National Affairs: Louisiana's 15

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After the grand gesture had been made in the Kansas case, the national committee came to another bloc worth fighting for: Louisiana's 15. In Louisiana, the "new Republicans," headed by New Orleans Lawyer John Minor Wisdom, who has been trying to enlarge the party, had elected a pro-Eisenhower delegation. The old guard, bossed by John E. Jackson Sr., another New Orleans attorney, who has run a "private club" Republican organization in Louisiana for 23 years, had a pro-Taft delegation.

Wisdom brought on witnesses and exhibits to show what happened in this year's delegate election. When the Wisdom-Eisenhower forces outnumbered the Jackson-Taft partisans in caucuses and conventions, the old guard bolted and held its own meetings. Witness Kenneth Paisant, from New Orleans' Twelfth Ward, Jackson's home district, described his ward meeting. "After the delegates were nominated, Jackson said, 'Our delegates are elected,' led his group from the room, even turned out the lights." Witness J. Paulin Duhe of New Iberia testified that in his (the Third) congressional district, there was no Jackson rump convention "because they couldn't find anybody to rump." But the state committee had named two pro-Taft delegates in that district anyway, contending that the Wisdom meeting was not properly advertised.

Wisdom summed up: "In every case when the Jackson faction lost, it held a small rump meeting—in a corner of a meeting place, or on the sidewalk, or somewhere under a tree in the dark." He maintained that the Louisiana delegation should be 13 for Ike, two for Taft.

Jackson called no witnesses, but spent all the time allotted to his side on a familiar argument: the Wisdom forces were Democratic interlopers.

The national committee upheld a ruling of Chairman Guy Gabrielson refusing to review the cases of seven district contests which had been handed to Taft delegates by the Jackson-controlled state committee. After that, it placed Taftmen in the four delegate-at-large seats. Then, as if fearing that the state committee had gone too far, it gave the two seats from the rumpless Third District back to Ike.

When the national committee had finished its work, the Louisiana delegation stood 13 for Taft and two for Ike.