PHILOSOPHY

Huey Long: Biography

Huey Long: Biography

Introduction

A populist, he was nicknamed "the king fish." In a blistering 1932 exposé, journalist John K. Fineran called Long “a tinpot Napoleon." Born on a farm in the town of Winnfield, Louisiana, on August 30, 1893, Long attended, the University of Oklahoma in 1912; he later studied the law at Tulane University in New Orleans. Admitted to the state bar in 1915, he gave up a law career for a position as State Railroad Commissioner. In 1928 he assembled a coalition that elected him governor, and he rose to become the most powerful state chief executive in U.S. history. Under his command, the state legislature and the courts did his bidding; in 1929 an attempt at impeaching him failed. During the first years of the Great Depression, he used state funds to build schools, highways, and other internal improvements, and he doled out funds to the populace to alleviate their economic situation (Weir, 2007, pp. 78).

Huey Long the Senator

In 1930, Long was elected to the U.S. Senate but, fearing that his opponents in Louisiana would capture the governor's seat, did not go to Washington until January 1932, when his close friend and associate, Oscar K. Allen, had been elected as governor. Long is best known, particularly during his tenure in the Senate, for his optimistic but naïve radical "Share the Wealth" plan. In it, the Louisianan claimed that he would have the government give each American family $5,000 a year, allow no American to have an annual income more than $1 million, and confiscate all estates in excess of $5 million (which he later revised to $3 million). The plan never was put into action, although at the time it was very popular and "Share the Wealth" clubs sprung up throughout the country. On August 15, 1935, Long announced that if Herbert Hoover received the Republican presidential nomination again, as seemed likely, Long himself would run on a liberal or Progressive ticket in the 1936 election.

On September 8, 1935, as Long was touring the State House in Baton Rouge, a young physician, Carl Weiss, who blamed Long for destroying his father-in-law's business, shot Long several times, with Long's bodyguards returning fire and killing Weiss. Some historians speculate that the bodyguards accidentally shot Long. He was rushed to a hospital, where he died two days later. In 1946, writer Robert Penn Warren used Long as the inspiration for the character Willie Stark in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All The King's Men.

Both populist and demagogue, Huey Long, nicknamed "Kingfish," controlled his state of Louisiana as governor and U.S. senator and founded a political dynasty. During the Great Depression Long's popular "Share Our Wealth" scheme made him a credible challenger to President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). That possibility abruptly ended in 1935 with Long's assassination (Williams, 1969, pp. 212).

Life of Huey Long

Long was born in rural northern Louisiana. Although his family was comfortable, as a lawyer he specialized in representing underdogs fighting powerful ...