Huey long who is he

Note : A copy of the Share Our Wealth proposal can be found at the end of this entry. The Longs were also a deeply religious family, studying the Bible daily, attending church twice a week and never missing a gospel revival. Caledonia Long imbued her children with a strong sense of righteousness and fairness. In addition to her values, Caledonia appears to have passed her brilliant intellect and photographic memory to Huey. Caledonia, was determined that her nine children be well educated to achieve their fullest potential.

There was no public school in Winnfield, so she home-schooled her children until more formal education became available. In , at age 11, Huey started fourth grade in public school. Far ahead of his class, he was quite bored. Huey was an excellent debater in high school and won a scholarship to Louisiana State University as third prize in a statewide debating competition in Baton Rouge.

However, he could not afford the textbooks or room and board to attend. Instead he decided to become a traveling salesman. At age 17, he began touring the South for various companies, selling everything from cooking oil to patent medicines.

Early Career : Huey Long was a natural salesman and immediately exceeded all expectations. He learned how to advertise, draw a crowd, and dress well to make a good impression.

He found that music not only attracted people but put them in a buying mood. All of these elements would later appear in his campaigns for public office. He married Rose in , and they had three children: a daughter named Rose and two sons, Russell and Palmer. When the sales jobs dried up Long cobbled together three semesters of law classes at the University of Oklahoma and Tulane University in New Orleans. At age 21, he convinced an examining board to allow him to take the Louisiana bar exam, and he passed easily.

He used his position on the commission to build a name for himself as a champion of the common man, fighting against utility rate increases and oil pipeline monopolies.

He became chairman of the Public Service Commission in and won statewide acclaim after he sued the Cumberland Telephone Company for unjustly raising its rates by 20 percent and successfully arguing the case on appeal before the U.

Supreme Court. The phone company was forced to send refund checks to 80, overcharged customers. In Long made his first statewide bid for public office by running for governor at age In an election dominated by race and the influence of the Ku Klux Klan, he refused to play the race card and instead campaigned on issues of economic equality.

Long ran a close third, missing the run-off election by less than 7, votes. As Governor, Long immediately pushed a number of bills through the legislature to fulfill his campaign promises. During his term these initiatives resulted in 9, miles of new roads, new toll-free bridges, free textbooks, adult education programs, night courses for adult literacy, hospitals and piping natural gas to New Orleans and many others.

Long expanded the campus of Louisiana State University LSU , tripled enrollment, and built LSU into one of the best schools in the South and the eleventh largest state university in the country. Long lowered tuition and instituted scholarship programs that enabled poor students to attend. It cannot be changed while people suffer.

The only way it can be changed is to make the lives of these people decent and respectable. No one will ever hear political opposition out of me when that is done. Read more Huey Long quotes. See additional resources. Search HueyLong. Childhood From an early age, it was evident that Huey Long was a true original. Education Blessed with a brilliant mind and photographic memory, Huey Long easily circumvented the many barriers to education in Louisiana and managed to become a lawyer without receiving a single diploma.

Early Career Huey Long began his career as a traveling salesman, displaying a knack for connecting with the common man, a skill he would later apply as a young attorney defending the disadvantaged.

Entry Into Politics At age 25, Huey Long made a splash in Louisiana politics on the Louisiana Railroad Commission , fighting corporate monopolies and reducing utility rates.

He had called a special meeting of the state legislature. One of the many things on the evening's agenda was a bill to gerrymander rearrange the boundaries of the district of one of Long's political enemies, Judge Benjamin Pavy. The events that followed have been a mystery for decades.

Walking down the corridor of the Capitol Building, Long is thought to have been greeted by Pavy's son-in-law, Dr. Carl Weiss, a physician practicing in Baton Rouge.

Then, as reported by witnesses, Weiss shot Long at close range in the abdomen. Long cried out and then stumbled down the cooridor. Weiss was immediately shot and killed by Long's bodyguards. The number of shots fired is not known. All told, 30 bullet wounds were found in front of Weiss' body, 29 in the back, and 2 in the head, but it was impossible to tell how many were caused by the same bullet entering and exiting. Huey had disappeared from view.

Jimmie O'Connor, an associate, found the senator in an isolated stairwell. He was rushed to Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium. Long whispered "I wonder why he shot me," to O'Connor. When he was informed of his assailant, Huey shook his head, saying, "I don't know him. Arthur Vidrine, the physician attending Long, discovered that the bullet, from a. It was necessary to perform surgery to keep the senator from bleeding to death.

Huey Long sent for 2 of the finest surgeons in New Orleans to perform the surgery, but they were delayed in traffic and wouldn't make it to the hospital in time. It fell on Dr. Vidrine to perform the surgery. In , Long ran for the U. Senate and won, but left his Senate seat unattended for months while he consolidated his power in Louisiana before departing the state, installing cronies to take his place as governor.

Long would demand a special session of the state legislature when he visited, pushing through his agenda at a startling pace that ignored standard procedures. In one five-day session, 44 bills were passed.

Many of these bills were meant to divert power to Long behind the scenes, including those that transferred powers away from local authorities in the courts, police, elections and licensing to state authorities. Labeled a socialist by both political parties, Long started his own newspaper, the American Progress , to spread his ideas.

Share Our Wealth political clubs appeared around the country, boasting over seven million members in 27, clubs. Long allowed blacks to participate, but only in segregated groups.

Long initially supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt , but felt threatened by him. In , Long wrote a speculative book called My First Days In The White House , which gave a fictional account of how Long expected his first days as president to unfold. Governor Oscar K. Allen declared martial law and called in the militia.

The skirmish moved to the airport where there was a brief armed altercation. That summer, Long claimed to have uncovered a plot to assassinate him involving four congressmen, the mayor of New Orleans and two former Louisiana governors.

On September 8, , Long arrived in Baton Rouge to take part in a special legislative session when he was approached by Dr. Carl Weiss, the son-in-law of Judge Benjamin Pavy. Pavy stood to lose his position during the session after Long revived a rumor about black children in the Pavy family to discredit him professionally.

Weiss shot Long at close range.