Etienne J. Caire

Etienne Joseph Caire, I, (September 17, 1868 – July 16, 1955),^[1] was a businessman, pharmacist, planter, and banker from Edgard in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana, who was the Republican nominee for governor of Louisiana in 1928.

Background

E. J. Caire was the son of Jean Batiste Caire (1823-1879) and the former Felicie Burcard Graugnard (1841-1911). He attended the former Jefferson College in Convent,^[2] a census designated place and the seat of government of St. James Parish, Louisiana. In his working career, he operated the E. J. Caire Store, a business begun by his father in downtown Edgard. The story was originally known as "Caire's Landing", the name given by Jean Caire, an immigrant who journeyed to Louisiana from France in 1842. Jean Caire died when his son, Etienne, was only eleven years of age. The business was a multi-purpose general store, a pharmacy, a dry goods store, and a hardware store before it was turned into an early department store. For a time, the store was the pay station for area sugar cane farmers. The brick structure, built in 1850, became a store in 1860. A wooden structure was later added, and the brick building became a warehouse. The store obtained business locally and from patrons riding on passing riverboats. After many changes in venue, it closed in the middle 1970s.^[3]

In 2001, the buildings were added to the National Register of Historic Places. Surviving Caire family members would like to convert the two buildings into a museum. The former store is located on a stretch of River Road in Edgard that also contains the St. John the Baptist Parish Courthouse and the St. John the Baptist Catholic Church,^[3] of which Caire was a trustee and active in the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. He was a grand knight of the Catholic men's organization, the Knights of Columbus. In 1922, he established the Jesuit retreat program for Catholic laymen called Manresa and located in Convent, Louisiana. In 1929, Pope Pius XI declared Caire a Knight of St. Gregory.^[2]

In addition to the store, E. J. Caire was one of his state's leading sugar cane planters^[4] and frequently assumed ownership of failing plantations.^[3] He was president of the Bank of St. John and the Bank of Ascension, as well as a director of the former Hibernia National Bank in New Orleans.^[2]

Political campaign

Caire polled 3,733 votes (4 percent) of the ballots cast in the 1928 general election to 96,941 (96 percent) for the Democrat Huey Pierce Long, Jr.,^[5] a member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission known for his flamboyant, popular oratory. A full slate of Republicans, the first since Reconstruction, ran unsuccessfully for statewide office with Caire, including subsequent party chairman John Ellett Jackson, a New Orleans lawyer originally from Palestine, Texas, for lieutenant governor^[6] against Democrat Paul N. Cyr of Jeanerette in St. Martin Parish, Judson M. Grimmet of Shreveport for secretary of state, J. A. Peyrefitte of New Orleans for state treasurer, John P. Conway of New Orleans for state auditor, U. G. Neuhauser (1864-1941) of Slidell for register of the state land office, Mary H. Janssen of New Orleans for state education superintendent against incumbent Democrat T. H. Harris, and E. J. Rodrigue (1878-1970) of Assumption Parish against Democrat Harry Wilson for state agriculture commissioner.^[7]

Dr. Warren Francis Caire (born January 1934), a registered Democrat in St. John the Baptist Parish,^[8] recalled that his grandfather often talked about the gubernatorial race: "He would recall the story with sincerity, but we all knew that he knew he had no chance of beating Huey."^[9]

Caire was the last Louisiana Republican Party gubernatorial nominee for twenty-four years. In 1952, Harrison Bagwell, a Baton Rouge lawyer, carried the party's banner in the general election against the Democrat Robert F. Kennon, a judge from Minden in Webster Parish in North Louisiana.^[10]Bagwell like Caire coincidentally also polled 4 percent of the vote in another low-turnout contest.^[11]

Death and family

Caire and his wife, the former Laura Hymel (1869-1941), are entombed at the St. John the Baptist Cemetery in Edgard, along with two of their children, Etiennette Marie Caire (1889-1970), and Dennis F. Caire (1899-1974).^[1]Another child, the late Sidney Caire, Sr., was the father of twelve children, including E. J. Caire's namesake grandson, E. J. Caire, II (1921-2012). Caire, II, was a graduate of Loyola University New Orleans, a United States Navy aviator in World War II, and a long-term resident of Metairie in Jefferson Parish. He and his wife, the late Inez Sylvia Songy, had seven children.^[12]

Another grandson, Gerard Walton "Ton" Caire (born April 2, 1931), is a Republican voter in St. John the Baptist Parish^[13] and a judge of the 40th Judicial District Court.^[9] Judge Caire in 1986 ordered former State Senator George T. Oubre, a Democrat from St. James Parish who ran unsuccessfully in 1971 for state attorney general, to represent John Francis Wille pro bono in a murder case because of Oubre's conviction for bank fraud.^[14]

References