Book Review

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Book Review | The Journal of American History, 86.3 | The History Cooperative

Short of the Glory: The Fall and Redemption of Edward F. Prichard Jr. By Tracy Campbell. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998. x, 334 pp. $27.50, isbn 0-8131-2073-X.)

Edward F. Prichard has become something of a New Deal legend. The brilliant young man from Kentucky who dazzled Supreme Court justices, held friends enthralled with his conversation, and seemed to have a limitless future in national politics fell from grace when he was convicted of stuffing ballot boxes in the 1948 election. The rest of his life until his death in 1984 was a search for redemption from his youthful crime. Had it not been for that mistake, his friends believe, the articulate and savvy Prichard might have played a large role in national Democratic politics. 1

In this fascinating and well-researched biography, Tracy Campbell confirms some aspects of the Prichard story. The Kentucky prodigy was a dazzling student at Princeton and Harvard Law School. Prize-winning essays, service on the Harvard Law Review, and a close friendship with Felix Frankfurter marked Prichard's academic career. Frankfurter said of the portly Prichard that he was "incredible in every respect—science, size, appetite, brains, eloquence." But Campbell's careful study shows that a less attractive side to Prichard resided behind all the glitter and glitz of his public persona. He manipulated student elections, read other people's mail, and acted as if the ethical rules that applied to others were not for him. As one of his friends put it, he preferred "to maneuver rather than to operate." . . .

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