Desha Breckinridge

August 5, 1867 (age 67)

Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky, United States

After receiving his law degree from the University of Virginia, in 1893 Breckinridge was admitted to the Kentucky bar. Until 1900 he was a junior member in the Lexington law firm of Breckinridge & Shelby, of which his father was senior partner. The presidential campaign of 1896 inspired the father to write a widely noticed editorial in opposition to William J. Bryan for the Democratic Lexington Morning Herald. This brought the father back into journalism in 1897 as the struggling Herald's editorial writer. Now intensely interested in newspaper work, Desha in the same year became at the age of twenty-one publisher of the Herald. His management was based on a lease at first but was made permanent later through purchase, in part with borrowed funds. On his father's death in 1904, he took over as well the editorship and held both posts until his own death thirty-one years later. The only interruption in his journalistic career came during the Spanish-American War when he was commissioned a lieutenant in the 3rd Volunteer Engineers to serve his uncle, Major-General J. C. Breckinridge, as aide de camp. He was quick to support the unpopular or little known cause and more than once an editorial position, fearlessly taken, cost him circulation or advertising. The problems of his beloved Blue Grass region were a special concern. Horse-racing appeared doomed through its own excesses when Breckinridge in 1906 organized in his office a movement which resulted in the creation of Kentucky's racing commission and the legalization and control of the much criticized sport. The Kentucky statute at once became the model for similar state regulatory measures, as did Kentucky's parimutuel betting law, which Breckinridge subsequently promoted. He was a partner with Jouett Shouse in the Braedalbane stable and several times sought to win the Kentucky Derby. Annually he issued a special edition of the Herald for his fellow horsemen. By gubernatorial appointment he represented Kentucky at a conference of eight to consider means of easing the tax load on tobacco. Briefly deputy internal-revenue collector before the Spanish-American War, he never again held public office. He twice put aside opportunities to become governor for the reason that the office was legally too restricted; his answer was to campaign in the Herald for modernizing the state constitution. He also rejected the chairmanship of the state racing commission. Beginning in 1920, he attended four national Democratic conventions and in 1932 was delegate-at-large from Kentucky. Governor Ruby Laffoon appointed him to the state planning board, and, with the coming of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, he served on the National Recovery Administration code committee for the American Newspaper Publishers' Association. He suffered from cancer in his last years and on September 22, 1934, was stricken with paralysis in New York City. Unable to resume his publishing duties, he died five months later in his sixty-eighth year at his home, "Hinata, " at the edge of Lexington, and was buried in the Lexington cemetery. He had no descendants.

Desha Breckinridge

Edit Profile

editor horseman publisher

Background

Desha Breckinridge was born on August 5, 1867 in Lexington, Kentucky, the son of William C. P. Breckinridge, grandson of Robert J. Breckinridge, and great-grandson of John Breckinridge, attorney-general under Jefferson, who emigrated from Virginia to Kentucky in 1792. His mother was Issa Desha, granddaughter of Joseph Desha, governor of Kentucky from 1824 to 1828, and second of his father's three wives. Desha was the fourth child and second son. When he was born his father, previously a Confederate soldier and lawyer and later member of Congress from the Blue Grass region, was editor of the Lexington Observer and Reporter.

Education

After tutoring with James Lane Allen, Breckinridge attended the Lawrenceville, New Jersey, preparatory school. He was graduated in 1889 from Princeton University, where he served on the editorial board of the Daily Princetonian. After that Breckinridge studied law at the University of Virginia.

Career

After receiving his law degree from the University of Virginia, in 1893 Breckinridge was admitted to the Kentucky bar. Until 1900 he was a junior member in the Lexington law firm of Breckinridge & Shelby, of which his father was senior partner. The presidential campaign of 1896 inspired the father to write a widely noticed editorial in opposition to William J. Bryan for the Democratic Lexington Morning Herald. This brought the father back into journalism in 1897 as the struggling Herald's editorial writer.

Now intensely interested in newspaper work, Desha in the same year became at the age of twenty-one publisher of the Herald. His management was based on a lease at first but was made permanent later through purchase, in part with borrowed funds.

On his father's death in 1904, he took over as well the editorship and held both posts until his own death thirty-one years later. The only interruption in his journalistic career came during the Spanish-American War when he was commissioned a lieutenant in the 3rd Volunteer Engineers to serve his uncle, Major-General J. C. Breckinridge, as aide de camp.

He was quick to support the unpopular or little known cause and more than once an editorial position, fearlessly taken, cost him circulation or advertising.

The problems of his beloved Blue Grass region were a special concern. Horse-racing appeared doomed through its own excesses when Breckinridge in 1906 organized in his office a movement which resulted in the creation of Kentucky's racing commission and the legalization and control of the much criticized sport.

The Kentucky statute at once became the model for similar state regulatory measures, as did Kentucky's parimutuel betting law, which Breckinridge subsequently promoted. He was a partner with Jouett Shouse in the Braedalbane stable and several times sought to win the Kentucky Derby. Annually he issued a special edition of the Herald for his fellow horsemen.

By gubernatorial appointment he represented Kentucky at a conference of eight to consider means of easing the tax load on tobacco.

Briefly deputy internal-revenue collector before the Spanish-American War, he never again held public office. He twice put aside opportunities to become governor for the reason that the office was legally too restricted; his answer was to campaign in the Herald for modernizing the state constitution. He also rejected the chairmanship of the state racing commission. Beginning in 1920, he attended four national Democratic conventions and in 1932 was delegate-at-large from Kentucky.

Governor Ruby Laffoon appointed him to the state planning board, and, with the coming of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, he served on the National Recovery Administration code committee for the American Newspaper Publishers' Association.

He suffered from cancer in his last years and on September 22, 1934, was stricken with paralysis in New York City. Unable to resume his publishing duties, he died five months later in his sixty-eighth year at his home, "Hinata, " at the edge of Lexington, and was buried in the Lexington cemetery. He had no descendants.

Achievements

Desha Breckinridge has been listed as a noteworthy newspaper man by Marquis Who's Who.

Views

Breckinridge conceived his responsibility as an editor to embrace local, state, national, and foreign issues and he discussed them all, invariably in the journalistic vanguard. He worked as hard to get the child labor amendment ratified as he did to have the prohibition amendment repealed. He was a friend of Woodrow Wilson and supported his projects, especially the League of Nations.

Other major interests included education at all its levels, penal and institutional welfare, regulation of public utilities, public health, particularly with respect to tuberculosis, the city-manager plan of government for Lexington, preservation of Cumberland Falls, roadside beautification, and elimination of the South's freight-rate disadvantage.

Personality

A small man with a dignified manner which typified Blue Grass courtesy and hospitality, he carried out his father's precept that "a newspaper should be a gentleman. " But that gentleman was plain spoken and had a mission to perform.

Connections

Desha Breckinridge was married on November 17, 1898 to Madeline McDowell of Lexington. His first wife died November 25, 1920; his second wife, who survived him, was Mary Frazer of Harrison County, Kentucky, at the time of her marriage to Breckinridge, in July 1929, the widow of Clarence Lebus.

Sister:: Mary Curry Desha Breckinridge
1st wife:: Madeline McDowell Breckinridge
Sister :: Issa Desha Breckinridge
Sister :: Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge
2nd wife:: Mary Frazer
mother :: Issa Desha Breckinridge
Partner:: Jouett Shouse
Brother :: Campbell Preston Breckinridge
Father :: William Campbell Preston Breckinridge
Friend:: Woodrow Wilson

Main Photo