Huey Long ascended to national political prominence with dynamic and unabashed rhetoric that conflated the teachings of the Bible with American nationalism. At the apex of his career, Long was elected to the United States Senate where he conceived of the Share Our Wealth society; a grassroots attempt to consolidate popular support for a 1936 bid to unseat President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Long’s unrepentant rhetoric on the Senate floor directly challenged President Roosevelt and Senatorial authority; acts which both hastened the enactment of the New Deal and steered the program to the political left. Long’s programs advanced a Constitutional alternative to communism that sought to allay the impact of the Great Depression in the United States. Though Long’s programs left the profit motive intact, they nonetheless challenged oligarchical influence in politics - both nationally and especially in his home state of Louisiana. This attack on the aristocracy led to conditions ripe for his assassination in 1935. Navigating the trajectory of Huey Long’s political career is a challenge given the proliferation of anecdotal accounts published during his lifetime and after. All The King’s Men, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (1947) by Robert Penn Warren, is indicative of the early fascination around Long’s life. Willie Stark, the novel’s protagonist, is merely an embellished caricature of Huey Long himself. Ideas about Huey Long the man have been obfuscated by such fictional accounts. Though Warren’s was clearly a work of fiction, many supposedly “historical” accounts of Long’s life and work are more fictional than the novel, influenced by the marked polarization Long inspired. To separate one’s self from the specter of Huey Long was nearly impossible. As Warren noted, “[i]f you were living in Louisiana you knew you were living in history defining itself before your eyes and you knew that you were not seeing a half-drunk hick buffoon performing an old routine, but witnessing a drama which was a version of the world’s drama and the drama of history too: the old drama of power and ethics.” Such was Huey Long’s impact on Louisiana - not even literature could escape his powerful influence. For this reason, the words and actions of Huey Long will be examined on their own terms. Secondary source material will be sparingly used for biographical framework, but the bulk of the discussion will be based on Long’s own publications and public utterances. The general consensus, regardless of underlying political bias, is that Huey Long’s demise was due to overdeveloped ambition. It is therefore fitting that his ambitions are clearly understood, lest historians be led astray by a wealth of inflammatory and biased historical literature from all sides of the political spectrum about the man and his influence. As Governor, Long provided Louisiana with much-needed infrastructure, pushed educational reforms, and opened the polls up to poor blacks and whites who were all but disenfranchised by the $1 poll tax he eliminated. He railed against the entrenched political influence of Standard Oil and vowed always to represent the interests of working people. Detractors are quick to note that Long employed graft, nepotism, and corruption to build a tremendous political machine in Louisiana that lingered far beyond his assassination in 1935. Indeed, any study of Long will inevitably reveal the political leanings of the author. Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. argues that: “Machiavelli long ago said ‘a great man cannot be a good man.’ But there are limits to the kinds of methods that a great man may employ in order to do good. I think in Huey Long’s case, the methods involved the destruction of democracy in Louisiana, a systematic corruption and theft using the state government’s instrumentality. These methods outweighed the good he did.” However, Schlesinger neglects to address Machiavelli’s notion of the ideal leader – one that is both feared and loved. Huey Long inspired fear amongst the entrenched political and social elite, but he simultaneously inspired the love of common people with both his rhetoric and his actions. Former Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Bill Dodd argues that, “[c]ontrary to what a lot of people had written about Huey and said about him, he didn’t break the law: Huey used the law. And if there wasn’t a law available to do what he wanted to do under our Constitution, he passed a law that would enable him to do what he wanted. So he used the law, he didn’t break the law.” Thus, views of Huey Long and the legality of his actions are largely determined by individual ideological underpinnings. By 1932, Huey Long’s enormous power base dominated Louisiana politics. Eliminating the poll tax allowed thousands of poor Louisiana citizens to cast their ballots for Long and Long-endorsed candidates for every public office. People once confined to the bayous or stuck in the back-country of Louisiana could get to their polling stations on the miles of paved roads and bridges Long erected through his public works initiatives. This gave Long the political mandate to be a forceful advocate of the people. Long’s 1932 election to the United States Senate coincided with the Great Depression, the end of the Hoover administration, and the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Thus, the atmosphere was ripe for an advocate of the nation’s downtrodden to assume political power. Long turned his primary focus from Louisiana to the country as a whole, and it is in the United States Senate that he conceived the Share Our Wealth society; a vehicle designed to garner popular support for his radical populist reforms. Bucking Senate conventions that the newly-elected should be neither seen nor heard, Long entered the Senate with a flippant attitude that underscored his contempt for the stagnant movement of legislative procedure: “[o]n Huey’s first day, he bounded onto the floor, slapped one distinguished Senator on the back, thumped the elderly Republican leader on the chest, and strode around the chamber telling everyone ‘the Kingfish had arrived.’ All the while, he chewed on a big, black cigar in violation of Senate rules, putting it down on the clerk’s desk just long enough to be sworn in.” Indeed, the Kingfish had arrived in Washington, D.C. and he was posturing to leave an indelible mark on American politics. In April of 1932, Long delivered a speech titled “The Doom of America’s Dream” which Christman contends “[…] was described at the time as the most radical, most bitter address ever delivered in the United States Senate.” This speech asserted that wealth concentration had made American society derelict and established Long as an advocate of those most impacted by the Great Depression by challenging Senatorial priorities. In the speech, Long read a letter from a constituent who had to drop out of college for lack of funding and another from a man who turned to illegal activity to feed his family. Upon sharing these harrowing accounts, whether legitimate or aggrandized, Long stated, “[y]et we are sitting here talking about balancing the budget.” In a further mockery of Senate conventions, Long made it clear that his objective was not to win friends when he said that, “I am not politically afraid for them to know that I have expressed exactly those sentiments on the floor of the Senate. It does not make any difference to me whether they like it or not.” This is a theme that recurred throughout Long’s political career – he never cared much for what the elite and entrenched political interests thought of him. Rather, he cared about what the folks down on the bayou felt about his policies - and election results indicated that those people were firmly behind Huey Long. He also attacked Wall Street and stock exchanges both in New York and his home state: “I am not afraid to tell you that there is not a more nefarious enterprise that ever operated on the face of the globe than the stock exchanges and cotton exchanges in the city of New York and in the city of New Orleans.” Most politicians would be reluctant to alienate potential political contributions by making such a sweeping condemnation of the backbone of the American capitalist economy, but all the support Long needed came in the form of the people. Long’s currency was vote returns, and he had enough capital on hand to make such bold statements. In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt took office as United States President. Long initially supported the Presidential candidacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt actively, saying, “[b]efore we declared ourselves for anybody for President of the United States, we saw to it that that man declared himself in favor of the redistribution of the wealth in the United States.” Whether or not Long ever intended to form a coalition with Roosevelt, such a tenuous political association between the two ambitious men could not be maintained. As Williams argues in his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Huey Long, “two great politicians had come into an inevitable conflict. Each was so constituted that he had to dominate other and lesser men. Neither could yield to the other without submerging himself and dimming his destiny. And instinctively each recognized the other’s greatness, and feared it.” As the sitting president, Roosevelt was reluctant to give Senator Long any additional exposure by mentioning his name, so the historiographical rivalry is decidedly one-sided. Long constantly attacked Roosevelt and especially his New Deal policies, which Long opposed due to their failure to address what Long felt was the answer to solving social injustice in America: the redistribution of wealth. Prior to the “Carry Out the Command of the Lord” speech of February of 1934, Long made no qualms about pointing to the redistribution of wealth as the solution to the disparity of wealth and extreme poverty spurred by the Great Depression. However, this speech codified a way to elicit grassroots support in favor of these ideas. In addition to setting up the rules of order for prospective Share Our Wealth societies, Long also presented the American people a decision when he stated, “[t]hings cannot continue as they now are. America must take one of three choices, viz: 1. A monarchy ruled by financial masters – a modern feudalism. 