Huey P Long

For John, BLUF:  A lot of what we know is wrong.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Truth about Huey Long

Here is the sub-headline:

Louisiana’s populist 1930s dictator was shot by his own security guards, not a political opponent

From The National Review, by Ms Ellen Carmichael, 7 September 2019.

Here is the lede plus two:

Dr. Carl A. Weiss Jr. died on August 1, 2019.  It’s not typically considered newsworthy by the New York Times when a retired orthopedic surgeon passes away at the age of 84, but Weiss was more than a physician.  He was the son of the man who shot Huey P. Long.

Or so we were taught.  As a child growing up in Louisiana in the 1990s, I learned that there was absolutely no doubt that in the 1930s, the state’s best governor and all-around great man died at the hands of a political opponent out for blood.  That story, like so much about Long, is a lie.

The myth of Long’s assassination is just one in a long line of tales meant to lionize the former governor and U.S. senator, painting over his lengthy track record of corruption and brutality in his pursuit for power.  Huey P. Long, historian Arthur Schlesinger explained in a 1986 Ken Burns documentary about the populist politician, was the closest thing to a dictator the U.S. has ever seen.

I had thought it was Dr Carl Austin Weiss Sr.  This is the story I read in Writer Robert Penn Warren's book, All the King's Men.  But, i did understand that Senator Long presented a challenge to American economic growth and the well being of the Common Man.  Like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, before his time.

Here is the common story on Senator Long:

Long took the nickname "The Kingfish," from the radio show Amos and Andy.  He was a Democrat and noted for his radical populist policies.  He served as Governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a U.S. senator from 1932 to 1935.  Though a backer of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election, Long split with Roosevelt in June 1933 and allegedly planned to mount his own presidential bid.

Long created the Share Our Wealth program in 1934, with the motto "Every Man a King," in which a tax on the wealthy would be used to redistribute wealth to the very poor to curb the poverty and crime resulting from the Great Depression.  He was an ardent critic of the Federal Reserve System.

If we don't do a good job studying our history we will continue to make bad decisions.  Unfortunately, our Elites don't like to study history.  However, history is the tool of the Common Man, from Abe Lincoln to Harry Truman.  Painting over murals in San Francisco and white washing Huey P Long is not helping.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff