Lazaro, Ladislas, 1872-1927

Ladislas Lazaro (June 5, 1872 – March 30, 1927) was an American doctor, plantation owner, and politician. He served as a Democratic U.S. Representative from Louisiana's 7th congressional district from 1913 to 1927.

Born near Ville Platte, Evangeline (then St. Landry) Parish, Louisiana, he attended public and private schools and Holy Cross College, New Orleans, Louisiana. Lazaro was graduated from Louisville (Kentucky) Medical College in 1894 and practiced his profession in Washington, Louisiana. In addition to his medical practice, Lazaro managed his family plantation, served as president of the parish school board for four years, and in the Louisiana State Senate from 1908 to 1912. Lazaro was elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-third and to the seven succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1913, until his death in Washington, D.C. on March 30, 1927. He became the second Hispanic American ever to chair a standing committee in the U.S. House of Representatives when he was named chairman of the Enrolled Bills Committee in 1915.

Lazaro’s positions on national issues were often those held by many Southern Members of Congress. His stand on two major constitutional amendments in the 65th Congress—the 18th Amendment, establishing the prohibition of alcohol, and the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote—was anchored in the widely shared Southern sensitivity concerning federal interference in states’ rights. Both issues, he insisted, should be decided by direct ballot in individual states, not by federal statute. As the Ranking Member of the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, Lazaro was one of four House managers appointed to the conference committee that hammered out an important measure. Passing the House and Senate as the Radio Act of 1927, the measure represented Congress’s first comprehensive attempt to regulate broadcasting.

Late in the 69th Congress (1925–1927), Lazaro’s health deteriorated, eventually necessitating abdominal surgery. Following an operation on March 9, 1927, Lazaro seemed to make a strong recovery, but then his condition worsened, and he died on March 30 at Garfield Hospital in Washington, D.C., of complications from an abscess. He was interred in the Old City Cemetery in Ville Platte.