Win the Race or Die Trying: Uncle Earl's Last Hurrah by Jack B. McGuire (review)

Earl K. Long, the younger brother of the demagogue Huey P. Long, ran for governor of Louisiana three times and for lieutenant governor four times between 1932 and 1959, but Win the Race or Die Trying: Uncle Earl's Last Hurrah is centered on Long's last campaign, an ill-fated race for Congress in 1960. Written by Jack B. McGuire, a financial executive and longtime Louisiana political junkie, the book offers a sympathetic look at an unvarnished man who liked to campaign in the hinterlands, haggle at country stores, hunt wild hogs from his modest Pea Patch farm, and gamble everywhere. Criticizing Long as "undignified," in the words of the Chicago Daily News, "was about like criticizing a hog for bad table manners" (p. 208).

Elected lieutenant governor in 1936, Long served briefly as governor when scandal forced the incumbent to resign. In 1948 he was elected governor in his own right, but Long's gifts were more forensic than administrative, and he served with no great distinction. Attempting a comeback in 1956, he lambasted his opponent, New Orleans mayor deLesseps S. "Chep" Morrison, as "so high and mighty he has to get on a stump to spit" (p. 39). Winning the governor's office in a landslide, Long proved to be more assertive in his third term as governor. He vetoed 326 bills, a record that still stands. He pushed for the creation of a New Orleans branch of Louisiana State University, and in 1958 the school opened on an integrated basis and without incident.

In a chapter that is likely to be of most interest to historians, McGuire describes Long's battle to prevent the state legislature from purging black citizens from voter registration rolls. After the U.S. Supreme Court declared the white primary unconstitutional in 1944, the number of African American voters in Louisiana increased dramatically, and many of them voted for Long. Unlike so many southern politicians, Long refused to exploit the race issue and supported equal pay for black schoolteachers.

Always impulsive, Long seemed to crack under the strain. He hatched a scheme to circumvent the constitutional ban on consecutive gubernatorial terms; he contemplated resigning so he could run again in 1960. His health failing, Long lost his composure speaking before a legislative committee in May 1959. His wife, Blanche, and Senator Russell Long, Huey's son, had him committed to a mental institution in Galveston, Texas. A judge later ordered him committed to a Louisiana hospital. Long escaped confinement by firing the officials who were holding him. But his reputation was in shreds. He began seeing a New Orleans stripper named Blaze Starr, although McGuire argues strongly that the 1989 Paul Newman movie Blaze wildly sensationalized their relationship. Long only made matters worse on an extended tour of racetracks in the West and Mexico. He was photographed in a Fort Worth airport with a pillowcase on his head trying to avoid reporters. Long ran for Congress in an attempt to rebuild his career, making it into the runoff before suffering a heart attack a week before the final vote. He won the race but died a few days later.

McGuire has given readers a fine window on a lost age of southern politics. In the solid South, only the Democratic primary mattered, and personality trumped ideology, but, McGuire argues, the advent of television doomed Long's style of politics. "Uncle Earl" was, as he liked to call himself, "the Last of the Red Hot Poppas" (p. 227).