Huey’s election prompted a variety of reactions. Corrupt forces offered Huey $250,000 to let the toll bridge be completed without competition. Explaining this to a friend, Huey exploded: “And it was my goddamn city campaign manager that made the proposition. But, no goddamn measly $250,000 can buy Huey Long.”1
New Orleans’s elite tried to make Huey feel loved and accepted. Colonel Ewing presided over a dinner in Huey’s honor in February. Eight hundred men attended (no women). Huey’s former boss, K. Dawson, came in from Oklahoma City and related the penniless Huey’s heroic eighteen-mile walk in the worst of winter.2 A banker promised the cooperation of the city’s business community. Judge Foster now complimented Huey, saying he previously thought Huey was a boy making faces at authority, but now “I think he has grown up.” Chief Justice O’Niell of the Supreme Court said the dinner was the equivalent of an “armistice.” A big chest of monogrammed silverware was presented to Huey.
Huey was asked to speak, and he outlined his program: attack illiteracy, bring natural gas into New Orleans, build roads and bridges, improve New Orleans’s port, and implement fair laws for labor. His ambitions were limited to the governorship. He wanted to be the servant of the people and not the master of the people or any set of people, disclaiming the desire to build up a strong political faction. The crowd applauded. One wonders whether Huey enjoyed comparing this reception with the boos he received at the business dinner after the Galveston rate case.
Not all the hierarchy got the message, however. Mayor O’Keefe, the Old Regulars, and the publisher of the Times Picayune boycotted the banquet. The banquet committee snubbed Huey’s biggest financial supporter, Robert Maestri, by refusing his tendered donation to the gift of silverware, because he was socially unacceptable. Instead, Maestri bought Huey an emerald-anddiamond stickpin that Huey bragged cost $2,500.3
Tradition held that the governor would be invited to one or more of the opulent and decadent parties sponsored by the Krewes during Mardi Gras. But Mardi Gras separates people. Grudges are held. Success in business, politics, arts, or science is no guaranty of entry into New Orleans high society. Huey wasn’t invited.4
Shortly after the great “armistice,” Huey showed that he would not let the edge of his reform drive be blunted by flattery, and he exacted retribution on the Old Regulars.5 Traditionally, delegates to the Democratic National Convention were elected, allowing every political faction—or at least the New Orleans and aristocratic factions—representation. Huey’s statewide organization couldn’t dominate such a convention.6 The Ring sent word to Huey that it was willing to give him “a fair deal, on its terms.”7
Engaging another lawyer, Harvey Fields, to help him, Huey and Fields researched the law. The state constitution did not require a convention, although it set forth rules on how to hold one. Huey decided to have the Democratic State Central Committee (composed of elected members) dispense with the convention and select the delegates. With his patronage, Huey controlled the committee. No one from the Old Regulars or any other opponent was selected. Mayor O’Keefe of New Orleans and former governors Pleasant and Sanders, all excluded, all protested. Pleasant called Huey a “red-mouthed, white-livered, yellow-backboned enemy of our country.” Parker’s former campaign manager, Harry Gamble, compared Huey to Mussolini. Huey replied that he had “steam rolled” over his opponents because he had promised the voters to eliminate the old “pie eaters” from government. Sanders, Pleasant, and their allies selected their own delegation to seek recognition from the convention.8
Leading up to his inauguration, Huey advocated bringing natural gas into New Orleans; suggested a consolidation of state boards governing levees;9 announced a new head of the National Guard (Raymond Fleming); and supported constitutional amendments to aid victims of the 1927 flood.10 Unveiled in a speech to the State Bar Association, Huey’s judiciary proposals created a “sensation,” later modified after conferences with the State Bar Association.11 Huey selected J. M. Fourmy as highway engineer.12 The clamor to investigate the Highway Commission continued after revelations that trucks and tractors had been purchased without competitive bidding.13 Huey predicted legislative success for his program14 and made plans for the huge crowds expected at his inauguration in May, Justice Brunot to be master of ceremonies.15
In February, Governor Simpson asked Huey to attend a New Orleans dinner with Chicago mayor William Hale “Big Bill” Thompson. Thompson had worked with Louisiana leaders on flood control, of interest because of commerce between Chicago and New Orleans on the Mississippi River. Thompson traveled in style, accompanied by 830 Chicagoans, “well stocked with Chicago money, and a brass band,”16 and made a big impression on Huey.17
Before his inauguration, Huey had given a list of legislators categorized as supporters, opponents, and open to persuasion to his Winnfield friends Allen (now state senator) and Bozeman (now state representative) and asked them to meet with the undecideds. They hit the road to line up support for Huey’s legislative program, promising patronage and favors: “they all didn’t come for free.”18 Swords Lee, Robert Ewing, and John Sullivan supplemented their efforts. Ewing and Sullivan intended to be the powers behind Huey’s throne.19
Huey arrived in Baton Rouge on May 8, 1928, in advance of the legislative session, setting up headquarters at the Heidelberg Hotel.20 He kept two secretaries—Alice Lee Grosjean, pretty and efficient, and Miss Anna Fetter, a secretary under Governor Parker—busy answering over a hundred letters a day on the day received, with neither subject to the “reported foibles” (whatever that meant) of women.21
For president pro tempore of the Senate, Huey supported Philip H. Gilbert, the running mate of Colonel Stubbs in the gubernatorial race eight years earlier. Cyr supported him, and Gilbert had held the same position under Fuqua and Simpson. For Speaker of the House, Huey settled on a freshman representative, John B. Fournet, a young lawyer from southwest Louisiana. Huey investigated Fournet but didn’t at first tell him about his selection. Instead, Huey invited him to Shreveport for a meeting and, when Fournet arrived, introduced him to his other guests as the next Speaker. That was all the conversation they had about it.22
Historically, fights over leadership positions in the Louisiana legislature took place behind closed doors in private or semiprivate caucuses. Huey met with opposition leaders, asked them to support his program, and promised them chairmanships of committees in return, but they wanted patronage and the freedom to oppose his legislation. Huey told them they lost patronage “as the spoils of war.”23 His opponents had the unpalatable choice of either agreeing with his selections or openly opposing them. They took this latter option, but their weak showing “exhibited a poor strategy.”24
The legislature met on May 14, 1928, one week before Huey’s inauguration on May 21. Gilbert won the Senate presidency twenty-seven to ten; Fournet won the Speakership seventy-two to twenty-seven.25 The Long candidates for minor positions (secretary of the Senate and sergeant-at-arms) almost went down to defeat, however. Huey appeared on the floor of the Senate, lobbied fast, and saved them.26 Simultaneously, the head of the penitentiary resigned by letter to outgoing governor Simpson, and his replacement, Clay Dugas, a close friend of Gilbert, became his successor.27
Traditionally, committee memberships were allocated based on the strength of the different factions. Instead, Huey dictated the memberships of the committees to Senate President Gilbert and House Speaker Fournet.
The political philosophy Huey displayed was the opposite of bipartisanship. The election had resolved any objections over his program. Now Huey turned to implement it. A few places were allocated to representatives Huey was trying to entice to his side, and a minority of positions went to opponents, but not in numbers to do any harm. Thirteen of the seats on the committee on New Orleans’s affairs went to country adherents of Huey and only two to the Old Regulars. O. K. Allen became floor leader of the Senate and chairman of the Highway Commission. Harley Bozeman was appointed chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.28
Nevertheless, J. E. McClanahan became one of Huey’s House leaders, notwithstanding that, as sheriff, he had been part of the plot to let Bob Prophit attack Huey in 1926. Elected on the Simpson ticket, House of Representatives member Allen Ellender nevertheless joined McClanahan as one of Huey’s leaders.
Once he had organized the legislature, Huey had fun at his inauguration on May 21. The biggest crowd ever to attend a gubernatorial inauguration in Louisiana showed up, coming by trains, automobiles, buckboard wagons, or on foot. Invitations were not required for any event. Water was served in big buckets with dippers. Several bands—including the New Regular Democratic Band, the Standard Oil Band, Robards Serenaders of Ponchatoula, and Sou Generes of Baton Rouge—entertained the crowd. The reception was held in the LSU campus pavilion; ten thousand people attended.29 Huey was the youngest governor in the United States.30
During the inaugural parade, Chicago Mayor “Big Bill” Thompson joined an exultant Huey. Big Bill and Huey spoke, Huey from a three-page typed manuscript, striking a humble (“I am deeply indebted to all of our people for the great honor which they have bestowed”) and optimistic tone (“our face is toward the rising, instead of the setting, sun”). He promised to end waste and favoritism.31 Pictures show Huey and Big Bill wearing Big Bill ribbons.
From his first day in office, May 22, 1928, Huey moved to expand and consolidate his authority and implement his campaign promises. “Huey dashed about and roared orders to assistants” while “beads of sweat dripped from his brow.”32 Seventy-three New Orleans Dock Board employees and between fifty-six and eighty (estimates differ) of the Highway Commission’s speed cops were fired on his first day.
