Louisiana Legends; Chalin Perez

Funding for the production of Legends is provided in part by the Friends of LPB. Judge Leander Perez has few equals among American political bosses.

His rule of Louisiana's tiny, rural, but oil-rich Plaquemines Parish from the 1920s to the '60s was total. It was the most absolute and durable in our national political history. On March 19, 1969, Judge Perez died, leaving two sons, Chalin and Lee, the heir apparents. And so the dynasty should have gone on and everyone should have lived happily ever after. But something happened, and my guest today is Chalin Perez. Hello, Chalin, and welcome. Thank you. Chalin, there are two views of your father: outspoken racist tyrant, dictator; the other, a beloved grandfather of a parish and its people. Which was Leander Perez to his sons? But, of course, I think he was a little bit of both. There is no question about the fact that he was very outspoken. But he was very firm in his views that he...when he believed in a cause

or in a subject, he went all out and left no stone unturned in trying to accomplish his objectives or in defending his positions. On the other hand, he was a most loving and a most dedicated father, a man who will always respect and love for the time and effort that he put into my rearing from the time I was old enough to hold a gun and the first two ducks I ever killed. He had to help me hold the gun up. I was maybe four or five years old. And from that time on, why we constantly fished together, we hunted together, we socialized together. He was a wonderful man. Chalin, was he capable of compromise? Could...in other words you said he went so far on issues and points. Was he a man who was incapable of compromise? Do you think perhaps he might have been better off had he been able to sometimes draw back from some of these extreme finalities he reached?

If you really knew my father, he was a great compromiser. He devoted most of the time when the Legislature was in session to legislative matters and was constantly involved in compromises with the governors and with the senators and representatives and on to Washington saying the same thing, but when he felt that there was an issue where a principle was involved, why he went all after it and he did not compromise generally when a question of principle was involved. He generally had a hostile press because of his positions. How did he respond to that kind of hostility in the press? Well, you know, there was one famous mayor of New Orleans who once said that it's not too good sometimes to have the press with you, so he really didn't care too much whether he had the press with him or not. He could always reach the people of Plaquemines Parish who were, after all, the people he wanted to reach and he could reach them without a press that was favorable in New Orleans.

Was he a man who brought his problems home when things were rough? Would you all be aware of it at home even as young kids? Oh I'm sure that every, everyone brings their problems home to a certain extent, but he managed to handle many, many problems that he confronted during his lifetime in such a way that he really, we really didn't have any great turmoil at home if that's what you mean. Yes, that's what I meant. How about temper? Was it a ferocious one? He appeared to be a man of ferocious possibilities along those lines. He had the capacity to be very positive when he wanted to be positive. That's for sure. Spoken like a true son. I think, I think he controlled his temper so that when sometimes he appeared to be very angry and mad, it could possibly have been a little bit of acting at the same time. Who handled the discipline at home? Basically my mother did. Your mother did? Yes. Was he sort of laid back, quiet? Unless there was a big problem, why he might step in but, generally speaking, Mother was the disciplinarian, but a loving disciplinarian. Very little is publicly known outside of, I guess, Plaquemines Parish about your mother

whose name was Agnes and who passed away only a short time prior to your dad in 1969. Tell us a little bit about Agnes. Oh, Mother was an exceptional person. She went everywhere my father went, like legislative session. She would come here to Baton Rouge and spend most of the session up here with him and she would entertain the legislators' wives and play bridge and, and generally have a good time. But she'd be at my father's side whether it was here in Baton Rouge, in Washington or wherever else a controversy may be. Mother was always there. Everyone loved my mother that knew her. Did he seek her counsel? From a political standpoint, I don't believe he did. I think that she had full faith and confidence in him and I believe she just said, "Well, Le-le, that's your ballgame, that's your ball of wax. I'll take care of the children; you take care of the political situation." Now, Chalin, suppose as you got older, you and your brother disagreed with your father. Was he the kind of man you could express that to? Could you go and sit down with him?

I had many, many disagreements with my father and we would sit behind closed doors and we would talk and cuss and discuss, but we'd finally walk out with smiles on our faces and sometimes I prevailed and sometimes he would. But generally we'd talk about the problems of the day and we'd work our problems out. Some powerful men insulate themselves from other opinions and from other attitudes and views. Was he amenable and open to listening to the other side of the issues? Oh, I'm sure that he was, but I do know that when once he made up his mind that a certain course was right that it would be very difficult to change that particular course. Chalin, when did you realize that as a child that you weren't just another kid in the parish but you were Leander Perez's son? And here's what I mean. Over in England the Prince and Lady Di have just had a child. For a while that child's going to just feel like a child. And then one day it's going to dawn

on him that he's not a child, but that he's the future king of England. And on a, on a different scale, when, when did it dawn on you that your last name perhaps set you apart? Well, you know that's... I didn't ever feel that I was an exceptional child because I wasn't reared as one. I had to do the same thing that everyone else had to do. And my life was so busy I didn't have time to think in terms of whether I was any type of favorite child. I spent most of my years both going from education into years of service in the Navy during World War Two and then right back to college again and law school and I just looked upon myself as just any other typical young person coming up in life. In other words, being a Perez did not isolate you, say, from the other kids? No. Their attitudes towards you were not...you didn't notice? In law school, I noticed some attitudes of antis.

My father was particularly active at that, at that time and during the Sam Jones' days and, yes, and there was a large bit of anti-Perez feeling at Tulane where I attended law school, but that's the first time that I really ever felt any differences or that I was any different from anybody else. How did you handle that when you first felt that, that hostility based on nothing that you had done, but on which I'm sure you have all suffered and enjoyed your whole life? How did you respond to those first feelings of hostility because of the activities of your dad? I think, I hope I took it just as a matter of course because you in every walk of life and no matter how you were reared, you had the good and the bad and you had to take the bad with the good. So I hope that I took it in in a way that was normal. For example, did you ever go home from Tulane and say, "Hey, Daddy. Some folks up there don't like you." Did y'all ever have discussions like that?

No, the only thing that I really recall was one time during a gubernatorial campaign there was one particular person who is now a court of appeals judge who was very positive in his attitude about who was going to be elected governor. And he went around wanting to bet a lot of money and I didn't have the money at the time and I had to go home to my father and borrow the money to bet on the election and, by the way, I won. Good. But, no, I don't really, I don't really recall any bad situations in connection with with my going through college or any other situation. Tell me a little bit about your military. You saw some action, didn't you? Yeah, I went through Tulane undergraduate school in business administration in three years and spent about three years in the Navy in the Pacific from the Battle of the Philippines until the final surrender by the Japanese. We were involved. I was on a destroyer and we were involved in some pretty difficult battles during those times. I know that you earned five battle stars which is, even in our time, something of an accomplishment.

And I say, in our times, when military service for some odd reason is odd to me no longer an attribute, in fact. Something that I had a little bit of my father in me. I actually got him to pull some strings to get me on a destroyer out in the military, out in the fighting area. I wanted to go out and fight for my country. And I enjoyed the experience. Chalin, did you have any choice about going into politics or, or was it just expected and that was what you were to do? Well, I had graduated from law school and had been actively practicing law for many years and I had really assumed all along that my brother Lee was going to be the one involved politically and I had not planned to get involved into politics until a rather short time before my father retired as president of the local government and he at that time asked me whether I wouldn't run to succeed him in that position, which I agreed to do.

How did your father's death affect you personally? How did it? Well, we'd had some warning. He had been such a strong personality. He wasn't just another man; he was a powerful, intense man. And how did it affect you? Well, we had had warnings. He had had one heart attack several months before he finally died and he finally died of just heart failure. But he had, had stepped out of government and I had been in as president of the government for a couple of years prior to his death, so that there was no real traumatic situation to develop because he had enough foresight to recognize that no one lives forever and that he should begin moving out and let others, younger people, move in so that there could be some orderly transition. Did he ever discuss the possibility of his death with you? No, not really. The only thing ever discussed was the fact that after he had survived his first heart attack that he was surprised at how little pain there was involved

in the situation, you know. But he never really discussed death. No. Chalin, in late years had he undergone any attitudinal changes? Oh, I think we all mellow with age. I've even seen myself beginning to mellow a little bit and I'm not that old yet. But basically he was always a very determined man who fought for what he believed in. But I do believe that as he got older that that he mellowed some. What molded Leander Perez's attitudes and views? Was it his experience or his education, his rearing? What do you think created Leander Perez? Well, he came from very humble beginnings. His father was a, was a farmer, a dirt farmer who had served on the local levee board for many years so had been involved in government. He had to work his way through college. The first year he practiced law, he told me he earned an average of one dollar per day. And then he worked for a Supreme Court

justice for a short period of time as a law clerk. And he had to make it the hard way, and he realized that this great country of ours unless, unless there was some change in direction, that we were headed possibly for what happened to the Roman Empire, the fall of the Roman Empire. So he was very much concerned about the future of the country and where we were headed and he was very much concerned about the, about the effect of communism taking over the country eventually. Could a Leander Perez make it politically in our times in the eighties? Oh, I think that he was such an astute man that he could have made it in any generation at any time. You really have great respect for that intellect, don't you? Yes, there's no question he was regarded as one of the greatest legal minds of his time. There's no question about that. He represented the state in the early Tidelands controversy and I assisted him, by the way,

while I was still a law student. He was an indefatigable worker. He just never stopped working, and he was always prepared wherever he went, whenever he appeared, he was prepared and ready. Chalin, did you think that things would continue as they were after his death? Did you think that life would go on with problems, of course, but rather pleasantly with you as parish president, your brother as a district attorney? Did you think that would just go on? Well, I think, in retrospect we would have to recognize that things can't go on forever, but we did have a very peaceful and a very productive many years after my father's death -- some 10 or 12 years until the problems began. What was the first thing that happened that made you suspect that there was trouble in Tahiti, so to speak, that things might not be the same? Well, all of us, of course, have our own

ideas as to what happened and how that happened, but basically I was a younger brother who was charged with the responsibility of the leadership of the government and as such I had certain decisions I had to make from time to time. And there were some decisions that I made that were fairly hard decisions that were not approved and which I think eventually caused some of the problems and that's when I began to see that we had some troubles on the, on the in the future. This may not be a fair question because it's rather hard for a man to evaluate a brother, himself, a loved one, a parent. What, what are the differences between you and your brother? I'm talking about what philosophically? Where do you and your brother branch away? Same father, same mother, same education, same environment, same friends, same background. It's so interesting to me that you would have brothers.

It's biblical and I know you've heard that before. It truly is. It takes on almost a saga-like content. What are the differences in you and your brother? Well, I'd rather let others decide what the differences are. All I can say is that I have done what I have done because I thought my course of action was right. Unfortunately, I had differences with my brother over how the government should have been run and how certain, how his office should have been supplemented by our local government. That's where the problem began. But I'm not going to get into any kind of a comparison between my brother and myself. I just won't do that. Was there a point at which you tried to sit down or he tried to sit down with you as we're talking now and work out the differences? Yes, there were several efforts made to try to do whatever could be done and a lot

of very notable people tried to intercede and tried to help to get things straightened out. Chalin, I used to accompany John McKeithen to Plaquemines Parish after Hurricane Betsy. I went there with him to inspect the damage. Your father was there, very much leading the rehabilitation and rebuilding efforts of that parish and in this to me rather strange man there was obviously... one thing was obvious - a great love for that parish and its people. That was a given. I saw so many people with him on those trips who I know now to be your political foes, spoken and I'm sure they have their reasons and their rationale, their justification. How do you feel about those folks who you probably feel your father created politically, who you now find well, voting you, for example, out as parish president?

Well, you know, it's a very amusing thing. There are five members of our local government. Three out of five have been appointed to the position. I think I'm the only one who ever really stood for election where I had any, where there was any real competition. One of the others may have had competition, but the fact of the matter is that three out of five members of the council deposed me as president, two of whom I was responsible for placing on the council. And those same two have never stood for an election. They never have been elected by the people and yet they were the people who deposed the leader who had been there for so many years. So how do I feel about it? I think the people of Plaquemines Parish eventually will resent what they have done without any question. Chalin, what is, how do you handle disappointment? That always interests me because every man does it so differently. It's such a personal thing. Are you a brooder or do you, are you able to snap out of things quickly?

Well, I think that this last two or three years has been a very difficult and trying experience. I hope that I've handled it reasonably well. I know that I've held my head high, and I know that, that I have stood by my guns and I'm still in there fighting and I will continue to be in there fighting. How I handle it in private, I don't know. I think it's human just like everyone else is. When you have people that you considered your trusted friends who turned on you, who put the knife in your back, it's not an easy thing to take. You know, I'm human just like anyone else is human. Chalin, how do you get along with blacks? As far as I'm concerned, I think I get along excellently with the blacks, particularly in my home community. We have the overwhelming support of the blacks in my area. There are those that have preconceived notions with respect to me and, of course, I can't ever get their help and support, but as far as what I have done to help them, I've extended myself to help them as I've extended myself to help everybody else.

