Kingfish

Kingfish, The Reign of Huey P. Long by Richard D. White, Jr.

Category: Biography Grade: A

I bought this book a couple of months ago but, coincidentally, the Denver Post did a mini-review of the book yesterday. There comment -- you can never go wrong reading about Huey Long. Definitely true. I've read other books about him plus, of course, the novel All the Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren whose main character is a thinly disguised Kingfish. The novel was made in to a great movie decades ago with Broderick Crawford and has been remade for release this fall starring Sean Penn. Really looking forward to that one.

Long portrayed himself as a populist - looking out for the little guy. He became governor of Louisiana by constantly attacking the entrenched political machines and the wealthy people and corporations (especially Standard Oil) that kept Louisiana pretty backwards. In his early days as governor, he actually kept many of his promises and did amazing things for the state -- free textbooks for students for the first time, paving thousands of miles of roads, turning LSU from nothing to a major university, getting rid of the poll tax. While doing this, however, Long turned himself in to pretty much the absolute dictator of the state. He was colorful, controlling, a political genius and as vindictive as they come. He and his cronies also robbed the state blind and, to pay for everything he did - both for the state and for himself - raised taxes by 75% and raised state debt by 1500%!

At the peak of his power, Long himself had actually moved on to the U.S. Senate but, through a puppet governor whose election he arranged, he still maintained a tight control over the state. It was common for Long to come in to Baton Rouge, call a special session and have 30 or 40 bills that he wrote himself passed by the legislature in a few hours. After his first few years in power, he did relatively little for the state. Most of the bills passed were either designed to punish his opponents (e.g. by making their businesses illegal) or increasing his control (e.g. by turning the hiring and firing of all teachers, policemen and municipal works into state employees). When crossed by city politicians, his reaction could be drastic. In Baton Rouge, he had martial law declared. In New Orleans, he sent in the state militia to ensure that the mayor was powerless.

While, after his first few years of acquiring power, Long did relatively little for the state or the "little guy", his popularity continued to soar. He became a violent enemy of FDR and began to become well known nationally. His populist proposals, made through his national organizations, Share Our Wealth, never made much sense but sounded incredible to a nation still in recovery from the great depression. For example, one of his cornerstones was to, via taxation, confiscate all wealth over a million dollars and, in return, guarantee everyone an annual income of $4000. Of course, the numbers didn't work - he actually would have add to confiscate all income over $4000 in order to guarantee an income to everyone of $1400! However, the struggling poor in the country weren't economists and Huey's way sounded like the answer. At its peak, Share Our Wealth had a membership of over 8 million people.

Huey was assassinated at the age of 42. At that point his fellow Senators despised him and FDR was the FBI and the IRS (actually its predecessor) to try to bring the Kingfish down. Its interest to speculate what would have happened had Long lived. He had already announced his candidacy for President at his death. While he knew he couldn't win in 1936, he had growing confidence that he could pull enough votes away from FDR to put Hoover back in the White House. He assumed that Hoover, as he did the first time around, would screw up and that Huey would then become the front runner in 1940. This scenario could easily have given the United States a dictator, rather than a President, at the worst possible time.

White has a great writing style. He supplies plenty of detail without ever getting lost in them. He's great a quick-stroke characters - and there are lots of them. This is a book that both history and political buffs will enjoy. Especially if you've never read anything about the Kingfish, pick this one up.