Huey Long
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Huey Pierce Long (August 30, 1893 – September 10, 1935) was an American politician from the U.S. state of Louisiana. A Democrat, he was noted for his radical populist policies. He served as governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a U.S. Senator from 1932 to 1935. Though a backer of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election, Long split with Roosevelt in June 1933 and planned to mount his own presidential bid.
Long created the Share Our Wealth program in 1934, with the motto "Every Man a King," proposing new income redistribution measures action to curb the poverty and crime that came as a result of the Great Depression. Immensely popular for his social reform programs and willingness to take forceful action, Long was accused of dictatorial tendencies for his near-total control of the state government and media and was noted for his colorful, flamboyant, and bombastic character. At the height of his popularity, Long was assassinated at the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, dying of a fatal gunshot wound two days after being shot by Carl Weiss. His last words were reportedly, "don't let me die; I have got so much to do."
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Early life and legal career
Long was born in Winnfield, Winn Parish, Louisiana, in the north-central part of the state. He was the seventh of nine children of a landowning middle-class family. He attended local schools, where he reportedly was an excellent student with a photographic memory. He left school in 1910 and spent the next four years as a successful traveling salesman, selling books, canned goods, and patent medicines as well as working as an auctioneer. In 1913, he married Rose McConnell.
Long briefly attended the University of Oklahoma School of Law in Norman, Oklahoma and later Tulane University Law School in New Orleans. In 1915, he convinced a board to let him take the bar exam after only a year at Tulane. He passed and began private practice in Winnfield and later Shreveport, where he spent 10 years working on worker's compensation cases. He lost a lawsuit against Standard Oil but achieved successes in other cases.
Political career and rise to power
Long was elected chairman of the Louisiana Railroad Commission in 1918 on an anti-Standard Oil platform. (The commission was renamed the Louisiana Public Service Commission in 1921). He ran for governor of Louisiana in 1924 but failed, although he was reelected to the Public Service Commission. In that campaign he became one of the first Southern politicians to use radio addresses in a campaign. Around this time he also began wearing his distinctive white linen suit.
In 1928 he ran again for Louisiana governor, campaigning under the slogan of "every man a king, but no one wears a crown"—a phrase adopted from William Jennings Bryan. He became known as "the Kingfish" because he answered the telephone with "this is the Kingfish"— a reference to George "Kingfish" Stevens (voiced by radio actor Freeman Gosden), a character in the immensely popular radio show "Amos 'n' Andy." Stevens was the lodge leader who was always trying to lure the title characters into get-rich-quick schemes. Long explained his adoption of the nickname by saying "I'm a small fish here in Washington, but I'm the Kingfish to the folks down in Louisiana." Long's attacks on the utilities industries and the privileges of corporations were popular and he won the election by the largest vote margin in the state's history—92,941 to 3,733.
Long made frequent disparaging remarks about the rich as a class; though some say he lived as if he were among them. Huey Long constantly depicted the wealthy as parasites that grabbed more than their fair share of the public wealth while marginalizing the poor. In public and in private, these remarks annoyed the rich and their defenders greatly and, some say, may have contributed to his assassination.
Governorship
Long introduced several major reforms once in office, including free textbooks and free night courses for adult learning, increased expenditures on the state university, and a program to build a school within walking distance of every child in the state. Once in office Long also financed a wide-ranging program of public works; over 12,000 miles of road were paved and over 100 bridges were built, as well as a new airport in New Orleans, and a medical school at Louisiana State University (LSU). The programs were financed by increased taxes on the rich and on big business; the new roads were paid for with a tax on gasoline. Long was so determined to have his way that, bypassing the state legislature, he put considerable effort into ensuring that his own people controlled every level of the state political system.
His efforts in Louisiana were the subject of an IRS investigation; he had increased annual state government expenditure three-fold and the state debt over ten-fold. In 1929, he was impeached on charges of bribery and gross misconduct, but the state senate failed to convict him by a narrow margin of two votes. It was often alleged that Long had concentrated power to the point where he had become a dictator of sorts; this was unprecedented.
In the Senate
In 1930 he was elected to the United States Senate. He went to Washington in 1932 after having ensured that Alvin Olin King was elected to replace him as governor. Long continued to be in effective control of Louisiana while he was a senator. Though he had no constitutional authority to do so, he continued to draft and press bills through the Louisiana legislature, which remained controlled by his supporters. He was vigorous in his efforts to try to counter the excesses of the Great Depression. By 1934 he began a reorganization of the state that all but abolished local government and gave himself the power to appoint all state employees.
He was a vocal supporter of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1932 election, but when Long was not offered a federal post, he turned against Roosevelt. In 1933 he was part of the three week Senate filibuster against the Glass-Steagall Act. In another famous filibuster on June 12–June 13, 1935, Long made the longest speech of his Senate career. The speech took 15½ hours and comprised 150,000 words. [1] In 1934 he created the Share Our Wealth program, proposing heavy new taxes on the super-rich. Though he was a Democrat, President Roosevelt considered Long a demagogue and privately said of him that "he was one of the two most dangerous men in America." The other man he referred to was General Douglas MacArthur. Long positioned himself to run against Roosevelt in the 1936 elections, announcing his bid in August 1935. One month later, he was dead.
