Jared Y. Sanders Sr.

Jared Young Sanders Sr.
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Louisiana's 6th district
In office
March 4, 1917  March 3, 1921
Preceded by Lewis L. Morgan
Succeeded by George K. Favrot
34th Governor of Louisiana
In office
May 12, 1908  May 14, 1912
Lieutenant Paul M. Lambremont
Preceded by Newton C. Blanchard
Succeeded by Luther E. Hall
25th Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana
In office
May 10, 1904  May 12, 1908
Governor Newton C. Blanchard
Preceded by Newton C. Blanchard
Succeeded by Paul M. Lambremont
Member of the Louisiana House of Representatives
In office
1892–1896
1898–1904
Personal details
Born (1869-01-29)January 29, 1869
Inglewood Plantation, east of Morgan City, Louisiana
Died March 23, 1944(1944-03-23) (aged 75)
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Resting place Franklin Cemetery in Franklin, Louisiana
Political party Democratic
Spouse(s)

(1) Ada Veronica Shaw (married 1891–1912, divorced)

(2) Emma Dickinson Sanders
Children Jared Y. Sanders Jr.
Alma mater Tulane University
Occupation Lawyer

Jared Young Sanders Sr. (January 29, 1869 March 23, 1944) was an American journalist and attorney from Franklin, the seat of St. Mary Parish in south Louisiana, who served as his state's House Speaker (1900–1904), lieutenant governor (1904–1908), the 34th Governor (1908–1912), and U.S. representative (1917–1921). Near the end of his political career he was a part of the anti-Long faction within the Louisiana Democratic Party. Huey Pierce Long Jr., in fact had once grappled with Sanders in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans.[1]

Early years, education, family

He was actually Jared Jordan Sanders, born on Inglewood Plantation near Morgan City, also in St. Mary Parish, to Jared Young Sanders, II, and the former Elizabeth Wofford. He did not use the Roman numeral "III" but was referred to as Jared "Sr.", after the birth of his only son, "Jared Young Sanders Jr.," but really Jared Sanders, IV. Sanders was educated in the public schools of Franklin, St. Charles College in Grand Coteau, and the Tulane University Law School in New Orleans, from which he received his LL.B. degree in 1893. He was the editor and publisher of the weekly Franklin newspaper, the St. Mary Banner, from 1890 to 1893. He launched his law practice in New Orleans in 1893, and his firm included a cousin, former Governor Murphy J. Foster Sr., grandfather of future Republican Governor Murphy J. "Mike" Foster Jr. (1996–2004).[2]

On May 31, 1891, Sanders married the former Ada Veronica Shaw of Fouke in Miller County in H. Shaw. Their son, Jared Jr. (actually Jared, IV), would also become a U.S. representative. The couple divorced after Sanders' term as governor ended in 1912. Sanders then married the former Emma Dickinson of New Orleans.

Legislature to governorship

Sanders in 1910

Sanders served in the Louisiana House of Representatives from St. Mary Parish for two nonconsecutive terms, 1892–1896 and 1898–1904. He was strongly anti-lottery. He was also a delegate to two Louisiana constitutional conventions, 1898 and 1921. After his speakership, he was lieutenant governor, an official when then (but no longer) presided over the state Senate. He is one of the few Louisiana politicians to have been elected governor while serving as lieutenant governor, the most recent to have done so being Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, elected in 2003. Sanders was the first Louisiana governor elected by primary balloting.

In the 1908 general election Democratic nominee Sanders polled 60,066 votes (87.1 percent) to Republican Henry N. Pharr's 7,617 ballots (11.1 percent). Governor Sanders was remembered as the "father of the Good Roads Movement in Louisiana."

