Louisiana: The State We're In; Huey Long

Production funding for this program was provided in part through contributions to Louisianians for Educational Television. The following program is a production of Louisiana Public Broadcasting. Good evening, I'm Beth George. Welcome to this edition of Louisiana: The State We're In. This week, we look at the legacy of Huey P. Long whose birthday the state observed a few days ago. We visit some physical reminders of the Kingfish. profile an historian whose biography fired interest in the Winnfield-born politician, and speak with Long's most active legacy, his son Russell. In many parts of the country, Huey Long is little more than a colorful historical footnote, but in Louisiana his shadow or guiding light is everywhere and nobody is

lukewarm about which it is. Even today, 47 years after his assassination, Long is both damned and praised for setting up the state's political system, which continues to mystify and intrigue outside observers. He studded the state with monuments to his reign: roads, bridges, charity hospitals his skyscraper Capitol, his governor's mansion, and his great love, LSU. For all his lasting contributions, however, Long remains an enigma. Was he a demagogue, a fascist, a communist, a dictator, a Populist Democrat? Some scholars now say he was all these things. And he, of course, maintained he was a type unto himself. Long's self-assessment has some validity. For in an impoverished era when men had enough trouble just being men, he said that they could be considerably more. The liveliness of Long's image got a boost recently when singer Randy Newman recorded an

album packed with references to "The Kingfish," including Long's own "Every man a King." At a recent outdoor concert Newman told how he became interested in Huey Long. [Music] [Music] Politician

Historian called the "Messiah of the Rednecks" confounded such views by building an elegant mansion in Baton Rouge. Huey's house is now being restored. This house was built, at that time Governor Huey Long. How long did he live here? A few months, I would guess, because soon after that he was elected to the Senate. And so he had to go to Washington. The idea has been to restore this house to its original glory, I understand. Isn't it sort of unusual to have a museum that is so current? We're just really talking about fairly recent history. What's the philosophy behind it? Well, one, it's less expensive and two, it's much more accurate to do a house of our immediate past. And then I think the most important thing of all is in 25 or 50 years from now we will have a really significant historic site because it will grow. But I think it's, it, it really is

and has importance now because the Huey Long era is an era of great popular appeal and importance in Louisiana politics and, I guess, national politics as well. You notice that most visitors know the story of Huey Long. We're standing here in the dining room of what used to be Huey Long's Governor's Mansion. Is this room being restored pretty much to the way it was during Huey's time? Yes, I think it's faithfully restored and even to the wallpaper and the place settings, crystal and so on. The wall paper is rather unusual. Tell us something about the history of it. Well, it really is a famous wall pattern that was printed in France, for I think 200 years and is still available if one has the money to purchase it. And this was the original paper. And Ima (?) Brown, you know, is the restoration chairman and she had this paper ordered again so it's back on the wall. Was this

mansion a very elegant one for its time? I think so because the mansion itself cost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to build and the furnishings were very elegant because they had a price tag of $22,000 and that was a huge sum in 1930. Let's walk on down here into the East Room. Is that what we call it now? Yeah. What was the East Room used for? Well, that was the reception hall, the living room of the family, the formal gathering place for dignitaries. There's a smaller sitting room upstairs. What's original in this room? Well, [inaudible] original. New fabric is on it now, but that was an original piece. And then the other pieces are replicas of the original and pretty close to what they were. We have a beautiful marble fireplace here. Was this here? Yes. That was original. All the architectural detail is as it was. You know, I think a

lot of people think of Huey Long as having been somebody with, say, not a lot of culture expression. It's you know rather outspoken and flamboyant kind of person, but this is really a very, um, it's a formal room and the mansion was formal. Do you think maybe he has, um, he wasn't quite as much a good old boy? I think that part of that must have been myth, because when we talked to the living architect of the firm of Weiss Seiferth and Dreyfous. Mr. Seiferth who's quite old now said that Governor Long, Governor Huey Long came to him and said I just want an elegant Georgian mansion. There was never any discussion about this being asecond White House. That's a story I think is interesting. It was said that Huey had this governor's mansion built with all the light fixtures the same as in, as in the White House, isn't that true? What is that story? Well, the architect said there was really no discussion of this ever

