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deLesseps Story Morrison | |
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| 4thUnited States Ambassador to the Organization of American States | |
| In office July 17, 1961[1] – July 1963 | |
| President | John F. Kennedy |
| Preceded by | John C. Dreier |
| Succeeded by | Ellsworth Bunker |
| 54th Mayor of New Orleans | |
| In office April 4, 1946 – July 17, 1961 | |
| Preceded by | Robert Maestri |
| Succeeded by | Victor H. Schiro |
| 21st President of the National League of Cities | |
| In office 1949 | |
| Preceded by | Fletcher Bowron |
| Succeeded by | J. Quigg Newton |
| Member of theLouisiana House of Representatives from the Orleans Parish (Ward 12) | |
| In office May 13, 1940[2] – May 13, 1946[3] | |
| Preceded by | James A. Lindsay[4] |
| Succeeded by | Joseph L. Piazza[3] |
| Personal details | |
| Born | deLesseps Story Morrison (1912-01-18)January 18, 1912 New Roads, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Died | May 22, 1964(1964-05-22) (aged 52) Ciudad Victoria, Mexico |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 (includingdeLesseps Jr.) |
| Education | Louisiana State University (BA, LLB) |
| Nickname | Chep Morrison |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Branch/service |  United States Army |
| Years of service | 1941–1946 (active) 1933–1941, 1946–1964 (reserve) |
| Rank | Major General |
| Unit | Transportation Corps |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
deLesseps Story "Chep" Morrison Sr. (January 18, 1912 – May 22, 1964), was an American attorney and politician who was the 54thmayor ofNew Orleans,Louisiana, from 1946 to 1961. He then served as an appointee ofU.S. PresidentJohn F. Kennedy as theUnited States ambassador to the Organization of American States between 1961 and 1963.
The population of New Orleans peaked during Morrison's mayoralty, when the1960 Census recorded 627,525 inhabitants, a 10 percent increase from1950. Morrison ran three primary campaigns for the LouisianaDemocraticgubernatorialnomination, but was unsuccessful. Louisiana'sAfrican Americans had been effectivelydisfranchised by the turn of the 20th century; their initial preference for theRepublican "Party ofLincoln", coupled with white voters' overwhelming support in theSouth for theDemocratic Party, meant that the Democratic primary was the only competitive election in the state.[citation needed]
Morrison was born to Jacob Haight Morrison, II (1875–1929), adistrict attorney inPointe Coupee Parish, and his wife, the former Anita Olivier, a New Orleans socialite, inNew Roads, the Pointe Coupeeparish seat of government. He was named after deLesseps Story, a respected New Orleansjudge to whom he was related on his mother's side; the family was related toFerdinand de Lesseps and Sidney Story, an alderman for whom the New Orleans area ofStoryville was named.[5] Morrison spokeFrench fluently.[6]
In 1932, Morrison graduated fromLouisiana State University in Baton Rouge. In 1934, he completed his law degree from theLouisiana State University Law Center.[7]
Morrison moved to New Orleans, where he became an attorney with theNew Deal agency, theNational Recovery Administration. Thereafter, he became a law partner with his brother Jacob Morrison andThomas Hale Boggs Sr., a future DemocraticU.S. Representative andHouse Majority Leader.
In 1942, Morrison married Corinne Waterman of New Orleans. They had three children together. Their oldest son, deLesseps Story Morrison Jr., known as "Toni", became a politician like his father and was a Louisiana state representative from 1974 to 1980.
