The Last Year in the Life of Huey Long - Essay Example

Parker won the primary, and Long insisted that it was his doing. In that era before the advent of radio and electrical sound-amplifiers, a candidate's effectiveness was usually proportional to the lustiness of his voice at open-air rallies. Long's lungs were strong. Soon after the election, long broke with the new governor, nominally because Parker was reluctant to levy higher taxes on Standard Oil. On August 30, 1923, his thirtieth birthday, Long announced his candidacy for the governorship.

The campaign began at once. Some opposition candidates might offer money for votes, Long predicted to his audiences. "So, take the money and then vote for me." He cited his teachers as Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, and Almighty God. He assailed Governor Parker as "a damnable demagogue." He charged the New Orleans Item and the Times-Picayune with being journals of Wall Street. Heavy rain fell on Primary Day, January 15, 1924. Long's rural followers were kept at home. The second because of his defeat lay in his inability to attract voters in the French parishes.

The ambitious railroad commissioner soon found an opportunity to appeal to Catholic Creoles and Cajuns of southern Louisiana. In 1926 United States Senator Edwin S. Broussard came up for re-election. Long set out to sell Broussard a French Creole Catholic, an advocate of a protective-tariff on sugar, and "as wet as Lake Pontchartrain" on the prohibition question to his Anglo-Saxon Protestant, low-tariff, "dry" followers in northern Louisiana. He stumped the state, told the Creoles that French blood flowed in his veins, and referred to Broussard as "Cousin Ed.

" He assured his disciples of his complete loyalty to the senator. Broussard squeaked through the primary with a 4,000-vote margin. Opposing Long in the gubernatorial primary of 1928 was Congressman Riley Wilson, candidate of the New Orleans "Old Regular" machine, which controlled much of the state through an alliance with the rural courthouse cliques. Long ridiculed Wilson as a "babe," although Wilson was twenty-two years older than himself and had already served seven terms in Congress. Governor O. H. Simpson also filed in the primary.

Long's irrelevant and crudely humorous talk amused his followers.