The political shift in Colorado during the Roaring ’20s brought in more than just wine and song. Fraught with anti-social issues, rife with corruption and under complete control of the Ku Klux Klan, Colorado’s Gov. Clarence Morley surely misguided, eventually ended up at Leavenworth.
Morley was born in Dyersville, Iowa, on Feb. 9, 1869. He attended and graduated from the public schools of Cedar Falls, Iowa, before moving with his family at the age of 21 to Trinidad. In that first year of relocating to Trinidad in 1890, Morley gained a position clerking for the District Court. It would be the beginning of a long pursuit in law and politics that would eventually lead to Colorado’s highest office. After five years of work and on the job experience in the Colorado courts, Morley entered law school at Denver University, receiving his degree and passing the bar in 1899. Morley ran a successful private law practice for 19 years in Denver, and spent time serving on the Denver School Board.
Clarence Morley, Colorado’s 24th governor.
Morley entered politics officially in 1918, when he was elected District Judge of Denver, retaining that judicial position in the Second Judicial District until his gubernatorial victory in 1925. For four years, 1915 to 1919, Morley also served on the State Board of Pardons.
Morley’s political rise to power was unprecedented in Colorado politics. Taking advantage of weak leadership in the Republican Party, the Ku Klux Klan promoted Judge Morley as the party’s choice for governor in the 1924 election. Backed by an under-lying social sentiment of anti-minority, anti-foreign, anti-Jewish and anti-Catholic, which existed far and wide across America throughout the 1920s, Morley campaigned on these issues. The proponents of these beliefs were the members of the KKK, who fueled the public rhetoric and backed Morley. Sworn in as the 24th governor of the state of Colorado on Jan. 13, 1925, Morley’s administration was run entirely by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
According to a Nov. 6, 1924, Denver Post article, “Beyond any doubt the KKK is the largest and most cohesive, most efficiently organized political force in the state…”
To be sure, while Morley was indeed backed by the KKK, there were plenty of other politicos elected to office that year that were members of the KKK. The Klan’s stranglehold on political influence in large part put their own members into the offices of lieutenant governor, state auditor, attorney general and two senators. Gaining a majority in both the House and the Senate, the KKK also gained a seat on the state Supreme Court, and seven seats at the Denver District Court level. Under the leadership of the charismatic and persistent John Galen Locke, based in Denver, the Klan focused on creating one of the strongest political machines Colorado had ever seen. Included in that controlling machine was Denver Mayor Ben Stapleton. Locke’s KKK now seemed to be in control of the entire Colorado political system.
Morley passes out bran flakes during a publicity stunt. Photos courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection.
Morley’s term as governor was dismal at best. The leaders of both houses introduced Klan backed legislation to the tune of 1,080 bills during a session of 100 days. The radical speed of an average of 100 bills a day caused a rally among the minority party, led by future Gov. Billy Adams that successfully killed almost all Klan sponsored legislation in committee. Of those bills, 150 actually made it to Morley’s desk for signature.
While nearly all of his legislative attempts were a failure, two pieces of legislation signed into law by Morley were the beginning of the end of Morley’s career in politics. When legislation passed to develop a successful prison inmate labor program, the unintended consequences were catastrophic. By the language crafted in the law, Morley was forced to grant clemency to several dangerous inmates participating in the program. A bill the governor signed to strengthen prohibition laws, and his development of a special police force to do so, instantly made him unpopular with many Colorado citizens. Admonished for what many felt was excessive enforcement of the prohibition laws, Morley lost favor with Colorado voters.
With the force of the opposing party behind Billy Adams and others, and the increasing disfavor among Coloradans, the power that Morley and the Klan held for two short years, dissipated. The inability to forge legislation and internal politics doomed the Klan as well.
As for Morley, sensing the writing on the wall, he did not seek reelection and made a hasty exist from the state when his term ended. Moving to Indianapolis, Ind., he set up his own brokerage firm, C. J. Morley & Company. Evidently, as things would turn out, Morley wasn’t exactly running an honest business in Indiana, and was run out of Indianapolis, as well. However, Denver is where he returned in 1930, and again practiced law.
Unbeknown to just about everybody and especially to Morley, the Feds were keeping a watchful eye on Morley, including his activities, associations and financial transactions. After a few years of secret surveillance and investigations, the Feds made their move in 1935. Morley was arrested in Denver with several accounts of mail fraud, both in Indiana and in Colorado. Morley and his Indiana investment firm were accused of knowingly sending false statements through the mail in a massive campaign to defraud their customers. The first trial, held in Denver in 1938, covered the Colorado mail fraud charges, of which Morley was found not guilty.
However, what sent him to the Federal Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kan., were the 21 federal indictments against Morley, stemming from 1928. The federal case against him also included the use and prestige of his past occupations in public office, and using that political influence to defraud his customers. Morley was found guilty on all 21 charges in Federal District Court in 1940, and sentenced to five years in prison. It was the end to a long political, and as it turned out, criminal, embarrassment in Colorado history.
In 1945, after serving his term in prison, Morley moved to Oklahoma City, resuming what life he had left. He died a broken man three years later on Nov. 15, 1948. He was 69 years old. His body was returned to Denver for final burial in Fairmount Cemetery, where there is a modest tombstone to his memory.
