Hermann B. Deutsch

“ Tom Bird—a fellow physician—and above all, to Huey Long himself, a man whose memory for names and faces was truly phenomenal.
While Carl Weiss could well have been a crusader for any idealistic cause, it is difficult to accept unreservedly the proposition that one who had so very much to live for, whose happiness was so nearly complete, the best and most rewarding years of whose life still lay in the future, would give up all this and burden his conscience with two mortal sins—murder and what was tantamount to self-destruction—for an abstract concept of the general good. ”

“ We are prone to cherish certain myths. As though in wish-fulfillment we still tell our children Parson Weems’s absurd fable of the boy Washington, the cherry tree, and “I did it with my little hatchet.” Similarly, the myth of the bodyguard’s bullet, product of a compulsive necessity for political escape from the onus of assassination, will retain adherents and win fresh believers, despite the obvious fact that wherever else the truth may lie, the bodyguard-bullet hypothesis is false.
Paradox remains a continuing footnote to Huey Long’s career. ”

“ None the less, one cannot dismiss out of hand the possibility, however remote, that evidence can be framed, as it has been in documented cases—Sacco-Vanzetti, Tom Moony, Leo M. Frank; and that circumstantial evidence, even where no single link in the chain appears weak, leads now and then to false conclusions. But it can be said that in this instance the overwhelming weight of available evidence indicates that Weiss’s bullet was the cause of Huey Long’s death, and that no bullet from the guns of one or another of his bodyguards was a contributing factor in putting an end to his career. ”

“ No one questions the fact that a Nazi named Planetta murdered Engelbert Dollfuss in his chancellery, that Gavrilo Prinzip shot the Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo, or that President Castillo Armas of Guatemala was killed by a Communist among his bodyguards, Romero Vasquez, who underscored his part of the plot by committing suicide.
In modern history, however, one political assassination is still being hotly debated, not merely as to the motives which prompted the deed, but as to the identity of the one whose bullet inflicted the fatal wound. ”

“ For that one fractional moment every actor is motionless: Huey Long, with John Fournet at his left elbow and Murphy Roden just behind his right shoulder; Chick Frampton in the very act of stepping into the corridor from the double doors of the governor’s anteroom; Elliott Coleman down the hall in the direction of the House, near the door of the small private elevator reserved for the governor’s use; and among three or four individuals standing in the marble-paneled niche recessed into the wall opposite the double doors where Frampton is standing, a slim figure in a white suit. ”

“ Once hope for the patient had been abandoned, it was Seymour Weiss who was the nuncio bringing to the members of Huey’s family, in the room across the hall, tidings of great grief. Himself emotionally shaken to the depths of his being, he told Mrs. Long and the three children as gently as possible that the end was very near. They followed him across the hall to the bed where the dying man, barely conscious, was [126] drawing in and expelling shallow, noisy breaths. ”

“ Under direction of highway-department engineers, special crews had labored around the clock to have the vault ready. From the great bronze doors of the capitol the cortege was led by Castro Carrazo and his Louisiana State University student band. With drums muffled and the tempo of their march reduced to slow-step they played “Every Man a King,” so artfully transposed to a minor key that what was and still is essentially a doggerel became an impressive and moving dirge. ”

“ Without exception every surviving witness I approached has given me his version of what took place in the capitol corridor at the time of the shooting. With but one exception every witness who was present in the operating room and in the sickroom where Huey later died, has told me all that he saw, heard, or did on that occasion.
These several accounts do not agree at every point. Indeed, here and there they are rather widely at variance. For that very reason they merit belief. Such differences validate the integrity of testimony so given. ”

“ The next step was Huey’s Share-Our-Wealth promise that this movement would recognize no racial bars of any sort, that the division of shared wealth would include black as well as white on equal terms. “Five thousand a year and a span of mules,” the poor and underprivileged of both races told one another ecstatically. “With what I’m making now and the five thousand Huey Long’s going to give us, we’ll be in high cotton for true!” ”

