Interviewing a ghostly governor
Kump Education Center invites you to our Ghost of a Good Guy Celebration at 3-5 p.m. Oct. 29 in the historic Kump House located at 401 South Randolph Avenue across from the Elkins Kroger. We hope you will enjoy Halloween candy, birthday cake, and apple cider along with a little ghostly and lively conversation and debate.
The event will feature an interview with the 140-year-old Gov. H. Guy Kump, who was born Oct. 31, 1877, in Hampshire County and departed this life Feb. 14, 1962, in his Elkins home. The idea of interviewing a ghost seems daunting if not haunting; however, in this age of fake news and Twitter, anything is possible.
As we seek information about historic Kump House and the family that lived there, we have found collections of letters and news clippings, as well as the governor’s official letters and speeches published in “State Papers and Public Addresses: H.G. Kump Nineteenth Governor of West Virginia March 4, 1933–January 18, 1937.” You may be sure that the words you hear from our ghost are consistent with written accounts of things Gov. Kump said while here below.
During his campaign, H.G. Kump promised to “clean house,” and get rid of unnecessary waste at the State House. He took office in March 1933 and by September he had taken many cost-cutting measures, including the removal of officials who refused to take salary cuts and those who would not join in essential government reforms designed to combat the Great Depression.
“By executive power, I have removed all of the chief malefactors,” he was quoted in The Charleston Daily Mail article “Kump Declares his Pledge to Clean House Has Been Fulfilled,” (Sept. 3, 1933), which offers a good example of the rapid pace of the Kump administration reforms.
The interviewer wrote, “He [Kump] discussed the state’s finances asserting that government costs have been reduced from 25 to 40 percent since he took office six months ago. He discussed the county school unit law, the new road law, and several other legislative acts, which he believes are succeeding.”
In that interview, Kump said, “We must not lose our sense of proportion in the face of the hungry people, unemployment and the loss of homes and farms for government debts which the owners cannot pay. The preservation of our free institutions must have first consideration.”