Edward L. Jackson (27 December 1873-18 November 1954) was the Republican Governor of Indiana from 12 January 1925 to 14 January 1929, succeeding Emmett Forest Branch and preceding Harry G. Leslie.
Biography[]
Edward L. Jackson was born in Howard County, Indiana in 1873, and he became a lawyer in Kennard in 1893. He served as county prosecutor from 1901 to 1906, as a circuit court judge from 1907 to 1914, as Secretary of State from 1916 to 1917, as a US Army captain in Ohio during World War I, as a lawyer in Lafayette, as Secretary of State from 1920 to 1924, and as Governor from 1925 to 1929. Jackson was a supporter of the Klan, with D.C. Stephenson approaching him for help with eliminating the influence of Catholics, Jews, and non-whites in state politics; nearly a third of the men in the state and half of the General Assembly were Klansmen during the 1920s. Jackson ranted the Klan a state charter, but he later gave a speech endorsing full civil and religious liberty for Jews, Catholics, and Blacks, causing the Klan to refrain from endorsing his candidacy. He supported stronger prohibition as Governor, and he refused to pardon Stephenson after his 1925 rape conviction. He left office disgraced due to the Klan revealing his attempt to bribe previous governor Warren T. McCray to fill several public offices with Klan members, and he resumed his law practice in Indianapolis before becoming a farmer in Orleans. He died in 1954.