for Mai Frances and Nils

PREFACE

Sometimes the genesis of a book becomes somewhat vague to an author, particularly if the research and writing stretch over a long time. This book was begun over ten years ago, but I am very clear as to how it was born.

During the early 1950's I became greatly interested in the project in Oral History being conducted at Columbia University. The sponsors of the project had an idea that seemed eminently sensible to me. They were concerned with preserving the history of the recent past, roughly the period since 1930, but they emphasized that to do the job properly, a new research technique would have to be utilized, the tape-recorded interview with persons still living. This technique was necessary because of the impact of modern technology on communications. For example, a politician in the nineteenth century who had to get in touch with a colleague would write that man a letter, whereas a politician of today's era in a similar situation would telephone his friend, and most probably the conversation was not recorded. Therefore, said the Columbia people, the historians of the recent past would not have available, at least in abundance, the principal sources hitherto relied on by historians—letters and diaries. These historians should get busy and tape the recollections of individuals who figured in recent history and have the conversations reduced to typescripts, and thus rescue a history that would otherwise disappear.

As I thought about the Columbia plan, I was seized with an idea (living in Louisiana I almost had to have it): someone should use the technique of oral history as basic research for a biography of

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Huey P. Long. A quick check of various sources told me that no one was contemplating such a biography, apparently because no significant collection of Long manuscripts was known to exist. At about the same time I received a letter from United States Senator Russell B. Long, Huey's son. He wished to tell me that a friend had presented him with a copy of my recently published P.G.T. Beauregard: Napoleon in Gray, which I had autographed in a Baton Rouge bookstore, and that he liked the book because he admired biography. I was so impressed by his appreciation of the scholarly approach to biography that I wrote to ask him if he did not think the time had come when an objective life of his father should be written. I added that I would like to attempt the task and explained that unless he possessed a large body of Long papers I would have to rely on the method of oral history.

His reply was instant and warm. He had long desired that a biography of his father be written and he had hoped that it would be done by a scholar. He grasped the utility of oral history and thought it would have to be my main research source, as he did not have any Long papers. But he believed that I would be able to secure rich and intimate reminiscences from the friends of his father, and he promised to ask these men to talk to me frankly. I stressed to him that I would have to have an absolutely free hand in interpreting the facts, and he readily agreed to this condition, signing a statement that my conclusions were not subject to his "editing or censorship in any manner." He has scrupulously observed the agreement, although he has naturally tried to influence my opinion of his father and has strong objections to some of my generalizations. I owe him a large debt of gratitude, since many of the Long followers would not have talked to me without his intercession.

My arrangements with Senator Long were completed late in 1955, and in the following year I began research on the book. In part the research was conducted in conventional sources: state and federal government documents, newspapers, magazine and periodical articles, and manuscripts. But most of the information, and that which was most valuable, was secured from men and women who knew Long: members of his family, politicians who held high places in his organization and lesser leaders, politicians who opposed him, and businessmen, educators, musicians, football coaches and players, and other individuals, many of them obscure but all having something significant to contribute to the Long story. Altogether, the reminiscences of two hundred and ninety-five individuals were gathered. Their statements were in nearly every case tape-recorded

and later placed in typescript form. As I continued with the research, I became increasingly convinced of the validity of oral history. Not only was it a necessary tool in compiling the history of the recent past, but it also provided an unusually intimate look into that past. I found that the politicians were astonishingly frank in detailing their dealings, and often completely realistic in viewing themselves. But they had not trusted a record of these dealings to paper, and it would not have occurred to them to transcribe their experiences at a later time. Anybody who heard them would have to conclude that the full and inside story of politics is not in any age committed to the documents.

Those interviewed understood that I was gathering material for a book and that I would cite their names as sources in my footnotes. Only a few asked that their names not be used, and others requested that they not be named in connection with certain statements. I have respected their wishes, and in place of their names have employed the phrase "confidential communication." Some academic readers may object to the introduction of unidentified sources, but the practice is sometimes necessary in taking testimony from living persons. However, I have placed my typescripts in the Louisiana State University library under a time seal, and eventually they will be available to other scholars.

As I proceeded with the research, various persons asked me if I was going to write a pro-Long or an anti-Long book. I expected the question from Louisianians. Huey Long aroused among his people extreme feelings—love or hate—and they still find it difficult to view him neutrally. I was surprised, however, that many persons outside the state also asked the question, indicating that they too reacted to Long in terms of extremes. Long was obviously the type of leader who excites violent antithetical emotions in people, even in those not closely associated with him. He has inspired such emotions in those writers who have treated him, most of whom have been repelled by him. I have tried to regard him objectively, cutting through the myths that have grown up about him and trying to see the real man, and I hope that I have succeeded.

I should add, however, that I have certain concepts about Long and leaders like him, and these have influenced what I have written here. I believe that some men, men of power, can influence the course of history. They appear in response to conditions, but they may alter the conditions, may give a new direction to history. In the process they may do great good or evil or both, but whatever the case they leave a different kind of world behind them. Their accom-

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plishment should be recognized. I believe that Huey Long was this kind of man.

I also agree with what I understand to be the thesis of Robert Penn Warren in All the King's Men: that the politician who wishes to do good may have to do some evil to achieve his goal. This was the course that was forced on the hero of Warren's novel, Willie Stark, who was a politician much like Long. It is also the course that Long, faced with a relentless opposition, felt he had to follow. Stark was in the end possessed by the evil or the method and was destroyed. Long did not come to such a dramatic fate. But in striving to do good he was led on to grasp for more and more power, until finally he could not always distinguish between the method and the goal, the power and the good. His story is a reminder, if we need one, that a great politician may be a figure of tragedy.

During the course of my research I received assistance from many persons and incurred many obligations. I have tried to acknowledge these debts at appropriate places in the footnotes and bibliography, and if I have omitted anyone, it is an oversight of the mind and not the heart. I have here to record my gratitude to T. N. McMullan, V. L. Bedsole, and other members of the Louisiana State University library staff, who gave me unfailing cooperation; to Fred Benton, Jr., an attorney friend who read the manuscript with an expert legal eye; to Professor Frank Freidel, who shared with me his intimate knowledge of the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt; to Mrs. Thomas Smylie, an expert editor who improved many chapters; and to Ben C. Toledano, who searched energetically for pictures of Long. For research grants that enabled me to take off needed time in the initial stages of my study I am grateful to the American History Research Center (Senator Russell Long, wishing to aid my work but determined to avoid the appearance of subvention, contributed to this fund) and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

T. HARRY WILLIAMS

Baton Rouge, Louisiana January 1969