being a second White House. He just wanted a very elegant Georgian mansion. And that's what it turned out to be. And I think very understated and formal as you say. [George] Adelaide, we're standing here in what used to be a library during Huey Long's time. Well, this was his desk, I understand? We know that Huey Long, Governor Long, was the last governor to use this desk, but we don't know how many used it before him. It's an old desk. Are there any other original pieces in this room? These two chairs belong to Governor Huey Long and this desk. One of the most attractive rooms in the restored mansion is known as Little Rose's bedroom. It was used by Rose Long, one of Huey's children. On the wall, she's wearing the gown she wore to her daughter's wedding. For years, portraits of Long, like this one in the mansion. hung in places of honor across the

state. But Huey's most striking image, his most powerful political legacy is his son Russell, long-time chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Though he idolizes his father, both as a man and as a political leader, he sees the courses of their careers in sharp contrast. My father was a governor before he became a United States Senator. And as a governor he'd built more than any governor in the history of this state and compared to his time, he did more building than any governor of any state of the Union. He built enough highways in the four years down here than anybody had ever conceived. He built enough concrete highways in just four years to build you a good road all the way from New York to Chicago, I know, and all the way from New Orleans to New York City and that was in a little state that didn't have but 70 miles of concrete highways.

A fantastic builder both with regard to roads, hospitals, time. I've been a senator for 29 years and my father had his life cut short and he'd only been there four years. With the double clout of seniority and persuasiveness, Russell Long has for years been a man to contend with on Capitol Hill. The senator has been viewed as precisely what he calls his father, a "get it done man," and he's pleased by the resurgence of interest in the Kingfish though he has mixed feelings about some of the projects. Professor Harry

before. I think it was a good job, but I don't agree with everything in Mr. Williams' book because I'm a Huey Long idolator, you might say. I just idolized the man, but that book by Harry Williams did a lot to stir interest. Now, the movie rights to that book have been purchased by a man named [unclear] and they're working on a scenario to do a full-length movie, which they hope to be a reasonably authentic thing, but we'll just have to judge by the results. I don't think what the network did awhile back - let's see who was it? - I believe it was NBC, whether it was NBC or CBS, I don't think that that [No sound]

As Russell Long pointed out, national interest in his father was ignited in 1969 by a comprehensive biography. LSU professor T. Harry Williams picked up both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for his work, which contrasts the coldly realistic politics of Long with the romantic illusions of the Old South. To Williams, Long was far more than a Southern demagogue. He was a modern mass leader, a thoroughly American political boss endowed with extraordinary political instincts. Huey Long. Do you think that it hashad a tremendous impact, more than anything else you've written on your career, and were you surprised by the reactions to it? Well, I think it's - of all my books. I would say that's 14 or 15, depending on how you count it, that is the one that won me the most attention.

And, I suppose, that in many ways my name has become connected with the Huey Long book and that some people maybe have forgotten that I wrote some other books on the Civil War and military history and I'm going to write other books. But, yes it, it had, it had a great impact on my career, but not a help on my personality. I don't think I got wedded to that book myself as being the only thing that I ever did. Do you sometimes get tired of answering questions about Huey Long or doing interviews? I think you did a famous one with Barbara Walters on The Today Show that you weren't too pleased with. Well, that's because I didn't get to talk as much as I wanted to, but I am getting a little bit wary now of being asked to give a brief characterizations of Huey Long and I feel I'm repeating myself ad nauseum and that the people who hear me must have heard this over and over again. I give still a number of lectures on college

campuses, particularly about Huey Long. But I've tried to restrict my appearances on that subject in Louisiana in recent years because I'm sure, well, most people have heard this over and over and I don't want to bore them too much. In the beginning of your book, you indicated that whether you were going to do a pro-Long or anti-Long book, you were looking at a man whose life affected history really. He was a mover. You're doing another book on certainly a mover, Lyndon Johnson. Is this consistent with your earlier writings? I think so. There are many similarities between Huey Long and Lyndon Johnson. Of course, they're different. But, in many ways, they are very much alike. They're both Southern politicians. They're both Southern politicians as I see them on the left, men who wanted to lead the masses. Men with a great deal of color, wonderful vocabularies,

