Russell Long: A Life in Politics

Chapter 1. Learning the Ropes in the Long Family, 1918–1948

10 chapter one Learning the Ropes in the Long Family, – R ussell long was born in the booming oil town of Shreveport, in the far northwestern corner of Louisiana, on November 3, 1918. His mother, Rose McConnell Long, named him Huey Pierce Long III for his father, who, at the time of the boy’s birth, was busy campaigning for a seat on the Louisiana Railroad Commission. Huey changed his son’s name to Russell Biliu when he arrived at the hospital. 1 No one knows for certain why Huey changed the name, although a couple of anecdotal accounts have been handed down through the years. One has Huey, who had been named after his own father, telling Rose, “I hated being little Huey all my life. It’s better for the boy to have his own name so if things go bad for me, he can have his own name to make it on.” Another acknowledges Huey’s certainty that he would be a divisive figure once he won political office, and his concern that his son sharing his name would cause more harm than good. “When a man is in politics, he almost always winds up being repudiated,” he supposedly said. 2 Both of those stories point to the fact that even before he won a single elected position, Huey had understood that the career he planned for himself might create personal or political problems for his child. Huey’s prescience played out over the next seventeen years, as he parlayed the seat he won on the Railroad Commission into the governorship, followed by a place in the U.S. Senate and plans for a presidential run. Along the course of his meteoric rise, Huey became simultaneously the most reviled learning the ropes in the long family, 1918–1948 11 and the most beloved politician in Louisiana’s history. The name Huey Long became synonymous with graft, corruption, scandal, patronage, nepotism—even, according to some observers, dictatorship and fascism. Conversely, Long ended up revered as the first Louisiana politician to provide for the needs of the vast, unrepresented masses of his state. Had the benefits Huey provided been delivered without the objectionable tactics he used, Russell Long might have found his own life much easier, both inside and outside the political arena. As it was, however, even the name change could not shelter Russell from the storm his father had brewed. Over the course of his first thirty years, Russell Long watched his father win offices at all levels of government, garner an immense amount of personal political power, and create a dominant political machine. Following his father’s death in 1935, Russell dedicated himself to completing his education, and then serving in World War II, before setting up a law practice in Baton Rouge. At the same time, he benefited from the political guidance of his Uncle Earl, who prodded Russell to campaign for Long machine candidates and to run for office himself. By the time Russell won his first office—to the U.S. Senate in 1948—he had become a seasoned political veteran, trained by two masters , his father the Kingfish and his Uncle Earl. The Long Family Rose and Huey, along with Russell’s older sister, Rose Lolita, had moved to Shreveport less than a month before Russell’s birth. They came from Winnfield, Huey’s north-central Louisiana hometown. The move to Shreveport had been made for practical purposes: the city’s burgeoning oil industry promised new clients for Huey’s law practice, and as north Louisiana’s major urban area, it provided Huey with a broader political platform, an important consideration for a young man who aspired to much higher offices than the Railroad Commission. 3 Huey had been born on August 30, 1893, into the moderately learning the ropes in the long family, 1918–1948 12 prosperous family of Huey Pierce Long, known as Hugh, and Caledonia Tison Long. The Long family lived among the piney woods of Winn Parish, one of the poorest and most isolated areas of north-central Louisiana and a seedbed of political discontent . Huey was the seventh of nine remarkable children. Even in his youth, Huey clearly stood above the others. As a precocious youngster, his curiosity and intelligence foreshadowed the future heights he would attain, but his personality also displayed faults that would emerge time and again in his life. He lacked attention...