Huey Long
by T. Harry Williams

List Price: $25.00
Our Price: $15.07
You Save: $9.93 (40%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $3.38 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions

Book Summary Information

Book Reviews of Huey Long

Book Review: A Big Correction
Summary: 4 Stars

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.

Political Books

• Books > Subjects > Biographies & Memoirs > Leaders & Notable People
• History > Americas > United States > State & Local
• Social Sciences