Ernest S. Clements - Dodd Recalls His Friend Clements

Dodd Recalls His Friend Clements

Dodd, in his memoirs entitled Peapatch Politics: The Earl Long Era in Louisiana Politics, described Clements accordingly:

"He had a strong resonant voice, was an imposing figure of a man, and used words and phrases in his speech (I say speech, for he used the same speech with very slight changes for forty years) that were almost musical. His prose was as good as that of [American orator Bob Ingersoll or William Jennings Bryan. Any politician . . . who arrived at a meeting while Ernest was speaking immediately knew how long he had been on the platform and how much longer he would speak.

"The straitlaced Ernest never looked at a woman except his wife ; he was a teetotaler, didn't gamble, and didn't like to hear vulgar stories or words. He was what we called a square. Ernest's sterling traits made him a prime target for jokes and pranks, for he took himself very seriously.

"Earl used Ernest to lambast and blackguard former Governor Sam Jones, who was our main opponent in the 1948 governor's race. And since Jones and Ernest were from the same section of southwest Louisiana and had been classmates, but not friends, from college days, Ernest enjoyed his role as the hatchet man in 1948."

Dodd recalled how Clements used an anecdote about a "poor 89-year-old French lady" who got her "old-age pension" check from the Jones administration, and it was not the $30 promised at all, but a mere 25 cents.

Dodd said that Clements was jealous of Dodd because Dodd was eleven years younger than Clements, and Clements was not having quite as much upward mobility in politics as Dodd seemed to be having at the time. They were both from Allen Parish; Clements, form the parish seat in Oberlin and Dodd from Oakdale, though Dodd was a native of Texas and grew up in Sabine Parish. "It hurt his ego, for me, an outsider, to have gotten ahead of him," Dodd said.

Dodd recalled on a road trip that he, Clements, and others took to Winnsboro, the seat of Franklin Parish. Dodd said that Clements was "lecturing us on the evil effects of drinking (we had drunk a beer) and the dangers of fooling around with loose women, particularly during political campaigns. He used his long and successful career in politics free off drinking, womanizing, gambling, and other sins, as he called them, to emphasize the value of abstinence, which he equated with success."

In summation, Dodd laughed that Clements was "a hypocrite when it came to practicing what he preached, but he meant what he was saying when he said it."

Clements hence joins the colorful panorama of that breed known as "Louisiana politicians." His papers are at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches.