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Lucille May Grace, a.k.a. Mrs. Fred Columbus Dent, Sr., (October 3, 1900 – December 22, 1957), was the first woman to attain statewide elected office in Louisiana. A Democrat, "Miss Grace," as she preferred to be called, became Register of the State Land Office in 1931 on appointment of Governor Huey Pierce Long, Jr. She succeeded her father, who died in office, and she was elected in her own right in 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, 1948, and 1956. Lucille Grace was born in Plaquemine in Iberville Parish, located south of Baton Rouge, to Fred J. Grace and the former May Dardenne. She graduated in 1919 from the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Grand Coteau near Opelousas in St. Landry Parish. She thereafter received a bachelor's degree from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. She was secretary-treasurer of her LSU freshman class, the first female to have attained that distinction. She was also a member of Phi Kappa Phi honor society, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Though she married Fred Columbus Dent, Sr. (1909–1973), of Baton Rouge in 1933, she kept the name "Miss Lucille May Grace" because that was how voters recognized her. While Miss Grace was of an "aristocratic" bearing, she ran on the "populist" Long ticket and became well liked among her state's voters, both in the Long faction and the anti-Long group as well. A newspaper editor wrote of Miss Grace in 1939 that: "the mere placing (of) her name on a state ticket means she will be returned... to the position of Register of the State Land Office by a larger vote than she received four years ago..." Miss Grace was regarded as an efficient businesswoman and executive. She held the register's position from 1931 to 1952, when she instead ran for governor, and again from 1956 until her death in 1957. ==Runoff politics, 1944== In 1944, Earl Kemp Long, who had been governor from 1939 to 1940, ran for lieutenant governor but faced a Democratic runoff against J. Emile Verret, a school board member from Iberia Parish. Long lost the runoff to Verret, but he had been the high votegetter in the first primary. If there had been no gubernatorial runoff that year, Long would have been the automatic lieutenant governor nominee. Louisiana law at the time provided that there would be no second primaries for other constitutional offices unless there was also a gubernatorial contest. Long hence could have won if the "Long" candidate for governor, Lewis L. Morgan of Covington, the seat of St. Tammany Parish, had withdrawn from the runoff with James Houston "Jimmie" Davis. Miss Grace was among a group of Democrats who persuaded Morgan to remain in the runoff against Davis. In effect, she was helping to sink Long. Having lost his 1940 bid for governor and then his 1944 race for lieutenant governor, Earl Long might no longer be a viable candidate in Louisiana politics. Miss Grace had nothing to lose with the runoffs proceeding, for she had already been nominated in the first primary for another term as State Land Register. Similarly, Wade O. Martin, Jr., (1911–1990) the Democratic nominee for secretary of state for the first time in 1944, had similarly been nominated in the primary and faced no runoff election. Martin also urged Morgan into proceeding with the runoff. Earl Long did not forget what he saw as their treachery against him even though both continued to run and be nominated and elected as "Long" candidates. Miss Grace ran for governor in 1952, fifty-two years before Louisiana elected its first ever female governor, Democrat Kathleen Babineaux Blanco in 2003. Miss Grace ran eighth among nine primary candidates—Louisiana voters would not then seriously consider a woman as governor, but she made headlines in her race. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lucille May Grace」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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