Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Harris & Ewing, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZ62-123456]
Huey P. Long, governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and one of Louisiana’s senators from 1932 until his assassination in 1935, has lived on as one of the greatest legends in Louisiana political history, which is an achievement in a state that kept electing Edwin Edwards. His way with words, no-holds-barred energy, and rhetoric in favor of helping the poor earned him legions of followers during his political career; but his largely successful drive to gather all the levers of power within the state into his own hands has earned him a critical assessment from historians. Despite his rough edges, he’s remembered fondly by many Louisianans: he may have been a power-crazed boor, but he was our power-crazed boor. And in Southern politics, being colorful is far more important than any one policy proposal.
Kingfish: The Reign of Huey P. Long, Richard D. White, Jr.’s acclaimed biography of Huey Long, has been chosen as the book for this year’s One Book, One Community effort, directed by the East Baton Rouge Parish Library. White, a political biographer, was inspired to write a fresh biography of Long for two reasons. First, as a professor of state and local politics at LSU, he was increasingly aware of Long’s centrality to the recent history of Louisiana government. Secondly, as he considered writing the biography, he noticed that a number of stories “about Huey Long” were actually events from the lives of Long’s brother Earl or from Willie Stark, the Long-esque, but fictional, protagonist of high-school-syllabus standard All The King’s Men. Such is the price of legendhood. But as every king must suffer threats to his crown, so must we lay to rest the myths and legends that propped up Huey’s substantial power, with White wielding fact as his weapon of choice.
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Supposedly, he built Airline Highway to end at his favorite bar in New Orleans, after a straight shot from Baton Rouge.
RDW: That’s trivializing it. He did want it to be a straight shot between the cities, but it didn’t end at a particular bar. He did put effort into getting it as straight as possible, but there are a few spots where a landowner was recalcitrant, and there are doglegs in the old route.
Did he call ahead to hold the ferries when he had to cross the Mississippi River, and could he do so because they were under state jurisdiction?
RDW: Yes, but that’s not unusual—any governor might do that. What he would do was be friendly to the ferry operators, and if he found out they or their families weren’t pro-Long, he would have them fired. “Nothing personal—just politics!” according to him. He really was the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.
Did he hide a box of money at the Roosevelt Hotel, where no one could get their hands on it?
RDW: This comes from the idea of the “deduct box.” When you got hired to a state job, you gave some money “back” to the “deduct box,” you know, paying dues and keeping the Long machine running. Seymour Weiss [no relation to Carl Weiss, the man believed to be Long’s assassin] had risen from working in the barbershop at the Roosevelt Hotel to managing it, and he also managed Huey’s campaign finances; so that’s where the idea of it being in the Roosevelt Hotel comes from. I’m sure there wasn’t one stash, they were far too shrewd for that; but there very likely was money stashed everywhere, all over the state. Weiss denied it, but … The idea that there was a physical box probably just came from the phrase “deduct box.”
What about the idea that Franklin Roosevelt hated and feared Long?
RDW: FDR said that there were two men he feared—Douglas MacArthur on the right and Huey on the left. He actually had the IRS investigate Long, and the investigation was run by the same agent who had successfully worked against Al Capone. The results of the investigation were about to be released when Huey was shot, and now they’re sealed. No one’s been able to get in and look at them.
What are your favorite Huey stories, mythical or not?
RDW: Well, this is the most egregious one: Huey told people that, in the election of 1936, he was going to run as a Democrat even though he couldn’t win. He’d split the Democratic vote with FDR and ensure the election of the Republican, who, Long believed, would drive the national economy into the ground. This would set the stage for Huey to defeat him, or whatever Republican, in 1940! This is really indicative of his personality. He was willing to doom the country to financial ruin to help his electoral odds. And it’s terrifying to think of him leading the country in WWII. Can you imagine Huey working with Churchill? He had zero interest in foreign policy.
There are fun stories, too. He would sit in a restaurant surrounded by little old ladies and throw oysters, shouting that they weren’t cooked to his liking. He had a fist fight with a political opponent in a hotel lobby. The real myth about Huey Long is that he was in any way normal—he was worse than anyone could write, and there’s no analog in American history for the amount of control he had over the state. People told FDR that Long’s reign was unconstitutional, that there was no democracy in Louisiana under him; but, probably wisely, [FDR] realized he couldn’t really intervene. Once, Huey was with the Roosevelt family at a dinner, and FDR’s mother Sara Delano, a real battleaxe, leaned over to the person next to her and said, “Who is that awful man seated next to my son?” Huey was talking to FDR and emphasizing his points by tapping the president on the leg with his boater.
He did do good things. Most people don’t know this, but when he was governor he hired some black dentists and sent them around the state to give free dental care. And he built roads and bought schoolbooks; but all these social programs stopped after he became senator. It was all about power for him after that.
EBRP Library has numerous lectures and films related to the One Book, One Community effort scheduled through April. Details at ebrpl.libguides.com/kingfish.
