This volume presents a record of the Ford administration. From among the many public speeches delivered by Wendell Ford during the three years he served as Governor, W. Landis Jones has chosen a representative sample that reflects the wide-ranging concerns of the Ford administration. Arranged topically, the volume covers subjects from government reorganization and party politics to health and welfare, education, highways, and energy and environment.

This selection does not include executive orders or proclamations, since they are part of the preserved public record. The cross section...

Edward Thompson Breathitt Jr. served as governor of Kentucky from December 12, 1967. The Breathitt administration was notable for its close ties with the national administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson and with Johnson's Great Society programs. Governor Breathitt led successful campaigns for economic and industrial development, civil rights legislation, increased support for education, and expansion and improvement of the state highway and park systems. His most significant defeat was the rejection in 1966 of a new state constitution. His administration won several national awards,...

This volume preserves the public papers and letters from the five-year period when Lawrence W. Wetherby was governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Relatively little of this material has been available heretofore to the general public. And its inaccessibility may explain why the Wetherby administration has yet to be fully appreciated even by historians and political scientists.

The years 1950 through 1955 offered problems and opportunities that made being governor both a challenge and a joy. It was a period of economic growth fostered by the artificial stimulus of the Korean War,...

During the period from 1931 to 1967 -- thirty-six years -- Kentuckians elected only one Republican as governor of the Commonwealth. Yet that man, a former justice of the state's highest court, seldom appears as other than a footnote in the standard histories. That is unfortunate, for Simeon Willis of Ashland made a fine record as governor, assuming the office during World War II and leaving it strengthened in a postwar world.

In this new volume in the Public Papers of the Governors of Kentucky series, editor James C. Klotter has assembled 173 documents and public statements, so that...

This volume presents the important speeches and correspondence of Governor Martha Layne Collins, the only woman to be elected governor of Kentucky. Papers from state archives chronicle the agenda and rhetoric that Collins, a former schoolteacher, used to accomplish her intertwined goals of education reform and economic development. Also included are Collins's letters to automobile makers urging them to consider Kentucky as a manufacturing site and her triumphant announcement that Toyota had selected Georgetown, Kentucky for its North American plant. An introductory essay by Elizabeth Duffy...

In his inaugural address, Governor Brereton C. Jones proclaimed, "This administration is committed to having the most positive, progressive, exciting four years in our state's history."

Through speeches and press releases, this volume reflects the principal concerns of Jones's time in office. Thematically organized, the more than two hundred public statements included here present the public face of the Jones administration on such issues as health care, education, economic development, the environment, and governmental reform. Nowhere else has the full text of these speeches and...