Building Louisiana: The Legacy of the Public Works Administration

4. The Second Louisiana Purchase

C H A P T E R 4 THE SECOND LOUISIANA PURCHASE Relations between Louisiana and the Roosevelt administration were not patched up immediately after Huey Long’s assassination. The Long organization saw its future in keeping Long’s name alive, and that meant maintaining most of his attitudes and policies. This included skepticism, if not outright hostility, toward the New Deal. And Washington saw no need to woo Long’s successors as long as there were genuine New Deal candidates to promote in the election of 1936. Cleveland Dear, a New Dealer in good standing, opposed Richard Leche, Long’s chosen candidate for governor. Part of Dear’s platform was to bring the Public Works Administration (PWA) back to Louisiana. He claimed that the state had lost $60 million and 60,000 jobs because of Long’s war with Ickes. Dear seems to have gotten substantial support from the New Deal agencies still operating in the state. Ickes kept PWA projects frozen, but new Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps were opened, and 7,600 Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects were approved. Anti-Long congressmen announced WPA projects even when they weren’t in their districts. John Sandlin from Shreveport told the state about new projects in New Orleans and Lake Providence.1 But this federal largesse did not influence many voters. They had no problem accepting the New Deal’s jobs and voting for its presumed opponents .2 In the January 1936 election, the Long candidates won easily. Both Louisiana and Washington had to reassess their positions. Some observers concluded that the new governor was putting out peace feelers. When one prominent Long lieutenant, Gerald L. K. Smith, went to Georgia to discuss with Governor Eugene Talmadge the possibility of an anti-Roosevelt coalition, Leche said Smith was not speaking for him. 45 46 HISTORY OF PWA IN LOUISIANA From Washington came the news that the tax fraud cases that were being built against Long supporters were being dropped because the government thought that convictions were unlikely in the ‘‘changed environment since the death of Long.’’3 Other developments occurred in the ‘‘changed environment.’’ The state WPA was overhauled, probably less to make peace with the victors than because Harry Hopkins thought that local WPA administrators had overstepped their roles. He had dismissed several before the election because they were running for office. He accepted the resignation of the inefficient but anti-Long Frank Peterman and appointed Joseph H. Crutcher, an outof -stater and a professional social worker who had worked under both the anti-Long Peterman and the pro-Long Harry Early. Crutcher replaced eight district administrators—Peterman appointees—with social workers and made the WPA an efficient, nonpolitical relief organization again.4 Governor Leche had no trouble adapting to a ‘‘changed environment.’’ He had campaigned against ‘‘federal intervention’’ but not against New Deal programs themselves and had endorsed Social Security just before the election. So he did not have to dissemble too much when he decided to go hat-in-hand to Washington. He called on Hopkins, Ickes, Jim Farley, Frances Perkins, Rex Tugwell, and other New Deal notables. He visited the White House. He even opened an ‘‘embassy’’ in Washington to expedite applications for federal assistance. At home, Leche changed the policies of the state Bond and Tax Board to suit the PWA. He worked toward the repeal of other Long antifederal laws.5 Leche also seems to have inherited some of Long’s operatic flair. When Roosevelt visited Dallas to attend the Texas Centennial Exposition, Leche packed up both houses of the Louisiana legislature, along with the Louisiana State University (LSU) band, and took them to the exposition to help welcome the president.6 With the repeal of the obstructing legislation, Ickes was ready to resume business in Louisiana. The floodgates opened, and the backlog of proposals surged toward approval and groundbreaking. Congressman Usher Burdick of North Dakota, referring both to the tax fraud cases and to ‘‘certain patronage heretofore withheld from the Long machine,’’ called it ‘‘the second Louisiana Purchase.’’ New Orleans journalist Harnett Kane explicitly included public works as one of the ‘‘results of the Second Purchase ’’ in his exposé of Long and Leche, Louisiana Hayride.7 James Farley argued that there was no need to purchase Louisiana; it SECOND LOUISIANA PURCHASE 47 was safely in the Democratic camp by 1936. Kane countered that there was no...