re: Thoughts on Huey Long?

Some continue to blame Huey for the state's woes.

How much has any "reformist" done to right Huey's wrongs?

We continue to hear how much he screwed the state, put us behind the 8-ball, corruption, etc. But since he's been dead for 90 years why have all these goody two shoe governors failed to reverse course?

Crusaded for lower utility rates, forced the railroads to extend their service to small villages and hamlets, and demanded that the Standard Oil Company end the importation of Mexican crude oil and use more oil from Louisiana wells.

In 1922, Long won a lawsuit against the Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Company for unfair rate increases, Long successfully argued the case on appeal before the United States Supreme Court[1] resulting in cash refunds totaling $440,000 being sent to 80,000 overcharged customers. After the case, Chief Justice William Howard Taft described Long as one of the best legal minds he had ever encountered.

When elected governor, the state had roughly 300 miles of paved roads and only three major bridges. Illiteracy rate was 75%, the vast majority of families could not afford to purchase text books for their children. The poll tax kept most poor whites and blacks from voting; only about 300,000 of the 2 million residents could afford to vote. Literacy test had disenfranchised blacks from voting since the 1898 Grandfather Law.

He set up free ferries while construction of bridges was ongoing. He reduced the toll bridge fee of $8.40 to 60 cents.

Before Long’s election, political power in the state had been the monopoly of a coalition of big business and planters, reinforced by oil and other industrial interests. He changed that and gave farmers and other small people a voice.

Upon taking office, he immediately began giving out free text books to students. Faced with opposition from Caddo Parish School Board who refused to accept “charity” from the state, Long told them he wasn’t giving them to the school system, he was giving them to the students. In return, Long held up establishment of an Army Air Corps base nearby until the school board caved.

Adult literacy classes were started, known as “night school”, which taught over 100,000 adults to read by the end of his term.

He forced the supply of cheap natural gas to the City of New Orleans.

Built a new state capitol, charity hospital in New Orleans, and many new buildings at LSU which was a minor college when he was elected and which he turned in to a recognized university. He increased state funding, expanded its enrollment including poor students to attend. He quadrupled the size of the LSU band and chartered busses for students to attend out of town games.

He established the LSU Medical School in New Orleans.

He built Airline Highway connecting Baton Rouge to New Orleans.

He campaigned on a whirlwind tour in Arkansas supporting the widow of a US Senator, Hattie Caraway, and enabled her to defeat a crowded field.

In the US Senate, he filibustered a bill that gave favored national banks over state banks. Eventually, the Glass-Stegall Act passed with Huey’s backing which extended government deposit insurance to state banks as well as national banks.

His falling out with President F. D. Roosevelt forced Roosevelt to shift strategy to the left and enact the Social Security Act, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the National Labor Relations Board, Aid to Dependent Children, the National Youth Administration, and the Wealth Tax Act of 1935. Roosevelt admitted privately he was “trying to steal some of Long’s thunder.” At the time, Long was receiving 60,000 letters of support at his senate office from across America.

He forced Standard Oil to agree that 80% of oil sent to its refineries would be drilled in LA.

Long created a public works program for Louisiana that was unprecedented in the South, with a plethora of roads, bridges, hospitals, schools and state buildings that have endured into the 21st century. During his four years as governor, Long increased paved highways in Louisiana from 331 to 2,301 miles (533 to 3,703 km), plus an additional 2,816 miles (4,532 km) of gravel roads. By 1936, the infrastructure program begun by Long had completed some 9,700 miles (15,600 km) of new roads, doubling the size of the state's road system. He built 111 bridges and started construction on the first bridge over the Mississippi entirely in Louisiana, the Huey P. Long Bridge in Jefferson Parish, near New Orleans. He built a new Governor's Mansion and the new Louisiana State Capitol, at the time the tallest building in the South. All of these projects provided thousands of much-needed jobs during the Great Depression, including 22,000—or 10 percent—of the nation's highway workers.


Long's free textbooks, school-building program, and school busing improved and expanded the public education system. His night schools taught 100,000 adults to read. He expanded funding for LSU, tripled enrollment, lowered tuition, and established scholarships for low-income students.

Long 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. Long's statewide public health programs dramatically reduced the death rate in Louisiana and provided free immunizations to nearly 70 percent of the population. He also reformed the prison system by providing medical and dental care for inmates. His administration funded the piping of natural gas to New Orleans and other cities. It built the seven-mile (11 km) 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. Long's popular homestead exemption eliminated personal property taxes for the majority of citizens by exempting properties valued at less than $2,000. His "Debt Moratorium Act" prevented foreclosures by giving people extra time to pay creditors and reclaim property without being forced to pay back-taxes. His personal intervention and strict regulation of the Louisiana banking system prevented bank closures and kept the system solvent—while 4,800 banks nationwide collapsed, only seven failed in Louisiana

Here we go with another one of these

Short answer is if you can communicate at all you've got an opinion on him

I picked up a first or 2nd edition of "Every Man a King" in an antique shop in Vegas of all places. I only paid 20 bucks for it. The lady who was working was very new and didn't know much about it.




I also picked up an antique candelabra for $60 at the store. It looks similar to this:


But it's a bit different. Google lens says it's an early 20th century Branch Rococo antique brass 5 arm candelabra. I couldn't find any markings to confirm. The wooden insert under the brass base is missing.



Paging antiquetiger?

No room in my brain for any thoughts about Huey Long.

Wish ole Huey was Governor today. I guarantee you Baton Rouge would have several bridges built and operational across the Ms River. Governors today just study shite.

Win or Lose Corporation. Huey Long was form over substance. The only one he ever "enriched" was himself. Everything else was just window dressing for easy votes from people way too stupid to realize what was happening.

Huey definitely enriched himself, but he also built a ton of lasting infrastructure for the people. Edwin Edwards (and all subsequent governors) only enriched themselves and built nothing.

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Ngl, I consider Huey to be one of the most dangerous men of the 20th century. He had a rare combination of ambition, charisma, competence, and ruthlessness rivaled only by the likes of Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Mussolini, and FDR.

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Stalin was not charismatic at all. He was just an evil motherfricker who maneuvered his way into power.

As someone not from LA, but lived there for a short while and married into a LA family, what I don’t understand, and maybe never can, is how did a state with so many natural resources and advantages end up the way it did while Texas, for example, end up differently?

I always come back to corruption, but it’s a two edged sword. There is no other place like Louisiana both good and bad. It can be mind numbingly frustrating, but at same time, it just feels different than anywhere else. It’s not just the food, music, culture, or sense of place, the people are so entertaining. Rambling but sort of on point.