Edwin S. Broussard

Edwin Sidney Broussard, I (December 4, 1874 – November 19, 1934), was a United States senator from Louisiana. He was born in the village of Loureauville in Iberia Parish in the sugar-growing country of south Louisiana and attended public schools. He graduated from the Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge in 1896. He taught in the public schools of Iberia and St. Martin parishes from 1896 to 1898.

At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, Broussard volunteered for service. He was a captain in Cuba, 1898-1899; he accompanied the Taft Commission to the Philippine Islands in 1899 and served as an assistant secretary. He returned to the United States in 1900, graduated from the law department of Tulane University in New Orleans in 1901, and was admitted to the bar the same year. He established his practice in New Iberia, the seat of Iberia Parish.

Broussard was prosecuting attorney for the Nineteenth Judicial District of Louisiana from 1903 to 1908. Between 1914 and 1916, he affiliated with the Progressive Party, formed by Theodore Roosevelt, and opposed to the New Orleans Democratic party machine, known as the Old Regulars. Broussard ran unsuccessfully in 1916 for lieutenant governor with gubernatorial candidate John M. Parker, another Roosevelt loyalist. Parker lost that year too but rebounded to victory in 1920 as a Democrat.

He was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 1920 to fill the seat vacated by his deceased brother, Robert Foligny Broussard. He defeated former Governor Jared Y. Sanders, Sr.. Broussard was identified as a senator with strong advocacy of the sugar tariff and federal flood control projects important to his state. He was reelected in 1926 by defeating Sanders once again and with Huey Long's support. The Ku Klux Klan rallied against Broussard on account of his Roman Catholicism, but were unsuccessful. He was denied renomination in the 1932 Democratic primary. He was defeated in a disputed vote by Huey Long's choice for the position, John Holmes Overton of Alexandria, the seat of Rapides Parish in central Louisiana. Though Long had backed Broussard in 1926 and Broussard had supported Long for governor in 1928, Long branded Broussard a "conservative" and favored Overton as Broussard's replacement. Broussard hence served from March 4, 1921, to March 3, 1933.

After his defeat, Broussard resumed his law practice and tended to banking and financial affairs in New Iberia. He died in New Iberia and is interred in St. Peter's Cemetery there.

Edwin Broussard married the former Marie Patout, the daughter of Felix Patout and the former Claire Tate, on June 5, 1904. The couple had six children, including Edwin S. Broussard, II, and George P. Broussard, a veterinary medicine researcher.

References

*CongBio|B000895
*"Edwin Sidney Broussard", "A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography", Vol. 1 (1988), pp. 113-114