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After graduation from college he was commissioned in the Army Reserve as aSecond Lieutenant in 1933.[8]During World War II, Morrison left the state legislature to join theUnited States Army. He was promoted to the rank ofcolonel, and became chief of staff of the occupation forces stationed in the city ofBremen,Germany. He received theBronze Star, theLegion of Merit and also served inEngland,France, andBelgium. In 1944, both he and Bill Dodd were reelected to the legislaturein absentia by their constituents. He served on active duty from 1941 to 1946.[9] He was also decorated with theLegion of Honour and the BelgianOrder of Leopold.[8]
After the war, Morrison returned to New Orleans to practice law. Continuing with theU.S. Army Reserve in 1946, he attained the rank ofMajor General.[9] His reserve career included serving as the commanding general of the 377th Transportation Command and later Deputy Chief of the Transportation Corps within theUnited States Department of the Army.[9]
Morrison was approached by a group ofUptown reformers in December 1945 to run for mayor in theelection of 1946. The attractive and dynamic young veteran ran a campaign emphasizing the need to clean up the corruption of incumbent MayorRobert Maestri, who had been affiliated withHuey Long and theEarl Longfaction of Louisiana Democratic politics. Maestri'sOld Regulars had dominated New Orleans for decades. Morrison pulled a major upset when he defeated Maestri in the first primary. Historian Pamela Tyler notes that outside of New Orleans Morrison's surprise victory was attributed to the role of women.[10] The International Women's Organization, (IWO) under the leadership of July Breazeale Waters (1895–1989), registered voters, became poll watchers, canvassed, distributed literature and signs and got out the vote on election day on behalf of Morrison. One notable event planned by women that moved the electorate was the "March of Brooms" whose theme was, "A Clean Sweep with Morrison." The IWO and theBroom Brigade were key to Morrison's victory, with the Christian Science Monitor stating, "The women of New Orleans elected deLesseps S. Morrison."[11] He was among many returning World War II veterans to gain political office during that period.[citation needed]
As mayor, Morrison put together a strongpublic relations team, which helped him cultivate an image as a dynamic reformer and of the city as a progressive one. He gained widespread praise in the national press.[12] A later 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of theUniversity of Illinois at Chicago ranked Morrison as the sixteenth-best American big-city mayor to have served between the years 1820 and 1993.[13]
Morrison marketed the city effectively, and was instrumental in creating the post-World War II image of New Orleans as a growing and progressiveSun Beltmetropolis. His administration attracted significant private investment and welcomed the establishment of numerous oil industry and white-collar corporate offices in downtown New Orleans, as well as several sizable new industrial plants elsewhere. To emphasize his differences from his predecessor, whom he had characterized as dictatorial, Morrison worked to get a law passed to reduce the powers of the mayor. He created a newcity planning commission and moved to make administration more efficient by firing many of Maestri'spatronage appointments (though some were replaced with Morrison's own supporters).[citation needed]
Morrison downsized city operations by selling off most of the city's public markets. Most were torn down, which was regretted later as costing the city valuable community centers. He addressed a housing crisis by building veterans' housing operated by theHousing Authority of New Orleans, and engaged in more large-scaleurban renewal than any other New Orleans mayor. Morrison's administration demolished low-income neighborhoods to build new or expand existingpublic housing projects, expropriated private property to construct theNew Orleans Civic Center, theNew Orleans Union Passenger Terminal, and several street-widening projects in thecity's downtown.[citation needed]
One of his most popular acts was to create theNew Orleans Recreation Department (NORD), which included segregated facilities for whites and blacks (all public facilities were segregated in those years). He began an extensive citywide street improvement program financed though a bond issue, and located funding sufficient to construct numerous street overpasses and underpasses, eliminating most at-grade railway crossings within the city limits. Morrison acquiesced inNew Orleans Public Service's dismantling of the city's extensivestreetcar network in the 1950s.[citation needed]
A proponent of increasedinternational trade, Morrison lent his support to the construction of the International Trade Mart, a precursor to the city'sWorld Trade Center. He traveled extensively in Latin America to promote trade with New Orleans. He became friends with dictatorsRafael Trujillo andJuan Perón. Morrison's wish to reinforce ties with Latin America was expressed in such urban renewal projects as having newcentral area circulators embellished with monuments to Central and South American historical figures. The widenedBasin Street was, from 1957, developed as theGarden of the Americas and outfitted with monuments toSimón Bolívar,Benito Juárez, andFrancisco Morazán. A statue of Bolívar was prominently sited at the corner of Canal and Basin streets, and a new circulator inCentral City was renamedSimon Bolivar Avenue.[14] Morrison endorsed theInformation Council of the Americas (INCA), an anti-communist organization, at the behest of its founder Edward S. Butler in order to boost its membership. He called on citizens to support INCA "with vigor".[15]
In 1949, Morrison served as president of theNational League of Cities.[16]
Despite running on a platform stressing the elimination of the Old Regular machine, after his election Morrison quickly built his own political organization, the Crescent City Democratic Association. The CCDA began finding its supporters jobs in City Hall and in municipal construction contracts. In October 1946, Morrison broke a garbage collectors' strike by organizing volunteer scab labor to take over the duties of the strikers. Morrison's organization's power quickly eclipsed that of the Old Regulars, and he secured easy re-elections in 1950, 1954, and 1958.[citation needed]
Morrison pushed for a new city charter in 1954, which replaced the at-large council commission system with a legislative city council combining five district-based and two at-large members. The"strong mayor" system of municipal government established by the 1954 charter still operates in New Orleans. The charter limited the mayor to two consecutive four-year terms, but did not apply to Morrison, who was exempted by agrandfather clause.
