Poverty: Feud in the Hills

To the Turner family of Eastern Kentucky’s Breathitt County, politics comes as naturally as breathing. Ervine Turner, who died last year after a 40-year career as state senator, school superintendent and circuit judge, first became a power in the mountainous area when he brought Breathitt the benefits of the New Deal. His death did nothing to weaken his family’s Snopesian hold on the county. His wife Marie served as county school superintendent for 38 years until her retirement last June, and still remains president of the Citizens Bank of Jackson, the county seat. Their son John is a state senator. Their daughter, Mrs. Treva Turner Howell, continues the old family tradition of doing good for the poor while doing well politically—something the massive poverty program has made rather easy. She administers the local poverty effort, sowing federal largesse and reaping a bumper crop of votes for the county Democratic organization headed by her husband, Jeff Davis Howell.

Now, however, the family’s dominance of Breathitt County’s affairs is being challenged by the state’s Republican administration. Alarmed at what he considers partisan abuse of the poverty program, Governor Louie B. Nunn has vetoed a $177,000 Office of Economic Opportunity grant to the Middle Kentucky River Area Development Council (MKRADC). The organization, headquartered in Jackson and run by Mrs. Howell, is responsible for administering sorely needed poverty projects worth $2,000,000 a year in Breathitt and three neighboring counties. Two-thirds of the region’s families have incomes of less than $3,000 a year.

No Conditions. Many, living in isolated hollows miles from the main road, exist on no earned incomes at all, under conditions that make life in an urban ghetto seem almost luxurious by comparison. Their houses are made of tarpaper or unseasoned wood, their food consists of what they can shoot, trap or buy with Government food stamps.

Indoor plumbing is virtually nonexistent, roads are unpaved and often impassable. Nunn brings a formidable barrage of charges against Mrs. Howell. In documents sent to OEO headquarters in Washington, he claims that her election as MKRADC director violated regulations because her brother-in-law, who has since resigned, was a member of the board. The Governor also charges that she kept program funds in a family-owned bank and makes support of her family and party an implicit condition for MKRADC assistance. Nunn denies he wants to replace Mrs. Howell with a Republican. “I don’t care who they get to run the program,” he says, “as long as he’s competent and the poverty money goes where it is intended to go, for the benefit of the poor and with no conditions attached.”

Mrs. Howell has responded to Nunn’s charges by firing off a few of her own. She claims that Nunn, the state’s first Republican Governor in 20 years, is jealous of her program’s success and trying to improve his party’s fortunes at her expense. Her riposte does little to blunt the thrust of Nunn’s original accusation, for her family’s seignorial attitude toward the people in its domain is evidence enough of its political power. “These are my folks around here,” says Mrs. Howell. “They need help.” The people of Breathitt repaid such sentiments last month by flocking to Mrs. Howell’s side at a public hearing held by OEO to investigate Nunn’s charges against her. Howell supporters turned out in such force that Lynn Frazer, the state economic-opportunity director, walked out, claiming anti-Howell witnesses were being intimidated.

Mrs. Howell’s victory at the hearing has set back Nunn’s campaign to get her out of the poverty program. It has embarrassed Breathitt County’s Congressman, Carl D. Perkins, who, as chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, is responsible for all poverty legislation. Pushing for a two-year extension of the OEO authorization act, Perkins fears loss of badly needed Republican support if Nunn’s veto is overridden. At the same time, he finds it politically necessary to back Mrs. Howell, whose support is an important ingredient to his own reelection.

The Nunn-Howell feud is likely to prove equally embarrassing to President Nixon’s new OEO chief, Donald Rumsfeld, who must now decide whether to sustain or overturn the Governor’s veto. A decision in favor of Mrs. Howell may cost him the support of Republicans already anxious to minimize federal interference in state affairs. While he deliberates, the poor of Breathitt County, dependent upon interim OEO grants for their sustenance, remain out of pocket.