Taylor W. O'Hearn

Taylor Walters O'Hearn (July 6, 1907 – April 2, 1997) was a Louisiana politician and pioneer in the rebirth of the Republican Party in the state during the mid-20th century. In 1964, when blacks in the state were still essentially disenfranchised, he and Morley A. Hudson, both white men of Shreveport in Caddo Parish, were elected at-large from the parish as the first two Republicans to serve in the Louisiana House of Representatives since Reconstruction. Each man was defeated for re-election in 1968 after a single term.

O'Hearn and Hudson were joined that year in the Caddo delegation by Democrats Algie D. Brown, Frank Fulco, and newcomer J. Bennett Johnston, Jr., who also were elected to at-large seats. Johnston was later a member of the Louisiana State Senate and then the United States Senate.

Background

O'Hearn was born in 1907 in Shreveport into an Irish-American family. His father Ernest O'Hearn (1880–1972) was a railroad worker, and his mother Mattie W. O'Hearn (1886–1982) was a housewife. His father Ernest, who was probably born in New Orleans, had been orphaned as a child when both of his parents died of yellow fever during an epidemic. Taylor and his siblings attended local schools. He studied accounting and worked in this field for several years.

Challenging Russell B. Long, 1962

Having grown disenchanted with the national Democratic administration of President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, who were supporting the civil rights movement, O'Hearn switched parties to run as a Republican in 1962 for the U.S. Senate. He challenged powerful incumbent Democrat Russell B. Long. The oldest son of the legendary Huey Pierce Long, Jr., Russell Long was a near political icon in Louisiana.

O'Hearn charged that Long was practicing "the same old pork barrel. He's promising everybody everything with their own money." He said that Long was attempting to take credit for all political progress in the state. Long refused to debate O'Hearn, who charged that the senator "doesn't have the guts to talk to the people about campaign issues."^[2] Long replied that he was "not ashamed I've fought to get things for Louisiana. I'm not ashamed to go to the White House to talk to the president to get things done for my state and its people."^[2]

Critical of the Kennedy Cuban policies, O'Hearn called the failed Bay of Pigs operation a "desertion of Cuban patriots ... It's odd to me that Russell Long and Jack Kennedy were the only two persons in the country who did not know about the Cuban arms buildup."^[2] He claimed that the Cuban blockade against Soviet missiles was "timed perfectly with the political campaign."^[2]

O'Hearn also claimed that Long voted 75 percent of the time for Kennedy policies: "These bills are not just socialistic but radical!"^[2] Long denied O'Hearn's contention that he was automatically in lockstep with Kennedy policies. Long voiced opposition for instance, to Kennedy's intervention in the desegregation of the University of Mississippi at Oxford that fall, after rioting by whites at the campus.

O'Hearn said that he opposed foreign aid until neutral countries committed themselves to the West. He proposed that the United States withdraw from the United Nations until "the communist bloc pays its share."^[2] In appealing for support, O'Hearn said that his "honor and integrity [are] the only things I own. No one is going to buy it, bargain for it, or obtain it in any other matter."^[2]

In a newspaper advertisement, Long declared himself an "Independent Thinker" who is "unalterably opposed to federal control of state education [this referred to the US Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), ruling that segregated public schools were unconstitutional], foreign aid to Russia's satellites, unnecessary federal spending, and increased taxation." He also claimed to be a "leader in the fight to preserve our traditional southern way of life", a phrase frequently understood to mean support for racial segregation.^[3] Long noted that he had managed to keep Fort Polk operating near Leesville in Vernon Parish and had fought for assistance to underprivileged children, the needy blind, small business, and farmers.^[3]

Long first easily turned aside a challenge from the "right" in his own party in the summer of 1962 against the retired lieutenant colonel Philemon "Phil" St. Amant of Baton Rouge. He overwhelmingly defeated O'Hearn, 318,838 votes (75.6 percent) to 103,066 (24.4 percent).^[4] O'Hearn carried seven north Louisiana parishes, where conservatism was running strongly at the time. He polled a clear majority in Louisiana's 4th congressional district. He fared best in his own Caddo Parish, where he polled 64.7 percent.^[5]

O'Hearn received 58.7 percent in Madison Parish in northeast Louisiana. O'Hearn carried Webster (Minden), Morehouse (Bastrop), Bossier (Bossier City and Benton), Claiborne (Homer), and La Salle (Jena) parishes. In ten other parishes, all in north Louisiana, O'Hearn drew more than 40 percent of the vote.

After implementation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 enforced the constitutional right of African Americans to vote, the black majorities in Madison and Claiborne parishes supported national Democratic candidates and gradually began to elect their own candidates to local and state offices. They supported the national party that had aided the civil rights movement.

Election to the Louisiana legislature, 1964

In 1963, O'Hearn endorsed the movement to draft conservative U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona for the 1964 Republican presidential nomination.^[6]

In 1964, O'Hearn ran from Caddo Parish for one of its five at-large seats in the Louisiana House of Representatives. Such at-large voting diluted the power of minorities, as candidates needed to command a majority of voters to win.

In 1964 O'Hearn and Morley A. Hudson, both white Republicans, won in Caddo Parish, finishing ahead of three Democrats, Algie D. Brown, Frank Fulco, and J. Bennett Johnston, Jr., who won the other three positions.^[7] They were the first Republicans elected to the legislature since Reconstruction, when the Republican Party was dominated in the state by African Americans.

The three Caddo Parish Republican legislative candidates who lost included Billy Guin, who later was appointed as the last Shreveport public utilities commissioner; Edd Fielder Calhoun (1931–2012), an insurance agent and civic figure originally from Oklahoma City;^[8] and Art Sour, who worked in the oil business. Sour lost again for the state house in 1968. He won a seat in the 1972 election, and was repeatedly re-elected from a conservative white district for the next 20 years.

Hudson and O'Hearn were the only Republicans in Louisiana to win legislative seats that year. Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlton Lyons from Shreveport lost. Hudson in jest declared himself "minority leader" of the Louisiana House as he had led the vote totals in Caddo Parish. O'Hearn joked that he must be the "minority whip" as he had the second-highest Republican tally. In the 1964 session of the Louisiana House, their page was a 17-year-old high school student named Louis E. "Woody" Jenkins of Baton Rouge. In 1972, Jenkins was elected as one of the youngest legislators in state history. In 1996, as the Republican nominee, he narrowly lost to Democrat Mary Landrieu in the race for the U.S. Senate, after a majority of whites had shifted to the Republican Party.

Term in State House

O'Hearn's priority as a state legislator was to promote the construction of a north-south interstate highway link in Louisiana. The popular Interstate 49 was later constructed with substantial federal subsidies. Billy Guin recalled that O'Hearn was the first to propose the highway. Later, State Senator Bennett Johnston Jr. in 1970 proposed road tolls to move the project forward, but the legislature did not pass this. Johnston had said that the state gasoline tax generated only 20 percent of the cost of a north-south highway, and he believed tolls were the answer, as users would pay for the road.^[9]

The superhighway that was later constructed was built largely by federal funds, which effectively subsidized Louisiana vehicle owners. The Louisiana congressional delegation gained support for federal funding for I-49, which spread the cost of the highway from users to taxpayers across the country. It links Shreveport with Lafayette. Most of the highway was opened in the early 1990s. In turn, there are interstate connections from Lafayette to Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

In the 1966 legislative session, O'Hearn proposed the forerunner of a revised primary system. His bill would have eliminated the party runoff election, a practice that had been implemented in [Tennessee]] and Kentucky. It did not pass.

In 1975 the state legislature passed legislation to establish a blanket primary and run-off general election format of the top two candidates. After the primary, the top two candidates would run against each other in the official general election, regardless of their party affiliation. Voter turnout tends to decrease for the general election, as opposed to the initial blanket primary. It favors the candidate who can get out the most voters a second time.

