Murphy J. Foster | |
|---|---|
 | |
| United States Senator fromLouisiana | |
| In office March 4, 1901 – March 3, 1913 | |
| Preceded by | Donelson Caffery |
| Succeeded by | Joseph E. Ransdell |
| 31st Governor of Louisiana | |
| In office May 10, 1892 – May 8, 1900 | |
| Lieutenant | |
| Preceded by | Francis T. Nicholls |
| Succeeded by | William Wright Heard |
| Member of theLouisiana State Senate from the 10th district | |
| In office 1880–1892 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Murphy James Foster (1849-01-12)January 12, 1849 Franklin, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Died | June 12, 1921(1921-06-12) (aged 72) Franklin, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Party | Democratic |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 10 |
| Relatives | Mike Foster (grandson) |
| Alma mater | |
| Signature | .png) |
Murphy James Foster (January 12, 1849 – June 12, 1921) was the31st Governor of theU.S. state ofLouisiana, an office he held for two terms from 1892 to 1900.[1] Foster supported theLouisiana Constitution of 1898, which effectivelydisfranchised the black majority, who were mostly Republicans. This led to Louisiana becoming a one-partyDemocratic state for several generations and excludingAfrican Americans from the political system.
Louisiana followedMississippi (1890) and other southern states in adopting a new constitution with devices to disfranchise blacks, then a majority in the state, chiefly by making voter registration more difficult. This situation of discriminatory political exclusion was not corrected until after enforcement of constitutional rights by the federal government under theVoting Rights Act of 1965.
Foster was born in 1849 on his family's sugar cane plantation nearFranklin, the seat ofSt. Mary Parish, to Thomas J. Foster and the former Martha P. Murphy. His father owned fifty slaves in 1860, marking him as a major planter.[2] Murphy Foster was educated in public schools and attendedWashington and Lee University inLexington, Virginia, and graduated fromCumberland University inLebanon, Tennessee in 1870. He studied law at the University of Louisiana (laterTulane University) inNew Orleans and was admitted to the bar in 1871 during theReconstruction era (United States).[3]
In 1879, Foster "was elected member of theJohn McEnery legislature, but owing to the fact that this government was never recognized and that the Kellogg government was, did not take his seat."[4]
On May 15, 1877, Foster married Florence Daisy Hine, the daughter of Franklin merchant T.D. Hine. She died on August 26, 1877, at age 19. In 1881, he married Rose Routh Ker, daughter of Captain John Ker and the former Rose Routh of Ouida Plantation inWest Feliciana Parish nearBaton Rouge. The couple had ten children, nine of whom lived to maturity. These included Murphy James Foster II, the father of future GovernorMurphy (Mike) Foster.[5]
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Prior to being elected and serving as governor, Foster served as a state senator from 1880 to 1892. In 1892, he was elected governor as theDemocratic Party nominee, and he had the support of theFarmer's Alliance, a populist group, as well.
Hislieutenant governors wereCharles Parlange and Hiram R. Lott, during his first term, andRobert H. Snyder ofTensas Parish in the second term.
Foster appointedThomas M. Wade ofNewellton, another Tensas Parish legislator, to the state board of education. Wade later served as the long-term Tensas Parish school superintendent.[6]
Foster appointedWilliam B. Bailey, the co-founder of theLafayette Daily Advertiser and the formermayor ofLafayette as the clerk of the state district court forLafayette Parish.[7]
In 1896, Foster directed state troopers to forcefully overthrow Louisiana's last enclave of Republican and African-American office holders inSt. John the Baptist Parish.[8]
In the 1896 general election, Foster was re-elected as the incumbent. He defeated theRepublican-Populistfusion candidateJohn Newton Pharr (1829–1903), a sugar planter fromSt. Mary Parish.Lewis Strong Clarke, a neighboring sugar planter from St. Mary Parish, directed the Pharr campaign.[9] Pharr had possibly gained a majority of votes cast and won twenty-six of the then fifty-nine parishes, with his greatest strength in north central Louisiana and theFlorida Parishes to the east ofBaton Rouge.[10]
With the assistance of theRegular Democratic Organizationpolitical machine based in New Orleans,[11] Foster officially received 116,116 votes (57 percent) to Pharr's 87,698 ballots (43 percent). The election, however, suffered heavily from fraud which benefited Foster, and widespread violence to suppress black Republican voting. A clear accounting of the election results is probably not possible.[12]
Subsequently, as governor, Foster signed off on the new Louisiana Constitution of 1898, establishing a variety of voter registration requirements that would "disenfranchise blacks, Republicans, and white Populists."[13] (All of these categories of voters had voted overwhelmingly for John N. Pharr, and similar coalitions gained governorships and/or congressional seats in some southern states. The new constitution ensured that Louisiana would become a one-party state, and it was part of the "Solid South" Democratic hegemony for the next six decades.)
After Foster's reelection in 1896, Louisiana general elections were non-competitive; the only competition took place in Democratic primaries. Voter rolls were sharply reduced by the new initiatives, and blacks and other groups were excluded from the political system. The white-controlled legislature imposed racial segregation andJim Crow.[14] As an example of the changed politics, by 1908 when John N. Pharr's son Henry Newton Pharr (eponym ofPharr, Texas) sought the Louisiana governorship as a Republican, he gained just 11.1 percent, of a much reduced proportion of voters in comparison to his father's campaign against Foster in 1896.[15]
After leaving the office of governor in 1900, Foster was elected by the state legislature as aU.S. senator.[4] He served until 1913, when he lost the Democratic nomination. Thereafter, he was appointed as thecustoms collector in New Orleans by PresidentWoodrow Wilson. This Southerner achieved office because he gained an Electoral College bonus following disfranchisement of blacks in the South and hobbling of the Republican Party.[16]
Foster died on June 12, 1921, on the Dixie Plantation near Franklin, some nine years before his grandson and namesake, a future governor of the state, was born.[17]
He was a member ofThe Boston Club of New Orleans.[18]
Foster worked to maintainwhite supremacy in Louisiana through his support of the Louisiana Constitution of 1898, which practically disfranchised blacks. He also led the fight which succeeded in outlawing theLouisiana Lottery Co. Foster fought for the interest of sugar growers and supported flood-control legislation and the regulation of railway rates.
Foster was the last governor of Louisiana to serve two consecutive 4-year terms untilJohn J. McKeithen, who served from 1964 to 1972.[a]
Because blacks were disfranchised under Foster's administration, Democratic candidates in the state did not encounter serious challenges from Republicans until 1963. At the beginning of a realignment of party identification in the South, that year McKeithen was challenged by Republican Charlton Lyons. Since the late 20th century, the former Confederate states, where whites constitute a majority, have sincegenerally elected Republican national candidates.
In 1997, Foster wasposthumously inducted into theLouisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame inWinnfield.[19]
His grandson,Murphy J. Foster Jr., served as aRepublican governor of the state from 1996 to 2004. "Mike" Foster is technically Murphy J. Foster III, but he used the term "Jr." instead.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link). See also Henry Newton Pharr,Pharrs and Farrs, with other descendants from five Scots-Irish pioneers in America, also some other Farrs and miscellaneous data (New Orleans: N.p., 1955), andHorack Talley site for Henry N. Pharr III.Archived May 7, 2010, at theWayback Machine| Party political offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Democratic nominee forGovernor of Louisiana 1896 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Governor of Louisiana 1892–1900 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. Senate | ||
| Preceded by | US Senator (Class 2) from Louisiana 1901–1913 | Succeeded by |
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