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Huey Pierce Long Jr
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Following the impeachment attempt, Long became ruthless when dealing with his enemies, firing their relatives from state jobs and supporting candidates to defeat them in elections. "I used to get things done by saying please," said Long. "Now I dynamite them out of my path." With all of the state’s newspapers financed by his opposition, 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 received death threats and 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 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 million bond 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 and helped form the state's modern highway system. Long's opponents now charged that Long had concentrated political power in his own hands to the point where he had become a virtual dictator.
Shortly after his election to the Senate, Long became known as "the Kingfish," often answering the telephone with, "This is the Kingfish," 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 became an ardent supporter of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, the state's primary public university. He greatly increased LSU's funding, expanding its enrollment from 1,600 to 4,000 and transforming it into one of the finest universities in the South. Long instituted work scholarship programs that enabled poor students to attend LSU, and he established the LSU Medical School in New Orleans. But he intervened directly in its affairs, choosing its president, infringing on the academic freedom of students and faculty, and even sometimes trying to coach the LSU football team himself.
In October 1931, Lieutenant Governor Paul Cyr, an avowed enemy of Long, argued that Long could no longer remain governor after being elected senator, and declared himself the governor of Louisiana. Long surrounded the Capitol with National Guard troops and fended off the illegal “coup d'etat.” Long then ousted Cyr as lieutenant governor, arguing that Cyr had resigned his office when he attempted to assume the governorship. Under state rules, state Senate president and Long ally Alvin Olin King became governor. 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.
Huey P. Long in the Senate, 1932-35
Long arrived in Washington, D.C. to take his seat in the U.S. Senate in January 1932, although he was absent for over half the days in the 1932 session going back and forth to Louisiana. With the backdrop of the Great Depression, he made characteristically fiery speeches denouncing the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. He also criticized the leaders of both parties for failing to adequately address the crisis, 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 felt 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 underdog candidate Hattie Caraway of Arkansas to her first full term in the Senate by conducting a whirlwind, seven-day tour of that state, raising his national prominence (and defeating the candidate backed by Senator Robinson). With Long's help, Caraway became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
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, considering them inadequate in the face of the escalating economic crisis. 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 a three-week Senate filibuster against the Glass-Steagall Banking Act.
Roosevelt considered Long a radical demagogue. The president privately said of Long that along with General Douglas MacArthur, "he was one of the two most dangerous men in America." Roosevelt later compared Long to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. In June 1933, in an effort to undermine Long's political dominance of the state, Roosevelt cut Long off from any consultation on the distribution of federal funds or patronage in Louisiana. Roosevelt also supported a Senate inquiry into the election of Long ally John H. Overton to the Senate in 1932, charging the Long machine with election fraud and voter intimidation; however, the inquiry came up empty, and Overton was seated.
In an effort to discredit Long and damage his support base, Roosevelt had Long’s finances investigated by the Internal Revenue Service in 1934. Though they failed to link Long to any illegality, some of Long’s lieutenants were charged with income tax evasion, but only one had been convicted by the time of Long’s death.
Long’s radical rhetoric and his aggressive 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 Long 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 an economic plan he called Share Our Wealth. Long argued there was enough wealth in the country for every individual to enjoy a comfortable standard of living, but that it was unfairly concentrated in the hands of a few millionaire bankers, businessmen and industrialists.
Long proposed a new tax code which would limit personal fortunes to $50 million, annual income to $1 million (or 300 times the income of the average family), and inheritances to $5 million. The resulting funds would be used to guarantee every family a basic household grant of $5,000 and a minimum annual income of $2,000-3,000 (or one-third the average family income). Long supplemented his plan with proposals for free primary and college education, old-age pensions, veterans benefits, 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 Karl 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 held 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 and elimination of disparities of wealth, while retaining the essential features of the capitalist system, would 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, Long, in February 1934, 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 Share Our Wealth Society was intended to operate outside of and in opposition to the Democratic Party and the Roosevelt administration. By 1935, the society had over 7.5 million members in 27,000 clubs across the country, and Long's Senate office was receiving an average of 60,000 letters a week. Pressure from Long and his organization is considered 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.”
Major Provisions of "Share Our Wealth"
The key planks of the Share Our Wealth platform included:
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