The King of Louisiana The murder of Senator Huey Long
removes from American public life a politician who achieved notoriety rather than fame and leaves no successor because he had no constructive policy to bequeath. He was the -only example the United States has so far provided of the omnipotent local dictator. His power in Louisiana was absolute. He built a political machine which controlled every department of the administration. He owned the State. The legislature was his tool, the judges and civic officials were his agents, he used the power of taxation to penalise his opponents. His methods were ruthless. He won the governorship in 1928 by promises of partem et &muses and relief, for the needy, and those promises he sought to ,redeem by a lavish programme of public works—roads, schools, ,medical services, preferential taxes. His national pro!. gramme, announced after going to the Senate, was expressed in the slogan of " Share our Wealth." Great fortunes were to be confiscated and great incomes dis- allowed, while the new American standard was to be -embodied in a $5,000 dollar home, with a. motor-car and free edneation up to the university. Huey Long, once a leading supporter of Mr. Roosevelt, became his most embittered opponent in the South, and was resolved to compass his defeat next year,--as lie might conceivably have done, though he had, of course, no chance of election himself. Like most dictators he was a self-made man. His death eliminates a powerful peisonality whose political influence showed no sign of being anything but disruptive and destructive.
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