Fuller Warren - Term As Governor

Term As Governor

Warren's platform included promises to fight racism in Florida. Warren won the election and assumed the office of governor on January 4, 1949. After his election, he spoke out against the Klan, stating after a rally in January 1949 that

"The hooded hoodlums and sheeted jerks who paraded the streets of Tallahassee last night made a disgusting and alarming spectacle. These covered cowards who call themselves Klansmen quite obviously have set out to terrorize minority groups in Florida as they have in a near-by state."

It was revealed in March of 1949 that Warren himself had been a member of the Klan. He issued a statement saying that he had been a member before he had "helped to fight a war to destroy the Nazis — first cousins to Klansmen."

During his term, he set the foundations for the state's turnpike system, began the Florida reforestation program, quality control programs on Florida's citrus crops were instituted and new laws were established that forbade cattle to wander freely. Warren signed an anti-Klan law in 1951 which, although not mentioning the Klan specifically, forbade the wearing of masks in public or on the private property of another person without the written permission of the owner.

The hearings of the United States Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce, chaired by Senator Estes Kefauver, brought to light the involvement of Florida public officials in gambling-related corruption involving numbers games and bolita, as well as accusations that Warren's 1948 campaign had been funded by organized criminals. Warren refused to cooperate with the committee, claiming that to do so would contradict the principle of States' rights. In a letter to Senator Herbert O'Conor, in which Warren informed the committee that he would not appear before them, he stated: "I think state sovereignty as conceived by the founders of our Government is something more than a fading memory to rest in the nation's archives."

In 1951, a resolution to impeach Warren was introduced in the Florida House of Representatives for "wilfully ignoring" his duty to eliminate illegal gambling in Florida and for falsifying papers related to his 1948 campaign. The House voted to reject the articles of impeachment on May 28, 1951.