The Kingfish

By Thomas O. Harris

Chronicling his meteoric rise to power and allegations of corruption, Thomas O. Harris's The Kingfish tells of Huey P. Long's many social reforms, which endeared him to the rural poor and made him an enemy of big business. Long was a man who, through hard work and perseverance, surpassed all boundaries previously aligned with American politicians. Harris very vividly points out the overall danger of Long's politics and his underlying selfish motives. He calls Long a dictator and a threat to the American political system but finds it hard to deny the many reasons for Long�s immense popularity within Louisiana.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 30, 2001
• ISBN: 9781455607044

Book preview

CHAPTER I

A Future Dictator Is Born

If you search the pages of history for the archetype of Huey Pierce Long, you will not find him. In the annals of recorded Time there appears no eminent figure who united in his own person all of the attributes and characteristics of this extraordinary man. There were some whom he resembled in purpose and design, none whom he imitated in practice and action. Huey had a political technique all his own.

On the whole, it could hardly be called a system since it was subject to such frequent and violent changes that at times its author seemed to have completely changed identities. With Huey P. Long there was no fixed formula for success. He claimed for his methods the merit of originality; and they were certainly entitled to that classification. Huey despised the beaten track. Like the Roman warrior, he sought reputation from what was unusual. Consistency was a word found nowhere in his political lexicon.

In his salad days, Long read Plutarch avidly, seeking perhaps to discover in the lives of the Forty-six Immortals some points of resemblance to himself. Similarity of individual characteristics was not difficult to trace if the faults as well as the virtues of the Greek and Roman heroes were counted in the comparison.

Plutarch tells us that Themistocles was of a vehement and impetuous nature, of a quick apprehension and of a strong and inspiring bent for state affairs; and Huey Long was like that. Kleon became very powerful by caressing the people and giving them opportunities for earning money from the state; and Huey Long was like that. Coriolanus was of an overbearing and imperious temper; and Huey Long was very much like that. Caius Gracchus was passionate and impetuous and Aristides, who had the power of swaying the people, was sumptuous in his way of living and overbearing in his manner. Huey Long exhibited the weaknesses of both characters.

But, it is hardly likely that the eager young Louisianian, already dreaming of triumphs in the theatre of politics, gave much thought to the faults of the heroic men who reflected the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome; doubtless, their virtues alone concerned him. Huey probably saw himself emulating the exploits of Caesar, or ruling with the wisdom and masterfulness of Augustus, or swaying multitudes with the eloquence of Cicero. It is upon such stuff that the imagination of youth feeds!

Before we quit altogether the Greek and Roman heroes, it might be well to observe that in the main these illustrious men were brilliant instruments of destruction; ruin inevitably followed in the wake of their triumphs. But, Huey Long was a leader of different stripe. During his public career in Louisiana, he sought distinction as a builder; and, dying, he left behind him many imposing monuments of steel and stone.

Winn, a wooded parish (county) in the hill section of North Louisiana, was the birthplace of Huey P. Long. The breath of life came to him there on August 30, 1893. One or two of his biographers have fallen into the error of stating that his birth was attended by much the same circumstances as those which surrounded the advent of Abraham Lincoln—i. e., that he was born in a log cabin of poor, but God-fearing parents.

It is quite true that exteriorally the Long homestead w&=! a log affair; but interiorally it was commodious and well-appointed, consisted of six rooms with ceiling walls, and well provided with the comforts and conveniences of that day and time. It had been built by a wealthy slave-owner and among the farm houses of that period was counted better than the average.

Huey P. Long, Jr., was the eighth of ten children born to Huey P. Long, Sr., and Caledonia Tison. One child died in infancy; the remaining nine lived to take part in many of the political campaigns of their ambitious young brother—as often against him as for him. Long, Sr., was a respected and well-to-do farmer and live stock raiser who had earned his money the hard way. Very early in their young lives he inculcated in the minds of his children lessons of industry and thrift.

The boyhood life of Huey Long was that of the average country lad. He attended school, joined the Baptist church, ungraciously performed his household chores and indulged the usual pastimes of rural youth. At school he exhibited no great precocity or talent; and he was none too punctilious in discharging his religious obligations. Like Cincinnatus, he had his turn at the plow, but unlike the great Roman conqueror he had no stomach for that sort of thing. Actually, Huey loathed the farm. There were rare occasions upon which stern parental authority forced him to plant peas and dig potatoes; but Huey made them so exceptional that today many of his close relatives are almost ready to swear that they didn't happen at all.

