‘Every Man a King’: Huey Long’s Troubled Populism
by Carlton Martz
Populists come in many varieties, some on the left, others on the right. But they all claim to represent the interests of ordinary people without much money who feel like a wealthy elite have ignored or even harmed them. Huey Long was the most well-known American populist in the 1930s.
Huey P. Long Jr. was born in Winnfield, Louisiana in 1893. His father was a cotton farmer, and his family was poor but not as poor as nearly everyone else in Winn Parish (parishes are counties in Louisiana).
Huey Long was the seventh of nine children. His parents demanded that he and his brothers and sisters become readers and well-educated. Huey was known for rowdy behavior, but he also became well-versed in the Bible and Shakespeare.
After high school, Long went on the road as a traveling salesman, convincing many homemakers to buy a cotton-based substitute for hog lard. In his travels he met Rose McDonnell, a stenographer. They married in 1913. Long was 19 years old.
He considered becoming a preacher, but instead enrolled in Tulane University’s law school. When he got bored with school, he petitioned to take the state bar exam and passed with little difficulty.
In 1915, Long opened a law office in his hometown where he took lawsuits against banks and wealthy individuals. He invested in an oil-drilling company. But he was enraged at Rockefeller’s Standard Oil company for importing crude oil from Mexico rather than buying from his own outfit.
He turned to politics. In 1918, Long won his first election as a member of the Louisiana Railroad Commission, which regulated oil production. He demanded Standard Oil buy more crude oil from companies in Louisiana rather than Mexico and fought for lower telephone and other utility rates.
Campaigning for Governor
Long first ran for governor of Louisiana in 1924. But he was defeated by the Democratic Party primary candidate of the “Old Regulars.” This group, comprised of wealthy businessmen from New Orleans and wealthy planters, dominated state politics. Old Regulars were notorious for committing bribery and election fraud. And they often aligned themselves with Standard Oil. Neither Long nor anybody had a chance of winning the Democratic primary without their support.
And it was the Democratic primary election that mattered. In the primary, party members chose candidates for the general election. Whoever won the Democratic primary always won the general election against the Republican Party, which had been weak in the state since Reconstruction.
Most black voters would probably have voted Republican if they could. But they were blocked from voting in either party’s primary in Louisiana by literacy tests and other forms of discrimination.
Despite his defeat in 1924, Long ran again for governor in 1927, again challenging the Old Regular choice. The Old Regulars depended mainly on voters in New Orleans and the other big cities. Long decided to encourage the poor white rural voters, many of whom were farmers who had little enthusiasm for voting because the Old Regular politicians did little for them.
Long woke up rural Louisiana. He traveled from small town to small town, giving electrifying speeches. He quoted the Bible while damning the politicians in the state capital, Baton Rouge. The large crowds yelled, “Pour it on ’em Huey!” He charged that the rich were grabbing more than their fair share of the public’s wealth. He sent sound trucks into the parishes to spread his message. He was the first candidate in the state to broadcast his speeches over the radio.
Long made many promises: free textbooks for schoolchildren, better roads to transport crops to market, repeal of the poll tax to register to vote, taxing the rich and the big corporations, and much more. He adopted a slogan from prominent Democratic populist politician William Jennings Bryan: “Every Man a King.”
Along with his promises, Long displayed a readiness to use violence. He assaulted a newspaper editor on the street. And when the sitting governor called him a liar during a chance meeting, Long punched him in the face.
Long won the Democratic primary for governor in a landslide of rural votes. In April 1928, he swept aside the token Republican candidate in the general election to become governor.
Governor of Louisiana
Once in office in Baton Rouge, Long fired hundreds of state employees loyal to the Old Regulars and appointed others loyal to him. He also created a re-election fund that required everyone he hired to contribute to it.
Members of state commissions, sheriffs, teachers, and secretaries in government offices who owed their jobs to Long were tied to his political machine. Better to own parish commissioners who counted the votes, he believed, than leave an election to the voters.
Long quickly began to take control of the state legislature. He frequently appeared on the legislative floor to threaten legislators: they would have to vote for his bills, or he would make sure they would never be re-elected.
By bullying legislators, Long delivered on many promises he had made to his voters. His programs built hospitals, paved thousands of miles of roads, repealed the poll tax (allowing thousands of poor farmers to vote), provided free textbooks to children, and taught 175,000 black and white adults among the state’s poor to read. He became a hero to the previously ignored rural poor. Others called him a demagogue, a person who manipulates the fears and anger of followers in order to satisfy a hunger for personal power.
Long needed money to pay for his promises. In 1929, he sent a bill to the legislature that would tax refined oil. This was a direct attack on his old enemy, Standard Oil, whose refinery in Baton Rouge was the largest in the world and a major employer.
The company threatened to shut down the refinery, crippling the city’s economy. Standard Oil’s president also personally paid legislators cash to vote against Long’s bill. One legislator at the time said, “You could pick up fifteen or twenty thousand dollars any evening.”
The refinery bill proved to be too much for Long’s enemies. They impeached him in the Louisiana House of Representatives. The articles of impeachment included bribery, improper spending of state funds, and illegal influence of judges.
When impeachment moved over to the state senate for a trial of removal, both Long and Long’s opponents went into action. Standard Oil offered large bribes to sway some pro-Long senators. At the same time, Long mounted a statewide campaign, speaking before huge crowds. He also used bribes, blackmail, and political favors to win the support of enough senators to block his removal. The trial collapsed, and Long remained in office. The refinery tax also failed, but only temporarily.
After his impeachment, Long got his revenge. And he became increasingly authoritarian in his governance. He fired relatives of the legislators who had voted against him, and promised to unseat them in the next primary. Legislators now feared Long. “I dynamite ’em out of my path,” he roared.
In 1930, he announced he was running against the Old Regulars’ U.S. senator in the Democratic primary. He campaigned with the slogan “Every Man A King” and declared the primary election would be a vote of confidence in his accomplishments.
While Long was extremely popular among the rural poor, every newspaper in Louisiana opposed him. Long relied on intimidation tactics to suppress opposition. His henchmen (loyal supporters willing to commit crime) even kidnapped one pair of critics in order to scare them. He won the election overwhelmingly.
Long had nearly two years left in his governor’s term. He shocked everyone when he said he would remain in the state to finish his term before taking his Senate seat. Long continued to govern and got the legislature to approve a statewide highway system, a medical school, and a new state capitol building in Baton Rouge.
On January 19, 1932, Oscar K. Allen (known as O.K. Allen), whom Long had handpicked to succeed him, easily won the Democratic primary for governor. A few days later, Long departed for Washington just as the Great Depression was deepening, and Franklin D. Roosevelt was preparing to run for president.
U.S. Senator
Once Long got to the U.S. Senate, he had a single-minded agenda: “to spread the wealth of the land to all of the people.” But he also continued to effectively rule Louisiana through his puppet, Governor O.K. Allen.
In his first major speech before the Senate on April 4, 1932, Long warned, “Unless we provide for the redistribution of wealth in this country, the country is doomed.”
Long blamed American capitalists for the Depression because they took too big a share of the earnings of the economy. He explained that machines now enabled a worker to produce more than a thousand men in the past, yet the American people had not fairly shared in the benefits of productivity. Long’s solution to the Great Depression was to redistribute the “surplus wealth” of the millionaires.
Long helped Roosevelt win the Democratic nomination for president and campaigned for him. Long believed Roosevelt had promised to enact Long’s philosophy of wealth redistribution. But Roosevelt never went that far. Long claimed President Roosevelt betrayed his promise and called him “a liar and a faker.”
Long opposed many of Roosevelt’s New Deal proposals, arguing they did not go far enough. Roosevelt told friends that Long was one of the most dangerous men in America.
Back in Louisiana
Long was often absent from the Senate, continuing to dominate the government in Louisiana even though he held no state office. He introduced laws in the legislature that passed in minutes. He finally secured passage of the tax on refined oil — the bill that had led to his impeachment in 1929. He taxed big city newspapers that opposed him, calling it a “tax on lying.” O.K. Allen automatically signed all his bills.
Bribery and other forms of corruption kept the Long political machine running smoothly. The national press called him a “ruthless dictator.” Long laughed at that and said everything he did was for the “little guy.” He called himself “Kingfish,” a nickname implying he was the authority over Louisiana.
At least at the beginning of his political career, Long did more for the neglected common people of Louisiana than anyone else did in the South. But his record was mixed. He did not try to end child labor, and he actually cut public school teachers’ salaries. He plunged the state deeply into debt. At the same time, Long opposed minimum-wage laws and labor unions. Though his programs did end up benefiting many poor black people in Louisiana, he nonetheless ignored their specific needs, largely because they were still unable to vote due to racially discriminatory laws.