It was later revealed by historian and Long biographer T. Harry Williams that the senator had never, in fact, intended to run for the presidency in 1936. Instead, he had been plotting with Father Charles Coughlin, a Catholic priest and populist talk radio personality, to run someone else on the soon-to-be-formed Share Our Wealth Party ticket. According to Williams, the idea was that this candidate would split the left-wing vote with President Roosevelt, thereby electing a Republican president and proving the electoral appeal of SOW. Long would then wait four years and run for president as a Democrat in 1940.
Assassination
On September 8, 1935, Huey Long was shot once by Dr. Carl Weiss in the Capitol building at Baton Rouge. Weiss was immediately shot dead by Long's bodyguards. The walls of the capitol hallway are still nicked from the bullets fired in the shootout. Dr. Weiss was a medical doctor and the son-in-law of Judge Benjamin Pavy, a long-time political opponent of Long. Long died two days later from internal bleeding following an incompetent attempt to close the wounds by Dr. Arthur Vidrine. Rumors spread that Huey should have recovered from the wounds, and that his doctors killed him. According to his sister, Lucille Long Hunt, his last words were: "Don't let me die, I have got so much to do." No autopsy or x-ray was ever recorded.
It is speculated that Weiss, who was of Jewish descent[2] and had visited Germany earlier in 1935, saw possible parallels between Huey Long and Adolf Hitler and was determined to stop a potential dictator. Also, Weiss was the son of a judge about to be gerrymandered out of office.
Persistent rumors allege that Weiss actually had no gun and struck Long with only his hand, and Long was accidentally shot by his own guards when they opened fire on Weiss [3]. These rumors are supported by several witnesses and the fact that Long had a bruised lip when he went in for surgery. Followers of Long say that he slipped and hit the marble wall at the scene of the crime. Other theories hold that Long's assassination was arranged to prevent him from winning the presidency in 1936, either from within the Democratic Party or as a third party candidate backed by the Share Our Wealth organization. It was widely understood that Long's populist progressive policies had earned him many powerful enemies who would not have wanted him to become president [4]. Two months prior to his death, in July 1935, Long had claimed that he had uncovered a plot to assassinate him [5].
Legacy
Huey's brother, Earl Long, was elected governor of Louisiana on three occasions. Huey Long's wife, Rose McConnell Long, was appointed to replace him in the Senate, and his son Russell B. Long was elected to the Senate in 1948, serving from 1949 until his retirement in 1987.
Long's first autobiography, Every Man a King was published in 1933. His second book, My First Days in the White House, was published posthumously. It emphatically laid out his presidential ambitions for the election of 1936 [6].
A statue of Long[ http://www.aoc.gov/cc/art/nsh/long_h.cfm] stands in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol building. The other statue representing Louisiana is that of Edward Douglass White.
Two bridges crossing the Mississippi River are named after Long: Huey P. Long Bridge (Baton Rouge) and Huey P. Long Bridge (Jefferson Parish).
In culture
The character of Buzz Windrip who in Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here becomes U.S. President ("The Chief") on a strongly populist platform that quickly turns into home-grown American fascism was speculated to have been based on either Long or Gerald B. Winrod. The 1946 book All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren, charting the corruption of a politician, Willie Talos ("Talos" is used in the restored novel, Willie "Stark" is the name in the original edition), is clearly based on Long. The book won the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, and was adapted into an Oscar-winning film in 1949, and a 2006 remake is also set to be released.
Huey Long by T. (Thomas) Harry Williams won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. Huey P. Long was also the subject of an early documentary film by Ken Burns, who went on to direct epic documentaries about jazz, baseball, and the American Civil War. Long's career is the subject of the biographical song "Kingfish" by Randy Newman on his 1974 album, Good Old Boys. The album also features a cover of Long's campaign song, "Every Man a King", which Long himself co-wrote; Long is also said to have helped compose the LSU marching band pregame song.
Disney comic strip artist and creator of the Huey, Dewey and Louie ducklings, Al Taliaferro, named Huey after Huey Long.
Huey P. Newton, founder of the Black Panther Party and also born in Louisiana, was named by his father after Huey Long.
The Life and Assassination of the Kingfish (1977) and Kingfish (1995, TNT) are two made-for-TV docu-dramas about Long. Ed Asner played Long in the former, with John Goodman starring in the latter.
In the Timeline-191 series' American Empire subtrilogy, parallels are drawn between Confederate President Jake Featherston's populist, dictatorial style of rule and Huey Long's governorship of Louisiana. Long is ultimately assassinated on orders from Featherston when he refuses to side with the Confederate ruling party.
Huey Long is mentioned in Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire which takes place in Louisiana. Stanley, the husband of Stella and brother-in-law of Blanche, the drama's main character, mentions how he admires Huey Long. Stanley's own dictatorial control of his friends reflects Williams' thoughts of Long being a demagogue.
Dr. James Starr exhumed the body of Carl Weiss in the 1990s and concluded that it was very probable that Dr. Weiss did not shoot Huey. Huey's son will not allow his body to be exhumed, therefore leaving everyone to wonder who really killed him.
In Rebecca Wells' novel Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, set in Louisiana, Sidda's dog is named Hueylene, after Huey Long.
In an episode of The Simpsons, it is revealed that a character took a bullet for Huey Long.
External links
- Listen to, and read the text of one of his Share the Wealth speeches
- Social Security Administration Bio of Huey Long
- Biography with quotes
- Huey Long's Gravesite
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