No myth identified with the early life of Huey P. Long has endured with as much vigor as the overworked farm-boy fable, a circumstance largely due to the stress laid upon it by the self-styled Louisiana Kingfish himself. Although something of a sybarite in his manner of living, Huey chose to be regarded as a calloused son of the soil. About the time he was beginning his political career, an inspired biography appeared in the Louisiana newspapers in which Huey was represented as slaving as a lad in the fields, fighting drouth and hard times and saving out of his pittance of 35 cents per day enough money to pay for his education.

Of a piece with this engaging but wholly imaginative picture is the following extract from Carleton Beals' generally-delightful Story of Huey P. Long:

Almost as soon as he could work, Huey was out hoeing long rows of potaoes, picking cotton, cutting wood. Years later he was to speak bitterly of the harshness of that toil, the hot- sun, the lack of companionship. He rebelled against it early.

As a matter of cold, unvarnished truth, Huey's contacts with the hoe or farm-axe were like June snows. They did happen, but not in any volume to speak of.

Huey P. Long was a member, in 1910, of a Winnfield High School class which should have graduated, but didn't It was an eleventh grade class: and W. C. Robinson, school principal, had visions of an additional grade marking the high school maximum. State school authorities disagreed with him and kept the eleventh grade at top level. But, members of the 1910 class received no diplomas.

Disappointed at the turn of school affairs at home, Huey sought graduation in Shreveport, in the extreme northwestern section of Louisiana. But here, for some reason not down in the record, he was again unsuccessful. Still later he matriculated at the University of Oklahoma, remained there a few months and left-still diplomaless. There was plenty of variety in Huey P. Long's intellectual training, but not much confluence.

We have said that while Huey Long became a registered church affiliant, he was decidedly remiss in his religious obligations. As a boy Huey Long attended church only when he had to; as a man he rarely went there. But, as a matter of superstition rather than devotion, he regularly gave tithes to his home pastor.

Harley B. Bozeman, inseparable companion of his boyhood, recalls two incidents which illustrate Huey Long's attitude toward practical religion. As a boy Huey drove a bakery wagon and earned $3.50 per week. He gave every cent of it to the church. While he was practicing law in Winnfield, he collected, one Sunday morning, a legal fee of $500. The local pastor was soliciting church contributions. Saying to Bozeman I'd better settle with the preacher right now, Huey Long peeled off $50 and handed it to the delighted minister. It was a form of soul-insurance; or, at least, Huey so regarded it. All his life he had a profound reverence for, and fear of, the unknown and mystical.

Young Long's first contact with the business world occurred in the fall of 1910 when, at seventeen years of age, he landed a salesman's job with a concern marketing a staple cooking ingredient. Huey had taken odd jobs before that, one as a printer's apprentice in the typeroom of the local weekly where he learned to setup and makeup the newspaper. But, salesmanship was his particular bent, and he went from firm to firm with increasing success and profit.

On April 12,1913, he became the husband, in Memphis, Tennessee, of Rose McConnell, a charming Louisiana girl whose cake had won first honors at the State Fair. Into this cake went some of the materials which young Long was at that time introducing to progressive housewives. Miss McConnell was as lovely as she was gifted and when Huey, sent to interview her in the ordinary course of business, met her at her home, he was at once seized with the conviction that life without this beautiful girl would be a dreary, blistering waste.

By applying high-pressure methods to a brief and ardent courtship, Huey brought Miss McConnell to his way of thinking. Thus, at twenty years of age and with no income to speak of, Huey Long took unto himself a wife. On that happy day in April, 1913, neither of the contracting parties could have foreseen that both were destined to sit in the Senate of the United States.

For a year after his marriage Huey Long sold patent medicine for a nationally known concern. He was making progress with this form of livelihood and seemed content to go on with it. Huey was a good salesman, says his friend Bozeman, who often took the road with him. Quick, alert, determined without being too insistent; patient, zealous and untiring; courteous and civil; cheerful and smiling. That was Huey Long, salesman, in his early youth.

But, Mrs. Huey P. Long, Jr., had her own ideas about her husband's future. Julius T. Long, an elder brother, had, seven years earlier, completed a threeyear law course in one year at Tulane university, New Orleans. What one brother had done, Mrs. Long felt another could accomplish. She persuaded Huey to quit the road and study law. Julius financed his studies and planned his special course of instruction. Huey made the grade in a year, precisely as Julius had done. He induced the Louisiana Supreme Court to give him a special examination, passed without difficulty and returned to Winnfield to open a law office with his brother.

