LOUISIANA: King of the Crescent City

Nominated last week for a fourth term as New Orleans’ mayor (and facing no Republican opposition in the April 8 general election): balding, bouncy Democrat deLesseps Story Morrison, 46, onetime boy wonder of Louisiana politics. During the campaign, Morrison’s five primary opponents tilted at crime and police corruption, taunted the mayor as “a dictator,” whipped up false fears over integration. Confident “Chep” Morrison calmly pointed to the glassy, classy $8,000,000 city hall he built, the miles of Morrison-paved streets, improved garbage collections, New Orleans’ impressive new railroad terminal and the 30 buildings added to the city’s skyline in a decade (TIME,

May 20). When the ballots were counted, he had scooped up 90,000 of the 156,000 votes cast.

Even while election-night returns were rolling in, New Orleans wondered what the political future might hold for its energetic mayor. Under a new 1954 charter pushed by Morrison himself, Morrison’s fourth term will be his last. He is anxious to progress in politics, will at midterm in 1960 have two opportunities to make headway: he can oppose the gubernatorial candidate put up by outgoing Governor Earl Long, or he can go after the seat held by Louisiana’s powerful U.S. Senate Veteran (21 years) Allen J. Ellender. Best guess was that Morrison would try for the governorship, not only because Ellender would be a hard political nut to crack but also because Earl Long drubbed the mayor badly in the 1956 race for governor. To proud and progress-conscious Chep Morrison, the defeat still rankles.