C. E. "Cap" Barham

Infobox Officeholder


name=
order=
office= Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana
birth_date = birth date|1904|9|28
birth_place =Near Dubach, Lincoln Parish, Louisiana, USA
death_date = death date and age|1972|2|23|1904|9|28
term_start =1952
term_end = 1956
predecessor =William Joseph "Bill" Dodd
successor =Lether Frazar
office2=Louisiana State Senator from District 29 (Lincoln and Union parishes)
term_start2=1948
term_end2=1952
preceded2=A.K. Goff, Jr.
succeeded2=James P. Hinton
occupation=Attorney
party = Democratic
spouse=Carice Helen Hilburn Barham
children=Charles Clem Barham
Robert E. Barham (1940-1996)
footnotes=(1)Barham was elevated from the Louisiana State Senate to the lieutenant governorship in 1952 and served a single term, along with Governor Robert F. Kennon.

(2) Kennon could not succeed himself as governor in 1956, but Barham under Louisiana law could seek re-election to the second position in state government.

(3) Barham lost renomination, equivalent to election in then heavily Democratic Louisiana, to Lether Frazar, the choice of incoming Governor Earl Kemp Long.

(4) In the second and unsuccessful race for lieutenant governor, Barham allied himself with New Orleans Mayor deLesseps S. "Chep" Morrison, who launched the first of his three bids for governor.

(5) Kennon did not support Barham's reelection as lieutenant governor.

Charles Emmett "Cap" Barham (September 28, 1904 -- February 23, 1972) was the Democratic lieutenant governor of Louisiana from 1952—1956, who is credited with having established the office independent from that of the governor. Prior to his statewide position, Barham was a state senator from the then 29th District (Lincoln and Union parishes) between 1948 and 1952. Like Governor Robert F. Kennon, under whom he served, Barham was part of the anti-Long faction of Louisiana politics, but he was frequently at odds with Kennon as well.

Barham was born in Kimbleton near Dubach in Lincoln Parish to John Robert Barham and the former Leola Fowler. He was educated in Dubach public schools and then attended, not the nearby technical college, Louisiana Tech University in Ruston (then "Louisiana Polytechnic Institute"), but Northwestern State University (then "Louisiana Normal College") in Natchitoches, from which he graduated with teaching credentials in 1927. He taught school for a year at Dubach and then enrolled in the law school of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He received his L.L.B. degree in 1931 and thereafter opened his law practice in Ruston.

Barham married the former Carice Helen Hilburn, and they had two sons, Charles Clem Barham (born 1934), a Ruston attorney and the Lincoln-Union state senator from 1964-1972 and 1976-1988, and Robert E. Barham (1940-1996), an English professor at Louisiana Tech. Barham was an uncle by marriage to Wiley W. Hilburn (born 1938), head of the Louisiana Tech journalism department, editorial writer for the "Shreveport Times"and an authority on Louisiana politics, and Chester William "Chet" Hilburn (born 1945), a journalist retired from the "Houston Chronicle".

Barham ran for lieutenant governor on the intraparty ticket with Congressman Thomas Hale Boggs, Sr., of New Orleans in the 1951-1952 election campaign. Boggs, considered one of Louisiana's most liberal officials in his time, did not make the gubernatorial runoff, but Barham was placed into a second primary with John Julian McKeithen (1918-1999), from Columbia in Caldwell Parish, who had run on a ticket with Judge Carlos Spaht of Baton Rouge. In the runoff campaign, Barham was "adopted" by the successful gubernatorial candidate, Robert Kennon, and the Kennon-Barham slate won an easy victory over Spaht-McKeithen. Barham was the only member of the original Boggs ticket to win office at the statewide level. Barham often found himself at odds with the much more conservative Governor Kennon.

In 1955, Barham ran again for lieutenant governor. He allied himself with Boggs' former law partner, deLesseps S. "Chep" Morrison, the mayor of New Orleans. Both Morrison and Barham were crushed in the primary by Earl Kemp Long and Long's choice for lieutenant governor, Lether Frazar, a former president of two state colleges.

In 1969, Barham was among the first six men inducted into the Northwestern State University "Hall of Fame." He is interred in Greenwood Cemetery in Ruston.

References

* "Charles Emmett Barham," Carl A. Brasseaux, ed., A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, Vol. 1 (1988)
* Ruston Daily Leader, Ruston, Louisiana, February 24, 1972
* http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi