Huey Long

Huey Pierce Long, Jr., (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 shot at the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge; he died two days later. His last words were reportedly, "God, don't let me die. I have so much to do."

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 upper middle-class family. He attended local schools, where he reportedly was an excellent student with a photographic memory. In 1910 he was expelled from school for forming a secret society against adding a 12th year of school as a graduation requirement. He 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, Huey Long married Rose McConnell. She was a home economics teacher who had won a baking contest that he promoted to sell "Cottolene," one of the most popular of the early vegetable shortenings to come on the market. The Longs had a daughter, also named Rose, and two sons, Russell and Palmer.

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. When Long argued before the Supreme Court, Chief Justice William Howard Taft was so impressed with the legal arguments that he declared Long one of the best "legal minds" he had encountered.

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.) His campaign for the Railroad Commission used techniques he would perfect later in his political career: heavy use of printed circulars and posters, an exhausting schedule of personal campaign stops throughought rural Louisiana, and vehement attacks on his opponents. He used his position on the Commission to build a name for himself as an opponent of oil and utility companies, fighting against rate increases and pipeline monopolies. In the gubernatorial election of 1920, he campaigned prominently for John M. Parker, but later became his vocal opponent after the new governor proved to be insufficiently committed to reform; Long called Parker the “chattel” of the corporations.

Election of 1924

He ran for governor of Louisiana in the election of 1924, attacking Parker, Standard Oil, and the established political heirarchy both local and state-wide. 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. He came in third, due in part to his unwillingness to come out for or against the Ku Klux Klan, whose prominence in Louisiana had become the primary issue of the campaign. Instead, he was reelected to the Public Service Commission.

Election of 1928

Long spent the intervening four years building his reputation and his political organization, in the meantime supporting Catholic candidates in an effort to build support in Catholic South Louisiana. In 1928 he ran again for Louisiana governor, campaigning with the slogan of "every man a king, but no one wears a crown"—a phrase adopted from William Jennings Bryan. Long's attacks on the utilities industries and the privileges of corporations were popular, as was his depiction the wealthy class as parasites that grabbed more than their fair share of the public wealth while marginalizing the poor. Long won by tapping into the class resentment of rural Louisiana, and by giving them hope for a better future in the form of social programs long ignored by Louisiana's traditional political leaders. He won 126,842 votes compared with 81,747 for Riley J. Wilson and 80,326 for Oramel H. Simpson. Long's support bridged the traditional Protestant-Catholic divide of Louisiana politics, and replaced it with a class-based schism between poor farmers and the wealthy planters, businessmen, and machine politicians who supported his opponents.

Long as governor, 1928-32

Once in office, Long moved quickly to consolidate his power, firing hundreds of opponents in the state bureaucracy from cabinet-level heads of departments and board members to rank-and-file civil servants and state road workers. He replaced these vacancies with patronage appointments from his own network of political supporters. Every state employee who depended on Long for their job was expected to pay a portion of his salary directly to Long’s political war-chest; these funds were kept in a famous locked “deduct box” and used at his discretion.

After his control over the state’s political apparatus was solidified, Long pushed a number of bills through the 1928 session of the state legislature fulfilling some of his campaign promises, including a free textbook program for schoolchildren, night courses for adult learning, a road-building program to upgrade some of the worst roads in the United States, and a supply of cheap natural gas for the city of New Orleans. His bills met opposition from many legislators, but Long used aggressive tactics to ensure the passage of his bills. He would show up unannounced on the floor of the legislature or in house committees, corralling reluctant legislators or bullying opponents. These tactics were unprecedented, but they resulted in the passage of most of Long’s legislation.

