| Robert F. Kennon |
Article Index for Robert F |
Website Links For Robert |
Information AboutRobert F. Kennon |
|
After the Brown V. Board Of Education decision of May 17 , 1954 , Governor Kennon ordered the enforcement of laws relating to Segregation . He vowed that the state would provide a public school system "which will include segregation in fact." Desegregation, however, began under Kennon's successors, Earl Kemp Long and Jimmie Davis , but it was a long process not completed in Louisiana until August 1970. The conservative Kennon grew disillusioned with national liberal nominees of his own party and endorsed Republican presidential candidates Dwight D. Eisenhower , Barry M. Goldwater , and Gerald R. Ford . EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION Kennon was the fifth child of Floyd and Annie Laura Bopp Kennon. An avid Boy Scout , he attained the rank of Eagle Scout . He grew up in Minden, Louisiana , (Webster Parish) and graduated from Minden High School in 1919 . According to one of his classmates, Maude Bullock, he told his skeptical high school friends that he would one day be governor. After high school, he attended LSU , where he received many honors. At the end of his freshman year, he received an award for the best academic record. He was captain of his company in ROTC , as well as the vice president of the Interfraternity Council. He was on the debate team and wrote for the school paper. He earned his first letter playing center for the LSU football team. He helped organize LSU's tennis team and was one of the first two people to letter in tennis at LSU. He graduated from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge in June 1923 . Kennon graduated from the LSU Law School in June 1925 . The next month, he passed the bar exam at the age of 22. By the time he was 23, he had successfully challenged Minden Mayor Connell Fort and became for a time the youngest mayor in the United States. Although his term was considered to be successful, Kennon did not seek reelection. He was a commander in the National Guard during his stint as mayor. DISTRICT ATTORNEY AND THEN JUDGE In 1930, he won the election for District Attorney for the 26th Judicial District and would serve for 11 years. He married Eugenia Sentell that year. Eugenia was a graduate of Louisiana Tech and taught home economics. More importantly, she was a wonderful hostess and was able to cultivate several friendships that would later play key roles in her husband's race for Governor. During his time as the D.A., he chose not to seek indictments for several high profile cases, even though there was enough evidence to support the indictments. He was very popular with many citizens of Webster Parish and North Louisiana. During this time, he had also attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the National Guard , making him one of the highest ranked officers. He was active with the Masonic Lodge and was named Most Worshipful Grand Master of Louisiana Masons in 1936. Kennon took advantage of his growing circle of influential friends and ran for the Justice of the Second Circuit Court Of Appeals in 1940 . He almost won a victory in the primary, but he was just shy of it with 46 percent of the vote. In the run off, his opponent was the incumbent Judge Harmon C. Drew, a fellow resident of Minden . He was a powerful opponent, and the Drew family has often held judicial positions in north Louisiana for 150 years. The race was close, with considerable mudslinging. Kennon won by a margin of 9,000 votes, but he did not carry his home parish (Webster) or Bossier Parish . The seat would not become vacant until 1942 . As an active member of the National Guard, he was called to duty in 1941 . Although Kennon did not see active combat, he did not return home from World War II until May 1945 . Judge Drew served as justice until Kennon returned to claim his seat in 1945. A QUICK U.S. SENATE CAMPAIGN, 1948 When U.S. Senator John Overton died in office, a special election was called to fill the seat for a two-year term. Kennon's opponent, Russell B. Long , the oldest son of the legendary Huey P. Long , Jr., was not quite 30, still a few days too young to take office at the time the election. The outcome was close, but Long won, 264,143 (51 percent) to Kennon's 253, 668 (49 percent). Long's plurality was hence 10,475 votes. Based on the Senate returns, many in the anti-Long faction began to consider Kennon as a possible candidate for governor in 1951. Long held the seat without a serious challenged until he announced his retirement, effective January 1987. RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR, 1951-1952 Kennon therefore ran for governor in the 1951 Democratic primary. He won his party's nomination over Judge Carlos Spaht of Baton Rouge , who had the backing of the Long organizers. Kennon polled 482,302 votes (61.4 percent) to Spaht's 302,743 (38.6 percent). Spaht's running-mate for lieutenant governor was a future governor, John McKeithen , then 33 years of age. In the low-turnout General Election in the spring of 1952, Kennon trounced Republican Harrison Bagwell, 118,723 (96 percent) to 4,958 (4 percent). Until 1952, Louisiana Republicans rarely even offered a token name on Gubernatorial General Election ballots. In addition to his interest in state sovereignty, Kennon was the governor who worked to provide voting machines to all Louisiana precincts to replace paper ballots still used in some rural parishes. Such machines were designed to eliminate the problem of vote-stealing in certain parishes. A SECOND GUBERNATORIAL CAMPAIGN, 1963 Kennon's term term ended in the spring of 1956 , and he was succeeded by his long-time foe, Earl Long . He unsuccessfully attempted to run for governor again in 1963 . In the Democratic primary, Kennon ran fourth (127,870 votes or 14.1 percent), behind Eighth District Congressman Gillis William Long of Alexandria , (137,778 