From his office window, Huey saw Simpson slowly walking away, lugging his suitcase. A lone speed cop hurried to Simpson, took Simpson’s suitcase, and said something that lightened his steps. Huey asked an assistant to investigate the cop’s name and whether he was on the termination list. “I’m keeping him on the payroll,” Huey said. “I might be going out of office myself one of these days.”33
Superintendent of Education T. H. Harris had run against a candidate endorsed by Huey and had opposed Huey’s free-textbooks proposal. But Harris had his own reform goal: to have the state equalize school funding for poor parishes. Huey promised to help Harris with this, and Harris agreed to support Huey’s free-schoolbooks law, if the funds to pay for it were found from a new source.34
Huey eventually crafted a unique arrangement with the press. Weary of news reporters following him around, Huey asked a newspaper editor to name a single reporter as a liaison. The editor suggested Charles Frampton. Huey yelled, “put that sonofabitch on the phone.” Frampton heard the remark, got on the phone, and told Huey that he didn’t want to be spoken to that way. Huey laughed and said, “you’ll do.” They became friends, with Huey giving Frampton priority access to gubernatorial announcements.35
Huey addressed the legislature at the start of the session, and a few days later his floor leaders introduced his bills, drafted by Huey’s friend, Winnfield lawyer George Wallace, an excellent lawyer “whose weakness for alcohol had hindered his career.”36 Key measures included providing free schoolbooks, bringing natural gas to New Orleans, a bond issue for highway construction, an increase of severance taxes on oil and other natural resource extractions, and a tax on malt syrups to equalize the school funding of the poor parishes with the rich ones.37
Note the political appeal of Huey’s program. Every family with children in school would benefit from free schoolbooks. Everyone with a car (to say nothing of road contractors) would benefit from good roads. Every New Orleans consumer would benefit from having natural gas imported into the city. Note, too, that these programs were readily achievable: schoolbooks had been provided in other states, natural gas pipelines were at New Orleans’s doorstep, and the plans for highways had been developed under Governor Parker. Much later, Huey said he always let others do the preliminary work. They would get the fry pan and heat the oil; he only plopped in the eggs.38
Huey’s opponents in the legislature were cohesive, experienced, and conservative, especially in the House, where Cecil Morgan and Harney Bogan of Caddo, Mason Spencer of Madison, Norman Bauer of St. Mary, George K. Perrault of St. Landry, and J. Y. Sanders Jr. of East Baton Rouge met each evening in Sanders’s law office to plot strategy. They became known as the “Dynamite Squad” that planned to blow up Huey’s program. They cooperated with the Old Regulars.
Williams’s interviews superbly revealed the psychology and politics of these opponents, and he quoted several of them:
(1) “We resented being told we had to be with [Huey].”
(2) If the bond issue [for highway construction] were passed, “Huey Long would use the money to corrupt the people of Louisiana.”
(3) “The two worst things that ever happened are universal suffrage and universal education.”
(4) “I was elected with the support of powerful, wealthy people, and they were against [the free schoolbooks law]. Later I could see Huey was right about some of his bills.”
(5) “If [Huey] did it, it would just have to be wrong.”39
Alex McManus’s lengthy study concluded that Huey’s original sin was his proposals for expanded government services and a diminished government subsidy for the elite, despite hypocritical efforts by his opponents to conceal the real basis for their opposition. Most of the oligarchy manifested a snobbish sense of entitlement and, even decades later, bemoaned expanded government services and support of civil rights. An exception was anti-Long newspaper publisher Hodding Carter, decades later a civil rights advocate. But in retrospect he confessed this harsh assessment of Huey’s opponents. Their key mistake was to oppose everything Huey proposed, merely because he proposed it.40
Huey wrote the bill providing free schoolbooks on a piece of cardboard he had taken from a freshly laundered shirt. Schoolbooks would be distributed free to the schoolchildren of Louisiana. Harris protested. Written that way, he said, the bill would assist Catholic schools, contrary to the freedom of religion guaranty in the U.S. Constitution. Huey brushed this aside. The schools were only distribution centers. The books were provided directly to children. “I am a better lawyer than you are, and books for children attending private schools go in the act.” If he hadn’t written the law that way, Catholic representatives in south Louisiana would have objected to using tax dollars solely to benefit non-Catholic north Louisiana schools.41 The measure to provide the books passed almost unanimously.42 But before then, a Senate amendment to restrict their distribution to the public schools was narrowly defeated, sixteen to twenty-one. This was the key vote. Providing the books to Catholic as well as Protestant children reinforced the loyalty of Catholic voters to Huey.43
To pay for the books, Huey proposed on May 25, 1928, a change in the severance tax. While this violated his campaign promise to pay for the books by eliminating waste in government, increasing the severance tax was consistent with the position Huey had taken since 1920. It was opposed by the oil industry.44 In the 1926 legislative session, the supervisor of public accounts, W. M. McFarland, had proposed changing the tax from a value to a quantity basis because it would be easier to administer (oilmen reported market prices below what was paid at the pump to reduce their taxes). His bill was defeated. Standard Oil and others thought McFarland’s proposal would impose the same tax on higher gravity crude (worth more) as lower gravity crude (worth less).
