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Huey Long

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Jami Reid
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« Reply #15 on: September 09, 2007, 12:43:53 am »



Legacy

In his four-year term as governor, Long increased the mileage of paved highways in Louisiana from 331 to 2,301, plus an additional 2,816 miles of gravel roads. By 1936, the infrastructure program begun by Long had completed some 9,000 miles of new roads, doubling the state's road system. He built 111 bridges, and started construction on the first bridge over the lower Mississippi, the Huey P. Long Bridge in Jefferson Parish, near New Orleans. He built the new Louisiana State Capitol, at the time the tallest building in the South. All of these construction projects provided thousands of much-needed jobs during the Great Depression. (Long, however, disapproved of welfare and unemployment payments; any such programs in Louisiana during his tenure were federal in origin.)

Long's free textbooks, school-building program, and free busing improved and expanded the public education system, and his night schools taught 100,000 adults to read. He greatly expanded funding for LSU, lowered tuition, established scholarships for poor students, and founded the LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans. He also doubled funding for the public Charity Hospital System, built a new Charity Hospital building for New Orleans, and reformed and increased funding for the state's mental institutions. His administration funded the piping of natural gas to New Orleans and other cities and built the 11-kilometer (seven-mile) Lake Pontchartrain seawall and New Orleans airport. Long slashed personal property taxes and reduced utility rates. His repeal of the poll tax in 1935 increased voter registration by 76 percent in one year.

After Long’s death, the political machine he had built up was weakened, but it remained a powerful force in state politics until the election of 1960. Likewise, the Long platform of social programs and populist rhetoric created the state’s main political division; in every state election until 1960, the main factions were organized along pro-Long and anti-Long lines. Even today in Louisiana, opinions on Long are sharply divided. Some remember Long as a popular folk hero, while others revile him as an unscrupulous demagogue and dictator. For several decades after his death, Long’s personal political style inspired imitation among Louisiana politicians who borrowed his colorful speaking style, vicious verbal attacks on opponents, and promises of social programs. His brother Earl Long later inherited Long’s political machine as well as his platform and rhetorical style and was elected governor of Louisiana on three occasions. After Earl Long’s death, many saw John McKeithen and Edwin Edwards as heirs to the Long tradition. Most recently, Claude "Buddy" Leach ran a populist campaign in the Louisiana gubernatorial election of 2003 that was compared to Huey Long’s by some observers.

Huey Long’s death did not end the political strength of the Long family. In addition to his brother Earl Long becoming governor three times, another brother, George S. Long, was elected to Congress in 1952. Huey Long's wife, Rose McConnell Long, was appointed to replace him in the Senate, and his son Russell B. Long was elected to the Senate in 1948 and stayed there until 1987. Other more distant relatives, including the late Gillis William Long and the late Speedy O. Long, were elected to Congress. Jimmy D. Long of Natchitoches Parish served for years in the Legislature. Floyd W. Smith, Jr., is a self-described "half Long" who is a former mayor of Pineville. In California Richard Nixon was compared to Huey Long in his 1946 race for the U.S. House of Representatives by Jerry Voorhis; Nixon also described Huey Long as an American folk hero in one of his conversations with H.R. Haldeman.

A statue of Long stands in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol building. The other statue representing Louisiana is that of former U.S. Chief Justice Edward Douglass White.

Two bridges crossing the Mississippi River are named for Long: Huey P. Long Bridge (Baton Rouge) and Huey P. Long Bridge (Jefferson Parish). There is also a Huey P. Long Hospital in Pineville.

Long's first autobiography, Every Man a King, was published in 1933. Affordably priced to allow it to be read by poor Americans, it laid out his plan to redistribute the nation's wealth. His second book, My First Days in the White House, was published posthumously. It emphatically laid out his presidential ambitions for the election of 1936. The life of Long continued to be of interest long after his death, giving rise to the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Huey Long by T. Harry Williams in 1970, a 1985 Ken Burns documentary film, as well as two made-for-tv docudramas; The Life and Assassination of the Kingfish (1977) and Kingfish (1995, TNT). (Ed Asner played Long in the former, with John Goodman starring in the latter).

The career of Long has left its mark also in popular culture with Long's life serving as a template for various fictional politicians. Sometimes this is as an example of a made-in-America dictator as in Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here where Buzz Windrip ("The Chief") becomes president on a strongly populist platform that quickly turns into home-grown American fascism. (Windrip is often assumed to be based on either Long or Gerald B. Winrod.) This is also the case in Bruce Sterling's Distraction featuring a colorful and dictatorial Louisiana governor named "Green Huey" and in Harry Turtledove's American Empire trilogy, where parallels are drawn between Confederate President Jake Featherston's populist, dictatorial style of rule and Huey Long's governorship of Louisiana. Long is ultimately assassinated on orders from Featherston when he refuses to side with the Confederate ruling party (though several years later than in real life).

In the 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren charts the ultimate corruption of an idealist politician, Willie Stark, who is often assumed to be based on Long. (Warren disassociated himself from the comparison, however, stating to interviewer Charles Bohner in 1964, "Willie Stark was not Huey Long. Willie was only himself, whatever that self turned out to be."  It has in turn been the basis of two motion pictures: an Oscar-winning 1949 film and a more recent 2006 film.

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Jami Reid
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« Reply #16 on: September 09, 2007, 12:46:31 am »

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Jami Reid
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« Reply #17 on: September 09, 2007, 12:48:47 am »

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Jami Reid
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« Reply #18 on: September 09, 2007, 12:54:13 am »




« Last Edit: September 09, 2007, 12:55:03 am by Jami Reid » Report Spam   Logged
Jami Reid
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« Reply #19 on: September 09, 2007, 12:58:15 am »

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