Impeachment

In 1929, Long called a special session of the legislature in order to enact a new five-cent per barrel ‘occupational license tax’ on production of refined oil in order to fund his social programs. This bill met with a storm of opposition from the state’s oil interests, and opponents in the legislature moved to impeach Long on charges ranging from blasphemy to corruption, bribery, and misuse of state funds. Long tried to cut the session short, but after an infamous brawl on the floor of the legislature known as ‘Bloody Monday,’ the legislature voted to remain in session and proceed with the impeachment. Long took his case to the people, using his trademark printed circulars and a speaking tour of the state to argue that the impeachment was an attempt by Standard Oil and other corporate interests to prevent his social programs from being carried out. Several of the charges passed in the House, but once the trial moved to the Senate Long produced the “Round Robin,” a document signed by over one third of the senators stating that they would vote against impeachment no matter what the evidence. With the two-thirds majority required to impeach now impossible, Long’s opponents halted the proceedings. The Round Robin signers were later rewarded with state jobs or cash payments.

After the impeachment, Long became even more ruthless when dealing with his enemies, firing their relatives from state jobs and supporting candidates to defeat them in elections. With all of the state’s newspapers against him, in March 1930 Long founded his own: the Louisiana Progress, which he used to broadcast his achievements and denounce his enemies. In order to receive lucrative state contracts, companies were first expected to buy advertisements in Long's newspaper. He also attempted to pass laws placing a surtax on newspapers and forbidding the publishing of “slanderous material,” but these efforts were defeated. After impeachment, Long also began to fear for his personal safety, surrounding himself with armed bodyguards at all times.

1930: defeat in the legislature, campaign for U.S. Senate

In the 1930 legislative session, Long planned another major road-building initiative as well as the construction of a new modern capitol building in Baton Rouge. The legislature defeated the bond issue necessary to build the roads, and his other initiatives failed as well. Long responded by suddenly announcing his intention to run for the U.S. Senate in the fall of 1930. He portrayed his campaign as a referendum on his programs: if he won he would take it as a sign that the public supported his programs over the opposition of the legislature, and if he lost he promised to resign. Long defeated incumbent Senator Joseph E. Ransdell 57.3% to 42.7%. Having been elected to the Senate for the 1931 session, Long intended to fill out his term as governor until 1932. Leaving the seat vacant for so long would not hurt Louisiana, Long said; “with Ransdell as Senator, the seat was vacant anyway.”

1930-1932: Renewed strength

Having won the overwhelming support of the Louisiana electorate, Long returned to pushing his program with renewed strength. Bargaining from an advantageous position, Long entered an agreement with his longtime New Orleans rivals the Regular Democratic Organization and their leader , New Orleans mayor T. Semmes Walmsley; they would support his legislation and his candidates in future elections in return for a bridge over the Mississippi River, a Lakefront Airport for New Orleans, and money for infrastructure improvements in the city. Support from the Old Regulars allowed him to pass an increase in the gasoline tax used to pay for his programs, new school spending, a bill to finance the construction of a new Louisiana State Capitol, and a $75,000,00 bond bill for road construction. Long's road network, including the Airline Highway between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, gave Louisiana some of the most modern roads in the country. (Much of the construction materials for the road-building program came from companies owned by Long’s friends and associates.) By this point, Long's opponents alleged that Long had concentrated political power in his own hands to the point where he had become a dictator of sorts.

Shortly after his election to the Senate, Long became known as "the Kingfish," often answering the telephone with "this is the Kingfish." This was a reference to George "Kingfish" Stevens (voiced by radio actor Freeman Gosden), a character in the immensely popular radio show "Amos 'n' Andy." Long later 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."

As governor, Long developed a special relationship with Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, the state's primary public university. He greatly increased its funding, increasing its enrollment from 1600 to 4000 and building it into one of the finest universities in the South. But he intervened directly in its affairs, choosing its presidents, infringing on the academic freedom of students and faculty, and even sometimes trying to coach its football team himself.

