Sherry Chandler » John Ed Pearce (1917-2006)
John Ed Pearce (1917-2006)
Al Smith has written a nice tribute to John Ed Pearce, Man of “music and mysteries”, in the Courier-Journal today. It reads, in part:
Naturally, [Happy] Chandler was rankled by Pearce’s friendship with Edward F. Prichard Jr., the Harvard-educated lawyer from Bourbon County, a disciple of Franklin D. Roosevelt and of Earle Clements, the legendary counselor to Combs and Breathitt after his own ambitions collapsed in an election scandal. Prichard and Pearce shared a belief that this country was saved in the Depression by FDR’s expansive use of government. Chandler, who boasted he was “allergic” to public debt, was sufficiently conservative to earn Prichard’s quip that he was “the leader of the Republican wing of the Kentucky Democratic Party.”
An article by Pearce in The Courier-Journal Magazine about Prichard’s struggle to recover from a prison sentence for stuffing a ballot box in 1948 paved the way for Prichard’s late-life recognition as an influential voice for progressive government and improvement of the public schools.
And from the Lexington Herald-Leader:
Mr. Pearce was considered the key writer in a campaign The Courier-Journal mounted against strip mining. The newspaper won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 1967.
…
Mr. Pearce not only wrote about Kentucky politics, he participated in them.
While an editorial writer for The Courier-Journal, he wrote speeches for Bert Combs’ 1959 gubernatorial campaign without objection from Barry Bingham Sr.
Combs’ political foe, A.B. “Happy” Chandler, talked about how Mr. Pearce would write a speech for Combs, then write an editorial praising the speech.
“It’s the best double-play in politics — Pearce to Combs to Pearce,” Chandler would say, chuckling.
But Mr. Pearce said his work for Combs did not keep him from criticizing the politician in The Courier-Journal.
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