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| Huey Long Memorial Picture |
The above line captures Huey Long's ambition and political career handily. Called both a 'dictator' and the "Kingfish" later in his career, Long created a legacy as both the paragon of a power-hungry politician, and the people's man. From his near record-setting 15 hours and 30-minute long filibuster as Louisiana senator to his assassination in 1935, Long maintained the prowess of populist ambition throughout his entire life.
Long was born near Winnfield, an impoverished small town in Louisiana. The place had held a Populist political atmosphere since the 1890s, and a majority of the population had voted for the Socialist Party in 1912. As one of nine children, Long always sought to stand out and throughout his life was known for a dramatic fashion flair, with lavender shirts, flowers in his suits, and two-tone wingtips. He inherited both his mother and town's Populist ideology and was said to be an excellent student, winning a debating scholarship to Louisiana State University. Instead of attending the university, however, Long spent his late teen years as a traveling salesman before becoming a lawyer.
In 1918, Long won a seat on the Louisiana Railroad Commission, after delivering speeches in every town in the district and blanketing the people with flyers attacking corporate monopoly and corruption. For the next decade, he built himself up as a people's man and gained a name for fighting against his corporate opponents. In 1922, he became famous for winning a lawsuit against Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Company for unfair rate increases of 20% in front of the US Supreme Court. The court ordered the company to send refund checks to 80,000 customers. Chief Justice William Howard Taft even said, "Huey P. Long is the most brilliant attorney to appear before me during my term as Chief Justice."
Long ran for Louisiana governor in 1924 on the platform of economic equality. While he lost the election as a close third, he blamed his loss on voter suppression due to heavy rains that could have decreased accessibility to the polls for the poor, his main voter base.
"I'm beat," Long said. "There should have been 100 for me and 1 against me."
Four years later, Long ran again, successfully. He ran with the slogan, "Every man a king," adopted from Populist hero William Jennings Bryan, promising to beat back the old and corrupt political establishment known as the "Old Regulars." With Louisiana public services nearly non-existent and the state run in almost feudal-ways -- public schools didn't exist, lower classes paid disproportionately high taxes -- Long made hundreds of speeches among rural voters against the status quo. On election day, with the sun shining, Long won by the largest margin in the state's history.
Yet Long also revealed another side of his character during the election. "When Long encountered an adversarial newspaper editor on the street, he assaulted and bloodied him," Phelan wrote. "Later... When the governor, a 60-year-old man, accused Long of being a liar, Long punched him in the face."
As governor, Long took extraordinary measures to pull Louisiana out of poverty and inequality. Not without extreme political persuasion, Long secured free textbooks for schools, night courses for adult literacy, cheap natural gas, and a large-scale infrastructure program to build over 9,000 miles of roads. His gains didn't come easily. He used large amounts of political bullying, and, from day one in office, began purging political opponents from all levels of state bureaucracy to create a base of political loyalty.
"He was the closest thing to a dictator America has ever produced," history professor at Louisiana Tech said in 2003. "I think it's embarrassing that our state produced him."
But Long justified his means. "A man is not a dictator when he is given a commission from the people and carries it out," Long said.
Long was then brought up for impeachment in the Louisiana legislature on corruption trials. In a predictable fashion, Long beat the charges back, with more corruption. Along with having state employees attend anti-impeachment rallies, Long, according to Phelan, "lured an influential Baptist minister into a hotel room, where there was liquor and a prostitute, in order to extract his public support." From then on, Huey became more paranoid, and rightly so. After receiving multiple death threats, and after his home was the target of a drive-by shooting, Huey surrounded himself with bodyguards.
In 1930, Long ran for the US Senate, which he won easily. Throughout his term, he both controlled his succeeding governor Oscar Allen in Louisiana and launched a new political career in Washington.
In reality, while being a senator, Long exercised his most dictator-like actions in Louisiana. To get Allen elected, Long, according to Phelan, "sent two of his henchmen into the state registrar of voters, armed with revolvers and red pens, with which they crossed undesirable voters' names off the rolls. After they were caught in the act, Long ordered Louisiana's entire National Guard, armed with rifles, to invade the city. To repel the invasion, the mayor armed city police and mercenaries with machine guns and tear gas. It is remarkable that no shots were fired."
In the senate chamber, Long was known for his filibusters. In 1935, Long spent 15 hours and 30 minutes reading and analyzing the Constitution. According to the US Senate archives, Long "claimed the president's New Deal programs had transformed [the Constitution] to 'ancient and forgotten lore." When Long called on every senator to listen to him until excused from the chamber, Vice President Nance Garner replied, "That would be unusual cruelty under the Bill of Rights."
In 1934, while reportedly planning to run for President in 1936, Long launched his "Share the Wealth" movement, one of the most progressive Populist movements of the Great Depression. Long proposed a cap on personal fortunes of $50 million and called to limit annual income to $1 million. The tax funds, he said, would be used to guarantee every household a universal basic income of $2,000-3,000 a year and an initial grant of $5,000. Along with a universal basic income, Long added proposals for free college education, pensions, veteran's benefits, public works, and overall greater government regulation of economic activity.
"We do not propose to say that there shall be no rich men," Long said in his "Share Our Wealth" radio address. "...We only propose that, when one man gets more than he and his children and children's children can spend or use in their lifetimes, that then we shall say that such person has his share. That means that a few million dollars is the limit to what any one man can own."
Long's program garnered more criticism than support, but still, by the summer of 1935, his "Share Our Wealth" clubs had 7.5 million members nationwide, and he received 60,000 letters a week from supporters.
With his program, Long was poised to run against Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to whose New Deal program Long said, "You are giving a little man a biscuit to eat, and you put a barrel of flour more taxes on top of his head to carry." Long also said, "The trouble is, Roosevelt hasn't taken all of my ideas; just part of them. I'm about one hundred yards ahead of him. We're on the same road, but I'm here, and he's there."
A month after announcing his intentions for the presidency, however, Long was assassinated. On September 8, 1935, Long had gone to the Louisiana legislature to push through a number of bills in a special session, including a bill to push his political opponent Judge Benjamin Pavy out of his job. According to the most commonly understood story (some say that Long's bodyguards had overreacted and shot Long themselves), Pavy's son-in-law approached Long in a corridor and shot him. Long's bodyguards immediately shot and killed Pavy's son-in-law, but Long died two days later after a failed surgery.
Long's legacy is hard to examine. Undeniably, Long's methods were autocratic -- his use of political strongarming, illegal methods, and even violence cannot be ignored. Yet the political legacies he left behind, of the most progressive reforms that both helped Louisiana and the country, have left a lasting mark on the Great Depression era. Some of those reforms, like the universal basic income and cap on personal fortune, are still discussed today.
Sources:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/fts/batonrouge_201306A24.html
http://www.hueylong.com/perspectives/huey-long-quotes.php
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Huey_Long_Filibusters.htm
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5109/
http://time.com/4020709/huey-long-anniversary/
http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jan/04/entertainment/et-burdeau4
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5108/
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