Now, Huey and McFarland proposed a tax of 7.5 cents per barrel on crude and 1.5 cents per thousand cubic feet on natural gas. This would produce enough to fund the free schoolbooks and eliminate the unpopular tobacco tax. The oil industry fiercely criticized this proposal. Huey met with industry spokesmen, listened respectfully, and then compromised. The oil tax would be graduated based on gravity, the natural gas tax would be reduced to 0.2 cents per thousand cubic feet, and a 0.4 cent tax on carbon black would be imposed. Huey compromised his proposed tax rates with the lumber interests, too.
Most of the oil industry still opposed the tax. Huey’s supporter, radio station owner Will Henderson, opposed it. Some conservatives who voted for the schoolbook proposal opposed the tax to pay for it. Sidney Herold of Shreveport, representing the Ohio Oil Company, threatened to sue for discrimination because its oil had a uniform gravity whereas oil in southern Louisiana varied.45
Before a legislative committee, Herold called the tax’s proponents parasites. Huey responded. Shortsighted men like Herold—men who opposed progress—were responsible for Huey’s electoral victory. Recounting the Pine Island embargo that cheated him out of $2 million, he gloated that now he was going to make Standard Oil pay a lot more than $2 million. Free schoolbooks, Huey said, would have meant a lot to his family. He and his siblings had sometimes walked to school without shoes.46
Huey’s bitter denunciation prompted this exchange in the legislature:
[Anti-Long] senaTOr mcDOwell: “I want to ask you if you know what the constitution says about the governor of the state influencing legislation?”
HUEY: “I do not know what the constitution says. I think the legislature is composed of a group of intelligent men. Now are there any more questions?”
“Yes, you haven’t answered my question,” Senator McDowell persisted, walking down the aisle and handing the governor a copy of the Constitution.
The Governor tossed the book aside and repeated: “Are there any more questions?”47
Incensed, the wife of former governor Pleasant interrupted to charge that Huey was infringing on the right of the legislature, violating the separation of powers. With feigned sweetness, Huey replied that he knew there were three branches of government, “and I have removed your husband from one of those departments.”48 The committee was “in such an uproar that Committee Chairman Hugo Dore was barely able to restore order.”49
The severance tax passed in early July. It is one of the most politically appealing taxes, as taxes go, because persons and companies outside the state purchase most of the resources taxed and thus bore the tax burden, and it induced conservation. Huey had also threatened to veto the tobacco tax repeal if the Senate failed to approve it.50
When natural gas was discovered in the northeastern gas fields, private companies began building pipelines for it to be piped to them because it was cheaper than artificial gas. By 1928, the pipelines were at New Orleans’s back door. New Orleans Public Service, Inc., claimed it could not provide natural gas to New Orleans without suffering a loss, even blaming the warm climate for difficulty in predicting demand.
In an interview to the New Orleans States (Colonel Ewing’s paper), printed in other newspapers, Huey claimed that New Orleans was being “fought from within”; that a closely interlocked combination was determined to keep natural gas out of New Orleans, even while such gas was piped from Louisiana to Houston, Texas; that when New York banks shouted, “At-tenshun,” New Orleans capital clicked its heels and saluted. “Did it ever occur to you that New York capital wouldn’t be any too happy to see this city of New Orleans, with cheap natural gas, grow by leaps and bounds until from its present position of battling to keep its place as the second port in America, it was making New York battle for its place as first port?” Was it “better to go ahead supplying a city of 400,000 population with artificial gas at high prices, or to give the cheap natural gas to homes and industries that will make New Orleans a city of more than a million population before you know it. . . . New Orleans citizens are being defrauded every day that natural gas is kept away . . . [and] if the gentlemen who are banded to keep it from coming here want to rough-house, they want to remember that I can stand more rough-house than they ever saw.”51
The interview demonstrated Huey’s thorough knowledge of the facts (pricing, the diameter of gas pipes, and so forth, not quoted here) and his imaginative vision for New Orleans, battling New York to be the number-one port and growing its population to one million people. Mayor O’Keefe and his heir apparent, T. Semmes Walmsley, said that getting natural gas could not be “hastened,” but needed to occur in a “sane, orderly, and scientific manner.”52
The legislation Huey introduced called for a constitutional amendment authorizing New Orleans to issue bonds to purchase New Orleans Public Service, Inc., with separate statutes that would allow the city to operate the utilities or to sell or lease them to private interests. The bills sped through the Senate and then went to the House.