ballots or 15.2 percent). He was therefore eliminated from a runoff between Public Service Commissioner John McKeithen of Columbia (157,304 or 17.4 percent) and the more liberal contender, former New Orleans Mayor DeLesseps Story Morrison (299,702 or 33.1 percent). Some observers theorized that the assassination of President Kennedy , which occurred just days before the primary election, may have weakened Kennon's prospects because Kennon had in a televised address been highly critical of certain policies of both President Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy . In fact, he term the Kennedy brothers "young, misguided men." Kennon was also harmed by the presence of the fifth-place candidate, veteran Education Superintendent Shelby M. Jackson, whose 103,949 votes (11.5 percent) are believed to have come primarily at the expense of Kennon and therefore worked to deny Kennon the coveted runoff position against former Mayor Morrison. Jackson was the vocal Segregationist among the five candidates, and Kennon discussed "state sovereignty," which some saw as a code word for segregation. Even if half of Jackson's votes had otherwise gone to Kennon, then Kennon, and not McKeithen, would have faced the runoff with Morrison. Jackson's supporters were also believed in many cases to have been previous backers of the 1959 segregationist gubernatorial hopeful, William M. Rainach of Claiborne Parish . McKeithen won the runoff and the ensuing general election. Kennon did not endorse either runoff candidate, but his nephew, Edward Kennon, later a Democratic member of the Public Service Commission from Minden , stumped for the Catholic and pro-Kennedy Morrison, known by the nickname "Chep," much to the consternation of many of his uncle's conservative and Protestant supporters in north Louisiana. Morrison had endorsed Kennon in the 1951-52 election cycle, after the elimination of his first choice, the late Congressman Hale Boggs of New Orleans . BILL DODD'S EULOGY OF KENNON One of Kennon's 1951 primary opponents, William J. "Bill" Dodd (1909-1991), offered this eulogy in the form of a letter to the editor of the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate on the passing of Kennon: As a personal friend and colleague of one whose death deserves more than a routine news story and a short obituary, I am writing this letter in the hope that its contents will be made available to the citizens of Louisiana. Recently, Louisiana lost one of its greatest citizens, Robert F. "Bob" Kennon. He was the kind of person most often mentioned in sermons as a role model for those seeking perfection in their daily lives. Also he was the kind of politician professors of government describe as a good public official. In both his personal and public life, he proved that the preachers and the political science professors were right. At LSU, he was an honor student, colonel of the cadet corps, and a varsity football player. As a young lawyer, he was successful in his practice of law, which led him into politics, {and} he became mayor of Minden, a district attorney, a District Court of Appeals judge, and a Supreme Court judge. When World War II came, though married and the father of young children, he volunteered into the U.S. Army and served with distinction, at home and overseas in Europe. Bob Kennon was elected governor of Louisiana in 1952. During his tenure as governor, he reenacted Civil Service for state employees, put voting machines in every voting precinct (which ended vote stealing forever) and took slot machines and gambling out of Louisiana. Instead of running up deficits, Governor Kennon ended each fiscal year with a surplus and was the only governor I can recall who actually reduced taxes. For his four years, there were not only no scandals in state government, but there were no hints of wrongdoing by the governor or his department heads. From 1952 until he went out of office {1956}, Governor Kennon, his lovely and gracious wife, and three fine sons lived in the Governor's Manson and made it a real home for the first family as well as a model for the whole state. Governor Kennon's appointments were men and women of the highest moral standards and possessed of excellent government experience. Like their governor, they regarded their public offices as public trusts. Governor Kennon was never tried and acquitted of wrongdoing because he didn't break the law or do anything suggesting he ever acted illegally or even unethically. He never spent any time with AA or in a CDU for he didn't drink alcohol and didn't snort cocaine. And when he took trips on boats, he went fishing or to a hunting camp with his boys and not to a hideaway like Bimini. His family was exemplary and made no waves that called for suppressing hospital or police records or anything else. Perhaps the fact that Kennon was honest and efficient and ran the state and his life according to the laws of God and man, he missed out on the press coverage that goes to those who have to be rehabilitated and forgiven for their unethical and illegal conduct; coverage that often praises those rascals for their courage and fortitude to face the public after disgracing themselves and their friends who elected them. Whatever the reason for Governor Kennon's lack of recognition for having been a model father, soldier, judge, and governor, the cold base record shows that he was exactly the kind of man the public, the preachers, and the press say they want but seldom get in the governor's office. Bob Kennon was, with all his success, a humble man and, if living, he would not want credit for what he did. He regarded his going a good job as his duty, and Bob was a man who always did his duty. . . . REFERENCES Billy Hathorn, "The Republican Party in Louisiana, 1920-1980," Master's thesis (1980) at Northwestern State University at Natchitoches http://www.mindenmemories.com/Governor%20Robert%20Floyd%20Kennon%20II.htm |
|
|