For a year or so, Huey devoted his energies to gathering clients and fees. His partnership with Julius did not last long. The elder brother was public prosecutor; he had been elected district attorney in 1912. It was, therefore, the business of Julius Long to prosecute malefactors. Huey undertook to defend them. The spectacle of law partners appearing on opposite sides of criminal proceedings was not one to inspire public confidence in the ordinary instrumentalities of justice. So, the partnership was dissolved. Julius continued to prosecute offenders and Huey continued to defend them—but as individuals, not as partners.

At first, Huey Long exhibited no signs of a desire to enter politics. In after life he spoke of political contests in which he had taken part long before attaining his majority; but he alone remembered them. Huey had been in active practice for over three years before he became a candidate for office.

Circumstances attending his first step in politics were peculiar. The term of Julius T. Long as district attorney was expiring in 1916 and he had decided to stand for re-election. Unexpectedly, Huey P. Long manifested an itch for the same office.

The political situation was to his liking. A deathgrapple was in progress between two brothers-in-law (Cas Moss and Will Wallace) for the district judgeship. As the judicial contest was already a family affair, Huey Long's candidacy against his brother, while it might enliven the campaign, could not change its basic character. The fact that Julius had paid for and supervised his legal education seemed to be of small consequence to Huey Long. He wanted to be district attorney. And that was that!

At an opportune moment, Harley Bozeman appeared on the scene. When the situation was explained to him, he offered what proved to be an acceptable solution. As Fate would have it, Bozeman had recently been engaged in sales work in Georgia; and while there had observed that Joe Brown, in Georgia, and Tom Henderson, in Alabama, had reached the Governorship by way of the State Railroad Commission.

So, Bozeman undertook to work on Huey Long in an effort to persuade him that his most promising political course was not to oppose his brother but to try to unseat Burt Bridges, North Louisiana member of the State Railroad Commission (now Public Service Commission), whose term of six years was then twothirds served. Huey liked the idea and seized upon it with enthusiasm.

Neither Long nor Bozeman knew very much about the duties and responsibilities of the office of Railroad Commissioner. They sought light from the statute books, which informed them that there were twentyeight parishes in Burt Bridges' district, that Commissioners were paid $3,000 per year and expenses and that they had plenary jurisdiction over all public service corporations.

Promised the help of Bozeman and Julius Long in canvassing the district, Huey Long immediately began laying his lines for the office of Railroad Commissioner, though the election was as yet some two years off.

Cas Moss was elected district judge, and Julius Long won handily. Although many persons in Winnfield knew of Huey's determination to oppose his brother in 1916, it was not until some years later that Julius himself learned of it. It was difficult for him to believe the story.

CHAPTER II

The Genesis of a Political Career

In the summer of 1914 Samuel G. Blythe, humorist and publicist, contributed to a well-known national magazine a series of delightful sketches of American political life. With exquisite irony, the author lampooned the ultra-liberal who was just then coming into national prominence as a conjurer of votes and accumulator of political honors. While Blythe's manifest purpose was to burlesque the radical spellbinder and his gulled followers, there was so much solid truth underlying his satire that the articles bred in the intelligent American mind profound contempt for ultra-liberalism.

Blythe told the story of a young secretary whose socialistic soul rebelled against the ingrained conservatism of his chief, a Rightest member of the United States Senate. Tiring of a drab and uniform existence, the secretary resigned his post, went west and set up in politics on his own account as a foe of established forms of American political philosophy.

By posing as the champion of those of lowly condition who stood in fear of the predatory rich; by strongly recommending himself as the protector of the distressed and afflicted; by pledging deliverance to the wronged and oppressed, and by promising affluence for all and labor for none, the former secretary very quickly became a popular idol and political titan. Honors came to him so thick and fast that his physical frame could hardly bear up under them. A beguiled and misled people looked up the new leader as a political Messiah and deified him in their hearts.

Samuel Blythe could have had no preconceived idea that his articles (for which there was such widespread demand that they subsequently appeared in book form) would exercise a profound influence upon the political destinies of Louisiana and come perilously close to shaping the economic future of the American nation. Yet, they had precisely that effect.

Most Americans read the Blythe articles for the intellectual reaction they afforded. But in Louisiana a young man with awakening political ambitions studied them for their political value. To the fecund imagination of Huey P. Long, the Blythe sketches constituted the pillars of a political empire. They were, or could be made to be, a political text book for the masses. To their author and others they might be merely a travesty on American political life, of passing interest and without permanent value; to Huey Long they were political gems which might be made the jewels of a public crown.

It may seem like stretching language to say that the humorous articles of Samuel G. Blythe were incorporated in the political platform of Huey P. Long and were governing influences in his public career up to the very hour of his death. Yet, that is the incontrovertible truth. What Blythe wrote as a parody, Huey Long adopted as a guide.

