Huey Long (August 30, 1893 - September 10, 1935)

Huey Long was Governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1930. A nominal Democrat, Huey Long was a radical populist. As Governor he sponsored many reforms that endeared him to the rural poor. An ardent enemy of corporate interests, he championed the "little man" against the rich and privileged. A farm boy from the piney woods of northern Louisiana, he was colorful, charismatic, and controversial. He gave himself the nickname "Kingfish" because, he said, "I'm a small fish here in Washington. But I'm the Kingfish to the folks down in Louisiana." Huey Long was the determined enemy of Wall Street, bankers and big business, and he was also a determined enemy of the Roosevelt administration because he saw it as too beholden to these powerful forces. Huey Long did not suffer from excessive modesty. A high-school dropout who taught himself law and got a law degree in only one year of study, Long was confident he would become President of the United States in 1936. So confident was he that he wrote a book entitled "My First Days in the White House" in which he named his cabinet (including President Roosevelt as Secretary of the Navy and President Hoover as Secretary of Commerce) and in which he conducted long imaginary conversations with FDR and Hoover designed to humiliate them and show their subservience to the boy from the piney woods of Louisiana. The Kingfish wanted the government to confiscate the wealth of the nation's rich and privileged. He called his program Share Our Wealth. It called upon the federal government to guarantee every family in the nation an annual income of $5,000 so they could have the necessities of life including a home, a job, a radio, and an automobile. He also proposed limiting private fortunes to $50 million, legacies to $5 million, and annual incomes to $1 million. Everyone over age 60 would receive an old-age pension. His slogan was "Every Man A King." On September 8, 1935, Huey Long was at the State Capitol in Baton Rouge attempting to oust a long-time opponent, Judge Henry Pavey. House Bill Number One, a redistricting plan, was Long's top priority. If it passed, Judge Pavey would be removed from the bench. At 9 pm the session was still going strong. Judge Pavey's son-in-law, Dr. Carl Weiss, had been at the State Capitol waiting to speak to Long. He tried to see him three times to talk to him but was brushed off each time in the hallway by Long with his bodyguards surrounding him. At 9:20 p.m. Dr. Weiss approached Long for the third time and, according to the generally accepted version of events, fired a handgun at Long from four feet away, striking him in the abdomen. Long's bodyguards returned fire, hitting Weiss 62 times, killing him. Long was rushed to the hospital but passed away two days later on September 10, 1935. Long's body was dressed in a tuxedo and his open copper-lined casket was placed in the State Capitol rotunda. An estimated 200,000 people flooded Baton Rouge to witness the event. Tens of thousands of Louisianans crowded in front of the Capitol for the funeral. Long was buried on the grounds of the new State Capitol where a statue at his gravesite depicts his achievements.