B H Johnny Rogers

Background

Over his lifetime, Rogers constantly changed careers. A graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City, he left a professorship at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge over disgust with political encroachment on his teaching duties. He entered the United States Army Air Forces in World War II and attained the rank of lieutenant colonel. He operated a chain of gasoline stations, garages, and parking lots, but he yearned to return to his hometown of Grand Cane and engage in farming, as had earlier generations of his family dating back to an 1836 land grant. Grand Cane was incorporated as a village in 1899, six before Rogers was born.

While in Baton Rouge, Rogers met his wife, the former Josephine Augusta Mann (1918-1987), while she was visiting a former college roommate. Mrs. Rogers graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Her middle name is the same as the capital city, Augusta, of her native state of Maine. His candidacy for and subsequent election to the state House of Representatives came through encouragement of a group of friends in DeSoto Parish, many being fellow square dancers of Johnny and Josephine Rogers.

In search of good government

Outspoken in his conservative political views, Rogers constantly questioned the state of politics in Louisiana:

For years I have discussed good government from all over. It's a strange thing. Everyone is in favor of it. And yet, we haven't had good government in Louisiana in my lifetime. I wondered about this. I wondered why we couldn't have good government if everyone wants it. ... I haven't found a governor yet who is ready to [back good government]. Kennon wasn't. Long wasn't. And Jimmie Davis isn't. ... I made a mistake [in endorsing Davis for governor in 1959]. Davis fought everything that had good business behind it. ...

Rogers also questioned certain policies of Louisiana Education Superintendent Shelby M. Jackson, an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for governor in the 1963 primary election. He concluded that the voters are themselves partly the impediment to "good government" because of the formation of both organized and unorganized interest groups with the yen to capture part of the public treasury.

In 1959, Rogers carried the editorial support of Shreveport Times, the Shreveport Journal, and the Mansfield Enterprise.

Rogers acquired for a time a statewide reputation. He lobbied for a Code of Ethics for state officials, which was eventually signed into law by Governor John McKeithen, the winner of the 1963-1964 election. He also failed in his bill to ban "deadheads", persons who perform few if any visible duties but are placed on the state payroll by legislators who reward key supporters with a tie to the state treasury. Rogers became known as a corruption fighter and a leader in conservative and good government ranks.

In a speech in Farmerville in Union Parish north of Ruston, Rogers claimed that "pork barrel money that Louisiana governors have had to hand out freely to campaign contributors in the past just may not be available any longer." He urged businesspeople: "Do not contribute your hard-earned cash to any political candidate expecting to double, triple, or quadruple your money in state business." Rogers said he would not run for a statewide office or endorse personalities in the 1963 gubernatorial election but would continue his focus on good government principles.

One of Rogers's legislative allies, Harold Montgomery of Doyline in southwestern Webster Parish, said the Louisiana legislature is independent only when a two-thirds vote is required for select issues; otherwise the governor's program is adopted. "The way Louisiana is governed is by the man we elect governor of this state. With a bad governor we'll fail," Montgomery said at a meeting in Shreveport in May 1966. Rogers agreed: "The government of Louisiana cannot be any better than the governor of Louisiana." Rogers urged citizens interested in good government to come to committee hearings in Baton Rouge. In such cases, their mere presence will impress legislators, he added.

In 1962, though he declined to seek the governorship himself the following year, Rogers called for the election of "a governor who is big enough, generous enough and honest to the point that he will sacrifice the dictatorial powers now held by the governor and return that power to the people and to the legislature where it so desperately needs to be ..."

Later years

On March 24, 1973, five years after leaving the state Senate, Rogers was among three Democrats elected to the Grand Cane Village Council. The election drew a court challenge because of a dispute raised by a defeated candidate, Sidney Wells Platt (1915-1996), over a second filing period called by the party executive committee. Rogers was out of the parish during the second period and did not re-file. The committee filed for him, against the contention of Platt. The court ruled, however, that the second filing period was illegal.

Rogers died in 1977 and is interred along with his wife at Grand Cane Cemetery.