Ernest S. Clements

Who was Ernest S. Clements?

Ernest S. Clements was a seemingly unlikely member of the Long political faction in Louisiana in a career which spanned thirty-eight years from the 1930s to the 1970s. The pious, introverted Clements did not fit the public image of the no-holds-barred, extroverted Long man. William J. "Bill" Dodd, a long-time observer of Louisiana politics and a Clements friend, described him as "zealous and a fine orator in the old-school style . . . [but] so humorless, straitlaced, and self-righteous that none of us, from Earl on down to the sound-truck drivers, could keep from playing tricks on him."