page_title: Edwin P. Morrow
section_title: Governor of Kentucky
hierarchical_section_title: Edwin P. Morrow / Political career / Governor of Kentucky
caption_attribution_description: English: A mob gathered outside a Lexington, Kentucky courthouse during the trial of Will Lockett in 1920
context_page_description: Edwin Porch Morrow was an American politician, who served as the 40th Governor of Kentucky from 1919 to 1923. He was the only Republican elected to this office between 1907 and 1927. He championed the typical Republican causes of his day, namely equal rights for African-Americans and the use of force to quell violence. Morrow had been schooled in his party's principles by his father, Thomas Z. Morrow, who was its candidate for governor in 1883, and his uncle, William O. Bradley, who was elected governor in 1895. Both men were founding members of the Republican Party in Kentucky.
  After rendering non-combat service in the Spanish–American War, Morrow graduated from the University of Cincinnati Law School in 1902 and opened his practice in Lexington, Kentucky. He made a name for himself almost immediately by securing the acquittal of a black man who had been charged with murder based on an extorted confession and perjured testimony. He was appointed U.S. District Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky by President William Howard Taft in 1910 and served until he was removed from office in 1913 by President Woodrow Wilson.
context_section_description: Morrow served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1916, 1920, and 1928. In 1919, he was chosen by acclamation as his party's candidate for governor. This time, his opponent was James D. Black. Black was Stanley's lieutenant governor and had ascended to the governorship in May 1919 when Stanley resigned to take a seat in the U.S. Senate.
  Morrow encouraged the state's voters to "Right the Wrong of 1915". He again ran on a progressive platform, advocating an amendment to the state constitution to grant women's suffrage. His support was not as strong for a prohibition amendment. He attacked the Stanley–Black administration as corrupt. Days before the election, he exposed a contract awarded by the state Board of Control to a non-existent company. Historian Lowell H. Harrison argued that Black's refusal to remove the members of the board following this revelation probably sealed his defeat. Morrow won the general election by more than 40,000 votes. It was the largest margin of victory for a Republican gubernatorial candidate in the state's history.
  On January 6, 1920, Governor Morrow signed the bill ratifying the Nineteenth Amendment, making Kentucky the 23rd state to ratify it, and the moment is captured in a photograph with members of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association.  During the 1920 legislative session, the Republicans held a majority in the state House of Representatives and were a minority by only two votes in the state Senate. During the session, Morrow was often able to convince C. W. Burton, a Democratic senator from Grant County, to support Republican proposals. Tie votes in the Senate were broken by Republican lieutenant governor S. Thruston Ballard. Consequently, Morrow was able to effect a considerable reorganization of the state government, including replacing the Board of Control with a nonpartisan Board of Charities and Corrections, centralizing highway works, and revising property taxes. He oversaw improvements to the education system, including better textbook selection and a tax on racetracks to support a minimum salary for teachers. Among Morrow's reforms that did not pass was a proposal to make the judiciary nonpartisan.
  Morrow urged enforcement of state laws against carrying concealed weapons and restricted activities of the Ku Klux Klan. During his first year in office, he granted only 100 pardons. This was a considerable decrease from the number granted by his immediate predecessors. During their first years in office, J. C. W. Beckham granted 350 pardons, James B. McCreary (during his second stint as governor) granted 139, and Augustus O. Stanley granted 257. He was also an active member of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, a society for the elimination of racial violence in the South.
  On February 9, 1920, Morrow dispatched the Kentucky National Guard to Lexington to protect Will Lockett, a black World War I veteran on trial for murder. Morrow told the state adjutant general "Do as much as you have to do to keep that negro in the hands of the law. If he falls into the hands of the mob I do not expect to see you alive." Lockett had already confessed, without the benefit of a lawyer, to the murder. His trial took only thirty minutes as he pleaded guilty but asked for a life sentence instead of death. Despite his plea, he was sentenced to die in the electric chair.
  A crowd of several thousand gathered outside the courthouse while Lockett's trial was underway. A cameraman asked a large group of those gathered to shake their fists and yell so he could get a picture. The rest of the crowd mistakenly believed they were storming the courthouse and rushed forward. In the ensuing skirmish, one policeman was injured so badly that his arm later had to be amputated. The National Guard opened fire, killing six people and wounding approximately fifty. Some members of the mob looted nearby stores in search of weapons to retaliate, but reinforcements arrived from a nearby army post by mid-afternoon. Martial law was declared, and no further violence was perpetrated. A month later, Locket
caption: A mob gathered outside the courthouse during the trial of Will Lockett in 1920.
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