In October 1931, Lieutenant Governor Paul Cyr, an avowed enemy of Long, argued that Long could not remain governor after being elected senator and declared himself the governor of Louisiana. Long surrounded Baton Rouge with National Guard troops and fended off the “coup d'etat.” Long then ousted Cyr as Lieutenant-Governor on a technicality and replaced him with a pliable ally, Alvin Olin King. Constitutionally barred from succeeding himself, Long chose his childhood friend Oscar K. Allen as the candidate to succeed him in the election of 1932 on a “Complete the Work” ticket. With the support of Long's own voter base and the Old Regular machine, Allen won easily. With his loyal succession assured, Long finally resigned as governor and took his seat in the U.S. Senate in January 1932.

Long in the Senate, 1932-35

Long arrived in Washington, D.C. to take his seat in the U.S. Senate in January 1932. Initially, his participation in the Senate was half-hearted; he was absent for over half the days in the 1932 session. When he did appear, he made characteristically fiery speeches denouncing the concentration of wealth and criticizing the leaders of the Democratic Party, most notably attacking Senate Democratic leader Joseph Robinson of Arkansas for his apparent closeness with President Herbert Hoover.

In the presidential election of 1932, Long became a vocal supporter of the candidacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, believing him to be the only candidate willing and able to carry out the drastic redistribution of wealth that Long believed was necessary to end the Great Depression. At the Democratic National Convention, Long was instrumental in keeping the delegations of several wavering states in the Roosevelt camp. Long expected to be featured prominently in Roosevelt's campaign, but was disappointed with a speaking tour limited to four Midwestern states. Long managed to find other venues for his populist message; he campaigned to elect Hattie Caraway of Arkansas to her first full term in the Senate by conducting an extensive tour of that state, raising his national prominence in the process.

After Roosevelt's election, Long soon broke with the new President. Increasingly aware that Roosevelt had no intention of introducing a radical redistribution of the country's wealth, Long became one of the only national politicians to oppose Roosevelt's New Deal policies from the left. Long sometimes supported Roosevelt's programs in the Senate, saying that "whenever this administration has gone to the left I have voted with it, and whenever it has gone to the right I have voted against it." He opposed the National Recovery Act, calling it a sellout to big business. In 1933 he was a leader of the three week Senate filibuster against the Glass-Steagall Act. Roosevelt considered Long a radical demagogue; he privately said of Long that along with General Douglas MacArthur "he was one of the two most dangerous men in America," and later compared him to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. In June 1933, Roosevelt cut Long off from any consultation on the distribution of federal funds or patronage in Louisiana, a major blow to Long’s political dominance of the state. Roosevelt also supported a Senate inquiry into the election of Long's ally John H. Overton to the Senate in 1932, charging the Long machine with election fraud and voter intimidation.

In an effort to discredit Long and damage his support base, in 1934 Roosevelt had Long’s financial gains from graft and corruption investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, using the same techniques used against Al Capone. Some of Long’s lieutenants were arrested for tax evasion, but only one had been convicted by the time of Long’s death.

Long’s radical rhetoric and his bullying and use of smear tactics did little to endear him to his fellow senators. Not one of his proposed bills, resolutions, or motions was passed during his three years in the Senate. During one debate, another senator told him that “I do not believe you could get the Lord’s Prayer endorsed in this body.”

In terms of foreign policy, Long was a firm isolationist, arguing that America’s involvement in the Spanish-American War and the First World War had been deadly mistakes conducted on behalf of Wall Street. He also opposed American entry into the World Court.

Share Our Wealth

As an alternative to what he called the conservatism of the New Deal, Long proposed legislation capping personal fortunes, income, and inheritances. He used radio broadcasts and founded a national newspaper, the American Progress, to promote his ideas and accomplishments before a national audience. In 1934 he unveiled a full plan he called Share Our Wealth. Long argued that there was enough wealth in the country to allow comfortable living for everyone, but that it was unfairly concentrated in the hands of a few millionaire bankers, businessmen and industrialists. Long proposed a new tax code which sharply increased the tax rate on personal fortunes over $1 million, and confiscating any annual income and inheritances above $1 million. The resulting funds would be used to guarantee every family a basic household grant of $5,000 and a minimum annual income of $2,000-2,500. Long supplemented the plan with proposals for free primary and college education, old-age pensions, federal assistance to farmers, public works projects, and limiting the work week to thirty hours. Denying that his program was socialistic, Long stated that his ideological inspiration for the plan came not from Marx but from the Bible and the Declaration of Independence. “Communism? Hell no!” he said, “This plan is the only defense this country’s got against communism.” In 1934, Long had a public debate with Norman Thomas, the leader of the Socialist Party of America, on the merits of Share Our Wealth versus socialism. Long believed that only a radical restructuring of the national economy, eliminating wealth disparities but retaining the essential features of the capitalist system, could end the Great Depression and stave off violent revolution. After the Senate rejected one of his wealth redistribution bills, Long told them "a mob is coming to hang the other ninety-five of you damn scoundrels and I'm undecided whether to stick here with you or go out and lead them."

After the Senate proved unwilling to take his ideas seriously, in February 1934 Long formed a national political organization, the Share Our Wealth Society. A network of local clubs led by national organizer Reverend Gerald L. K. Smith, the Society was intended to operate outside of and in opposition to the Democratic Party and the Roosevelt administration. By 1935, the Share Our Wealth Society had over 7.5 million members in 27,000 clubs across the country. Pressure from Long and his organization has been seen by some historians as responsible for Roosevelt's "turn to the left" in 1935 when he enacted the Second New Deal, including the Works Progress Administration and Social Security; in private Roosevelt candidly admitted to trying to “steal Long’s thunder.”

Continued control over Louisiana, 1932-1935

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 made frequent trips back to Baton Rouge to pressure the legislature into continuing to enact his legislation, including new consumer taxes, elimination of the poll tax, a homestead exemption, and increases in the number of state employees. His loyal lieutenant, Governor Oscar K. Allen, dutifully followed Long’s policy proposals, though Long was known to frequently berate the governor in public and would take over the governor’s office in the state capitol when he was visiting Baton Rouge. Having broken with the Old Regulars and T. Semmes Walmsley in the fall of 1933, Long inserted himself into the New Orleans mayoral election of 1934 and began a dramatic public feud with the city’s government that lasted for two years. (See article for full details on the feud.)

Huey Long and several fellow state officials, including James A. Noe and Oscar K. Allen established the controversial Win or Lose Oil Company. The firm was established to obtain leases on state-owned lands so that the directors might collect bonuses and sublease the mineral rights of those lands to the major oil companies. These activities were done in secret, and the stockholders were unknown to the public. Long made a profit on the bonuses and the resale of those state leases, using the funds primarily for political purposes.

By 1934 he began a reorganization of the state government that all but abolished local governments in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Alexandria and gave himself the power to appoint all state employees. Long passed what he called “a tax on lying,” a two-percent tax on newspapers’ advertising income, and created the Bureau of Criminal Identification, a special force of plainclothes police answerable only to the governor. He also had the legislature enact the same tax on refined oil that had nearly gotten him impeached in 1929, but he refunded most of the money after Standard Oil agreed that eighty percent of the oil sent to its refineries would be drilled in Louisiana.

1935: Long's final year

Presidential ambitions

Even during his days as a traveling salesman, Long confided in his wife that his planned career trajectory would begin with election to a minor state office, then governor, then senator, and ultimately election as President of the United States. In his final months, Long wrote a second book entitled My First Days in the White House, laying out his plans for the presidency after victory in the election of 1936. The book was published posthumously.

According to Long’s biographers T. Harry Williams and William Ivy Hair, the senator had never, in fact, intended to run for the presidency in 1936. Instead, Long intended to challenge Roosevelt for the Democratic nomination in 1936, knowing he would lose the nomination but gain valuable publicity in the process. Then he would break from the Democrats and form a third party using the Share Our Wealth plan as a basis for its program, along with Father Charles Coughlin, a Catholic priest and populist talk radio personality from Michigan, Iowa agrarian radical Milo Reno, as well as other dissidents. The new party would run someone else as its 1936 candidate, but Long would be the primary campaigner. This candidate would split the left-wing vote with Roosevelt, thereby electing a Republican president and proving the electoral appeal of Share Our Wealth. Long would then wait four years and run for president as a Democrat in 1940. Long had begun a national speaking tour and regular radio appearances in the spring of 1935, attracting huge crowds and further increasing his stature.

