Difference between revisions of "E. D. Gleason"

Revision as of 17:53, August 4, 2020

​ Ernest Dewey Gleason, known as E. D. Gleason (September 9, 1899 – July 25, 1959),^[1][2] was a Democratic state representative from the Evergreen Community north of Minden in Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana. Gleason served from 1952 until his death at the end of his second term. He was briefly succeeded in office by his widow, Mary Smith Gleason (1899-1967), who was appointed for the remaining eight months by then Governor Earl Kemp Long.​

Background

Gleason was born in rural Shongaloo in central Webster Parish to William Thomas Gleason (1868-1947), a planter and banker,^[3] and the former Ida Camille Lunsford (1867-1909), who is interred at Cotton Valley Cemetery in nearby Cotton Valley.^[4] His mother died when Gleason was about ten years of age. His father remarried. Gleason's stepmother was the former Annie Craton (1877-1952), the aunt of the 38-year Webster Parish tax assessor, Richard B. Garrison (1916-1991),^[5] She was the sister of William Banks Craton (1904-1989), and the Minden banker James Aubrey Craton (1908-1999).^[1][6]​

Gleason graduated in 1918 from Cotton Valley High School north of Minden. The school closed in 2011. He worked in Caddo Parish from 1919 to 1935, when he began to manage his own farm at Evergreen. He was subsequently named vice president of the Webster Parish Farm Bureau.^[7]

Political career

​ In 1944, Gleason ran unsuccessfully for the Webster Parish Police Jury, having been defeated by a 20-vote margin by the incumbent John Lewis "J. L." Munn (1891-1964), a minister who served from 1936 to 1952.^[8] After the police jury candidacy, the Gleasons lost one of their three sons, Thomas D. Gleason (1924-1944), to hostile action in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II.^[1]​

In 1947, Gleason joined Minden accountant Larkin L. Greer (1902–1991) and attorney Floyd D. Culbertson, Jr., who had been the mayor of Minden from 1940 to 1942, as co-chairmen of the Webster Parish "Kennon Club" to support Robert F. Kennon for governor. Earlier Kennon had been the mayor of Minden for two years and for a time held the record as the youngest mayor in the nation. Kennon, however, was eliminated in the Democratic primary. Former Governor Earl Long defeated another former governor, Sam Houston Jones, to return to office in 1948.^[9]​

Gleason was elected to succeed interim Representative Lizzie Price Thompson (1894-1973) of Doyline, who also had been appointed by Governor Earl Long when her husband, Representative C. W. Thompson, died in office in 1951. In his successful legislative race, Gleason ran newspaper advertising on the theme "Better Highways".^[10] As a lawmaker, Gleason worked alongside the Bossier-Webster state senators, John Jones Doles, Sr., a banker from Plain Dealing and Herman "Wimpy" Jones, a businessman from Bossier City and Minden. As a state representative, Gleason worked for an extra judgeship for the 26th Judicial District, the establishment of the National Guard armory on Constable Street in Minden (since relocated), expansion of the Cotton Valley oil field, and several highway projects.^[11]​

In 1956, Gleason won another legislative term by defeating in a runoff election Dr. Paul Murdoch Campbell (1913-1987), who resigned from the Minden City Council to make the race. Gleason polled 4,236 votes to Campbell's 3,998.^[12] In the earlier primary contest, two other candidates, Ennos Clyde Eeds (1904-1981)^[13] of Cullen, south of Springhill, and the Minden barber Homer D. Acklen (1907–1981), were eliminated from the competition.^[14]

Gleason introduced a bill for a new one-cent state sales tax earmarked for teacher salaries. Governor Earl Long voiced opposition to the tax, but Gleason said that he believed Long would reverse himself if sufficient public support for the tax increase developed among the electorate.^[15] He also supported segregation, as did most Louisiana lawmakers at the time of the civil rights movement.^[11] Gleason also supported a bill to make automobile liability insurance compulsory.^[16] Gleason supported right-to-work legislation, his view having been that workers should not be forced into union membership.^[17] He also favored old-age pensions and expanded farm-to-market roads.^[18]​

Choosing Gleason's successor

Gleason filed for a third term in 1959^[19] but died of a heart attack in the Minden Sanitarium three months later. Services were held at the Evergreen Baptist Church. He is interred at Minden Cemetery. In addition to his wife, he was survived by two other sons, William Ernest "Cotton" Gleason, Sr. (1919-1980), an educator who taught at Minden High School, relocated to Plaquemine in Iberville Parish and later returned to Evergreen, where he is interred at Evergreen Cemetery,^[20] and Charles E. Gleason of Shreveport; a brother, Raleigh Rogerson Gleason (1903-1964), a bank vice-president from Minden, and a sister, Gladys G. McGritinsey of Shreveport.^[11] Another brother, William Charles Gleason (1890-1957), lived in Baton Rouge.^[4]​

Mrs. Gleason did not contest the seat in the primary held on December 5, 1959. Instead, son William Gleason filed for the position. He ran moderately well in the Democratic primary but finished in fourth place, thirty-one votes behind Minden businessman Frank Burnett Treat, Jr. (1923–1994), the third-place candidate. The coveted runoff berths went to Parey Pershing Branton (1918-2011), a businessman and a former president of the Webster Parish School Board from Shongaloo, and the Minden attorney, Henry Grady Hobbs (1923-2012), a Sarepta native later long active on the Webster Parish Library Board.^[21] Hobbs led Branton in the primary, 1,634-1,504, but in the runoff, Branton prevailed by 16 ballots: 4,300 votes (50.01 percent) to 4,284 (49.99 percent). Branton carried only two of the five wards in the parish to take the seat.^[22] Branton was then elected without Republican opposition in the April 19, 1960, general election, in which Republican Francis Grevemberg opposed the victorious Democrat, Jimmie Davis, who was elected to his second nonconsecutive term. Branton then held the seat until 1972, though Hobbs ran unsuccessfully for the position again in 1967 against Branton.

Cotton Gleason case

Tereafter, William E. "Cotton" Gleason was arrested in 1961 for having given barbiturates known as "Yellow Jackets" to at least two female students at Minden High School. On February 2, 1962, he received a $1,000 fine and a two-year sentence, both suspended. Four months later he was pardoned by Governor Jimmie Davis.^[23] After his arrest, Gleason resigned from Minden High School. He then hired Shreveport attorney Whitfield Jack, brother of his late father's House colleague, Wellborn Jack, to procure reinstatement, having claimed that his resignation was under emotional duress. However, Gleason was not re-employed by the Webster Parish School Board.^[24]​ ​

References

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