Profiles in History: Huey P. Long

Well, hello again all of you. It's shaping up to be a beautiful day, and I am going to tell you about a man who could have changed the course of American history drastically, had he lived. Naturally, I am referring to the dictator of Louisiana, Huey P. Long.

Now, some of you who are reading this may know who Huey P. Long is, and that is probably because you know me far too well. However, he is a truly fascinating and frightening person who deserves some recognition.

Huey P. Long was born in a small town in Louisiana. As he saw the horrible conditions that he and the people around him were living in, he decided that he wanted to do something about it. He became governor of Louisiana in 1928 and then became a U.S. senator in 1932. However, he had handpicked his successor as governor and he had taken such firm control of every aspect of Louisiana’s government that he ran the state from Washington, D.C. Even though he supported FDR’s campaign in ’32, he soon split with him and began to prepare his own presidential campaign for ’36. He even went so far as to write a book called My First Days in the White House about what he would do as president. Due to his assassination in September ’35, the book was published posthumously.

While governor of Louisiana, Long worked hard to improve the state’s infrastructure by building new roads and even having a new capitol building built. He called his main program “Share the Wealth” and its slogan was “Every Man a King.” He even had a song written called “Every Man a King.” Yes, he had his own theme song. It’s actually a really catchy song, which is too bad because I’m not a huge Huey Long supporter. Randy Newman actually recorded a version of the song on his album Good Old Boys. We watched a documentary on him in class, and it was disturbing how like Hitler he was in his speaking style. As Gillian likes to say, “He ran Louisiana like Hitler ran Nazi Germany.” And it’s true.

Long ended up being assassinated in the capitol building he had built and that created what Prof. Striner likes discussing as important historical What If’s. I’m personally glad that this country never had to see him as president, because it was such a vulnerable time, I could easily have seen him leading the country down the merry road to fascism.

I think that that is it for this week’s Profile in History. Tune in next week and have a party with Catherine the Great (and her horse isn’t invited…).