Immediately before falling ill, Mary Lily had added a codicil to her will, giving Bingham five million dollars outright (rather than the investment fund for him she had originally planned).

[14][15] While acknowledging these theories were at least plausible, more mainstream sources, from the Filson Club's respected quarterly publication to The New York Times, dismissed the allegations as impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

[16][17] Nevertheless, as Bingham inherited $5 million after her death, enabling him to purchase The Courier-Journal and The Louisville Times, which became critical in establishing his later national prominence, it made an attractive conspiracy theory.

In the 1920s Bingham used the paper to push for farm cooperatives, improve education and support of the rural poor, and to challenge the state's Democratic Party bosses.

Bingham himself was, earlier in his career, discouraged from running for mayor due to the likelihood of heavy opposition from the likes of Democratic party boss John Whallen, and had bitterly described the unfairness of machine tactics he witnessed used against other candidates.

A strong financial backer of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bingham was awarded the ambassadorship to Great Britain in 1933, and took up his post in May.

[19] As ambassador, Bingham pushed for stronger ties between the United States and Great Britain,[20][21] and vocally opposed the rise of fascism and Nazism in the 1930s,[3] a time when Roosevelt would not because of political concerns at home.

[25] He died a month later, on December 18, 1937, from Hodgkin's lymphoma, at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he had been operated on a few days before his death;[2][5] and was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery.