Paul Cyr
| Paul Narcisse Cyr | |
33rd Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana
| |
| In office 1928 – 1931 | |
| Preceded by | Philip Henri Gilbert |
|---|---|
| Succeeded by | Alvin Olin KIng |
| Born | September 9, 1878 Jeanerette, Iberia Parish, Louisiana, USA |
| Died | August 24, 1946 (aged 67) Jeanerette, Louisiana |
| Resting place | McGowen Cemetery in Jeanerette |
| Political party | Democrat |
| Spouse(s) | Mary McGowen Cyr (married 1907-1946, his death) |
| Children | Louie McGowen Cyr (1913-2007) Emily Cyr Bridges (1912-2003) |
| Alma mater | Chamberlain Hunt Academy (Port Gibson, Mississippi)
Louisiana State University |
| Occupation | Dentist; Geologist Businessman |
| Religion | Presbyterian |
Paul Narcisse Cyr (September 9, 1878 – August 24, 1946),[1] a dentist, geologist, and businessman, was the elected lieutenant governor in the gubernatorial administration of Huey Pierce Long, Jr. In 1931 and 1932, Cyr twice proclaimed himself the legitimate governor when Long delayed vacating the office to assume his elected seat in the United States Senate.
Contents
Background
Cyr (pronounced SEER) was born in Jeanerette, a small town in Iberia Parish, to Joseph Cyr and the former Emilie Julie Hoffer. On February 6, 1907, he married the former Mary McGowen (1883-1957), and they had four children, Louie, Marjorie, Emily, and Charles M. Cyr. His namesake grandson, Paul Cyr (1947-1971), was the son of Cyr's younger son, Charles M. Cyr.[2]
He graduated from Chamberlain Hunt Academy in Port Gibson, Mississippi and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and the Atlanta Dental College in Atlanta, Georgia, and became a practicing dentist in Jeanerette in 1900.[1] He was sufficiently regarded by his peers that he was named president of the Louisiana Dental Examining Board for the year from 1915 to 1916.[3]
Business interests
Besides being a dentist, Cyr was a surface geologist who had worked for Humble Oil Company and knew that large petroleum deposits existed below salt domes from Plaquemines Parish in south Louisiana to the Texas state line. Cyr found that several independent oil developers who contributed to Long for governor had received prosperous oil leases on state lands after Long took office. Cyr was also a director of the First National Bank of Jeanerette and Consolidated Grocery Store. He was a member of the Knights of Pythias, Woodmen of the World, and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He was a Presbyterian.[1]
The bitter split with Huey Long
Cyr was elected lieutenant governor on the Long intra-party ticket in 1928. He defeated the physician Felix Octave Pavy, later a state representative for St. Landry Parish and a brother of Judge Benjamin Pavy, the father-in-law of the proclaimed Long assassin, Dr. Carl Weiss of Baton Rouge. Weiss and Pavy family members dispute that Dr. Weiss fired the shot in 1935 that mortally wounded Huey Long.[4]
Cyr also faced a Republican opponent that year, John Ellett Jackson (1892-1989), a New Orleans lawyer who ran on the gubernatorial ticket headed by Étienne Caire of St. John the Baptist Parish in south Louisiana. Jackson subsequently became the state GOP chairman from 1929 to 1934, and thereafter a long-term party national committeeman.[5]
Within months of taking office, Cyr split permanently with Long. The historian Richard D. White, Jr., found that fewer rivals irritated Long more than did Cyr. Long and Cyr had first openly quarreled in February 1929 over a controversial murder case in which a St. Mary Parish physician originally from Concordia Parish, Thomas E. Dreher (1872-1929), allegedly hired his handyman to murder electrician James LeBoeuf (pronounced LEBUFF), the husband of the doctor's lover, Ada Bonner LeBouef, (c. 1892-1929). Long favored the execution of the couple, but Cyr wanted leniency based on extenuating circumstances. Ultimately, the two were hanged on makeshift gallows — Ada thus becoming the first white woman to have been hanged in Louisiana.[6]
Long also loathed Cyr because the lieutenant governor would declare himself acting governor every time Long left the state, even for a day or two. Cyr was committed to reversing Longism if Long stayed away from Louisiana for any length of time. Fifty years later, that same scenario threatened David C. Treen, Louisiana's first Republican governor since Reconstruction; if Treen left the state, Lieutenant Governor Robert Freeman, a staunch Democratic partisan, would assume acting duties and attempt to thwart Treen.
Succession dispute
In 1930, in the middle of his term as governor, Long was elected to the United States Senate term beginning on March 4, 1931, but chose to delay resigning as governor and taking up the Senate seat until he had accomplished some remaining state goals. (Long did not resign as governor until January 25, 1932.)
Throughout the spring and summer of 1931, Cyr threatened to take the oath of office as governor but did not do so. In October 1931, Cyr filed suit in a bid to oust Long as governor and declared himself governor. He had a justice of the peace in Shreveport give him the oath of office in the Caddo Parish courthouse. Cyr arrived in Baton Rouge and threatened to take over the governor's mansion. Long ordered the National Guard to mobilize, and troops surrounded the capitol with strict orders not to admit Cyr. After a few days, state police replaced the guardsmen. For a time, the city was an "armed camp," with both Long and Cyr packing pistols.
Without police power, Cyr realized that he was beaten and returned to Jeanerette. Long, who had dubbed Cyr the "tooth puller from Jeanerette," flatly declared that his nemesis is "no longer lieutenant governor, and he is now nothing." Long ordered that Cyr be removed from the state payroll. Cyr tried again to take the governorship in January 1932, while the gubernatorial campaign between Oscar Kelly Allen (1882-1936) and Dudley J. LeBlanc was underway. He established "executive offices" in the Heidelberg Hotel in Baton Rouge and took a second oath as governor. When Long learned of the turn of events, he called the manager of the Heidelberg and requested that Cyr be evicted. Cyr then moved to the Louisiana Hotel but thereafter was forced to return in defeat to Jeanerette.
Forced out as lieutenant governor
When Cyr declared himself governor, Long insisted that the rightful claimant as lieutenant governor was not Cyr but Alvin Olin King (1890-1958), a state senator from Lake Charles whom Long had appointed as lieutenant governor when Cyr allegedly bowed out. Cyr did not resign as lieutenant governor, but the Louisiana courts agreed with Long that by declaring himself governor, he had in effect vacated the lieutenant governorship.
The pro-Long Bienville Democrat newspaper in Arcadia in Bienville Parish opined that Cyr had "about as much chance being installed or elected governor of Louisiana as a Texas billy-goat had of making a nonstop jump to the planet Mars."
Enduring anti-Long sentiment
- For a more detailed treatment, see Anti-Longism.
Despite Long's strong control over Louisiana as governor and while in the Senate too, his opponents often seemed fearless at the odds against them. In a speech in Baton Rouge in 1934, former Lieutenant Governor Cyr declared that Senator Long "belongs to the hog family, and the piney woods, razorback type at that." Cyr called Long "the worst political tyrant to rule the state."
Years later, Cyr's reclusive daughter, Emily Cyr Bridges, the widow of James H. Bridges (1918-1968), banned the name "Huey Long" from being spoken at her Albania Plantation House near Jeanerette, which she acquired in 1957.[7]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Paul Narcisse Cyr. Findagrave.com. Retrieved on January 2, 2019.
- ↑ Charles M. Cyr. Findagrave.com. Retrieved on January 2, 2020.
- ↑ Past Presidents: Louisiana Dental Association. ladental.org. Retrieved on January 2, 2020.
- ↑ Weiss' Body May Hold Clues. The New Orleans Times-Picayune on usgwarchives.org (October 17, 1991). Retrieved on January 2, 2020.
- ↑ Jackson, John Ellett. The Political Graveyard. Retrieved on January 2, 2020.
- ↑ Woman and Doctor Die on the Gallows; Mrs. Leboeuf and Dr. Thomas Dreher are hanged in Louisiana, Protesting Their Innocence. She Prays for Hangman; Pleads Not to Let Her Suffer. The New York Times (February 2, 1929). Retrieved on January 1, 2020.
- ↑ Lot Information: Albania Plantation Auction. nealauction.com. Retrieved on January 2, 2020.
Other sources
- "Paul N. Cyr," Who's Who in America, 1938-1939; 1940-1941.
- "Paul N. Cyr," Who Was Who in America, 1943-1950.
- Richard D. White, Jr., Kingfish (New York: Random House), pp. 20, 43, 57-59, 65-66, 82, 104-105, 107, 112, 132-134, 136, 140, 142, 154, 190-191.
- "Who's Huey Now?, Time magazine, October 26, 1931.
