Background
William Walton Kitchin, the brother of Claude Kitchin, was born on October 09, 1866 near Scotland Neck, North Carolina, United States, the son of William Hodges and Maria F. (Arrington) Kitchin.
William Walton Kitchin, the brother of Claude Kitchin, was born on October 09, 1866 near Scotland Neck, North Carolina, United States, the son of William Hodges and Maria F. (Arrington) Kitchin.
Kitchin graduated with the Bachelor of Arts degree from Wake Forest Colleg in 1884.
Young William Kitchin had established himself as a lawyer in Roxboro by 1890, after brief periods of teaching and editing the Scotland Neck Democrat, and had become chairman of the county Democratic executive committee. By 1893, having been defeated the previous year for the state Senate, he was a legislator, interested in fiscal affairs, education, and charities. In 1896 came his first great success. Nominated for Congress as a forlorn hope, he met his Republican opponent in joint debate and had the distinction of being the only Democratic congressman elected in the state, in that year of rampant Populism and consequent Republican opportunity.
The grateful Democracy of the fifth district continuously reelected him until 1908. No particular distinction was derived from this service; his best assignments were to the committee on naval affairs and to that on manufactures; on the first he did good work, especially in 1901-1902. Twice, in 1902 and 1906, Kitchin had swung Democratic state conventions to continued support of W. J. Bryan and his platforms, which the "machine" wing of the party seemed inclined to abandon. Now, in 1908, he sought from the people the governorship on an anti-machine and anti-trust platform. Handsome, mellow-voiced, inclined to reason with his hearers, he impressed men as able, fearless, honest; and in the memorable June convention of that year he won, though the great leaders were against him. He started the governorship on January 12, 1909.
In 1912, resuming the contest of 1908, he entered the primary against Senator Furnifold M. Simmons, leader of the "machine" and protagonist of industrial and commercial development. Kitchin had not been sufficiently radical for some, however, while others thought him too radical; times were now good; the Simmons machine was working smoothly. Consequently he was overwhelmed, lost his bid for party leadership, and passed from public life.
For five years he practiced law in Raleigh; then, prematurely invalided, he retired to Scotland Neck, where he died. Looking back, men said that as a political speaker he was equaled in his generation only by Charles Brantley Aycock, and that he spoke for the economic needs of the common man as Aycock did for his education.
Kitchin was a member of the Democratic party. He recommended direct primaries as being fairer to poor men, strict regulation of corporations, strict obedience to the new prohibition law, experiments in drainage and careful study of the road problem before adopting comprehensive construction policies, progressive but cautious factory legislation, support of schools and charities, and a budget balanced by assessing property at its real value.
Kitchin married Musette (Satterfield) Kitchin on December 22, 1892, five children survived him.
