I should say that Hue P. Long (Huey, of course,
is a diminutive) was most remarkable for the swiftness of his rise and his union of spectacular showmanship in the Senate—he had no influence there whatever—with real power over the radio. When he first went to Wash- ington he was merely a Senate clown, but by his second year there he was becoming as well known as Will Rogers. He was not, like Father Coughlin, a regular radio orator, but he had vastly more colour, and his technique was triumphant. Every wireless speaker knows he catches only a small percentage of the possible audience, for the simple reason that the great majority of hearers have not realised that he is on the programme. Huey Long multiplied his listeners by five- or ten-fold every time by announcing that for a few minutes he would just `t talk along," and read a Bible portion, while the word was passed round by telephone and otherwise that " Huey was on the air." He was, if the vainest, also the most versatile, of demagogues. He declared himself -Co be the best lawyer in the United States, and the Supreme Court was of opinion that he was abler than many advocates bearing famous names. His conceit was unbounded, his ways were insufferable, he was an unsurpassable vulgarian. But he was the most powerful champion of the poor whites that the Deep South has ever known.
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