C. E. "Cap" Barham

Charles Emmett "Cap" Barham (September 28, 1904 – February 23, 1972) was the Democratic lieutenant governor of Louisiana from 1952—1956, who is credited with having established the office independent from that of the governor. Prior to his statewide position, Barham was a state senator from the then 29th District (Lincoln and Union parishes) between 1948 and 1952. Like Governor Robert F. Kennon, under whom he served, Barham was part of the anti-Long faction of Louisiana politics, but he was frequently at odds with Kennon as well.

Barham was born in Kimbleton near Dubach in Lincoln Parish to John Robert Barham and the former Leola Fowler. He was educated in Dubach public schools and then attended Northwestern State University (then "Louisiana Normal College") in Natchitoches, from which he graduated with teaching credentials in 1927. He taught school for a year at Dubach and then enrolled in the law school of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He received his L.L.B. degree in 1931 and thereafter opened his law practice in Ruston.

Barham married the former Carice Helen Hilburn (October 30, 1907–December 2, 1965),^[1] and they had two sons, Charles Clem Barham (1934–2010), a Ruston attorney and the Lincoln-Union state senator from 1964 to 1972 and 1976 to 1988, and Robert Ewing Barham (1940–1996), an English professor at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. Barham was an uncle by marriage to Wiley Wilson Hilburn, Jr. (born 1938), head of the Louisiana Tech University journalism department, editorial writer for the Shreveport Times and an authority on Louisiana politics, and Chester William "Chet" Hilburn (born 1945), a journalist retired from the Houston Chronicle.

Barham ran for lieutenant governor on the intraparty ticket with Congressman Thomas Hale Boggs, Sr., of New Orleans in the 1951-1952 election campaign. Boggs, considered one of Louisiana's most liberal officials in his time, did not make the gubernatorial runoff, but Barham was placed into a second primary with John Julian McKeithen (1918–1999), from Columbia in Caldwell Parish, who had run on a ticket with Judge Carlos Spaht of Baton Rouge. In the runoff campaign, Barham was "adopted" by the successful gubernatorial candidate, Robert Kennon, and the Kennon-Barham slate won an easy victory over Spaht-McKeithen. Barham was the only member of the original Boggs ticket to win office at the statewide level. Barham often found himself at odds with the much more conservative Governor Kennon.

In 1956, Barham ran again for lieutenant governor. He allied himself with Boggs' former law partner, deLesseps S. "Chep" Morrison, the mayor of New Orleans.^[2] Both Morrison and Barham were crushed in the primary by Earl Kemp Long and Long's choice for lieutenant governor, Lether Frazar, a former president of two state colleges. After leaving the lieutenant governorship, Barham was a delegate to the 1956 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which renominated Adlai E. Stevenson to run again against Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In 1969, Barham was among the first six men inducted into the Northwestern State University "Hall of Fame."

He is interred beside his wife and sons at Greenwood Cemetery in Ruston.

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