O'Hearn advocated that small businesses be taxed as a corporation, rather than as an individual taxpayer. He worked to require tolls on infrastructure until the existing bonds on highways and bridges were retired. He urged Governor John McKeithen to reinstate tolls on the Mississippi River bridge at New Orleans, on which $50 million in outstanding bonds were still pending.^[10]

On November 8, 1966, O'Hearn lost an attempt to win a newly created state district court judgeship in Caddo Parish. He was defeated, 64-36 percent, in the general election by Democrat James A. "Dee" Alexander. After Republicans had scored gains in Caddo Parish in 1964, the Democrats took successful steps to raise their own turnout and win the district seats. The Caddo Democratic Association supplied campaign funds for any local Democratic nominee facing GOP opposition in a general election. The association had total success in its mission for five years — from 1966 until 1971.

Defeat in 1968

After his failure to win the judgeship, O'Hearn served the year and a half left in his legislative term. He ran unsuccessfully for reelection in 1968. O'Hearn polled 15,150 votes to lead the Republican ticket from Caddo Parish in the at-large state House races, but he was 5,475 votes below the lowest-ranking Democratic candidate. Two other unsuccessful Republican state House candidates from Caddo Parish in 1968, Benjamin Franklin O'Neal, Jr., and Art Sour, won House seats in 1972 from white-majority single-member districts. Morley Hudson, who did not run for office, issued a statement on behalf of all the losing Republican candidates in 1968: "We did not lose; we taught thousands of our voters that they could vote for two-party government." Republican legislator Edward Clark Gaudin of Baton Rouge was defeated in 1968, as he was from a large city where African Americans had exercised their franchise in favor of Democrats. In 1972, when running from a single-member district with a white majority, Gaudin was elected again.

O'Hearn complained that election laws had been violated at three majority-black precincts in Shreveport; he claimed that Democrats passed out campaign literature at the door of one polling place and had representatives less than the required 200 feet minimum from the doors of the two other precincts. O'Hearn said that he contacted Caddo Parish Sheriff James M. Goslin and the Shreveport public safety commissioner, George W. D'Artois about his complaint. Both Democratic officials told him that the matter was out of his jurisdiction. O'Hearn never again sought public office.^[11]

Personal life

O'Hearn was a member of the First Baptist Church of Shreveport. He was an avid fisherman, musician, and photographer. He was a member of the Forty and Eight veterans organization.

A bald, bespectacled man with black-rimmed eyeglasses and a stern facial expression, he bore a striking resemblance to the popular comic character actor Richard Deacon (1921–1984). Deacon starred as "Fred Rutherford" on Leave It to Beaver and as "Mel Cooley" on the original The Dick Van Dyke Show.

O'Hearn died at the age of eighty-nine in Granbury, southwest of Fort Worth, Texas, where he had moved to be near a daughter and her family. Survivors included his wife of fifty-two years, Gladys Bookout O'Hearn (June 20, 1910 — September 6, 2001); son Patrick Terrance O'Hearn (born 1930) of Palm Springs, California; daughter Jerry (O'Hearn) Meier and her husband Kenneth Fredrick Meier (both born 1932) of Granbury; nine grandchildren, ten great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.

Graves of Taylor and Gladys O'Hearn in Shreveport's Forest Park East Cemetery

His body was returned to Shreveport for burial at Forest Park East Cemetery on St. Vincent Avenue; his wife was also later interred here. O'Hearn's parents are also buried in Forest Park, but not in the same section of the cemetery.

References

• Hathorn, Billy, "The Republican Party in Louisiana, 1920-1980," Master's thesis (1980), Northwestern State University in Natchitoches
• Alexandria Daily Town Talk, November 2, 3, 6, 7, 1962
• Gladys O'Hearn obituary, The Shreveport Times, September 7, 2001
• Taylor O'Hearn obituary, The Shreveport Times, April 3, 1997