Paul N. Cyr

Paul Narcisse Cyr (September 9, 1878 - August 24, 1946) was the elected lieutenant governor in the Huey Pierce Long, Jr., gubernatorial administration who quarreled with the self-designated "Kingfish" throughout most of their tenure. In 1931 and 1932, Cyr twice proclaimed himself the legitimate governor when Long delayed vacating the office to assume his elected seat in the United States Senate.

Early years, family, education

Cyr (pronounced SEER) was born in Jeanerette, a small town in Iberia Parish, to Joseph Cyr and the former Emilie Julie Hoffer. On February 6, 1907, he married the former Mary McGowen, and they had four children named Louie, Marjorie, Emily, and Charles M. Cyr (1915-2001).

He graduated from Atlanta Dental College and became a practicing dentist in Jeanerette in 1900. He was sufficiently regarded by his peers that he was named president of the Louisiana Dental Examining Board in 1916-1917.

Business interests

Besides being a dentist, Cyr was a surface geologist who had worked for Humble Oil Company and knew that large petroleum deposits existed below salt domes from Plaquemines Parish in south Louisiana to the Texas state line. Cyr found that several independent oil developers who contributed to Long for governor had received prosperous oil leases on state lands after the Kingfish took office.

Cyr was also a director of the First National Bank of Jeanerette and Consolidated Grocery Store. He was a member of the Knights of Pythias, Woodmen of the World, and the Elks Club. He was Presbyterian.

The split with Huey Long

Cyr was elected lieutenant governor on the Long intraparty ticket in 1928. He defeated the Opelousas physician Felix Octave Pavy, Sr. (died 1962), later a state representative from St. Landry Parish and a brother of Judge Benjamin Pavy, the father-in-law of the Long assassin, Dr. Carl Weiss.

Within months of taking office, Cyr split permanently with Long. The historian Richard D. White, Jr., found that fewer rivals irritated Long more than did Cyr. Throughout the spring and summer of 1931, Cyr threatened to take the oath of office as governor but did not do so. Long and Cyr had first openly quarreled in February 1929 over a controversial murder case in which a St. Mary Parish physician, Thomas E. Dreher, hired his handyman to murder the electrician James LeBoeuf (pronounced LEA BUFF), the husband of the doctor's lover, Ada LeBoeuf. Long favored the execution of the couple, but Cyr wanted leniency. Ultimately, the two were hanged on makeshift gallows -- Ada having been the first white woman hanged in Louisiana.

In October 1931, Cyr filed suit in a bid to oust Long as governor and declared himself governor. He had a justice of the peace in Shreveport give him the oath of office in the Caddo Parish courthouse. Cyr arrived in Baton Rouge and threatened to take over the governor's mansion. Long ordered the National Guard to mobilize, and troops surrounded the capitol with strict orders not to admit Cyr. After a few days, state police replaced the guardsmen. For a time, the city was an "armed camp", with both Long and Cyr packing pistols.

Without police power, Cyr realized that he was beaten and returned to Jeanerette. Long, who had dubbed Cyr the "tooth puller from Jeanerette", flatly declared that his nemesis is "no longer lieutenant governor, and he is now nothing." Long ordered that Cyr be removed from the state payroll. Cyr tried again to take the governorship in January 1932, while the gubernatorial campaign between Oscar K. Allen and Dudley J. LeBlanc was underway. He established "executive offices" in the Heidelberg Hotel in Baton Rouge and took a second oath as governor. When Long learned of the turn of events, he called the manager of the Heidelberg and requested that Cyr be evicted. Cyr then moved to the Louisiana Hotel but thereafter forced to return in defeat to Jeanerette.

Forced out as lieutenant governor

When Cyr declared himself governor, Long insisted that the rightful claimant as lieutenant governor was not Cyr but Alvin O. King, a state senator from Lake Charles that Long had appointed as lieutenant governor when Cyr allegedly bowed out. Cyr did not resign as lieutenant governor, but the Louisiana courts agreed with Long that by declaring himself governor, he had in effect vacated the lieutenant governorship The pro-Long "Bienville Democrat" newspaper in Arcadia opined that Cyr had "about as much chance being installed or elected governor of Louisiana as a Texas billy-goat had of making a nonstop jump to the planet Mars."

Long also loathed Cyr because the lieutenant governor would declare himself acting governor every time Long left the state, even for a day or two. Cyr was committed to reversing Longism if Long stayed away from Louisiana for any length of time. Fifty years later, that same scenario threatened David C. Treen, Louisiana's first Republican governor since Reconstruction; if Treen left the state, Democratic Lieutenant Governor Robert "Bobby" Freeman, a staunch partisan, would assume acting duties and attempt to thwart Treen.

Enduring anti-Long sentiment

Despite Long's control over Louisiana as governor and while in the Senate too, his opponents often seemed fearless at the odds against them. In a speech in Baton Rouge in 1934, former Lieutenant Governor Cyr declared that Senator Long "belongs to the hog family, and the piney woods, razorback type at that." Cyr earlier called Long "the worst political tyrant to rule the state."

Years later, Cyr's reclusive daughter, Emily Cyr Bridges, banned the name "Huey Long" from being spoken at her "Albania" plantation near New Orleans.

References

"Paul N. Cyr", "Who's Who in America, 1938-1939; 1940-1941"

"Paul N. Cyr", "Who Was Who in America, 1943-1950"

Richard D. White, Jr., "Kingfish" (New York: Random House), pp. 20, 43, 57-59, 65-66, 82, 104-105, 107, 112, 132-134, 136, 140, 142, 154, 190-191

[http://www.ladental.org/cms/content/view/17/26/ Louisiana Dental Association - Past Presidents ] at www.ladental.org

cite news
author=
title=Who's Huey Now?
date=1931-10-26
work=Time Magazine
url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,742485,00.html?promoid=googlep
accessdate=2008-08-14

[http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/menuitem.29fab9fb4add37305ddcbeeb501010a0/?vgnextoid=6e9d224971c81010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD&vgnextchannel=e449a0ca9e3f1010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD National Governors Association ] at www.nga.org

[http://www.nealauction.com/archive/albania/lot/index.html Lot Information ] at www.nealauction.com

[http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi?lastname=CYR&firstname=Charles&start=21 Social Security Death Index Search Results ] at ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com