Increased tensions in Louisiana

By 1935, Long’s most recent consolidation of personal power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies. Opponents increasingly invoked the memory of the Battle of Liberty Place of 1874, in which the white supremacist White League staged an uprising against Louisiana’s Reconstruction-era government. In January of 1935, an anti-Long paramilitary organization called the Square Deal Association was formed; its members included former governors John M. Parker and Ruffin G. Pleasant and New Orleans mayor T. Semmes Walmsley. On January 25, two hundred armed Square Dealers took over the courthouse of East Baton Rouge Parish. Long had Governor Allen call out the National Guard, declared martial law, banned public gatherings of two or more people, and forbade the publication of criticism of state officials. The Square Dealers left the courthouse, but there was a brief armed skirmish at the Baton Rouge Airport. Tear gas and live ammunition were fired; one person was wounded but there were no fatalities.

In the summer of 1935, Long called for two more special sessions of the legislature; bills were passed in rapid-fire succession without being read or discussed. The new laws further centralized Long’s control over the state by creating several new Long-appointed state agencies: a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve all loans to parish or municipal governments, a new state printing board which could withhold ‘official printer’ status from uncooperative newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would appoint all poll watchers, and a State Board of Censors. They also stripped away the remaining powers of the mayor of New Orleans; Long boasted that he had "taken over every board and commission in New Orleans except the Community Chest and the Red Cross."

Assassination

Two months prior to his death, in July 1935, Long claimed that he had uncovered a plot to assassinate him, which had been discussed in a meeting at New Orleans’s DeSoto Hotel. According to Long, four congressmen, mayor Walmsley, and former governors Parker and Sanders had been present. Long read what he claimed was a transcript of a recording of this meeting on the floor of the Senate. ^*

Long had called for a third special session of the Louisiana legislature to begin in September 1935, and he traveled from Washington to Baton Rouge to oversee its progress. According to the generally-accepted version of the 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, and a stray bullet from one of the bodyguards also hit Long. Dr. Weiss was a medical doctor and the son-in-law of Judge Benjamin Pavy, who had been gerrymandered out of his district due to his long-time political opposition to Long. There were also rumors that Long was planning to print a circular claiming that the Pavys had African-American blood, and that Weiss shot Long in defense of his wife's family's honor. Long died two days later from internal bleeding following an attempt to close the wounds by Dr. Arthur Vidrine. The walls of the capitol hallway are still nicked from the bullets fired in the shootout.

An alternative theory suggests that Dr. Weiss was actually unarmed, and had punched Long, not shot him. Instead, the senator was shot to death by a stray bullet from his bodyguards, who shot Weiss because they mistakenly believed that Weiss was going to shoot Long. One who takes this view is former Louisiana state police superintendent Francis Grevemberg.

Legacy

In his four year term as governor, Long increased the mileage of paved highways in Louisiana from 331 to 2,301. He built 100 bridges, and started construction on the first bridge over the Lower Mississippi, the Huey P. Long Bridge in Jefferson Parish. He built the new Louisiana State Capitol, at the time the tallest building in the State. All of these construction projects provided thousands of much-needed jobs during the Great Depression. His free textbooks and school-building programs improved the education system, and his night schools greatly reduced the adult illiteracy rate. He greatly expanded funding for Louisiana State University and founded the LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans. He also doubled funding for the public Charity Hospital System and built a new Charity Hospital building for New Orleans. (Long, however, disapproved of welfare and unemployment payments; any such programs in Louisiana during his tenure were federal in origin.)

