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North Carolina's Governors
W. W. Kitchin was the sole Democrat elected to either house of the Congress from North Carolina in the 1896 election. In Congress Kitchin defended white supremacy and suffrage amendments but took a progressive stance toward other issues, advocating direct election of senators, regulation of business, and an income tax. In the 1908 race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, U.S. Senator Furnifold Simmons and ex-governor Charles B. Aycock backed Locke Craig. Kitchin triumphed on the sixty-first ballot, but only after an informal agreement was reached that Craig would be the nominee four years later. Campaigning largely on an antitrust platform and as the "people's choice," the liberal Kitchin soundly defeated Republican J. Elwood Cox. Voices were raised warning of the radical nature of Kitchin's positions, some calling him a socialist. As governor Kitchin increased expenditures for education, public health, the mentally handicapped, and drainage of swamp lands. He backed legislation to strengthen antitrust laws, require better sanitation and set a ten-hour workday in factories, prohibit work by children under the age of thirteen, and license foreign corporations which did business in the state. In 1912 four influential Democrats competed for the nomination for the U.S. Senate. Incumbent Simmons withstood challenges from Governor Kitchin, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Walter Clark, and Aycock. Kitchin returned to the practice of law. In 1919 a stroke forced him into retirement and he returned to Scotland Neck where he died in November 1924, and was buried in the Baptist Cemetery.
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Member of a Halifax County family prominent in North Carolina politics for three generations, William Walton Kitchin (1866-1924) focused the state's attention on economic reform. Born near Scotland Neck, Kitchin was educated at Vine Hill Academy and the University of North Carolina and Wake Forest College. His brother Claude served in the U.S. House from 1901 to 1923, and rose to majority leader. 