2. Communism 3. Sharing of the wealth and income of the land among all people… The Lord prescribed the last form.” The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 was still on the public’s mind by 1934, and the tactic of conjuring the image of communism had become a viable political tactic. American capitalism is presented as both a monarchy and feudal in nature, antithesis to the documents and intentions of the Founding Fathers. If communism and feudal monarchism are fundamentally un-American, the solution must be the third option Long proposed – the sharing of the wealth. In sharing the wealth, Long presented a solution that, while mathematically flimsy, would allow the profit motive and innovation inherent in capitalism to live harmoniously within a system that provides social welfare to its poorest citizens. Long’s primary grievance was with disparity of wealth and not necessarily wealth itself. He made it clear that Share Our Wealth was not communism; rather, it could be thought of as capitalism with an extensive safety net. Typical to Long’s rhetoric, he uses Biblical justification to give his ideas that much more appeal to the American public – for Share Our Wealth is framed as a command from the Lord. By 1934, Long was clearly posturing himself for a challenge to Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1936 election. Using the same technique now inextricably linked to Roosevelt, Long engaged the American public with radio speeches, giving his message exposure that was only possible by the advent of such mass communication technology. Long was thus engaged in an ideological battle with a sitting president of his own party. In a government defined by party allegiance, this made Long few friends in either party. When first elected to the Senate, Long met President Herbert Hoover. When asked about the experience of meeting the Republican president, Long stated that he was “as good as any in his miserable party” This clearly indicated Long’s aversion to government procedure, pomp, and circumstance. Senator Long was a man on a mission to redistribute wealth in a Constitutional way; formal etiquette and niceties were pushed to the wayside in favor of bombastic rhetoric which would garner him national attention en route to a presidential run. Though he initially supported the candidacy and early presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Long quickly became one of the president’s most vocal critics of either party. Williams points to an event recalled by a Roosevelt staff member, who said that the president considered Long a top political rival, even if he never said so much in a public setting. According to the staffer, Roosevelt said, “[i]t’s all very well for us to laugh over Huey. But actually we have to remember all the time that he really is one of the two most dangerous men in the country.” The other dangerous man supposedly targeted by President Roosevelt was Douglas MacArthur. If the account is true, it indicates a politically astute Roosevelt that recognized his own vulnerability in the trying Great Depression times. From the right was Douglas MacArthur, esteemed general in the United States Army, who could mount a presidential bid of his own and enjoy mass support due to his rank and station in life. From the left was Huey Long, someone described as having a reputation “[…] already smeared by his enemies, and much of the press, as a wild, ignorant, uncouth, ruthless, communistic, demented Southern redneck.” Despite these slurs and preconceptions, Huey Long enjoyed massive popular support in his home state of Louisiana and was en route to building a national following, especially given the release of his Share Our Wealth pamphlet. Roosevelt wisely noted the trajectory of his political enemies, chief of which was Senator Long. The aforementioned Share Our Wealth pamphlet was used to organize potential grassroots societies to further the political message and platform of Huey Long. The brightly-colored orange cover is headed by a Biblical quote from John 8:32; “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” Other than laying out the logistics of meeting order and what should be discussed, Long includes Biblical references and appealed to the Constitution and Declaration of Independence to present a uniquely populist, Christian, and nationalistic vision to resist the specter of communism while addressing the ills of American capitalism. Long said as much when he stated that topics of discussion at Share Our Wealth meetings should be: “1st: The need for spreading the wealth and work in America; and 2nd: The conditions now existing in America because wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few, contrary to the laws of God and the purposes of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States.” The spreading or redistribution of wealth is thereby associated with the commands of the Bible and the edicts laid out by America’s founding documents. The Long platform explicated by the pamphlet includes a seven-plank platform which includes provisions to enact taxation on the wealthiest Americans to afford the poorest some minimum standards of living. The platform states that no family should have less than one-third of the average family fortune, free of debt. Also included are old age pensions, increased benefits for United States veterans, a shorter work day, and agrarian reform designed “to balance agricultural production with what can be sold and consumed according to the laws of God, which have never failed.” Long also advocated educational reform which would allow indigent students of sufficient mental ability to attend college, and thus, stay away from the work force. This approach allows the student to attain an education and the working man to have a job that may otherwise be occupied by said student. This idea is justified by Long using the Declaration of