Ex-Wonder Boy

In the steam-bath heat of the Lexington, Ky. federal courtroom last week, fat, whip-brained Edward Fretwell Prichard Jr. sat with his eyes closed and his hands clutching the arms of his chair. A distinguished witness, perhaps the most respected man in Bourbon County, was addressing the court.

On the night of Nov. 7, testified County Circuit Judge William B. Ardery, a young politician had come to his home in search of advice. The visitor said that he and two other young fellows had forged a batch of ballots and stuffed them into ballot boxes before the polls opened. The bogus ballots had been discovered (253 marked for President Truman and Democratic Senator Virgil Chapman, one for Chapman's Republican opponent). The judge's caller was worried.

The young politician, Judge Ardery told the expectant courtroom, was 34-year-old Ed Prichard, Princeton and Harvard Law School honor graduate, protege of Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, adviser of big shots like Fred Vinson and one of the New Deal's wonder boys.

Few men could discredit the testimony of Bourbon County's senior judge, and Ed Prichard did not even try. He refused to testify in his own defense.

The eleven men and one woman deliberated for three hours and 23 minutes, then brought in their verdict: Defendant Prichard was guilty of conspiracy to forge and vote illegal ballots; his law partner, also accused with him, was found not guilty. Judge H. Church Ford sentenced Ed Prichard to two years in federal penitentiary.

The real mystery was still not solved. Why should anyone bother to forge a piddling 254 ballots in overwhelmingly Democratic Bourbon County? Why should brilliant Ed Prichard, a man with a future, try to pull a clumsy fix that would give pause to the lowliest ward heeler?

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