Huey Long by T. Harry Williams
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Book Reviews of Huey Long
Book Review: Great!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is the most comprehensive and well written biography I have ever read. Dr. Williams has written another great book to add to his collection. I highly recommend this book to anyone even remotely interested in Huey Long.Book Review: A Big Correction
Summary: 4 Stars
Williams does much to correct misrepresentations of Huey Long. To label Long a 'dictator' and thus compare him to Stalin, Hitler, Castro or countless others is a joke. Unfortunately, Long has been popularized by Penn's book and Hollywood's "All the King's Men." Consider those largely fictional accounts that bent Long's life to fit a narrative arch and moral: the politician rises to power and inevitably becomes corrupted. In actuality, isn't it possible Huey was a fighter for the people until he was assassinated? That conclusion would render quite a different moral, indeed, about American politics and power and those who challenge it.While Long grasped relentlessly for power, how did his tactics differ from FDR's Supreme Court packing or Chicago Mayor Daley's election frauds? No doubt Huey wasn't always clean, but has any politician (e.g. LBJ, Slick Willie) who successfully changed the system entirely played by the rules? He also shamefully engaged in 'Willie Horton' type tactics to win the day. But do not disregard that Long's powerful enemies left him little choice if he wanted to achieve anything like social justice in Louisiana.
Huey used the ambiguity in the law to his advantage. And, yes, he became too willing to squash opposition as witnessed by his intimidation of LSU student journalists. But he ran the state little more than GOP Gov. Tommy Thompson ran Wisconsin with his line item veto & micro-management of who received state contracts. Long was, in fact, nearly impeached for taking on Standard Oil. His chances of becoming President were small, and he was only viewed as 'dangerous' by those who wanted to make more than $1MM a year or inherit more than $5MM in 1930s dollars. In reality he would have been marginalized like any other 3rd party candidate. Only his murder places him in the annals of American history.
Long was exceptional in that he called for the deconcentration of wealth & power to protect the free market system Americans believe is at the center of their way of life. Seventy years later, Bill Gates has more personal wealth than the entire GDP of many nations ($80B), and 200 people receive most of the annual economic gains on the planet. Was Long really a 'dangerous' man or just the wind in the desert?
The biography is not too PRO-Long. His biggest abuse was that he managed to put the local governments under the thumb of the state. No other state governor has matched this level of control. But did Long fundamentally change the American system? Dream on. Not possible for such a radical to undermine the influence of wealth on our national politics.
A satisfying read, especially about Long's transformation from salesman to lawyer to politician. Tireseome in the mechanics of the state legislature, but the biography makes up for that in destroying the myth of Long as demogogue and its thorough research. It's only failing, as noted, is that it deals little with the man's legacy.
Book Review: Post Katrina Huey Blues
Summary: 4 Stars
My motive for reading this book was, admittedly, not very historical. Watching TV, reading the newspapers, I concluded that there was a major flood in 1927 which came down the Mississippi. Because the monied of New Orleans feared that the "better part of town" might be in danger, they arranged to dynamite the levees in such a way that would divert the waters into St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes. Certain eminent domain and financial arrangements were made (and later reneged on) and those who could and would be were evacuated. All the same, many died and many more would made homeless, for the potential benefit to the few. Then, or so I heard, the outrage of the masses in Louisiana at this miscarriage of power and justice by the rich led to the election of Huey P. Long (as champion of the "little guy") as Governor and launched a career.
Well, too bad. This book doesn't go down that road at all. The flood of 1927 is barely touched on. Yes, it happened, but there is no mention of the dynamited dams. Yes, Hoover came down and was in charge of federal relocation and recovery. And in the meantime, Huey was running about the same campaign he would run for the rest of his life: Down with the Rich! Up with the Poor! and All Hail Huey!
Williams' biography is incredibly well documented. You get the feeling that if you just tore out the bibliography, the notes, and the index, you would be forced to write the same book yourself, with one caveat: some parts of the book were written from the author's notes of interviews and private communications the author had with some of the principals who were still alive when it was written through the 1950s and 60s. The author has promised that all the notes have been archived and that while not of them can be released as yet, eventually, they all will be. Williams is quite vigorous not so much in defense of Long as in definition of the man and his vision. If you want to decide for yourself just what sort of man Huey Long was and where he might have been going, this biography is an excellent place to start.
Book Review: Surprisingly interesting book!
Summary: 4 Stars
Biography on one of the most famous Louisiana politicians. Interesting book about a very colorful character. The author was actually very positive about Long -- I did not think that was possible.Book Review: Interesting Facts - Flawed Reasoning
Summary: 3 Stars
I very much enjoyed reading T. Harry Williams' biography of Huey Long. The book seems to be extensively researched and benefits greatly from being written at a time when many of Long's cohorts and enemies were still alive and accessible. The reality is a person would have to be a bad writer indeed for a book about Long not to be, at the least, interesting. Long was unlike any character in the history of American politics and, had an assassin not brought him down in 1935, would probably be much more than just a footnote to American history.
The book goes to great lengths to describe Long's conservative, status quo preserving enemies. It's an important point due to the fact that many, in recalling Long's exploits, have forgotten just how dangerous these folks were (Schlesinger comes to mind). Without these backward callous men (for the most part they were men), Huey Long would have likely been little more than an extremely shrewd Louisiana lawyer. But their outrageous indifference to anything other than their own prosperity laid the groundwork for Long's rise, and created a ready made constituency that is loyal (among those still living) to this day. William's book goes to great lengths to point out the legitimate achievements, against bitter resistance, of Long's machine - roads, bridges and education being top of the list. The acheivements were real and, only a few years before they occurred, had seemed utterly impossible. Long made them happen by force of will, uncanny political instincts and a willingness to do anything to achieve his goals - and it is here that Mr. Williams' book is profoundly flawed.
Mr. Williams is an apologist for Long. Williams will recite some fascist (and there is really no other word that works) scheme of Long's - for example, having the state police arrest two men a few days prior to an election because he fears the men will talk to the press and make allegations that might hurt Long, ramrod (single-handedly) legislation of dubious constitutionality through the Lousiana legislature in record time (a few minutes in some accounts) when he has no legal authority to do so (he was a US Senator), ensure kickbacks are provided to his subordinates (and himself) in exchange for favor in the state government, appoint himself as counsel for the state in big cases and - of course - receive large fees for his representation, use the state police as his own personal security staff, via unconstitutional law, strip virtually all autonomy from local government and centralize it in Baton Rouge to ensure his machine controls all government-related jobs (county deputies, for example), deduct money from state employee's pay and use it for his political campaigns (keeping the "deducts" in cash in a lock box - supposedly containing, at the time of Long's death, a million dollars (that's 1935 dollars!) - only to tell his reader that, well, it looks bad but 'ol Huey was really just being politically astute and doing what had to be done in the harsh political environment of Louisiana.
Williams' theme seems to be that whatever the Kingfish did of an underhanded nature was done because that was the only way to help the people. Although Williams does note that Huey was a power-seeker (in a gargantuan understatement), it doesn't seem to occur to Mr. Williams that power was, in fact, the passion that drove him. Helping the poor and the middle class, and improving Louisiana, were only a pretense to the power grab. Williams points out when Long was a young man, newly married, he laid out his vision to his wife. He would be elected to a lower state office, then become governor, then a US Senator, then the president. He did not lay out a plan to her about how he would build roads or educate the poor or bring Louisiana out of the nineteenth century. That would come later, when he realized that was his best avenue to power. While reading Mr. Williams' book this becomes overwhelmingly evident - to everyone but Mr. Williams.