"Honest" Dick Tate
James William Tate was born the only child of
Nancy Taylor and her second husband, Colonel Thomas L. Tate in Franklin County.
His father was descended from a Virginia family of Scotch-Irish ancestry. His
father was a farmer and a veteran of the War of 1812, and his grandfather Tate
was a veteran of the Revolution. His grandfather Taylor was Reverend John
Taylor, a pioneer Baptist minister in Kentucky.
Tate received his education in Franklin and Woodford counties and finished his
schooling in 1848. Later that year, at age 17, Tate began work as a clerk at the
Frankfort post office. On June 3, 1856, he married Lucy Hawkins. On June 28,
1858, the couple had their first child, a son named Howard, who died at the age
of three. The couple also had a daughter, Edmonia.
Tate's political career began with an appointment by Governor Lazarus W. Powell
to the position of Assistant Secretary of State for the state of Kentucky in
1854. A model Democrat, he resigned the post when Know-Nothing Governor Charles
S. Morehead was elected in 1855. Four years later, he was appointed to the post
again under Democratic Governor Beriah Magoffin, and supported the Breckinridge
wing of Kentucky's Democratic party during the American Civil War. Though
Magoffin resigned in 1862 due to disagreements with the General Assembly, Tate
continued to serve under Magoffin's hand-picked successor, James F. Robinson,
resigning again at the end of Robinson's term in 1863.[4] From 1865–7, Tate
served as Assistant Clerk to the Kentucky House of Representatives. At the end
of his service in the house, Tate successfully ran for state treasurer, a post
to which he would be re-elected every two years for the next two decades.
In 1878, Tate was mentioned in the Biographical Encyclopedia of Kentucky. The
biographer gushed that in 1867, Tate had "materially contributed, by his
personal popularity, to the great success of the Democratic party" adding:
"Biennially, since that time, without opposition in his own party, he has been
successively re-elected by popular majorities, perhaps exceeding those obtained
by any other candidate for office in the State. From these evidences of
popularity, it would seem that his lease on the office might be regarded as a
fixed fact."
In the gubernatorial race of 1887, Republican challenger William O. Bradley made
an issue of the need to examine the treasury. Though Bradley ultimately lost the
race, the idea of auditing the treasurer's records took root, and the General
Assembly began calling for a commission to undertake the audit in the 1887–8
session. Tate claimed to need time to get his books in order; this effectively
delayed the establishment of the commission, but it was ultimately formed.
In the first quarter of 1888, Tate began a pattern of behavior that would have
aroused considerable suspicion in a man of lesser repute. He began depositing
only checks in the state's bank account, instead of cash, as was usual. In a
short period of time, he paid a number of personal debts. On March 14, 1888,
Henry Murray, one of Tate's clerks, noticed him filling two tobacco sacks with
gold and silver coins later determined to be worth about $100,000. He departed
for Louisville, leaving a note saying he would return in two days. Again, due to
the nature of his job and his perceived record of trustworthiness, nobody found
his actions questionable. After a week passed with no word from Tate, it became
clear what had happened. Records would later show that, after a few days in
Louisville, Tate boarded a train for Cincinnati, and then vanished, leaving his
wife and daughter behind.
During the investigation that followed, the state's ledger, which was almost
indecipherable, was found to show Tate giving some state officials loans that
were many times left unpaid and advances on their salaries, including an advance
of several thousand dollars to Governor Preston H. Leslie in 1872. Tate had
apparently used some of the state's money to make personal investments in mines
and real estate. Governor Simon B. Buckner announced that between his atrocious
bookkeeping, his embezzlement and his outright theft, Tate had misappropriated
$247,128.50 from the state's treasury.
Impeachment hearings followed in the House of Representatives, and the Senate
removed Tate from office, convicting him on four counts. A criminal indictment
followed. An 1895 case marked "Not to be officially reported" freed those
implicated in the scandal from any obligation to repay the state. "Tateism"
became synonymous with political corruption in the state, and Tate's crime was
frequently cited at the state's fourth constitutional convention in 1891. The
resulting constitution, which still governs the state today, forbade state
officials from holding more than one consecutive term in office.
Despite the General Assembly's offer of $5,000 for information leading to Tate's
arrest, he was never found. Though his family at first claimed that had heard
nothing from Tate and presumed he may have committed suicide, his daughter
eventually admitted that she had received at least four letters from her father
between April and December of 1888. The letters were postmarked from British
Columbia, Japan, China, and San Francisco. Another witness claimed to have seen
a letter to one of Tate's friends written in 1890 and postmarked from Brazil.
That was the last known communication from "Honest Dick" Tate. An article in The
New York Times, citing "friends who should know", claimed that Tate was believed
to have died in China in 1890.