James M. McLemore

James McGoldrick McLemore (April 6, 1907 – 1997) was a landowner, cattleman, and auction barn owner from Alexandria who ran unsuccessfully in 1952 and 1956 for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in his native Louisiana. In the second election, he became the first candidate for governor to base his campaign almost entirely on the preservation of racial segregation in the aftermath of the May 17, 1954 United States Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education.^[1] The victors in the two elections were Robert F. Kennon and Earl Kemp Long, respectively.

Background

McLemore was born in Coushatta in Red River Parish in northwestern Louisiana, the oldest of three children of Patrick Cleburne McLemore, Sr. (1878-1962), and the former Theodosia McGoldrick (1882-1944). His sister was Sarah Lucy McLemore Fenton (1911-1984),^[2] the widow of Arthur Phillips Fenton, who was killed in World War II in 1943 and is interred at Arlington National Cemetery.^[3] His younger brother, Patrick Cleburne McLemore, Jr. (1913-1921), died six weeks before his eighth birthday. McLemore was married to the former Kathyrne Duff (1906-1997).^[2][4]

In 1947, McLemore was elected a director of the American Brahman Breeders Association at a meeting in Houston, Texas.^[5] Because of his wealth, McLemore was sometimes called "Cadillac Mac".^[1]

He was a chairman of the Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors.^[2]

1952 campaign

In the 1952 gubernatorial race, McLemore ran a largely national campaign, with his attention focused upon U.S. President Harry Truman, whose Fair Deal policies the businessman strongly opposed. Truman had lost Louisiana's electoral votes in 1948 to Strom Thurmond, then the governor of South Carolina, who ran on the States' Rights Party ticket but was the official Democratic nominee in Louisiana. McLemore in 1952 carried the endorsement of Leander Perez, the political boss of Plaquemines Parish and former Thurmond supporter, who at first had toyed with the candidacy of Lucille May Grace, the register of state lands. Regardless, Perez wanted to defeat candidates supporting both Truman and Earl Long, who was at the time term-limited in the governor's office and was hence supporting Carlos Spaht, a state court judge in Baton Rouge, rather than his lieutenant governor, Bill Dodd.^[1]

The since defunct New Orleans States Press endorsed McLemore. The publication declared that McLemore "tells the same story in every parish" [and did not gear his message for a specific audience, locality, or region]. ... He hasn't got any political machine behind him. All the big ones are pledged to other candidates. What McLemore has behind him is the independent people who like a candidate who faces up to the issues."^[6] McLemore received the support of his home-town newspaper, the Alexandria Daily Town Talk, which criticized the record of outgoing Governor Earl Long.^[7] Long referred to McLemore as "a blabbermouth".^[8]

At first McLemore carried the backing of the weekly newspaper, The Franklin Sun in Winnsboro in Franklin Parish in North Louisiana, but prior to the primary, that publication switched to another candidate, U.S. Representative Hale Boggs of Louisiana's 2nd congressional district, who finished third in the primary. The Franklin Sun hailed Boggs for his experience and declared him "morally and politically clean."^[9]The Bastrop Clarion in Bastrop in Morehouse Parish stood with McLemore and questioned why The Franklin Sun had endorsed a candidate that it considered only "second best".^[9]

The New Orleans Times-Picayune did not support its hometown Representative Boggs in that race but instead endorsed McLemore:

A successful businessman whose word is respected, [McLemore] has the kind of experience good government needs. ... Louisiana needs a sound, efficient, and honest business administration to cut out the political deadheads and spoilsmen, restore a healthy balance in its fiscal affairs, and give its people a just, fair, and equitable return for their tax moneys. ... Throw off factional collar and strike down political bossdom ...^[10]

Running with McLemore in 1952 for statewide offices were G. M. "Jimmie" Bodenheimer of Shreveport for attorney general, a position won by Fred S. LeBlanc, and Lionel Ott, a member of the New Orleans City Council for lieutenant governor, an office won instead by C. E. "Cap" Barham of Ruston. McLemore also endorsed Robert Kennon's successful choice for auditor, Allison Kolb of Baton Rouge, originally from Colfax in Grant Parish.^[11]

McLemore held a political rally, called a "Citizens Revolt" at the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium, the home of the Louisiana Hayride, in which he denounced the "professional politicians". He assured the nearly 1,500 in attendance that he was no politician at all but a lifelong businessman.^[12]

McLemore finished in fourth place in 1952 with 116,405 votes (15.3 percent).^[13] In that race on primary election night, McLemore endorsed Kennon, a judge in Minden, who went into a runoff election against the Long-backed candidate, Judge Spaht.^[14]

After the governor's race, McLemore was a Louisiana delegate to the 1952 Democratic National Convention,^[15] which met in Chicago to nominate Adlai E. Stevenson, II, and John Sparkman to carry the party banner against the Republican ticket of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon. Stevenson won the Louisiana electoral vote in 1952 but not in 1956 when he was again the Democrat standard-bearer against Eisenhower.

1956 campaign

When he ran governor once again in 1956, McLemore finished fifth with 48,188 votes (5.9 percent)^[13] in the contest dominated by Earl Long, who carried sixty-two of the state's sixty-four parishes in Long's last return to the governor's office. In that race, Leander Perez and outgoing Governor Robert Kennon supported not McLemore but the fourth-placed candidate, Fred Preaus of Farmerville in Union Parish, a former highway director in the Kennon administration. In invoking the racial issue, McLemore accused Long of having "encouraged" the registration of African-American voters who were likely to support Long-backed candidates in the Democratic primaries.^[1]

Similarly, McLemore claimed that Kennon, whom he had supported in the 1952 runoff election against Spaht, had done too little in office as governor to defend segregation but was on that issue "like an ostrich with his head buried in the sand."^[16] McLemore said that he would if elected call a conference of other southern governors to develop a regional strategy to defend segregation.^[16] As the campaign wound down, McLemore said that desegregation would lead to miscegenation, and he further claimed that the NAACP had been infiltrated by communists.^[17] He urged voters to rally to his cause and the "South's way of life."^[18]

Graves of James and Kathryne McLemore in Springville Cemetery in Coushatta, Louisiana

Death

James and Kathryne McLemore had two children.^[19] Both died in 1997 and are interred at Springville Cemetery off U.S. Highway 71 in his native Coushatta. The gravestone reads "God is our refuge and strength." The marker does not give the month and day of the death of each.^[2]

References