It seems to me as we talk that there's an underiding theme and it's almost a tragic one and it is this: that you want to be Chalin Perez and society and history and many people want you to be Leander Perez and I would think that that would be a constant battle in your life. Well, I recognize that we live in a different age and that the times are different and I am my own person. The thing that's really amusing to me is they continue to talk about Judge Perez's son. Of course, I have nothing but the greatest admiration and love for my father, but I was head of the parish government for some 12 or 14 years and I've made my mark in society, I think. I know that I was elected. I was voted by my fellow delegates as a most influential delegate in the Constitutional Convention, and I know that I was able to accomplish for the people of Plaquemines Parish things which, with all due respect to my father, that I don't think he could have accomplished at that time in the Constitutional Convention. But I'm still looked upon as Judge Perez's son

by some people and, of course, I'm proud of my father and I want to be recognized as his son. But at the same time, I'm almost 60 years old, and I think it's time Chalin Perez is recognized as Chalin Perez as well. Would it have been easier to be Chalin Jones or Chalin Smith and not Chalin Perez? I think that, again, with every, in every situation you have the good and the bad. I had the great opportunity to grow up under a man who had a tremendous intellect and I learned tremendously from it. I was also put in a position where things came rather easy for me. At the same time, it may have been better had I had to go out and battle it on my own and get there, you know. You don't choose those things. The Lord puts you where you are. It's something you'll never know either, of course. Do you want your own children in politics? I want them to be happy. I want to do what they want to do. I want them to be people who would be accomplished in whatever area

they'd want to go into. If they want politics, that's fine. That's wonderful. If they don't, why that's their business. What would you tell your children, those who didn't know your father, your young children, about him? What would you say to them about this, so controversial figure in Louisiana political history? Well, I think I'd say a lot of the same things I've said here today: that he was a great, fine, wonderful, gentle, loving man and I don't believe that I would be half the man I am if he were not the great man that he was. Chalin, how about your own political future? Very recently you were removed as parish president. The indictment that was brought against you has been dropped. That's no longer an issue. I'm sure the only thing remaining are the legal fees. Is that fairly correct? Well, no, there's some indictments which still have not been dropped, but I hope and anticipate that those

will be dismissed within the next few months. But, of course, all of those indictments were totally politically motivated and not only by Lee Perez but by Lou Petrovitch and others who became involved in this, in this process. And the people of Plaquemines Parish have not voted Chalin Perez out. It was three out of five council members had voted me out as president of the government, two of whom I was directly responsible for recommending and having the council appoint them as members. Those two have never even stood for election, and one of them is now the president of the government and I was deposed in his favor and yet he's never submitted himself to the people. Will you seek a political office again? Oh, I'm sure I will. You will go into that battle again. It will be a ferocious one, won't it? Well, we'll see what happens in the future. What's the national pastime in Plaquemines, baseball or politics? Well it's politics, I think. Politics. To a large extent.

What are you...[Perez]A little fishing and hunting. What do you feel were the great contributions of the Constitutional Convention and the successful Constitution which you participated in as a delegate? Well, as far from a financial standpoint I was able to prevail upon the constitutional convention to do two things which have cemented the financial position of the Parish and which produces over 30 million dollars a year for a parish which has only 26,000 population and that was in connection with our levee districts. We were able to provide a means by which those levee districts would become a part of our government and at the same time we did we'd receive all revenues. In addition to that, you have what is called, what was called the old royalty road fund and that was, and those funds could be used only for highway construction prior to the new constitution. Out of the new constitution,

that fund is now converted to a direct fund that goes directly to the parish and that produces another 15 million a year, a total of total over 30 million dollars a year. We increased the share that the parishes get from severance taxes up to...my parish gets $600,000 a year, more than any other parish in the state. Those from a financial standpoint, I think, are the most significant things that was done to cement it and to make it so that the people of Plaquemines Parish really don't have to pay taxes. We have a ridiculously low millage rate of some 22 mills and our neighboring parishes have millages that runs into the hundreds. Let me interrupt you. What about that unique scholarship program? Unique, strange, peculiar only to a Plaquemines Parish? Rich Plaquemines. When you have the money you can do many things and that's one of the great, great programs that was initiated out of my father and we've continued and improved upon over the years. Every child who is a bonafide resident of Plaquemines Parish who wants to go to college, to trade schools, to beauty schools or almost anything, we provide a scholarship for them and depending upon what grades they make, they get they get certain bonuses.

It was a great program. Chalin, I want to thank you so much for being my guest today on Louisiana Legends. It's been a pleasure having you. Your story is a political story. It's a human being story because it has to do with people in a certain amount of hurt and disappointment. It's high drama with intrigues going on in high places and yet running through it, almost like the strings of a violin off in the distance, it is very definitely a story of the Bible. And thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate you inviting me. Funding for the production of Legends is provided in part by the Friends of

LPB.