Huey thus explained it to one of his close friends: The fellow that put those views and promises in the mouth of a political candidate thought he was writing something funny; and he was, at that. But he was also writing something of immense value to the chap who wants to get somewhere in politics. The people want that kind of stuff. They eat it up. Why not give it to them?

It was from The Fakirs, by Samuel G. Blythe that Huey P. Long got his idea of the inestimable political value of ballyhoo. Its pages revealed to him that such psychological stimuli as taxing the rich, crushing corporate rapacity, humbling the pride of the high and mighty, making faces at Wall street, rewarding the faithful and punishing the unbelieving, might easily be turned to political profit. It is incontestable that not only did Huey Long read and discuss the Blythe articles (the first was published on May 30, 1914, and the last on August 11 of the same year) but he boasted that he would make them the foundation stones of a great political temple in Louisiana.

In the fall of 1918, the future Louisiana Kingfish was elected Railroad Commissioner over Burt Bridges by a narrow majority of 636 votes. In his campaign for the office as well as in his defense of State Senator S. J. Harper, of Winn, who was tried at Alexandria for an alleged violation of the Federal espionage act, he had ample opportunity to air his new political philosophy.

Uncle Sam was at war with the Central Powers and Senator Harper, who though elected as a Democrat was at heart a Socialist, had written and circulated a book which he called: Issues of the Day; Free Speech; Financial Slavery. The tendency, if not the purpose of this volume, was to impede the success of the military draft. Senator Harper was accused, arrested, tried and acquitted. Julius T. and Huey P. Long defended him. Julius did the work, Huey did the talking. On this occasion the brothers got along famously.

In the little book Senator Harper published Huey Long found the germ of his Share-the-Wealth idea. On February 22, 1918, (Washington's birthday), the following statement of Counsel Huey P. Long concerning the Harper case appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune: "Senator Harper announced that his platform was solely one that war should be supported by a conscription of war profits and certain amounts of swollen fortunes, as well as conscription of men, or the country will face financial slavery. Ten per cent of the people own seventy per cent of the wealth." (Italics ours).

In his campaign for Railroad Commissioner Long trained his verbal artillery on the Wall street money devil. In an interview given to a New Orleans Item correspondent on March 1, 1918, Long quoted Federal statistics to show that between 1890 and 1910 the wealth of the nation trebled, yet the masses owned less in 1910 than in 1890.

For seventeen years Huey Long harped on that political string. In his radio reply to Gen. Hugh Johnson, of NRA fame, on March 5, 1935, he quoted precisely the same statistics in support of exactly the same arguments. In the interim, he had made the figures pay handsome dividends.

Huey Long made standard the plan of campaign he employed in encompassing the defeat of Burt Bridges and adhered to it to the end of his days. For upwards of a year before the Railroad Commission election he explored the remote rural areas and talked to the people he found there, practically ignoring the courthouse towns. Also, he liberally circularized the far-reaches, inveighing against Wall street in these printed communications and unhesitatingly promising the voters whatever they happened to need in the way of railroad extensions or service. When the votes were counted, it was found that Huey had carried only four out of twenty-eight courthouse towns, but the country precincts were almost solidly behind him.

Huey Long became a working member of the Louisiana Railroad Commission in October, 1918, and at once injected into that rather otiose and ponderous state body a new and vitalizing energy. Three members comprised the Commission. Long's official associates in 1918 were John T. Michel, of New Orleans, and Shelby M. Taylor, of Crowley. Taylor was chairman.

Created in 1898 to supervise public service operations in Louisiana, the Commission had adopted a policy of acquiescing in established conditions, concerning itself only with measures for maintaining existing standards of service. On the whole it was opposed to innovations in policies or procedures.

This situation was not at all to the liking of Huey Long, whose restless energy rebelled against fixed standards of administration. It was his idea that his new job could be made useful to the public and to himself, that the more serviceable he made it the stronger his chances would become for landing the Governorship. So, without consulting his associate members about any of his policies, he at once proceeded to make them effective.

Huey Long had a flair for crowding other actors off the stage and focussing the limelight on himself, which no criticism could discourage and no interference prevent. In a remarkably short space of time the Railroad Commission had become the most active public body in the state, and Huey P. Long was serenely sitting at the main lever impelling the machinery. The public, not very discriminating about affairs of this kind, soon began to regard the Louisiana Railroad Commission as a Huey P. Long entity. The other members just filled in.

John T. M; he) died in 1921 and Francis Williams succeeded hin ?ong became chairman of the Commission; and arter that his sway was absolute.

The principal events of Long's first term as Railroad Commissioner (made Public Service Commissioner in