This article originally provided by The Charleston Gazette

July 16, 2006

‘Arch’

By Paul J. Nyden
Staff writer

The first biography about Arch A. Moore Jr., a six-term Congressman and three-time governor, offers fascinating details about the life and thoughts of one of West Virginia’s most popular political figures. But the biography repeatedly downplays controversial events and even questions whether Moore committed the five felonies to which he pleaded guilty and served time in federal prison.

Brad Crouser, state Tax Commissioner and Secretary of the Workers’ Compensation Fund during Moore’s third term as governor, wrote the long volume. Basically an “authorized” biography, “Arch” reveals details about Moore that he probably would not have shared with many other writers.

“Arch” also defends the decisions made by a politician who was indicted in the 1970s but not convicted, a man who apparently continued to collect generous campaign and personal donations from supporters, and a man who eventually was convicted on five felony charges of extorting money from a coal operator. That conviction put Moore in federal prisons in Alabama and Kentucky for 33 months.

Though Moore was a lifelong Republican, he kept a distance from the right wing of his party. Unions sometimes endorsed him. Moore often avoided divisive issues like backing right-to-work and anti-abortion laws. Moore also backed legislation that protected minorities against discrimination.

Moore may have decided to become a permanent Republican during the week after Christmas 1933. That was when Democratic politicians fired his father, Arch Sr., from his modest job as postmaster at the state prison in Moundsville.

The book offers surprising revelations. In 1996, Moore gave “some behind-the-scenes assistance” to liberal Democrat Charlotte Pritt during her unsuccessful race against Republican Cecil Underwood for governor.

Anecdotes and insights

The book recounts Moore’s heroic service in World War II, when he was shot in the face by machine gun fire during a battle in a German farmer’s sugar beet field. That day, 33 of the 36 members in Sgt. Moore’s platoon died.

Quoting Shelley Moore, his wife, Crouser wrote, “Having survived the ordeal, Arch dedicated the remainder of his life to serving others.”

Moore won his first political office in 1952, when he was elected to the House of Delegates, a seat he lost two years later. But in 1956, he won the first of six elections to Congress.

Moore became the ranking Republican on the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Nationality in 1960.

In 1962, after West Virginia lost a seat in Congress, Moore ran against long-time Democratic incumbent Rep. Cleve Bailey and won.

During these years, Moore fantasized about higher offices, at least in private.

When President Johnson invited him to a March 1964 White House reception honoring Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, Moore whispered to Shelley, “Do you think we’ll ever make it here?”

Crouser’s book is filled with humorous incidents.

When Moore was about to begin his first inaugural speech as governor on the Capitol steps on a cold January day in 1969, he was still taking pills to ease continuing pain from a November 3 helicopter crash.

“The pills left his mouth dry but, as he reached for a glass of water to begin his speech, he found it frozen solid.”

A man with an incredible memory for names and an engaging personality, Moore made friends everywhere, including during his stay in prison at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala.

“I could have been elected mayor [of the prison] by the time I left there,” Moore jokingly said.

Crouser added, “One of his bunk mates was a large black man named Luther. Luther came to him one day and said, ‘Governor, I write songs. Could I sing one for you? When Arch eagerly agreed to listen, Luther sat down in front of Moore’s bunk and sang him a love song.”

Distorting the truth

During his long political career, Moore also created scores of controversies which Crouser often describes very differently than others have done:

Coal mine safety act signed

The Consol No. 9 explosion on Nov. 20, 1968 that killed 78 coal miners in Mannington helped spark the Black Lung Strike three months later. By March 5, when the Senate began debating the bill, 40,000 of the state’s 43,000 miners were out on an illegal strike.

The state Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, which guaranteed injured miners Black Lung benefits, was passed by the Legislature and signed by Moore.

“The miners returned to work with a major victory,” Crouser writes, “but began realizing that their Republican governor was not their enemy, as their unions had preached to them.”

Crouser credits Moore with playing a major role in convincing President Richard Nixon to sign the similar U.S. Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 on December 30.

But the real story is missing.

The Black Lung Strike began at the East Gulf mine near Rhodell on February 18, sparking a growing walkout to force lawmakers to pass the law on March 8.

When Moore suggested he might not sign the bill immediately, miners met in Beckley and pledged to stay on strike until he did. Moore signed the bill on March 12.

In his 1976 book “West Virginia: A History,” historian John Alexander Williams wrote, “A reluctant Legislature and an even more reluctant Gov. Moore approved the new compensation law.”

The possibility of a national wildcat strike was also a major factor leading Nixon to sign the national bill.

Debts after Buffalo dam flood

Crouser rejects longstanding criticisms of Moore for settling a lawsuit against Pittston Coal for clean-up costs from the Buffalo Hollow flood. The settlement for $1 million came three days before his second term expired in January 1977.

Moore’s settlement absolved Pittston of any further debt to the state for clean-up costs following the collapse of the company’s three slate dams on Buffalo Hollow. The flood on Feb. 26, 1972 left 125 dead and 4,000 homeless in 14 Logan County coal towns.