“ Surrounded by fanatically loyal bodyguards, he was none the less done to death by a shy, retiring young stranger in whom neither he nor his myrmidons recognized any trace of menace. His injuries were critical and might in any case have proved fatal; but it was a decision on the part of the same Arthur Vidrine whom Huey Long had elevated to high [172] command which sealed the Kingfish’s doom. True, the alternative Dr. Vidrine chose was one many another physician, confronted by the same circumstances, might have selected inasmuch as mere delay in taking action could have proved fatal. ”

“ He converted most of his winnings into currency, packed them into an ordinary water-bucket, and carrying this, he marched triumphantly around and around the Opelousas courthouse square, shouting his exultation to the four winds.
He had been among the first to cheer Mason Spencer’s closing remarks in April 1935 at a special session during which the Kingfish brought about the enactment of a bill which to all intents and purposes gave him the sole right to appoint every commissioner and other polling-booth official in every voting precinct for every election throughout Louisiana. ”

“ Pending the arrival of surgeons from New Orleans, some semblance of order was being restored about the hospital. Highway motorcycle officers unsnarled the traffic jam in the Sanitarium’s small parking lot, set up guarded barriers, and thereafter admitted to the grounds no one who did not have a special permit.
It was during this interlude, too, that Ty Campbell finally brought Murphy Roden from the capitol to the hospital for treatment. ”

“ There was a faint stir of response.
“Huey, you are seriously hurt. Everything that can be done to help you is being done, but no one can ever say how such things will turn out. Now is the time to tell me where you put the papers and things that you took out of the bank vault. Where did you put them? Tell me where they are, Huey. Please don’t wait any longer.”
Thus the final thoughts he carried with him out of his life concerned a political campaign, his campaign for the presidency of the United States. ”

“ Rives saw the clean dressing that had been placed over the wound and the operational incision in the anterior wall of Long’s abdomen, he came to the conclusion that any bullet entering at that point in the manner described, most probably emerged in the area of the kidney, and was likely to have damaged that organ. It was for this reason that he asked whether any blood had been found in the patient’s urine, learning to his astonishment that the critically wounded man [152] had not even been catheterized to determine the existence and extent of kidney damage. ”

“ Still others, and among these are many of the physicians and nurses who knew Dr. Weiss well, feel certain to this day that he did not fire a shot at all, that he was not the sort of person who could have brought himself to take the life of another human being. It is their contention that Dr. Weiss merely threatened to strike the Kingfish with his fist—may indeed have done so, since Long did reach the hospital with an abrasion of the lip after he was rushed from the capitol to Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium. ”

“ The truth is that on the eve of Congress’ adjournment, Long was trying to build up against Roosevelt something he could tub-thump before the voters in the next year’s presidential campaign.
On the principle that “the best defense is an attack,” he was keeping the New Deal hierarchy in Washington so busily occupied on another front that he could take advantage of their preoccupation to infiltrate Louisiana’s federal patronage with his followers. ”

“ Within twenty-four hours of the most elaborate funeral ever held in Louisiana, attended by approximately 150,000 participants in the solemn rites of lamentation, Huey’s Praetorian Guard were up in arms against one another. Ready to yield instant obedience to their Kingfish, they were one and all determined never to render such homage to anyone of their own subordinate rank. ”

“ Short of surrendering to the police, he did all that lay in his power to identify himself as one who had attempted a mass murder of unprecedented proportions.
One could go down a long list of political assassinations throughout the world during the past century, and find that almost without exception the identity of the extroverted killer was not a matter of the slightest doubt. ”

“ In the light of past experience the conjecture that Long would in time have gained the presidency is not one casually to be shrugged aside. Had he ever attained “My First Days in the White House,” subjection of the large cities (not the rural areas) would have been his primary objective. Just as New Orleans was the last foothold of the carpetbaggers in the 1870s, Boston, New York, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Chicago, and others might have learned what it is like to live under the rule of force from without. ”

