NEW ORLEANS, LA., April 19, 1917.
EDITOR _Daily States_.
_Dear Sir_:--Recently your paper published a very interesting
account of many governors of Louisiana at one time being in the
Cosmopolitan Hotel, but in giving the names of the ex-governors
you omitted three, William P. Kellogg, P. B. S. Pinchback and
General Joseph R. Brooke.
Kellogg while never elected was inaugurated in January, 1873, and
served a full term of four years, having been upheld in office by
President Grant.
Pinchback, who was elected President of the Senate when Oscar J.
Dunn, elected lieutenant governor, died, in 1868, became acting
governor on December 10, 1872, when Governor H. C. Warmoth was
impeached and served until the inauguration of Kellogg, January
13, 1873.
There are now on the statute books ten laws passed at this extra
session and which bear the approval of Pinchback; they will be
found bound with the Acts of 1873, pages 37 to 50.
Pinchback's title as acting governor was upheld by the Supreme
Court of Louisiana, in the case of Morgan vs. Kennard, decided in
March, 1873, and reported in the 25th An. Reports, page 238,
which was a contest over the office of Justice of the Supreme
Court between John Kennard, appointed by Warmoth, and P. H.
Morgan, appointed by Pinchback, and the judgment was affirmed by
the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Kennard vs.
Morgan, reported in 92d U. S. 480. The opinion was rendered by
Chief Justice Ludeling and concurred in by Justices Taliaferro
and Howell, and Justice Wyly dissented. The case was tried in the
Superior District Court before Judge Jacob Hawkins who decided in
favor of Morgan and this judgment was affirmed by the Supreme
Court.
Judge Kennard was appointed to the Court on December 3, 1872,
vice W. W. Howe resigned; Morgan was appointed on January 4,
1873, and at the end of the litigation took his seat as a member
of the Court on February 1st, serving until the Manning Court
went into office on January 9, 1877.
After the eventful fourteenth of September, 1874, when General
Emory took charge, he appointed Colonel (now Brigadier General
retired) Joseph R. Brooke, military governor of Louisiana, but he
only served one day, because President Grant disapproved of the
appointment and ordered General Emory to reinstate Governor
Kellogg.