Share Our Wealth
In 1933, Long introduced a series of bills in the Senate that he called the “Share Our Wealth” program. Only a handful of senators supported the program, and Roosevelt did not. But public support for Long’s ideas began to pick up steam.
Seeking to build on that interest, Long mounted a nationwide campaign to promote what was essentially his alternative to the New Deal. He organized a network of Share Our Wealth clubs that millions joined. He competed over the radio with Roosevelt’s “Fireside Chats.” In mid-1934, he was getting more mail than the president.
By early the following year, Long had spelled out more fully what Share Our Wealth would mean for the ordinary American. He was calling for benefits such as:
- a “fairly comfortable house,” car, and radio
- $5,000 guaranteed minimum wealth (about $90,000 in today’s dollars)
- a minimum annual income of about $2,500 (about $50,000 in today’s dollars); a $1 million maximum annual income (the equivalent of about $19 million in 2020)
- free education for every child through high school; and for anyone qualified, free college or vocational school
- a guaranteed job for all who could work
- a limit of 40 work hours per week to reduce unemployment
- a limit on agricultural production to what was needed; store the surplus; employ farmers not working on public works projects
- programs to combat disease, mental illness, drug addiction, and care for war veterans
- an old age pension of $30 (about $600 in today’s dollars) per month for those 60 and older
- taxing the wealth of the rich, ranging from 1% of a $2 million fortune to 100% of the amount over $8 million in any fortune, effectively capping a person’s total wealth at $8 million
According to Long, there would be no limit to opportunity. He said, “Our plan would not break up big concerns [companies]. The only difference would be that maybe 10,000 people would own a concern instead of 10 people owning it.”
Economists soon pointed out flaws in Long’s plan. Share Our Wealth depended on taxing wealthy capitalists. But there were not enough millionaires in the U.S. (about 20,000 households in 1933) who would be the only ones taxed to fund Share Our Wealth. In addition, heavy taxation of the wealthy would deter individuals from accumulating wealth necessary for investing in enterprises.
Some historians believe it was Long’s run for president that prompted Roosevelt to institute some of Long’s ideas into the New Deal. For example, in 1935, Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act that included an old age pension.
Campaigning for President
The growing popularity of Long’s Share Our Wealth plan convinced him to challenge Roosevelt, a fellow Democrat, for the presidency in the 1936 election. One strategy he considered was to form a third party that would draw enough votes away from Roosevelt to allow a conservative Republican to win. Long thought this would drag the country into disaster, and voters would be ready to turn to him in the election of 1940 to save the nation.
By the spring of 1935, Long was touring the country, drawing large audiences to his speeches.
Assassination
In Louisiana, Long still had many enemies. Old Regulars were bitter. Others condemned him as a dictator. Hundreds of state employees hated Long for firing them because he thought they were disloyal to him. He went nowhere without bodyguards.
Benjamin Pavy was a state judge who had made court rulings against the Kingfish. Long was in the process of changing the lines of Judge Pavy’s court district to ensure his defeat in the next election.
On September 8, 1935, Long was walking the halls of the new State Capitol building when a man with a handgun fired one shot at him. His bodyguards then shot the man at least 61 times. A badly done operation caused Long to bleed internally, and he died two days later at age 42.
The attacker was Carl Weiss, Judge Pavy’s son-in-law. Everyone assumed he was the assassin, whose motive was revenge for Long’s mistreatment of Judge Pavy. (Because Weiss had no history of violence, some today argue that Weiss only intended to confront Long, but that a bodyguard’s stray bullet at Weiss killed Long.)
About 200,000 attended Long’s funeral on the grounds of the State Capitol where he is buried. Long’s political machine continued to function for a while. But corruption caught up with many of its politicians who ended up in prison. By 1960, the political machine that the Kingfish had built in Louisiana was no more.
Questions for Discussion
1. Long once said that “a perfect democracy can come close to looking like a dictatorship.” Using evidence from the article, describe what Long likely meant by this statement.
2. To what extent was Long a demagogue when he was (a) governor and (b) senator? Use evidence from the article.
3. What were the strongest arguments in favor of Long’s Share Our Wealth program? What were the strongest arguments against it?
This article was originally published in the Spring 2020 issue of Bill of Rights in Action (BRIA), the quarterly curricular magazine of Constitutional Rights Foundation. Click here for a classroom activity on this article, plus writing and discussion questions for use with high school students. You can also subscribe to BRIA for free here.
