Short of the Glory: The Fall and Redemption of Edward F. Prichard Jr.

Short of the Glory: The Fall and Redemption of Edward F. Prichard Jr.

by Tracy Campbell
Short of the Glory: The Fall and Redemption of Edward F. Prichard Jr.

Short of the Glory: The Fall and Redemption of Edward F. Prichard Jr.

by Tracy Campbell

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Overview

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. thought that he might one day become president. He was a protege of Felix Frankfurter and Fred Vinson—a political prodigy who held a series of important posts in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations. Whatever became of Edward F. Prichard, Jr., so young and brilliant and seemingly destined for glory?

Prichard was a complex man, and his story is tragically ironic. The boy from Bourbon County, Kentucky, graduated at the top of his Princeton class and cut a wide swath at Harvard Law School. He went on to clerk in the U.S. Supreme Court and become an important figure in Roosevelt's Brain Trust. Yet Prichard—known for his dazzling wit and photographic memory—fell victim to the hubris that had helped to make him great.

In 1948, he was indicted for stuffing 254 votes in a U.S. Senate race. J. Edgar Hoover, never a fan of the young genius, made sure he was prosecuted, and so many of the members of the Supreme Court were Prichard's friends that not enough justices were left to hear his appeal. So the man Roosevelt's advisors had called the boy wonder of the New Deal went to jail.

Prichard's meteoric rise and fall is essentially a Greek tragedy set on the stage of American politics. Pardoned by President Truman, Prichard spent the next twenty-five years working his way out of political exile. Gradually he became a trusted advisor to governors and legislators, though without recognition or compensation. Finally, in the 1970s and 1980s, Prichard emerged as his home state's most persuasive and eloquent voice for education reform, finally regaining the respect he had thrown away in his arrogant youth.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780813128191
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Publication date: 09/12/2010
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 360
Sales rank: 784,082
File size: 2 MB
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Tracy Campbell is professor of history and co-director of the Wendell H. Ford Public Policy Research Center at the University of Kentucky. His numerous books include Short of the Glory: The Fall and Redemption of Edward F. Prichard Jr.; Deliver the Vote: A History of Election Fraud, an American Political Tradition, 1742−2004; and The Gateway Arch: A Biography.

What People are Saying About This

Katherine Graham

An astonishing story of a gifted but flawed individual who overcame a great personal tragedy to lead a productive and successful life. . . . Will appeal to all who are interested in the brilliant men who helped chart the country's course earlier in this century.

Arthur Schelesinger Jr.

A rich American story. With objectivity and insight, Tracy Campbell recounts the dramatic life of perhaps the most brilliant man of my generation.

James C. Klotter

A biography of Edward prichard harkens back to why we read history at all. Prichard's story teaches us not only about Kentucky and America, but about the human condition, about cowardice and courage, and about ourselves as a people and as individuals.

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