Huey Long

Huey Long research papers look at the famous politician as a prominent public figure in history. A biography on Long or an examination of his political importance can be researched and written up by the writers at Paper Masters.

• Huey Pierce Long was the eighth child out of nine
• Born in Winnfield, Winn Parish, Louisiana on August 30, 1893.
• Huey Long would never graduate from high school, but he would go on to study law at the University of Oklahoma and Tulane University.

His town of Winn Parish held strong Populist and Socialist sentiments. These thoughts and ideas would surface again later in life when he would run for public office.

Long passed the bar exam and began practicing law in his home state of Louisiana in 1915. Although he was a successful lawyer he only used his law practice as a springboard into politics. At first, Long would insist that his ambitions were only on the local level. He only wanted to make Winnfield a better place, but on a few occasions he would let his larger aspirations slip which encompassed the state and possibly even the country, He has a self proclaimed arrogance about him that infuriated his political opponents and belittled his own constituents. Thus he once announced: They think I'm so smart. Maybe I'm not. Maybe it's that there are a lot of dumb people in the world.

A fine example of Long's shrewd arrogance happened while just a twenty-two year old compensation lawyer. In 1916, Long addressed Senator Harper with several amendments to the Louisiana employers' liability law. Senator Harper, a member of the senate committee on capital and labor, agreed to take his suggestions to the committee and most likely on his own insistence, Huey Long accompanied him. While the committee appeared to acquiesce to the powers of the great Standard Oil Company, they ridiculed the young lawyer's amendments and decided to table any talks until a later time.

In 1924 Huey Long took his first run for governor of Louisiana. He approached his campaign in a very unorthodox manner. Long made no secret of the technique he would use. "I'm going to run for governor and I'll tell you how I'm going to win. In every parish there is a boss, usually the sheriff. He has forty percent of the votes, forty percent are opposed to him, and twenty percent are in-betweens. I'm going into every parish and cuss out the boss. That gives me forty percent of the votes to begin with, and I'll hoss trade 'em out of the in-betweens." Huey Long ran with the platform of wanting the people on his side not the rich bosses. He was the first man to run without the backing of the wealthy businessmen. Long was defeated and blamed his defeat on the election day's bad weather saying that it kept the voters from the polls. This was probably exaggerated by Huey Long himself when he knew the real reasons behind his defeat and he worked hard to remedy them for the election four years later.

Long's run for governor in 1928 began with his slogan, "Every Man a King, But no One Wears a Crown". His platform was based on making Louisiana a progressive, educated and modern commonwealth. He promised free textbooks to all public school children, the improvement of every public road, and among other things, improved state hospitals and institutions. He claimed not to oppose the big corporations, only the evil ones. All of these things however, were noted four years earlier when he proposed his second try at governorship of Louisiana. A big difference in this election was Long's connection to Paul N. Cyr, candidate for lieutenant governor, who was expected to appeal to the French voters. It was these votes that put Long over the edge in the primaries to defeat Wilson and Simpson, the other candidates, by a big margin. This set Huey up for almost a sure bet as the new governor in the general election. On May 21, 1929, Huey Long was inaugurated into office as the Governor of Louisiana. With him were only two of his running mates, Lieutenant Governor Cyr and State Treasurer H. B. Conner.

One of the first issues on Long's agenda was obtaining natural gas for New Orleans. If Huey had not intervened in the controversy surrounding the natural gas, The implementation of it would have been delayed for years.