After Long’s death the political machine he had built up was weakened, but it remained a powerful force in state politics until the election of 1960. Likewise, the Long platform of social programs and populist rhetoric created the state’s main political division; in every state election until 1960, the main factions were organized along pro-Long and anti-Long lines. Even today in Louisiana, opinions on Long are sharply divided. Some remember Long as a popular folk hero, while others revile him as an unscrupulous dictator. For several decades after his death, Long’s personal political style inspired imitation among Louisiana politicians who borrowed his colorful speaking style, vicious verbal attacks on opponents, and promises of social programs. His brother Earl Long later inherited Long’s political machine as well as his platform and rhetorical style. After Earl Long’s death, many saw John McKeithen and Edwin Edwards as heirs to the Long tradition. Most recently, Claude “Buddy” Leach ran a populist campaign in the Louisiana gubernatorial election of 2003 that was compared to Huey Long’s by some observers.

Huey Long’s death did not end the political strength of the Long family. Huey's brother, Earl Long, was elected governor of Louisiana on three occasions. Another brother, George S. Long, was elected to Congress in 1952. 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 and stayed there until 1987. Other more distant relatives, including Gillis William Long and Speedy O. Long, have also been elected to Congress.

A statue of Long ^* stands in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol building. The other statue representing Louisiana is that of former U.S. Chief Justice 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). There is also a Huey P. Long Hospital in Pineville.

Long's first autobiography, Every Man a King was published in 1933. Affordably priced to allow it to be read by poor Americans, it laid out his plan to redistribute the nation's wealth. 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 ^*.

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.

Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, formerly had an ECHL hockey team named the Baton Rouge Kingfish, after Huey Long. It included a fish mascot named Huey.

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.

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, albeit after Long had already taken a slug or two.

Bibliography

Note: The Library of Congress lists more than eighty publications with Huey Long as a subject. Most of the biographies and historical works in this list inevitably rework the same information and add little if anything in the way of new conclusions. The following titles are either highly regarded, standard, critical and synthetic scholarly works, or are important contemporary partisan writings of particular interest to students of politics, or are the only titles available that cover less commonly addressed aspects of Long's career.

Boulard, Garry. Huey Long Invades New Orleans: the Siege of a City, 1934-36. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Co., 1998.
Brinkley, Alan. Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression. New York, NY: Knopf, 1982. ISBN 0394522419
Davis, Forrest. Huey Long: a Candid Biography. NY: Dodge Publishing Co., 1935.
Dodd, William J. "Bill." "Peapatch Politics: The Earl Long Era in Louisiana Politics." Baton Rouge: Claitor's Publishing Co., 1991.
Fineran, John Kingston. The Career of a Tinpot Napoleon, a Political Biography of Huey P. Long. New Orleans: J. K. Fineran, 1932.
Hair, William Ivy. "The Kingfish and His Realm: The Life and Times of Huey P. Long." LSU Press, 1991.
Harris, Thomas O. The Kingfish, Huey P. Long, Dictator. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Co., 1938.
Huey Pierce Long, the Martyr of the Age. A publication of the Louisiana State Museum. New Orleans: T. J. Moran’s Sons, 1937.
Jeansonne, Glen (ed.). Huey at 100: Centennial Essays on Huey P. Long. Ruston, LA: McGinty Publications (for Dept. of History, Louisiana Tech University), 1995.
Kane, Thomas Harnett. Louisiana Hayride: the American Rehearsal for Dictatorship, 1928-1940. William Morrow, 1941.
Long, Huey P. Every Man a King: the Autobiography of Huey P. Long. New Orleans: National Book Co., 1933.
Pavy, Donald A. Accident and Deception: the Huey Long Shooting. New Iberia: Cajun Publications, 1999.
White, Richard D., Jr. Kingfish: the Reign of Huey P. Long. Random House, 2006.
Williams, T. Harry. Huey Long. Knopf, 1969. of the 1970 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

External links

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