William J. Fields

Who was William J. Fields?

William Jason Fields was a politician from the U.S. state of Kentucky. Known as "Honest Bill from Olive Hill", he represented Kentucky's Ninth District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1911 to 1923, resigning to become the state's 41st governor.

Discouraged by an early defeat for a seat in the state legislature, Fields took a job at a grocery store in Ashland, Kentucky that allowed him to travel the state and meet many people in his congressional district. In 1911, he became the first Democrat elected to Congress from the Ninth District in two decades. Elected to seven consecutive terms, he rose to become the ranking member of the House Committee on Military Affairs during World War I. When Democratic gubernatorial nominee J. Campbell Cantrill died unexpectedly two months before the general election, the Democratic Central Committee chose Fields to replace Cantrill as the nominee. In a campaign that featured more name-calling than substantial debate, Fields secured the backing of the powerful Jockey Club political alliance and won a landslide victory over Republican Attorney General Charles I. Dawson.

The first legislative session of Fields' term was marked by infighting within his own party. His agenda was opposed by a Democratic faction led by former governor J. C. W. Beckham, Louisville Courier-Journal publisher Robert Worth Bingham, and political boss Percy Haly. Fields' signature issue, a $75 million bond issue to construct a state highway system, passed the legislature in 1924, but the electorate refused to approve it in November of that year. Among Fields' accomplishments as governor were an increase in the gasoline tax to help fund his highway program, a reorganization of the state's government bureaucracy, and the preservation of Cumberland Falls from industrial development. He never united the factions of his party, however. His political enemies charged him with nepotism and abusing his pardon power, and the Democrats lost the governorship in 1927 to Republican Flem D. Sampson. Following his service as governor, Fields failed in an attempt to return to his former congressional seat. He was appointed to the State Workman's Compensation Board by Governor A. B. "Happy" Chandler, and after his retirement from public service, he practiced law and worked as a real estate agent until his death on October 21, 1954.