Harvey Fields
| Harvey Goodwyn Fields, Sr. | |
 | |
Louisiana State Senator
for Union and Morehouse parishes | |
| In office 1916–1920 | |
| Preceded by | J. G. Taylor |
|---|---|
| Succeeded by | W. T. Barham |
United States Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana
| |
| In office 1937–1941 | |
| Succeeded by | Malcolm Lafargue |
| Born | May 31, 1882 Marksville, Louisiana |
| Died | May 5, 1961 (aged 78) Union Parish, Louisiana |
| Political party | Democrat |
| Spouse(s) | Evelyn Sanders Fields (married 1908; died 1961) |
| Children | Three children, including T. T. Fields |
| Residence | Farmerville, Louisiana |
| Alma mater | Louisiana Tech University Tulane University Law School |
| Occupation | Attorney |
Harvey Goodwyn Fields, Sr. (May 31, 1882 – May 5, 1961), was an attorney and Democratic politician from Farmerville, Louisiana, who was affiliated with the pro-Long political faction and was considered a spokesman for "the common man."
Career
Fields was born in Marksville in Avoyelles Parish in South Louisiana. In 1908, Fields married the former Evelyn Sanders (1889-1961), and they had two sons, Thomas Theodore Fields Jr., and Harvey Fields, Jr. (1918-1965), and a daughter, Joy (1915-1980). Fields attended Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, taught school for a time, and then graduated from the Tulane University Law School in New Orleans. He served for one term in the state Senate from 1916 to 1920 for adjoining Morehouse and Union parishes during the administration of Governor Ruffin Golson Pleasant (1871-1937) of Shreveport and also a native of Union Parish.[1]
After his state Senate tenure, Fields was from 1922 to 1925 the district attorney for his adopted Union Parish. From 1926 to 1929, he was the chairman of the Louisiana Democratic State Central Committee. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions of 1924, 1928, 1932, and 1936. He succeeded Huey Pierce Long Jr., on the elected Louisiana Public Service Commission in the then Third PSC District, a position which he filled from 1927 to 1936. Earlier, Fields had briefly been Long's law partner in Shreveport. From 1937 to 1941, Fields was the United States Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, based in Shreveport, an appointment under the administration of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1939, Fields assigned his assistant attorney and subsequent successor, Malcolm Lafargue, also a native of Marksville, to prosecute the Louisiana Hayride scandals in the forty parishes within the Western District.[2]
Fields and his wife both died in 1961. Son T. T. Fields was a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from Union Parish from 1956 to 1964 and from Union and Morehouse parishes from 1968 to 1972.[3]
Thomas T. Fields, Jr., a grandson of Harvey Fields, penned a biography in 2009 of his grandfather, I Called Him Grand Dad.[4]
References
- ↑ Membership in the Louisiana State Senate, 1880-2024. Louisiana State Senate. Retrieved on February 3, 2021.
- ↑ "M. E. Lafargue, Former District Attorney, Dies – Succumbs in Sleep Here at Age 54; Services Saturday", Shreveport Journal, March 28, 1963, pp. 1-A, 4-A.
- ↑ Membership in the Louisiana House of Representatives, 1812-2016: Union and Morehouse parishes. Louisiana House of Representatives. Retrieved on February 3, 2021.
- ↑ Thomas T. Fields (2009). I Called Him Grand Dad 227. XLibris. Retrieved on February 3, 2021.