After assuming office in 1946, Morrison appointed Adair Watters superintendent of theNew Orleans Police Department (NOPD) in an effort to eliminate corruption. But tensions developed when Watters moved to suppressgambling,prostitution, and other vice too zealously for Morrison's liking. Watters resigned in February 1949 because of Morrison's political interference with NOPD activities. Throughout most of the 1950s, scandals continued to be revealed concerning the involvement of the NOPD ingraft andvice.[citation needed] In 1952, the Metropolitan Crime Commission of New Orleans was established as an independent monitor of the NOPD and the Morrison administration's approach to vice. State Police Colonel Francis Grevemberg, later a two-time gubernatorial candidate, led a series of high-profile raids on New Orleans gambling establishments that embarrassed Morrison and the NOPD for its inactivity. Eventually, retired FBI Agent Aaron M. Kohn was sent fromChicago to investigate NOPD involvement in vice. Kohn later recalled:
After about a year, I began to realize something about the system down here. In Chicago, people were generally on one side of the fence or the other—honest or crooked. But in Louisiana, there just isn't any fence."[17]
He soon complained that Morrison was obstructing his efforts. In 1955, Morrison forced the mayor to ask for the resignation of Joseph Schuering, the NOPD superintendent implicated in the scandals.[citation needed]
Early in his administration, Morrison supported the construction of a suburban-style black neighborhood namedPontchartrain Park, built public housing for low-incomeblacks, and spent money on street andinfrastructure improvements in black neighborhoods. NORD builtplaygrounds,swimming pools, and recreational centers forAfrican Americans. These actions earned him the enmity of hard-linesegregationists. In 1950, he oversaw the NOPD's hiring of its first black policeman since the advent of theJim Crow era in the late 19th century. These measures aside, Morrison remained committed to segregation and was known to use racial slurs in private conversations. The facilities he built in black neighborhoods were segregated and received inferior funding compared to civic projects in white neighborhoods. Historian Adam Fairclough interprets Morrison's building programs for blacks as a way of "shoring up segregation" by defusing dissatisfaction with inferior facilities. Many black leaders found him sympathetic but unwilling to take more meaningful action to address their concerns. Morrison's approach to race relations increasingly fell behind the times as theCivil Rights Movement gained momentum.
In his 1959 gubernatorial runoff contest, Morrison proclaimed his support for segregation and noted that New Orleans was at that time the least racially mixed of the large southern cities. He boasted that he had been sued by theNAACP over his segregationist policies in the city.[18]
New Orleans gained national attention in the fall of 1960 during theNew Orleans school desegregation crisis as the city's school board implemented a federalintegration order for itspublic schools. Four black students entered two white schools, McDonogh No. 19 Elementary School andWilliam Frantz Elementary School, in the city'sNinth Ward, but were greeted outside with mobs of white women and youths screaming racial slurs and throwing bottles and refuse.[citation needed] While Morrison did not join GovernorJimmie Davis' drive to prevent integration by shutting the schools down, he did nothing to prevent the intimidating segregationist demonstrations. The NOPD passively stood by while mobs heckled parents bringing their children to school, but at the same time, police arrested civil rights activists holding lunch countersit-ins in the city.[citation needed] Morrison's lack of action stemmed from his political need to avoid alienating black supporters while publicly retaining a segregationist stance to satisfy whites. His position resulted in criticism from both sides; black New Orleanians and supporters of civil rights felt he had betrayed them, while hard-line segregationists accused him of supporting integration.[citation needed] Ultimately, his fence-straddling on civil rights contributed significantly to the fatigue and disenchantment with which the citizenry received his administration's actions in its final years – a sharp contrast with the comparatively ebullient 1950s. Morrison's leadership failures on civil rights did much to compromise his earlier achievements. This resulted in New Orleans being more poorly positioned socially and economically for the post-Civil Rights era than its (at that time) peer cities such asAtlanta,Houston, andDallas.[citation needed]