levers of power. So, I think it's logical that, having written Huey Long, I should now write a life of Lyndon Johnson. He's like Huey Long only in the later period. Does it make you angry when people say maybe you were soft on Huey Long in suggesting that maybe Lady Bird wanted you because you might be soft on Lyndon? Well, Lady Bird didn't want me. I decided to do this myself. But, as a matter of fact, there are about four or five other writers who are currently working on studies of Lyndon Johnson and each one of them, like myself, is acting on his own initiative. Now, of course, I saw Mrs. Johnson and these other writers will too because her cooperation is important. She can provide a lot of recollections about her husband. But she didn't choose anybody to write a biography. Each one of these persons is acting on his own initiative. You're not originally from Louisiana. How did you come here and do you consider yourself now a native since you've been here many years? I came here in '41 from the Middle West because

I was offered, at that time, what was a good job. LSU then was known as an up and coming university, a young university on the move upward. It was a lot about the local scene that was exciting and I came and although there have been times in the past when things happened I didn't like, I stayed and in the end was glad I stayed and I consider myself now, I think, a representative of Louisiana. Yes. [George] We've heard a lot recently about "publish or perish" and the idea also that having professors being able to perform well in the classroom to attract students. You've always had the reputation, you've certainly published, but you've also had the reputation of being just a wonderful lecturer. People were turned away in droves from your classes. How have your classes changed the students over the years? And I want to ask you one other thing - Did you really wear a Confederate uniform to introduce a Civil War lecture one time? [Williams] Well, the

first place, I never wore a Confederate uniform or any other uniform. That's a myth that's got started and has become widely believed. At the end of one class, when classes were much smaller than they are now, the students in the class presented me with a Union cavalry jacket. It was a genuine uniform of the Civil War period. And they had thought I would like it and they bought it for me, and they asked me to put it on, which I did. And then it was very uncomfortable so I took it off right away. But I think that must be the origin of the myth that I wore a uniform to class. And it's grown with the years and I'm sure a lot of people, if I said I never wore it, still wouldn't believe me. Do you believe in spicing your lectures with humorous anecdotes? Well, I believe that a lecture should be informative, it should be entertaining, and it should be inspirational. At least it should

excite people. And you've got to, you've got to put into a lecture I think all elements that will achieve or try to achieve, come close to achieving, all those three goals. And I think a lecture should be entertaining, but it should be the other two things too. Dr. Williams, do you think that there is a conflict between the having a teacher who is good in the classroom or having one that can publish? I have some very strong feelings on that. I recognize that in a large university there are going to be a number of teachers and probably a large number of teachers in the introductory courses, survey courses, who are not going to publish and should not be asked to publish. But the ideal, I think, in many departments that we should strive for, is to get men and women who are both good teachers and are going to publish significant research. And there's no contradiction between those two activities. People who are not doing a good job teaching are not doing, are not doing a poor job because

they're doing research. They probably would be ordinary performers anyway. And actually I think the most exciting teacher is one who is researching and who has a skill in presentation because he's finding something new. He is not existing on the husks of other people's findings and he can communicate that excitement, I think, to his students. So I think the best teacher, providing that he is skilled at presentation is the one who is also engaged in research. And you are certainly researching. We're surrounded here by notes everywhere in your study. What are the projects you're working on right now? [Williams] I'm trying to finish a history of U.S. wars for the general reader. And I'm, uh, through with World War I, so I'm beginning to see a little light at the end of the tunnel. And then, at the same time, I'm doing research on this projected life of Lyndon Johnson, and placed on that, of course, will be several years in the offing. And what's in the future for you? Do you think they're going to let you retire?

Well, legally I have to retire when I'm 70, which will be, well, this academic year and then the one after that. And I presume that I will at the end of that time, although, I will hate to do it. Huey Long is a figure in history, a subject for biographies such as Williams' precisely because of the strong hand he took in shaping the Louisiana we know today. Dr. Tom Carleton has looked at Long from two perspectives. As professor of Louisiana history at LSU, he outlined for students the Kingfish's career. And now as research director for the Public Affairs Research Council, he studies the political forms Long had a large say in creating. Dr. Carleton, it's Huey Long's birthday this week, and we're doing a little sort of perspective, maybe, seeing what legacies there are left from the administration. What, what are some of the ones, perhaps, that have been ascribed to him? I think you divide it in several categories.