Now converted to the cause, the city said it wanted natural gas, but Huey’s rate was too high, whereas New Orleans Public Service, Inc., also newly converted, insisted on a higher rate of $1.15 per thousand cubic feet and a meter charge of 50 cents. Huey then called a conference of the interested parties on June 25. Huey said he controlled the legislature like a deck of cards, shuffling and dealing as he pleased. If New Orleans Public Service, Inc., refused his terms, he would pass the Senate bills, leaving it defenseless. If the city refused, he would kill the bills, leaving it defenseless. If both refused, he would introduce a new bill setting up a state agency with the power to grant franchises in any city.
New Orleans Public Service, Inc., refused his terms, but the city accepted them. Huey wanted the company to surrender, so he stalled for time and announced legislative hearings. Huey insisted that the city accept his terms by ordinance. The city’s representative at the hearing offered a letter accepting the terms but not an ordinance. Huey whispered to his adherents on the committee and led them in a walkout, yelling, “Blame it all on me! Me! Huey Long!” Then he walked out as well, insisting on an ordinance. The next day, the city passed an ordinance, and this was followed by the news that Huey really wanted to receive, the company’s surrender on July 7.
Huey had forced natural gas into New Orleans, but some complained that the rate he forced—90 cents plus 25 cents meter charge ($1.15)—was too high. Artificial gas was less efficient than natural gas and cost $1.35 per thousand cubic feet. The rate agreed on was higher than he originally proposed but lower than what New Orleans Public Service, Inc., originally demanded. Critics have overlooked that the price was cheaper than artificial gas and that Huey had succeeded where other city and state officials had failed. “Huey held their feet to the fire,” said a member of the City Council. “If he had used gentler methods, he would not have . . . succeeded dramatically where previous governors failed.”53
No further agitation on the natural gas rate Huey proposed ever developed.54 When a compromise was reached on the oil-pipeline bill, Huey continued the fight to make pipelines common carriers. In the severance tax controversy, Parker’s 2 percent compromise induced years of agitation until the rate was increased to 3 percent. In the natural gas case, either the rate proposed by Huey was fair or no politician was smart enough to continue to fight for lower rates.
Huey’s third major legislative initiative was a highway bond program funded by a gas tax to construct roads. This would have to be enacted as a constitutional amendment: passed by a two-thirds vote in the legislature and then ratified by the people in a statewide vote. Opponents argued that the extra gas taxes were burdensome; gasoline used by boats and farm engines would pay a tax for roads they never used; gravel roads were adequate; and Huey would use the proceeds to create a political machine.55 The clamor of corruption—the former chairman of the Highway Commission was charged with embezzlement, ultimately dropped—also impeded Huey’s efforts.56
While one representative proposed a $60 million bond issue,57 Huey asked for a smaller issue, $30 million, to be secured with an increase in the gasoline tax from 2 cents to 4 cents per gallon, with 1 cent to retire the bonds and the other 3 to go into the general highway fund. The money would also pay the Highway Commission’s $5 million debt from prior administrations and its overdrawn bank accounts.58
Sixty-seven votes were necessary to pass the bill in the House. On the day of the vote, two of Huey’s committed voters failed to show up. Huey had his leaders stall by filibuster and sent the police after them. When the police brought them to the floor to vote, he passed his bill.59
The Dynamite Squad were clever parliamentarians. They introduced numerous bills to clog up the legislative process so that Huey’s could not come up for a vote. In a response worthy of a judo master, one of Huey’s floor leaders suggested that they pass all bills, leaving Huey to veto those sponsored by the Dynamite Squad. Huey implemented this idea, and the calendar was cleared. In the avalanche of so many bills passing, a drunken member of the House of Representatives rose: “Mr. Speaker! A point of order!” Speaker Fournet replied, “That pint is well-taken.”60
Huey then vetoed numerous bills. Most noteworthy were funding for the Public Service Commission, because it was under the control of his opponents, a ruthless decision; a cattle-tick eradication measure popular with health experts but not with farmers, an understandable political decision; and appropriations for Southeastern Louisiana Colleges at Hammond, without explanation.61
While he was pushing these major initiatives, Huey was also acting to control all the patronage he could. On June 1, 1928, Huey appointed his personal physician, frequent expert witness in injury cases, and former head of the Shreveport Medical Society, Dr. E. L. Sanderson, to be superintendent of the State Charity Hospital at Shreveport, and appointed to the board Will Henderson, Ernest Bernstein (his client), and other supporters.62 Allen of the Highway Commission left the technical employees alone but replaced all lower-level employees with loyal followers.
