John N. Sandlin

John Nicholas Sandlin, Sr. (February 24, 1872—December 25, 1957), of Minden, Louisiana, represented his state's Fourth Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives from 1921 to 1937.

In 1936, rather than seeking a ninth term in the House, Sandlin, upon the request of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, contested an open seat in the U.S. Senate. He lost the pivotal Democratic nomination to Allen J. Ellender of Houma in Terrebonne Parish in South Louisiana. Ellender, a confidant of the late Huey Pierce Long, Jr., received 364,931 ballots (68 percent) to Sandlin's 167,471 votes (31.2 percent). There was no Republican candidate, and Ellender was sworn into the first of what would become six consecutive senatorial terms.

Background

Sandlin was born in the McIntyre community west of Minden, the younger of two sons to Nicholas J. Sandlin (died 1896), originally from North Carolina, and the former Irene McIntyre (1840-1922), a Louisiana native. Nicholas Sandlin served in the Army of Northern Virginia under Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson and was severely wounded in the American Civil War. In Louisiana, he was active in the overthrow of the Carpetbagger government. He was district attorney of a tract of land stretching from the Red to the Ouachita rivers. Years later, he represented Webster Parish in the Louisiana House of Representatives. In 1893, U.S. President Grover Cleveland named him postmaster at Minden. The former Nicholas J. Sandlin Camp near Minden was named in his honor by the organization, Sons of Confederate Veterans."^[1]

John Sandlin's older brother, McIntyre H. Sandlin, was a mayor of Minden, a state representative like his father, and a long-term tax assessor of Webster Parish.^[1]

Sandlin was educated in public schools and attended the former Minden Normal School and Business College, the forerunner to Minden High School. He privately studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1896, when he began his law practice in Minden. From 1904 to 1910, he was district attorney for the Second Judicial District (since 26th District). He was judge of the same district from 1910 to 1920.

In 1917, Judge Sandlin presided over a sensational ax-murder case in which the young district attorndey, Harmon Caldwell Drew, led the prosecution against several African American and white suspects charged with the Christmas Day 1916 murder of the John Nelson Reeves family in the rural Grove community north of Minden.^[2]

In 1916, Sandlin was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, which met in St. Louis, Missouri, to renominate U.S. President Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey and Vice President Thomas R. Marshall of Indiana, for their second terms in office.

Congressional tenure

Sandlin was first elected to Congress in 1920, when he denied renomination to the incumbent, John Thomas Watkins, also of Minden. In 1933, United States Postmaster General James A. Farley of New York, also the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, came to Shreveport, where he lavised high praise on Representative Sandlin. "No man in Congress has worked harder to assist us in bringing this nation out of chaos," a reference to the New Deal attempt to combat the Great Depression, said Farley. At the rally, Sandlin told Farley that Louisiana stood "100 percent behind" President Franklin Roosevelt.^[3]

Roosevelt thereafter urged Sandlin to challenge the reelection of U.S. Senator Huey Long. However, before the scheduled election in 1936 could occur, Long was assassinated in 1935. Pro-Long supporters, who coalesced behind Allen Ellender, started a false allegation that Sandlin had been involved in the assassination plot against Long.^[4]

During part of Sandlin's congressional tenure, his chief aide was J. Frank Colbert, a former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives and the mayor of Minden from 1944-1946. Upon leaving Washington, D.C., in 1937, Sandlin resumed his law practice in Minden.

Personal life

Faded Sandlin tombstone at Minden Cemetery

Sandlin was a Methodist, a Freemason, and a member of Woodmen of the World.

Sandlin married the former Ruth Reams (February 3, 1878 - March 28, 1911), and they had a son, John N. Sandlin, Jr. (May 3, 1900 - April 19, 1960), who was a staff sergeant in both World War I and World War II. They lost an infant daughter, also named Ruth, who lived only from March 19 to April 10, 1911. Ruth R. Sandlin died from complications from childbirth thirteen days before the death of their daughter.^[5]

In 1913, Sandlin wed Mrs. Emma Lou Palmer Crichton (pronounced CRAY TUHN), a member of a prominent Minden family.

In 1951, Sandlin had a heart attack in Oxford, Mississippi, where he had taken his wife for treatment of an eye illness.^[6] He recovered in Shreveport and then Minden.

Upon his death six years later at the age of eighty-five, Sandlin was interred in the old section of the Minden Cemetery. His grave marker reads "To Know Him Was to Love Him."

References

"John Nicholas Sandlin", A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, Vol. 2 (1988), p. 716.

Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections, U.S. House, 1920–1934, and U.S. Senate, 1936

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S000043

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=W000193

http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/sandford-sanfemio.html

v t e Members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana 1st district Livingston, E. White Johnson White Slidell Sére St. Martin Dunbar Eustis Bouligny Sypher Lawrence Gibson Hunt St. Martin Wilkinson Meyer Estopinal O'Connor Fernández Hébert Tonry Livingston, R. Vitter Jindal Scalise 2nd district Gurley Thomas Ripley Chinn Dawson la Branche Thibodeaux Conrad Bullard Landry, J. A. Hunt Taylor Mann Sheldon Ellis Hahn Wallace Lagan Coleman Lagan Davey Buck Davey Gilmore Dupré Spearing Maloney Boggs, T. H. Maloney Boggs, T. H. Boggs, L Jefferson Cao Richmond 3rd district Brent Overton Bullard Garland Moore Dawson Harmanson Penn Perkins Davidson Newsham Darrall Acklen Darrall Kellogg Gay Price Broussard Martin Montet Mouton Domengeaux Willis Caffery Treen Tauzin Melancon Landry, J. M. Boustany 4th district Bossier Morse Moore Jones Sandidge Landrum Vidal Newsham McCleery Boarman Smith Levy Elam Blanchard Ogden Breazeale Watkins Sandlin Brooks Waggonner Leach Roemer McCrery Fields McCrery Fleming 5th district Blackburn Morey Spencer Leonard Young King Newton Boatner Baird Ransdell Elder Wilson Mills McKenzie Passman Huckaby McCrery Cooksey Alexander McAllister 6th district Sheridan Nash Robertson, E. Lewis Irion Robertson, E. Robertson, S. Favrot Wickliffe Morgan Sanders, Sr. Favrot Kemp Sanders, Jr. Griffith Sanders, Jr. Morrison Rarick Moore Baker Cazayoux Cassidy 7th district Pujo Lazaro De Rouen Plauche Larcade Thompson Edwards Breaux Hayes John Boustany 8th district Aswell Overton Dear Allen Long, Doc McSween Long, G. Long, S. Long, G. Long, C. Holloway At-large Robertson Butler Johnston Sheridan Territory Clark Poydras