Yes, I have three categories of legacies. The first are those which were erroneously ascribed to Long and I have two of them. The first is that Long originated corrupt government in Louisiana. Well, Long did not originate corrupt government in this state. What he did do, I think, was to extend the circle of coverage by creating a broadly based political machine of his own with an organization in every parish. So while we have had corruption before Long he sort of extended it and popularized it by creating his own large political machine. I think a lot of people attribute the fact that we have a strong governor to the fact that Huey was such a strong governor. You don't think that is, indeed, a legacy? No, not in the sense that Long originated it. Long, after all, having come on the scene 50 years ago is getting pretty close to being the only strong governor, really strong governor, in living memory, you see. So most people living today believe that he was the first strong governor when he wasn't. We've had them all during our history. And, as far as legislative independence goes, when you recall that during the colonial period we had no

legislature, we have made, I think, startling progress in the last 15 or 20 years and finally arriving at something like legislative independence because it's not in our tradition. He did give us a legacy of unusual factions, political factions, within the state Long, anti-Long that carried over long after he was governor. Is that still with us today? This was a genuine legacy of Long which, I think, has tended to fade away during the past five or six years. You're speaking of what we call bi- factionalism, that is the dichotomy between the Longites in the state Democratic Party and the anti-Longites. Well, that arose in the late 1930s after Huey died and continued to operate pretty effectively until about 1964 when John McKeithen was elected governor. During that period of time, we alternated pretty regularly between a conservative, anti-Longite governor and a fairly liberal Longite governor, usually Earl Long. But then Earl died in 1960, and no member of the Long families have been willing or able to assume his mantle here in the state. McKeithen himself was

something of a composite figure. He had both Longite and anti-Longite tendencies. And with his election and eight-year administration, bifactionalism has tended to sort of fade into history. We've been talking about some of the legacies that have been erroneously attributed to Long, some of the legacies of Huey Long that faded away into the past. What are those that are with us today though? I see two major legacies that are still in evidence today. One is that Long, perhaps unintentionally, activated the antipathy between business and industry on the one side and organized labor on the other in Louisiana. Now this antipathy didn't exist prior to Long, because business and industry were in the ascendancy up to the time that he took over in 1928 and labor was not yet organized. And Long himself really wasn't committed to organized labor because, in his own time, it remained too weak to be a factor of consequence to him politically. But Long did support the future members of labor unions in

Louisiana. Blue collar and many white collar working men and women. And his followers, the Longites, have generally been on the side of organized labor, while his opponents and their followers have generally been friends of business and industry. You see this is a sort of preview of the LABI and AF of L- CIO controversy in the Legislature? Yes, of course, you can't project the present back into the past and we do that at our peril, but if the LABI leaders were alive in the 1920s and early '30s, I think they would certainly be in opposition to Huey Long and perhaps the AFL-CIO would be more inclined to support him. In other words, what's happened is the liberal pro-labor Democrats today can trace their philosophy back to the Longites while the conservative, pro-business Democrats and Republicans would have opposed Huey 50 years ago. What's something else we can trace directly to Huey? Oh, I think, what could best be called the power of mass politics. Prior to Long,

Louisiana was run by a very conservative plutocracy. They gave the people very little whether they needed it or wanted it. Long ushered in a government based on ask and you shall receive. Organize and send a lobbyist or two or 200 to Baton Rouge and if you're patient and wait long enough you can usually get a part, if not all of what you want. That's the way the system ought to work, but I think in the same context we've gone from one extreme to the other. Do you think present governors, no matter what live, in the shadow of Huey? That he's still, even though it's been a really long time since his death, his name is still so familiar to nearly every person in Louisiana. Do you think they indeed have a shadow? I mean when they look out from their office they see a statue right down there in the Capitol that he built. Well, I think as time passes the intensity of his shadow becomes increasingly pale. And I think within another generation or two his immediate influence will have failed considerably. But the statue remains, the memory remains, and

as long as both are in evidence in Louisiana I think we'll have to cope with it as best we can. He's become a permanent part of our history. [Music] The proceeding was an LPB production.

Production funding for this program was provided in part through contributions to Louisianians for Educational Television.