Crouser wrote, “At every opportunity, the “[Charleston] Gazette” continued to suggest that Arch Moore ... had taken some type of bribe to ‘let Pittston off’ for a mere $1 million, just before Moore left office, in some sort of secret deal.”

Crouser said the “accusation is without merit, according to a lawyer who was very close to the settlement process.” Crouser did not name the lawyer.

In Afflicting the Comfortable, the late reporter Thomas B. Stafford writes that Gov. Gaston Caperton faced major budget deficits after he defeated Moore, then running for a fourth term as governor, in 1988.

When Caperton became governor in 1989, West Virginia still owed $9.4 million to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for clean-up work after the Buffalo Hollow flood.

Workers’ comp premium cuts

In July 1985, shortly after winning his third term, Moore mandated an across-the-board 30 percent cut in workers’ compensation premiums for employers. In four years, that action helped create a $2.2 billion deficit for that agency.

But Moore blames Caperton. “Workers’ Compensation in 1989 was solid, with a substantial surplus and without any unfunded liability.

“From this point forward, my successor [Caperton] changed the Fund’s direction. New leadership at the Workers’ Compensation Fund took over, and a new philosophy was adopted. The Fund went on a financial spending spree,” Moore wrote.

During Caperton’s administration, it became increasingly clear that the Moore administration had manipulated Workers’ Comp financial reports to hide debts. Moreover, the agency did little to collect tens of millions in unpaid premiums owed by mining contractors hired by major coal companies.

In early 2002, when Gov. Bob Wise was in office, coal companies paid $56.6 million to settle state suits to collect those debts, many of which were accumulated while Moore was governor.

Guilty plea on felony charges

Crouser also questions the validity of five federal felonies to which Moore pleaded guilty in 1990.

Coal operator H. Paul Kizer played the central role in Moore’s April 12 indictment. One of Kizer’s companies paid Moore $573,721 to get $2.3 million in Black Lung refunds. Kizer paid another $150,000 in falsified legal fees to collect lucrative Super Tax Credits.

Kizer also made a $50,000 contribution to the Republican National Committee toward the end of Moore’s 1988 campaign. Kizer called that contribution a downpayment on a pardon for murder. (Kizer and his bodyguard James Bonham were both charged with murder for the March 16, 1986 shooting death of Jimmy Vickers, a Boone County man who hit Kizer after finding him with his girlfriend, a woman Kizer later married. Kizer paid Bonham to rough Vickers up, but Bonham fired a shot into his mobile home and killed Vickers. Convicted of voluntary manslaughter, Bonham was sentenced to two years in prison, but Kizer was acquitted of all charges.)

In a footnote, Crouser quotes a Dec. 10, 2002 Charleston Gazette article in which Kizer, then talking about running for governor in 2004, stated the allegations he made against Moore in 1990 were untrue. Kizer stressed he was entitled to state refunds that he received.

“But the damage had been done to Arch Moore 12 years earlier,” Crouser writes. “The egg had been broken and couldn’t be put back together again.”

If Kizer’s 1990 statements were false, why did Moore plead guilty on May 8 to five counts of extortion, mail fraud, filing false tax returns and obstruction of justice. In 1996, Moore was convicted of related civil charges.

Quite a different portrait of Moore is presented in Governor Arch A. Moore Jr.: Corruption with a Capitol C,: a chapter in Allen H. Loughry’s recently published “Don’t Buy Another Vote, I Won’t Pay for a Landslide.”

Loughry notes, quoting newspaper accounts, that the federal government was preparing to bring a 16-count indictment against Moore in 1990, but has never released its 120-page summary of all the alleged crimes.

Moore also never revealed who gave him $200,000 in cash earlier, something that came to public attention during his 1976 trial. Moore was acquitted of all those charges.

Moore has also never revealed whether he still holds 900 shares of Exxon stock he took from the estate of a deceased recluse.

Crouser writes relatively little about Moore’s life after he left the governor’s office in 1989 and returned to private life.

He notes Moore is “very frugal” today, although he is “wealthy by any standard (he is a major stockholder of BB&T).”

Many other political figures come in for strong criticism throughout the book, including Sens. Robert C. Byrd and Jay Rockefeller, both D-W.Va., both of whom declined Crouser’s requests for interviews.

Unfair treatment by media?

Crouser saves particularly harsh words for reporters and newspapers, particularly the Gazette’s late Publisher Ned Chilton and Editor Don Marsh, as well as current Editor James A. Haught.

“Moore was not getting a fair shake from those who filtered his message to the people he served,” Crouser writes.

“Arch” will interest anyone who loves political history and West Virginia history. But the dense details sometimes make the book difficult to read.

The book also has neither a table of contents nor an index — two critical aids to any reader.

Crouser previously wrote “What’s My Excuse for Not Being a Christian: 12 Myths of Christianity,” published by Woodland Gospel Publishing House.

To contact staff writer Paul J. Nyden, use e-mail or call 348-5164.

Arch:

The Life of Gov. Arch A. Moore Jr.

By Brad Crouser. Chapmanville, W.Va.: Woodland Press. 2006. 672 pages. Hardback, $34.95.

Gov. Arch A. Moore Jr. and his biographer Brad Crouser will be at Taylor Books from 1 to 3 p.m. July 29.