Felix Edward Hébert

For the U.S. Senator from Rhode Island, see Felix Hebert

Felix Edward Hébert (October 12, 1901 - December 29, 1979), known as F. Edward Hébert, was the longest-serving member of the United States House of Representatives from the state of Louisiana, having represented the New Orleans-based First Congressional District as a Democrat from 1941 until his retirement in 1977.

Hébert was born in New Orleans to Felix Joseph Hébert and the former Lea Naquin. As a student at Jesuit High School there, he wrote prep-school sports for his future employer, the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

He graduated in 1924 from Tulane University and was the first sports editor of the Tulane Hullabaloo. He was a member of Delta Sigma Phi fraternity and the Young Men's Business Club of New Orleans. On August 1, 1934, Hébert married the former Gladys Bofill, and the couple had one daughter, Dawn Marie (born ca. 1936), who married a future judge of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, John Malcolm Duhé, Jr., of Iberia Parish. The couple had four children, Kimberly Duhé Holleman (born ca. 1957), Jeanne Duhé Sinitier, Edward Malcolm Duhé (born ca. 1960), and Martin Bofill Duhé (born ca. 1962).

Hébert pursued a career in public relations for Loyola University in New Orleans and journalism for the Times-Picayune and the New Orleans States (the latter, a paper purchased by the Times-Picayune while Hébert was working there). As a front page columnist and political editor, he covered the candidacy and election of Governor Huey Pierce Long, Jr., as one of U.S. Senators from Louisiana. His coverage of the "Louisiana Scandals", a reference to corruption among followers of the Long family, led to the convictions of Governor Richard W. Leche of New Orleans and Louisiana State University President James Monroe Smith. Because of Hébert's efforts, the Times-Picayune won the Delta Sigma Chi plaque for "courage in journalism".

Hébert's work also led to his election in 1940 to the 77th U.S. Congress. He served in the House of Representatives until the end of the 94th Congress, having chosen not to seek a nineteenth term in 1976. That longevity set a Louisiana record for the service in the U.S. House. Hébert was temporarily succeeded by the Democrat Richard A. Tonry, who in turn was quickly replaced by Bob Livingston, the first Republican to represent the district since Reconstruction.

Hébert rarely had serious opposition. In 1952, the Republican George W. Reese, Jr., of New Orleans challenged him and drew a third of the general election vote. In 1954, Reese tried again, but in the low turnout off-year election, he polled only a sixth of the vote. In 1960, Reese, then the Republican national committeeman, was also the Republican standard bearer in the U.S. Senate election against Allen J. Ellender but secured only a fifth of the ballots cast.

Hébert opposed school desegregation and signed the Southern Manifesto in opposition to the United States Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision which moved against de jure segregation in seventeen states and the District of Columbia.

Hébert was the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services from 1971-1975. He was removed from the chairmanship in a revolt of the increasingly young and liberal House Democratic Caucus against the seniority system. Many of the younger Democrats were not pleased when he addressed the new members from the Watergate Class of 1974 as "boys and girls". They considered him too amenable to the Pentagon. Hebert is responsible for founding the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, MD.

In a 1960 oral history interview with the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin, Texas, Hébert said that he never participated in any elections other than his own House races -- not president, governor, U.S. senator, or mayor of New Orleans. By shunning other contests, he reasoned that he kept down the number of political opponents who might have challenged him for his otherwise "safe" congressional seat.

Hébert died in New Orleans and is entombed there in Lake Lawn Park Mausoleum.

See also

• Felix Hebert, U.S. Senator from Rhode Island

External links and references

• U.S. Congress Biography
• Oral History Interview with F. Edward Hebert, from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library
• Who's Who in America, 1956-1957, p. 1141