The Orleans Parish Levee Board supervised the maintenance of the dikes that protected the city. A nine-member board elected to fixed terms ran it. Huey convinced the legislature to pass a law changing the board to a five-member body. Huey appointed four members loyal to him and John Sullivan, keeping only the existing president, Joseph Haspel.
The Board of Health was headed by Dr. Oscar Dowling, who had served under five administrations and had four years left on his term. Seven days after his inauguration, Huey asked Dowling to resign. This was front-page news in the anti-Long newspapers.63 Huey and Attorney General Saint disagreed over whether the law permitted Huey to remove him. The legislature passed Huey’s bill changing Dowling’s term of office to end in 1928. Then Huey appointed loyalist Dr. Joseph A. O’Hara to the position. Dowling claimed that the law—stripping him of his full term—was unconstitutional. Because of the controversy, the legislature passed a law allowing the governor to file intrusion-in-office suits against officeholders who overstayed their term without approval from the attorney general.
In August, after the new law passed, a defiant Dowling employed a guard to occupy his office at night to prevent his forcible removal but lost a request for a preliminary injunction to prevent this “by surreptitious surprise” because Huey denied that he would seize the office.64 Attorney General Saint filed suit to oust Dowling at Huey’s request and won the case in January 1929.65
Dr. Valentine K. Irion headed the Conservation Commission. Irion had defeated prolonged attempts by Governor Simpson to remove him in 1926. Opposing Irion, legislator Frank Peterman proposed management by a board instead of Irion. Huey opposed this, but anti-Longs thought he supported it, so they scuttled it, to Huey’s immense satisfaction.66
A thorough analysis by Huey revealed that the statute creating the commission became effective on August 3, 1916, and stipulated a four-year term of office for the commissioner. The Constitution of 1921 continued this office and, therefore, Irion’s term ended on August 3, 1928.67 The court challenge to his removal dragged on into 1929, however.
The Charity Hospital of New Orleans was governed by a nine-member board plus the governor, each one of whom served four-year terms that overlapped, limiting an incoming governor to two immediate appointments and no more than four during his term. The legislature refused Huey’s proposal to reorganize the board. Huey’s research disclosed that Simpson could have but failed to appoint two members whose terms had expired, so Huey declared them removed. With the four appointments he now had and his own vote, he possessed his majority.
The superintendent of the Charity Hospital’s board was Hunter Leake, the son of the Standard Oil attorney who fought Huey in the Public Service Commission cases. After Huey secured control of the board, he removed Leake, replacing him with Dr. Arthur Vidrine, a young surgeon of Ville Platte, a small city in the southern part of the state. Vidrine had graduated from Tulane University’s medical school, was a Rhodes Scholar, had studied two years in London, Paris, and Vienna, and was a junior intern at Charity before setting up practice in Ville Platte, from which he earned $25,000 per year, a large sum for the time.68 Huey exclaimed that the country people could handle big jobs as well as residents of New Orleans.69
The legislature also created a Bureau of Criminal Identification. The governor headed it and appointed its board of managers. Some writers describe this as ominous legislation, a harbinger of a police state, because the bureau could make arrests without warrants. The statute stated that bureau personnel were allowed to make arrests anywhere in the state, “without warrants, for all violations of the law they may witness, [and] to serve and execute warrants issued by the proper local authorities” (Sec. 11) (emphasis added). Warrants weren’t necessary for observed crimes. Its budget was $36,000. Highway patrolmen on motorcycles were the only other enforcement agency with statewide jurisdiction at the time, but they did not carry guns. The Bureau of Criminal Identification was the first statewide police force, yet it consisted of only three people plus supervisors. Their primary duties were to collect information such as fingerprints from local authorities.70
Huey’s practice of the patronage spoils system gave him control of most government agencies in the executive or quasi-executive branch of Louisiana state government by the end of 1928. The spoils system was first implemented on the national level when Andrew Jackson was elected president of the United States in 1828. Jackson threw out the old Federalist Party officeholders installed by prior administrations and replaced them with loyal Jacksonian Democrats. Significant Federalist corruption was discovered because of the changeover,71 although Jackson’s appointees were also sometimes corrupt.
In the years after President Jackson, however, civil service became an article of faith among reformers. Theodore Roosevelt’s biographer wrote that it was difficult for people today to understand reformers’ love for civil service. “How, indeed, could one reformer entitle his memoirs The Romance of the Merit System.” But civil service sought to “restore the fundamental principles of American democracy: first, that opportunity be made equal to all citizens; second, that the meritorious only be appointed; third, that no public servants should suffer for their political beliefs.”72
While civil service was a promise of Governor Parker, he used the spoils system to defeat the Ring.73 Louisiana conservatives such as J. Y. Sanders were Jacksonian democrats and thus defended the spoils system. Left-wing critic Beals also justified Huey’s use of the spoils system. Without it, Huey would have been controlled by the oligarchy just like his predecessors.74
Huey never felt the romance of the merit system. To maintain control over appointees, he required many to sign undated resignations. In some cases, he returned the resignations when he was satisfied that the appointee was competent and loyal. In other cases, he made all appointees sign them because he was unsure of one man, later returning them to those about whom he was sure but keeping the resignation of someone he had to appoint, say, if he or she were loyal to John Sullivan, believing that he could get rid of such an employee later if necessary. Huey’s insistence on loyalty for nontechnical jobs was absolute. And Huey’s view of what a nontechnical job was could be blurred. He once asked a college president to rush out to a polling place to see why the vote totals were not coming in as expected. The president was indignant at being asked to participate in the grubby matter of politics.75
Huey probably controlled one-third of the state employees within his first two years.76 Additional supporters got jobs in private industries that did business with the state. Huey filled political jobs with diligent workers. Bob Maestri was appointed to the Conservation Commission, worked hard, turned a $10,000 deficit into a surplus of $288,000, and refused some favors requested by Huey’s friend Joe Fisher.77
Huey’s bar-examination coach, Charles Rivet, never voted for Huey, but Huey appointed him counsel to a tax agency. Rivet asked for a guaranty of noninterference. Bristling, Huey declared that you can’t talk to a governor like that but, when Rivet persisted, said, “Look, I know what you’re doing. If you hear that I called you a sonofabitch, well, that’s all I can do about it.”
Between sixteen and twenty legislators obtained deadhead jobs in state agencies. Relatives and friends of legislators also acquired jobs, or already had them and were threatened with removal if the legislator failed to vote right.
Huey investigated state legislators in detail and ruthlessly fulfilled threats of removal. “ ‘He knew everything about you and how to get at you,’ recalled a legislator whose father-in-law was one such victim.”78 Another said: “Huey’s great talent was to get men on his side. There were men in the legislature that went over to him that I never thought would go. He bought them or got something on them.”79 A legislative ally recalled that “Huey studied and catalogued skeletons in the families of old aristocrats.”80 A brilliant example of the usefulness of oral history and Williams’s interviews, nevertheless these assessments lack a time frame: 1928, 1929, 1930, or later years?
Biographical sketches of Huey often condense his legislative relations from 1928 to 1935 into one snapshot. Overlooked is that, in 1928, many members of the legislature voted independently.81 Huey successfully maneuvered a limited program through the legislature without dominating it: three major initiatives were passed (along with two major tax bills to fund them), and for each he had overwhelming public support. He had to compromise all of his tax rates. The legislature declined to reorganize the boards governing Charity Hospital and the Conservation Department. He failed to expand the number of judges on the appellate court even though court modernization was one of his campaign promises.82 He failed to persuade the legislature to purchase a gubernatorial car. The number of vetoes is evidence of the legislature’s independence.
There was a lot of vote swapping and trading that would be too tedious to relate. Anti-gambling bills distasteful to John Sullivan were killed, but one to hurt dog track racing—competitive with Sullivan’s horse racing—was enacted.
