budget, presiding over the Legislative Research Commission, leading tours for the state Chamber of Commerce, and attending the Southern Governors Conference. Clements also made Wetherby executive secretary of the State Democratic Central Committee, which allowed Wetherby to make many important political contacts. Governor of Kentucky On November 27, 1950, Clements resigned to accept a seat in the U.S. Senate, elevating Wetherby to governor. One of his first actions was to call a special legislative session to convene on March 6, 1951 for the purpose of allocating the state's $10 million budget surplus. Among the expenditures approved in the special session were increases in teachers' salaries and state benefits for the needy and government employees. Wetherby's popularity soared as a result of this session, and he seriously considered running for the Senate seat vacated by the death of Virgil Chapman in 1951. Instead, after talking with Clements and other Democratic leaders, he decided to seek a full, four-year term as governor. Election of 1951 Among the potential candidates for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1951 was former governor A. B. "Happy" Chandler, who was about to be released as baseball commissioner. Chandler and Clements were bitter political enemies, and the possibility of a Chandler candidacy provided the Clements faction of the Democratic party with the impetus to unite behind Wetherby to prevent Chandler from gaining the nomination. Ultimately, Chandler did not seek the nomination and, despite implying that Clements controlled Wetherby, Chandler endorsed Wetherby on May 15, 1951. Wetherby had little trouble defeating Howell Vincent and Jesse Cecil in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, polling the largest majority ever in a Kentucky primary race. In the general election, Wetherby faced Republican Court of Appeals judge Eugene Siler. Siler was a fundamentalist Christian who claimed that the state government was full of corruption, and only he could stop it. Citing the gambling in Northern Kentucky, bribery accusations against members of Clements' and Wetherby's administrations, and a 1951 scandal involving the University of Kentucky men's basketball team, he referred to Frankfort as "our Nineveh on the Kentucky River". Wetherby countered Siler's accusations of corruption by removing one of the officials accused of bribery from office. He deployed the newly organized Kentucky State Police to counter organized crime in Campbell and Henderson counties. To further discourage crime, he supported legislation to revoke the alcohol licenses of establishments that allowed gambling. Siler's pro-temperance and anti-Catholic views