Louisiana Voice

I suppose every reporter who ever covered the State Capitol or a political campaign has his or her favorite Edwin Edwards story. In that regard, I know I’m not unique, but I happen to have had two interactions with the man that impressed me deeply. And there’re two other stories that, while I was in no way involved, remain among my favorites.

Gov. Edwards died this morning at 93 and like him or not, there will not be another quite like him in Louisiana politics. He was not, as some might like to paint him, a throwback to the Huey Long era. He was his own man who built his own legacy – good, bad, or indifferent – without any help from the Kingfish.

My experience with the man goes all the way back to the mid-1970s when I was a snot-nosed reporter for the Baton Rouge State-Times. (Some say little has change in my personality over the ensuing half-century, but that’s another story.)

Jim Hughes, then-managing editor of the State-Times, approached my desk one morning to say he’d received a call that things were amiss at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, where school president Clea Parker was said to be stealing the university blind through a combination of chicanery and mismanagement. He asked me to drive over and snoop around.

I did, spending the better part of a week on the campus talking to various officials and examining financial records. I even interviewed Parker, who broke down and wept during our interview at the idea that he would be accused of wrongdoing. If Parker was guilty of anything, I concluded, it of being too trusting of those in his inner circle.

I reported back to Hughes that I could find nothing that warranted a story and he said not to worry about it anymore.

A couple of weeks later, I visited family in Ruston for Christmas and dropped by the offices of the local newspaper, The Daily Leader, where I had begun my journalistic odyssey back in 1966 (I would work for the paper on four separate occasions during my career). I mentioned to publisher Tom Kelly, who had first hired me off the street as an advertising account rep, the dead-end I’d encountered at SLU.

He suddenly snapped his fingers and said, “My brother-in-law teaches there and he recently told me that a fellow professor (who Kelly named, but I won’t after so many years because, frankly, it would serve no purpose) had stopped at his table in the student center and announced that he was going to be the next president of Southeastern. He said Gov. Edwards had promised him the job.”

Now I had a hook on which to hang my story – provided I could get confirmation from Edwards, whom I’d never met.

When I returned to work on Monday, I naively walked over to the Capitol, rode the elevator up to the fourth floor and announced I wanted to see the governor (keep in mind, I was not a Capitol beat reporter, nor had I called for an appointment).

The receptionist replied, “Certainly. Have a seat and I’ll let the governor know you’re here.” (Years later, it would literally prove impossible to get Bobby Jindal to even return a call, much less acknowledge your presence). I waited all of five or six minutes before being ushered into the governor’s office. I sat down in front of his desk which was unoccupied. I sat alone in the room for just a minute or two before I became aware of someone walking behind me, coming up on my right side. I looked up to see Edwards stride past holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee. He stepped up into the seat of his chair and sat on top of the backrest, a most unconventional position for the chief executive for the State of Louisiana, or any other state, to say the least. “May I help you?” he asked.

“Governor, did you promise the presidency of Southeastern to _________?” I blurted. So much for subtlety.

The man never blinked nor did he hesitate. “What I promised _______ was that if the presidency became vacant, I would recommend him for the position and since I appoint all the members of the Board of Trustees (of State Colleges and Universities), my recommendation would carry a certain amount of weight. Does that answer your question?”

Boom! I had my story straight from the horse’s mouth.

That afternoon, after the paper came out with my story splashed across the front page, I got a call from the furious professor. He was screaming at me, denying the content of the story. I waited until he finished and then said as calmly as I could, “Sir, if you have a problem with the facts of the story, please take it up with the governor. He was my source.”

I never heard another word about it.

Another time, when I was editor of the Daily Leader (on my fourth tour there) I had occasion to call Edwards about a story I was working on. He was not in and I left a message for him to return my call. An hour or so later, the phone rang and a voice on the other end said, “This is Edwin Edwards. You wanted to talk to me?” No secretary calling to tell me to hold for the governor. Just EWE his own bad self returning his own calls. Years later, he told me that was his policy with the press. “I figure they’re busy and want to talk directly to me and I found I got much better treatment if I didn’t make them talk to an intermediary first,” he explained.

Now for those other two stories.

In 1971, when Edwards ran for governor the first time, his chief opponent was State Sen. (later US Sen.) J. Bennett Johnston of Shreveport. As usual in Louisiana’s gubernatorial campaigns, there are about a dozen or so minor candidates. One of those was a guy named Warren J. “Puggy” Moity of New Iberia. Moity was a colorful character who added a dash of spice to any campaign he was involved in and ’71 was no different (he would receive 0.76% of the vote in that election).

Among the charges he threw out with reckless abandon during the campaign was his claim that Edwards was gay.

A few days after Moity made his outlandish claim, the candidates were scheduled to debate at the old Capitol House Hotel (formerly known as the Heidelberg Hotel where Huey Long liked to hang out in the day). When Edwards walked into the lobby, one of the first people he saw was Moity. He never broke stride as he walked up to Moity and planted a wet one on his cheek.

The other story involved former Gov. Jimmie Davis, who lived in retirement behind the governor’s mansion, across the lake from the State Capitol. Davis regaled in telling the story of how he was outside working one day, “knocking down dirt-dobber nests and spider webs when I saw Gov. Edwards walking straight toward the lake. I realized that he was going to try and walk across the water on his way to the Capitol. I stopped and watched in horror and sure enough, about halfway across, he sank like a rock. There wasn’t anything I could do but walk out there, pull him up out of the water and carry him the rest of the way.”

Rest in peace, Governor.