In 1908, newly inaugurated Governor Sanders named lumber magnate Henry E. Hardtner of Urania in La Salle Parish to head the new seven-member Conservation Commission on Natural Resources, which began work on reforestation and the prevention of forest fires. Hardtner had not been a Sanders supporter in the previous campaign and made special effort to please his benefactor, having launched one of the most ambitious conservation agenda in the nation.[3] Sanders named another of his 1908 supporters, Connell Fort, later the mayor of Minden, as the conservation agent for northwestern Louisiana.[4]

On July 5, 1910, the Louisiana legislature named Sanders to finish the U.S. Senate term of Samuel D. McEnery, but he declined the position in order to finish his term as governor. He tried in vain to have New Orleans designated as the site for the World Panama Exposition.

Sanders runs for the U.S. Senate

From 1912 to 1914, Sanders resumed his law practice and was the naval officer of the Port of New Orleans from 1914 to 1916, at which time he relocated to Bogalusa, the seat of Washington Parish. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1916 from District 6 (Baton Rouge and the Florida Parishes) and served two terms. He did not seek a third term in the U.S. House in 1920 because he ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination that year. In the Senate primary, Sanders, with 43,425 votes (40 percent) lost to Edwin S. Broussard of New Iberia, who received 49,718 ballots (45.7 percent). A third candidate, Donelson Caffery, drew 15,565 votes (14.3 percent). He was a son of former Senator Donelson Caffery, who like Sanders was a native of St. Mary Parish. There was not yet a runoff in Louisiana primaries, and Broussard was therefore nominated and elected in the primary.

Sanders was thereafter a delegate to the 1924 Democratic National Convention, in which the attorney John W. Davis of West Virginia was nominated for president on the 103rd ballot. Davis in turn lost the general election to Republican President Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts. Sanders was again an unsuccessful but serious candidate for the U.S. Senate nomination in 1926. He polled 80,562 votes (48.9 percent) to 84,041 ballots (51.1 percent) for the incumbent Edwin Broussard, who served two full terms in the Senate before he was unseated in the primary in 1932 by John Holmes Overton of Alexandria.

Sanders ended his active political career as an opponent of the Huey Pierce Long Jr., political machine. At one point, Long accused Sanders of taxing the "poor people" beyond their ability to pay by having raised more than $5 million a year on trucks, wagons, and buggies but fought Long's 3 percent severance tax on what Long called the "oil trust".[5]

Sanders was a Presbyterian. He died in Baton Rouge and is interred at Franklin Cemetery in Franklin.

Footnotes

  1. Richard D. White Jr., Kingfish (New York: Random House, 2006), p. 68.
  2. Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism. "Jared Young Sanders Historical Marker".
  3. Anna C. Burns, "Henry E. Hardtner: Louisiana's First Conservationist," Journal of Forest History Vol. 22, No. 2 (April 1978), pp. 78–85
  4. "Connell Fort Dies Saturday Night at His Residence Here: Was Great Civic Worker and Builder of This City," Webster Signal-Tribune, March 5, 1937, pp. 1, 6
  5. Huey Pierce Long Jr., Every Man a King: The Autobiography of Huey P. Long (New Orleans: National Book Club, Inc., 1933), pp. 64-65.

References

Political offices
Preceded by
Placide P. Sigur
Louisiana State Representative from St. Mary Parish
1892–1896
Succeeded by
W.A. O'Neil
Preceded by
W.A. O'Neil
Louisiana State Representative from St. Mary Parish
1898–1904
Succeeded by
R.W. Allen
Preceded by
Samuel P. Henry of Cameron Parish
Speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives
1900–1904
Succeeded by
Robert H. Snyder of Tensas Parish
Preceded by
Albert Estopinal of St. Bernard Parish
Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana
1904–1908
Succeeded by
Paul M. Lambremont of St. James Parish
Preceded by
Newton C. Blanchard
Governor of Louisiana
1908–1912
Succeeded by
Luther E. Hall
U.S. House of Representatives
Preceded by
Lewis Lovering Morgan
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Louisiana's 6th congressional district

1917–1921
Succeeded by
George Kent Favrot
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