The then-lieutenant governor, C.E. "Cap" Barham ofRuston, ran unsuccessfully with Morrison in a bid for a second term in the second-highest state office. The two proposed a "New look" for Louisiana politics. In his stump speeches, Morrison often reminded his listeners that all state programs came from taxes and not everything one might prefer could be adopted. Yet he usually mentioned projects important to local voters.[19]
Other Morrison ticket candidates lost too, including George W. Shannon forCommissioner of Agriculture and Forestry, Fred Columbus Dent Sr., for register of state land, David Wallace Chennault, son of GeneralClaire Chennault, for custodian of voting machines, Mrs. Marion Henderson ofColfax, Grant Parish for state comptroller, and R. W. "Tom" Farrar Jr., forstate attorney general.[20]
In an appearance inShreveport,Country music starMinnie Pearl campaigned for Morrison, rather than fellow entertainer Jimmie Davis.[21] Morrison carried the endorsement of three of the four LouisianaTeamsters Union chapters, with only theLake Charles branch remaining neutral in the runoff election against Davis.[22]
By his final term as mayor, Morrison's luster had faded somewhat. Some of his ideas, such as the unsuccessful 1959 proposal for amonorail, were met with widespread opposition. He moved surprisingly slowly to construct a more modern terminal forMoisant International Airport; for its first thirteen years of operation New Orleanians departed from a glorified barn, in contrast to its regional economic rivals. Morrison failed to keep thePelicansminor league baseball team in New Orleans. The energy that had characterized his early years in office seemed thoroughly dissipated. Former political allies such as City Councilman and future Lieutenant GovernorJames Edward "Jimmy" Fitzmorris Jr., began to express their independence and positioned themselves for a future without Morrison. In the aftermath of the school integration crisis, Morrison's political future was uncertain. He was the first of many New Orleans mayors to try to amend the 1954 city charter to allow a third consecutive term as mayor, but did not succeed.[citation needed]
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Seeking a political base from which to stage another run for governor, he approached theJohn F. Kennedy administration and was appointed Ambassador to theOrganization of American States on July 17, 1961. In a further sign of his declining political fortunes, his chosen candidate for mayor in theNew Orleans election of 1962 – State SenatorAdrian G. Duplantier – lost the Democratic runoff toVictor Schiro.[citation needed]
Four months after his final election defeat, Morrison and his son, Randy, died on May 22, 1964, in a plane crash inCiudad Victoria, Mexico.[23]
Morrison married Corinne Waterman on October 3, 1942. Mrs. Morrison (born August 17, 1921) died at the age of thirty-seven on February 26, 1959, just a few months before her husband launched his second gubernatorial bid. The Morrisons' seven-year-old son, John Randolph Waterman "Randy" Morrison (born September 24, 1956), died with his father in the 1964 plane crash. The Morrisons' daughter, Corinne Ann Morrison (born 1947), became an attorney and practiced in New Orleans. Their elder son,deLesseps Story Morrison Jr. (1944–1996), who like his father was elected to the state house, ran unsuccessfully for mayor in1977. DeLesseps Jr. died oflung cancer on August 21, 1996. Both father and son died at age 52. All four Morrisons are buried atMetairie Cemetery inNew Orleans.[citation needed]
After his wife's death, Morrison was frequently seen in the company ofHungarian-born actressZsa Zsa Gabor, who expressed a special fondness for New Orleans, which she considered "the most European" of American cities.Jimmy Fitzmorris, later lieutenant governor of Louisiana, recalled that "The ladies loved him. Chep was sort of an outgoing personality, had a contagious smile, and was able to captivate a lot of people. Most people that met Chep couldn't help but like him."[24] Morrison later dismissed the notion that his interest in Gabor was serious though Jimmie Davis questioned the relationship in the 1959 gubernatorial race. In 1963, Gabor wed businessmanHerbert Hutner while Morrison was making his third unsuccessful run for governor a year before his own death. Gabor, who married nine times, lived until 2016.[24]
In 1995, the senior deLesseps Morrison was inductedposthumously into theLouisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame inWinnfield, the home base of the Longs.[25]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Mayor of New Orleans 1946–1961 | Succeeded by |
| Diplomatic posts | ||
| Preceded by | United States Ambassador to the Organization of American States 1961–1963 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