Huey was friendly with his opponents, always stopping to talk, and often made continued efforts to persuade individual opponents to his side. With one legislator who was old and bald, Huey would rub his hand on the man’s head and say, “What kind of humor you in this morning, old man?” The usual response: “A damn bad one!” and Huey would laugh and laugh.83
Huey called frequent conferences of his colleagues, advisors, and supporters. He would hear them all out while he was lounging in a seat, lying on the floor, or pacing. When he had heard enough, he would exclaim, “I got it,” and decide, often espousing a combination of the ideas expressed.84
Huey also stayed connected with his constituents. Seymour Weiss marveled that occasionally Huey would sit down and begin calling people all over the state just to talk. What kind of feedback they provided, if any, is lost now, but voters contacted must have fondly remembered the calls.85
Recognizing that the legislature was the source of his ability to deliver on his campaign promises, Huey gave it his undivided attention. He did not attend the 1928 Democratic National Convention in Houston that year because it took place (June 26–28) while the legislature was in session. The legislators wanted to attend. Huey first asked them not to go, arguing that there was too much work to do, but they defied him, so, in an artful compromise, Huey’s wife, Rose (along with Colonel Ewing and Harvey Fields), led the legislators to the convention while Huey stayed in Louisiana, citing the press of work.86
The Louisiana delegation met Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the train to the convention. Roosevelt was New York governor Al Smith’s campaign manager, and he solicited the support of Huey’s delegation. In exchange, Roosevelt promised to support their claim to be seated against the rival delegation headed by Sanders, Pleasant, and their allies, who had objected to Huey’s delegation because it was chosen by the state central committee instead of a convention.
Harvey Fields telephoned Huey that it might be good to stand with a possible president. “Damn a President,” Huey replied, “I don’t care about that. I just want the Huey Long delegation seated. You tell ’em to vote for Smith.”87 The convention seated his delegation and nominated Al Smith for president and Senator Joseph Robinson of Arkansas for vice president. Focused on his twin aims of implementing his program and increasing his power, the former was advanced by staying home to work and the latter was enhanced by the seating of his delegation. The choice of president, having nothing to do with either objective, was unimportant.
Huey’s focus on influencing the legislature led to accusations of dictatorship. In some accounts, an opponent threw the Louisiana Constitution at Huey’s head, shouting: “Maybe you’ve heard of this book.” Huey reportedly picked it up, glanced at the title, and said “I’m the Constitution just now.”88 Other strong leaders, such as Mayor Frank (“I am the law”) Hague of New Jersey, have uttered similar sentiments. It was quoted in the April 10, 1929, edition of the Nation, when Huey was impeached. The Times referred to it in 1933, saying Huey had smiled when he said it, but meant it.89 It may be that the quote was a corrupted (or more accurate) version of the exchange with Senator McDowell during the severance tax debate.
In Huey’s autobiography, he did not acknowledge the remark, but he discussed a judicial election in which one candidate criticized the other for lack of legal knowledge. The other candidate replied, “It’s not the law that makes the Judge, it’s the votes,” and he was elected.90 The sardonic humor of the story derives from its description of the reality of power, its actual source. The source of power in Louisiana and in every other state is not the constitution, but the people. Any politician who speaks for them and can gain their consensus can rewrite a constitution and perhaps embody it. Nevertheless, it hardly reflected Huey’s circumstances in 1928.
The basis for Mrs. Pleasant’s charge that Huey violated the separation-ofpowers doctrine was that he appeared on the floor of the House and Senate during their sessions and invaded committee meetings, conferring with the legislators and barking out orders. He organized his own system of runners. At the time, lobbyists and friends of legislators were allowed on the floor, so it was not as unusual as one might think.91 His supporters chafed at his public domination of legislative proceedings, however, and some preferred not to be identified as his followers. Any legislator could have asked to remove him from the floor of the legislature, but none did.
As governor of New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson asked to appear at a legislative caucus. His “staunchest allies” thought he had “overstepped the boundary that separated powers.” A legislator confronted Wilson: “what constitutional right permitted his presence.” Wilson pulled a copy of the New Jersey Constitution from his pocket and read that the constitution allowed “the governor [to] communicate by message to the legislature at the opening of each session, and at such other times as he may deem necessary, the condition of the state, and recommend such measures as he may deem expedient.” Wilson won his point.92 Article V, Section 13, of the Louisiana Constitution of 1921 is similar.
Huey said he would rather violate legislative conventions to get his bills passed than to “sit back in my office, all nice and proper, and watch ’em die.” One wonders whether, had Huey been absent from the floor when his highway bills were called for a vote and two of his legislators were absent, his floor lieutenants would have filibustered and been able to send the police out to retrieve them. Acting faster than your competitors or opponents is a recognized principle of success in war and business. Being on the spot allowed Huey to act faster than his opponents. It was more than a desire to pass his bills that moved Huey to appear on the legislative floor, however. “There was a compulsion in him to place himself in the center of a scene of strife and excitement—and to try to dominate it.”93