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The Kentucky gubernatorial election of 1899 was held on November 7, 1899, to choose the 33rd governor of Kentucky. The incumbent, Republican William O'Connell Bradley, was term-limited and unable to seek re-election. After a contentious and chaotic nominating convention at the Music Hall in Louisville, the Democratic Party chose state Senator William Goebel as its nominee. A dissident faction of the party, styling themselves the "Honest Election Democrats", were angered by Goebel's political tactics at the Music Hall convention and later held their own nominating convention. They chose former governor John Y. Brown as their nominee. Republicans nominated state Attorney General William S. Taylor, although Governor Bradley favored another candidate and lent Taylor little support in the ensuing campaign. In the general election, Taylor won by a vote of 193,714 to 191,331. Brown garnered 12,040 votes, enough to have given Goebel the election had he kept the Democrats united. The election results were challenged on grounds of voter fraud, but surprisingly, the state Board of Elections, created by a law Goebel had sponsored and stocked with pro-Goebel commissioners, certified Taylor's victory. An incensed Democratic majority in the Kentucky General Assembly created a committee to investigate the charges of voter fraud, even as armed citizens from heavily Republican eastern Kentucky poured into the state capital under auspices of keeping Democrats from stealing the election. Before the investigative committee could report, Goebel was shot by an unknown assassin while entering the state capitol on January 30, 1900. As Goebel lay in a nearby hotel being treated for his wounds, the committee issued its report recommending that the General Assembly invalidate enough votes to give the election to Goebel. The report was accepted, Taylor was deposed, and Goebel was sworn into office on January 31. He died three days later on February 2. Lieutenant Governor J. C. W. Beckham ascended to the office of governor, and he and Taylor waged a protracted court battle over the governorship. Beckham won the case on appeal, and Taylor fled to Indiana to escape prosecution as an accomplice in Goebel's murder. A total of sixteen people were charged in connection with the assassination. Five went to trial; two of those were acquitted. Each of the remaining three were convicted in trials fraught with irregularities and were eventually pardoned by subsequent governors. The identity of Goebel's assassin remains a mystery. ==Background== In the 1895 gubernatorial election, Kentucky elected its first-ever Republican governor, William O. Bradley. Bradley was able to capitalize both on divisions within the Democratic Party over the issue of Free Silver and on the presence of a strong third-party candidate, Populist Thomas S. Pettit, to secure victory in the general election by just under 9,000 votes. This election marked the beginning of nearly thirty years of true, two-party competition in Kentucky politics.〔Harrison in ''A New History of Kentucky'', pp. 267–268〕 A powerful Democratic foe of Bradley had begun his rise to power in the Kentucky Senate. Kenton County's William Goebel became the leader of a new group of young Democrats who were seen as enemies of large corporations, particularly the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and friends of the working man. Goebel was known as aloof and calculating. Unmarried and with few close friends of either gender, he was singularly driven by political power.〔Harrison in ''A New History of Kentucky'', pp. 268–269〕 Goebel was chosen president pro tem of the Senate for the 1898 legislative session. On February 1, 1898, he sponsored a measure later called the Goebel Election Law.〔Kleber, "Goebel Election Law", p. 378〕 The law created a Board of Election Commissioners, appointed by the General Assembly, who were responsible for choosing election commissioners in all of Kentucky's counties and were empowered to decide disputed elections.〔 Because the General Assembly was heavily Democratic, the law was attacked as blatantly partisan and self-serving to Goebel; it was opposed even by some Democrats.〔Harrison in ''A New History of Kentucky'', p. 270〕 Nevertheless, Goebel was able to hold enough members of his party together to override Governor Bradley's veto, making the bill law.〔 As leader of the party, Goebel essentially hand-picked the members of the Election Commission.〔Hughes, p. 7〕 He chose three staunch Democrats—W. S. Pryor, former chief justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals; W. T. Ellis, former U. S. Representative from Daviess County; and C. B. Poyntz, former head of the state railroad commission.〔 Republicans organized a test case against the law, but the Court of Appeals found it constitutional.〔Hughes, p. 8〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kentucky gubernatorial election, 1899」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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