Independence: “[a]ll men are created equal,” says the Declaration of Independence, and to all those born the Constitution of our Nation guarantees “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness […] These provisions of our immortal national documents are not observed when the right to education rests upon the financial ability of one’s parents.” In presenting his ideas for educational reform in this way, Long called on his potential supporter’s inherent American nationalism and reverence for the Founding documents. Ensuring the right to a remunerative education, whether it be vocational or academic, would not only have built a stronger future on the backs of an educated generation, but would have also allowed students to live in relative comfort while steering clear of the job market. At a time when jobs were at a premium, the idea of sending college-aged students to University for four years must have been appealing to both student and working man alike. Though Long often spoke out against Marxist communism and employed the fear it created in the American population to meet his own ends, he does display a reverence for the importance of class consciousness in fomenting radical change, even if the radical change he advocated was Constitutional rather than revolutionary. In the same Share Our Wealth pamphlet, Long instructs prospective society members on class consciousness when he said; “[l]et us bear in mind that our chief work is to have the people know the truth. If only our people could but awake tomorrow understanding the facts which concern and control their living and existence, our fight would be won.” Though it is unlikely that Long would have read the works of Gramsci, Long here displayed a keen sense of powerful structuring forces inherent in capitalist societies like the United States, a concept Gramsci would call cultural hegemony. If only people understood the impact of hegemony and the extent to which it ruled their lives, Long argues in effect, they would instantly resolve to make sweeping changes in their political system. Unfortunately, the people in general lack this sense of class consciousness and think little about the structuring forces of hegemony. Thus, the Share Our Wealth societies would perform ideological work beyond just blind support of Huey P. Long and his prospective candidacies. As an example, Long points to the media as one such source of hegemony that oppresses the common people when he said, “[n]ewspapers and magazines, owned and controlled by the money masters, have spread so much false propaganda that many people who read the most are the most ignorant and deluded on the cause of conditions now prevailing and the simple matter by which they could be corrected.” In saying this, Long instructed his society members to recognize that newspapers are no more than publications designed to make money by those who already have money. He attacks the general perception of newspapers as unbiased and concerned with delivering only the facts. It is difficult to estimate how many of Long’s society members ever thought about a given newspaper being the source of misinformation, but the idea was surely ingrained into them by this statement. Of more political convenience than ideological work is the fact that many newspapers attacked Long and his policies, so throwing the media under the proverbial bus can also be viewed as just another way to discredit any opposition. Clearly, Long was posturing his Share Our Wealth plan to be an alternative to communism and “red” revolution in America; an alternative more powerful and direct than Roosevelt’s New Deal. Attacking the New Deal as too conservative and slow-moving to address the pressing issue of the redistribution of wealth, Long wrote, “[y]ou cannot solve these things through these various and sundry alphabetical codes. You can have the N.R.A. and P.W.A. and C.W.A. and the U.U.G. and G.I.N. and any other kind of dad-gummed letter code. You can wait until doomsday and see 25 more alphabets, but that is not going to solve this proposition.” Long thereby accomplishes a two-tiered attack on the New Deal with this statement. First, he criticizes how the New Deal is slow-moving in addressing social inequality and injustice in America – it is simply not working fast enough on behalf of working people. Then, recognizing a general lack of education in a power-base denied access to higher (and sometimes even secondary) education by way of their economic disposition, Long attacks the way programs are presented as initials with the amusing and imaginary G.I.N. Though not as amusing today, readers of Long’s pamphlet would have likely shook their heads and chuckled at the idea of a Roosevelt New Deal program whose initials spelled gin. The year of 1935 marked both the high-point of Long’s influence and his downfall at the hands of an assassin. Roosevelt may have kept quiet about Long’s growing influence to the public, but amongst his advisors, Roosevelt recognized Long as a threat and political enemy. Incidentally, Long’s unconventional Senate floor speeches, characterized by lengthy filibusters, zealous oratory, and Constitutional appeals may have expedited the passage of components of the New Deal package. Long was not uniformly against Roosevelt and the New Deal, but he often attacked the plans as being insufficient and the product of a president whose roots could be found in the upper strata of society. Long