,951,973 greater than for 1935. The leading manufacturing industries in the order of their importance, together with approximate product values, were: steel, $73,000,000; glass, $40,500,000; and chemicals, $37,000,000. In 1938, 2,500,000,000 kilowatts of electric power were produced, 82 per cent of it from coal-burning plants. The chemical industry too made phenomenal strides in the Kanawha Valley.

Banking and Finance.

On July 1, 1939, deposits in 103 state banks and trust companies aggregated $132,063,704.11, whereas the total for 78 national banks was $157,603,000. The balance in the state treasury, July 1, 1939, was $11,640,331.91, the residue from receipts totaling $154,928,593.25, including a balance of $15,957,889.10 for July 1, 1938. The total state funded indebtedness, as of July 1, 1939, was $78,612,000, of which $75,112,000 was for state road bonds. Final payment on the Virginia Debt was made in 1939, and on March 5 the Legislature in joint session was officially informed that $439,000 of Virginia debt bonds, held in escrow, had been cancelled. For 1939 the total assessed valuation of all property was approximately $1,813,979,630 (real estate, $837,104,169; personal property, $382,419,461; public utilities, $584,456,000). For 1938-39 the total Federal income tax was $13,585,757, of which $7,230,301 was from corporations and $4,406,583 from individuals.

Important Events.

An outstanding event of the year was the meeting of the forty-third Legislature in an 'economy session.' The president of the Senate was William Lafon, of Monroe County, serving his first term. James Kay Thomas, of Kanawha County, succeeded himself as speaker of the House of Delegates. An important act created a Board of School Finance composed of the state superintendent of schools, the state budget director, and the state tax commissioner, with general control over all public school expenditures. General property taxes allocated for the payment of local bonded debts were reallocated so that only twenty instead of thirty per cent was used for that purpose. Teacher tenure and retirement laws were enacted; the office of the state budget director was made permanent; and three Constitutional amendments were passed to the referendum stage. They provided for an executive budget, a short ballot, and changes in the state judiciary. The work of this session was planned by an interim committee, acting under direction of the Governor, and was unprecedented for the smoothness and the facility of its functionings.

The most far-reaching event of the year was perhaps the seven weeks' shutdown, starting March 31, of approximately 100,000 bituminous miners, which entailed a total estimated loss of $5,000,000. It was featured by efforts to obtain unemployment compensation for idle miners, but the state compensation commissioner ruled that they were 'voluntarily unemployed' and therefore not entitled to relief. With the signing of new wage scales on May 13, most of the miners returned to work and other groups here and there expressed their desire to return without such an agreement. Where the returning miners met with resistance, they were protected by the Governor who was consequently assailed as a 'strike breaker.' Toward the end of the year he answered his critics, largely CIO and UMWA leaders, in a seventy-nine page pamphlet in which he attacked their alleged autocratic methods and selfish purposes. As the year ended, indications were that this controversy would feature in the forthcoming party primaries in May.

In both March and November of 1939, forest fires were unusually destructive. The death on November 7 of ex-Senator William E. Chilton, long a popular and effective leader, was generally lamented. The year ended in a business comeback.

State Officers.

State elective officers are: Governor, Homer A. Holt; Secretary of State, William S. O'Brien; Treasurer, Richard E. Talbott; Auditor, Edgar B. Sims; Attorney General, Clarence W. Meadows; Superintendent of Schools, William W. Trent.

United States Senators.

Matthew M. Neely, Rush D. Holt.