Edwin P. Morrow
Edwin Porch Morrow 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 equal rights for African-Americans and the use of force to quell violence. Morrow was a member of the Kentucky Republican Party.
About Edwin P. Morrow in brief
Edwin Porch Morrow 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 equal rights for African-Americans and the use of force to quell violence. He died of a heart attack on June 15, 1935, while living with a cousin in Frankfort. His father was one of the founders of the Republican Party in Kentucky and an unsuccessful candidate for governor in 1883. His mother was a sister to William O’Connell Bradley, who was elected the first Republican governor of Kentucky in 1895. Morrow’s great-grandfather Thomas Morrow emigrated to America from Scotland before the Revolutionary War. He served in the Spanish–American War and graduated from the University of Cincinnati Law School in 1902. He married Katherine Hale on June 18, 1903, who he married on July 18, 1904. He had eight children, including two sons and a daughter. Morrow was a member of the Kentucky Republican Party and served as a U.S. District Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky between 1910 and 1913. In 1915, he ran for governor against his good friend, Augustus O. Stanley, and won the election by 471 votes. He ran on a progressive platform that included women’s suffrage and quelling racial violence. In 1920, he passed much of his agenda into law including an anti-lynching law and a reorganization of state government. He won national acclaim for preventing the lynching of a black prisoner in 1920.
Morrow never again held elected office. He is survived by his wife, Katherine Hale Morrow, and his daughter, Katherine Waddle Morrow, who died on June 14, 2003. He also had a son, Edwin Morrow, Jr., who was born in 1877 and grew up in Somerset, Kentucky. Morrow died in Frankford, Kentucky, on November 28, 1935. He leaves behind a wife and four children. He never served in active duty in the war and died in his sleep on June 16, 1939, at the age of 83. He has been credited with saving the life of a young black man, William Moseby, who had been charged with murder based on an extorted confession and perjured testimony. He made a name for himself almost immediately by securing the acquittal of his client based on a false confession and extorted testimony. His first trial had ended in a hung jury, but because the evidence against him included a confession, most observers believed he would be convicted in his second trial. Morrow showed that other testimony against his client was false, and the judge in the case turned to the defense for a second trial, which turned out to be a success. Morrow had been schooled in his party’s principles by his father, Thomas Z. Morrow, and his uncle, William O. Bradley. He graduated with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1902, and opened his practice in Lexington. In 1900, he matriculated for the fall semester at the University Mary’s College near Lebanon, Kentucky and distinguished himself in the debating society.
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This page is based on the article Edwin P. Morrow published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