was thus a living example and a specter hanging over Congress – pass this moderate reform measure of the New Deal, or risk an ideologue like Long usurping power on the strength of popular appeal coupled with a floundering economy. The decidedly more leftist ‘second-wave’ of New Deal legislation can also be traced to Huey Long, as Roosevelt likely felt he needed to ride the wave of popular support fomented by Long to galvanize his own chances at re-election. Though remembered today primarily as a war president who garnered an unprecedented four re-elections before his death, Roosevelt was, at this juncture, politically vulnerable. Like Long had been preaching over the radio and in the halls of the Senate, the first wave of New Deal legislation did little to address the poverty and helplessness experienced by many Americans as a result of the Great Depression. T. Harry Williams offers an argument congruent with the idea that Franklin D. Roosevelt usurped Senator Long’s ideas to increase his own chances of re-election by unveiling a second wave of New Deal legislation that was bolder in its attempt to address social concerns propagated by the Great Depression. He stated that while “Roosevelt never publicly complimented Huey’s political skill,” he did “[recognize] the dexterity of his rival and in the close circle of New Deal advisers admitted his fear of the Kingfish. […] Roosevelt startled [his close associates] by saying that he might have to take over as his own some of Long’s ideas in order to, as he put it, ‘steal Long’s thunder.’” Whether or not this conversation took place is unknown, but it is very likely Roosevelt shared such sentiments with his closest advisors. Both Roosevelt and Long are associated with progressive ideas designed to help the poor during the Depression, but above all, both men tended to their personal power first and foremost. In a way, Long motivated Roosevelt with a sort of capitalistic competition: ‘You have a plan, mine is better. The people will vote for me.’ This, in turn, forced Roosevelt to come out with even bolder New Deal legislation. Historians debate the merits of the New Deal and its impact on attaining financial recovery for the United States, but it seems evident the legislation was driven left by the vocal opposition of Senator Long. In fact, one of the more successfully executed New Deal organizations, the Public Works Administration, can be directly correlated to a Long initiative. Long employed an extensive public works program in Louisiana when he was the governor, giving thousands of unemployed construction workers jobs and improving the infrastructure of the state from extremely outdated and unnavigable to on-par with other states. The P.W.A. was part of this “New” New Deal legislation that can be traced back to the objections and actions of Senator Long. Roosevelt may have been the President, but he was not above petty actions to attempt to force Long to stifle his criticisms. As governor, Long had enacted a debt moratorium designed to help impoverished people keep their possessions while paying down accumulated debt. In a purely political move, Roosevelt vowed to withhold federal Public Works funds from Louisiana until the law was repealed. Williams contends that the debt moratorium in Louisiana was viewed by the Roosevelt administration as a law that “might jeopardize municipal bonds bought by the Public Works Administration.” In an ironic twist, Roosevelt found a way to de-fund the Kingfish’s home state of much-needed federal aid by employing and defending a program essentially conceived by Long. In response, Long conducted a “reasoned attack” on Roosevelt and his administration in a crowded session of the Senate, including the declaration “God send me to hell before I go through that kind of thing in order to get patronage!” Long simply refused to toe the line or ever assume any middle ground. He was thoroughly disgusted by, and uninterested in, niceties and procedures of the Senate and other government agencies. He had little regard for the office of President, though it was clear by this time Long’s eyes were set directly upon the White House. One merely needs to look at the title of Long’s final book to understand the Senator’s ultimate ambition. Not released in his lifetime due to assassination, Long wrote My First Days in the White House in 1935. More satirical and sarcastic than any serious attempt to describe what a Long presidency might entail, My First Days instead reads like a little boy’s Presidential dream. In the first few pages, Long names a cabinet that includes both President Hoover and President Roosevelt. The idea that either man would go from the office of President to a mere underling in a Long administration is absurd, but Long employs this absurdity to illustrate the priorities of the former Presidents. In a fictional conversation with former President Hoover, who initially rejects Long’s offer to be the Secretary of Commerce, is convinced otherwise when “President” Long says, “[that] is something between you and the American people. You will have to explain to them why you will not serve your country again in its hour of need.” President Roosevelt is given a position as Secretary of the Navy to the same effect. Illustrated with humorous pictures, My First Days shows a playful side of Long that was pivotal in his ascent to power within the state of Louisiana. Without a brilliant legal mind coupled with the act of a common country bumpkin, Long would have likely never gained power in Louisiana. It was this appeal that convinced bayou voters that Long was one of them and would look after them from a position of power. Long merely used these same sentiments and tried to communicate them on a wide, national scale in this fictional book. Huey Pierce Long never got an opportunity to enact the political fantasies expounded in My First Days, nor did he ever get to orchestrate a presidential bid. While visiting the capitol in Baton Rouge, Huey Long was shot by Dr. Carl A. Weiss, son-in-law of Judge Benjamin Pavy, a man targeted by Long to be gerrymandered out of his judicial appointment. Circumstances surrounding the assassination are still a topic of debate, but the polarized and politically-charged atmosphere in Louisiana at the time was the perfect backdrop for the swift end to a political career that shined brightly. Mrs. Hodding Carter, wife of the journalist who constantly criticized Huey Long in Louisiana, recalls that, “I can’t remember any Saturday night that I went anywhere that we didn’t talk about killing Huey Long.” Though Long enjoyed massive support from the working people of Louisiana, who came in droves to his funeral, he also had aggressive contention from the “Antis” or “anti-Long” factions within Louisiana. These groups were mostly comprised of those upper-class Louisianans that faced loss of government jobs and contracts during the Long administration. Thus, the atmosphere was ripe for assassination. Instead of dying at the hands of a crazed political assassin, Long was felled by a bullet fired from a gun belonging to Dr. Weiss, a quiet, unassuming, normally apolitical middle-class man. It was a rather unfitting end for the Kingfish Huey Long, whose last words were supposedly “don’t let me die. I have so much left to do.” Would Huey P. Long have been elected President if not for his assassination, or would he have languished as a political rebel, an alien to both major parties? Such conjecture is meaningless, although there are plenty of indications that Long was mounting a 1936 bid against Roosevelt. When asked by a reporter about such a bid, Long said, “[i]f the events continue as they now are and circumstances are what they appear to be, it’s almost certain that I will be a candidate.” In another speech, Long pulled no punches and made no appeals for party backing when he summed up the voting public’s choice, in his view: “[You have] Roosevelt on the one hand and Hoover on the other; the twin bedmates of disaster. We want neither one of them and we got to have a candidate away from the Republican Party and away from the Democratic Party and I, for one, am perfectly willing to see that there is another choice in the United States in 1936.” Long was very clearly courting the highest office, but the “drama of power and ethics” that was Senator Long’s life would soon come to an unceremonious end at the hands of an assassin’s bullet. No matter how much support the Share Our Wealth societies garnered for Long, he still would have faced an up-hill battle against a better-financed incumbent in Franklin D. Roosevelt. As it is with many historical figures whose ambitions were stunted by the finality of unexpected death, it is easy to dismiss what was accomplished in favor of what could have been. Huey Long proliferated a politically dangerous message; one infused with the conflation of Christianity and American nationalism. As Long said, “[w]e have a marvelous love for this Government of ours; in fact, it is almost a religion.” Huey Long, despite his short Senate tenure, left behind an unprecedented legacy that is unlikely to be replicated in the modern, sound-bite driven media society. His ideological presence pushed the passing of New Deal legislation and drove it politically left and even continued to inspire President Roosevelt as late as 1944, when he unveiled the so-called “Second Bill of Rights” in a State of the Union Address. What was championed as a progressive vision of the future by a war-time President Roosevelt was actually a thinly-veiled rehashing of Huey Long’s Share Our Wealth principles from nearly a decade prior. The contentious political environment in Louisiana that saw Senator Long assassinated was driven by those afraid of losing entrenched political, social, and economic power. Ideology was a secondary concern, as even Long’s harshest critics extended some measure of appreciation for those progressive programs that propelled the state of Louisiana into a new era of respectability. Mrs. Hodding Carter comes closest to an accurate appraisal of the situation when she recalled, “I think we were living through a revolution. I think what Long was doing was a revolution and we were fighting that revolution. And [we] fought with the tools that Mr. [Thomas] Jefferson said we could use; which is revolution. And we were ready to fight to stop this man. There were two revolutions: his: the dictator’s; producing great things, and the people who didn’t want the power taken away.” Thus, the opposition to Huey Long was never predicated upon some ideological disagreement – rather, it was orchestrated by those who never had to defend their entrenched power; the very power threatened by the rhetoric and legislative action of Huey Pierce Long.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Jul 2013 03:26:34 +0000
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