“ The inquest conducted by Coroner Tom Bird into the death of Huey Long occupied only a few minutes. The family had refused to authorize a necropsy, the results of which might well have confirmed or silenced proponents of the two-bullet theory. These still emphasize the fact that no small-caliber bullet was ever found among the projectiles picked up from the floor of the corridor where the shooting occurred. They argue that if a small-caliber bullet were found to be still in Huey’s body, the wound of exit must necessarily have been made by yet another missile. ”

“ The assassination was an act of reprisal for the gerrymander which would bring to an abrupt end the twenty-eight-year judicial career of Yvonne Weiss’s father through a fraudulent mockery of legislative procedure deliberately rigged to deny the parish of St. Landry the free exercise of home rule.
An abstract idealism inspired a quixotic young patriot to sacrifice himself on the altar of the common weal by destroying a dictatorship through the death of the autocrat who stood at its head. ”

“ Spencer said in slow and measured tones, “nor have I cried ‘Jail Caesar!’ But this ugly bill disfranchises the white people of Louisiana.... I can see blood on the marble floor of this capitol, for if you ride this thing through, it will travel with the white horse of death. In the pitiful story of Esau the Bible teaches us it is possible for a man to sell his own birthright. But the [180] gravestones on a thousand battlefields teach you that you cannot sell the birthright of another white man!”
Within five months there was blood on the marble floor of the capitol. ”

“ As nearly as anything human can be certain, it is sure that neither Dr. Weiss nor any of the Pavy clan would ever have dreamed of taking upon their consciences the killing of a fellow being, even in the heat of passion, over such a matter as the loss of a public office, a development they had discussed almost jocularly only a few hours before.
Only two theoretical assumptions thus remain as to the motive of Dr. Weiss in committing a violent act contrary to [163] all that was known of his nature. One is the idea advanced by Yvonne’s uncle, Dr. Pavy, that this was “an act of pure patriotism.” ”

“ He slept well that night—Friday—and rose refreshed to drive out to Audubon Park with Seymour Weiss in the latter’s spandy-new Cadillac, which had been delivered only the afternoon before, and would be ruined the next night by the reckless speed with which, not yet broken in, it was driven to Baton Rouge after news of the shooting reached New Orleans.
The morning was pleasant, and Senator Long enjoyed the game to the fullest. An indifferent golfer at best, he played primarily for the thrill of sending an occasional long drive screaming down the fairway. ”

“ Oscar Whilden is reported as saying: “I am out to murder, bulldoze, steal, or anything else to win this election.” An unidentified voice said: “I would draw in a lottery to go out and kill Long. It would only take one man, one gun, one bullet.” Another unidentified voice said: “I haven’t the slightest doubt but that Roosevelt would pardon anyone who killed Long.” And still another unidentified voice said: “The best way would be to just hang around Washington and kill him in the Senate.” ”

“ Much of the day’s discussion concerned itself with the potential candidates for the Long slate in the approaching January election. Most of the minor officials—state auditor, register of the land office, commissioner of agriculture, and the like—would be endorsed for re-election as a matter of course. All had been Long stalwarts for years. But under the constitution a governor was prohibited from succeeding himself, and since Justice Fournet’s elevation to the state Supreme Court, the lieutenant-governorship had been filled by an acting president pro tem of the Senate. ”

“ Many Louisianians, for example, well knew that in his weekly, American Progress, Long never referred to the scion of a certain socially prominent family as anything but “Kinky” Soandso.
Even more recent in public memory was his insistent conjunction of Dudley LeBlanc with Negro officers in his “Coffin Club,” the outlawed burial-insurance society. Moreover, the knowledge that a derogatory allegation was untrue never deterred Huey Long from trumpeting it forth at least by innuendo on every stump during a political campaign. ”

“ Over a period of at least three years a war chest for the presidential campaign he planned to wage in 1936 had been growing steadily. It included not merely money—a levy on the salaries of all public employees under his domination in Louisiana, and major campaign contributions from corporations that felt themselves obligated to show tangible appreciation for past favors or sought to insure themselves against future reprisal—it included also a solid stockpile of affidavits about the boondoggles of divers federal agencies. ”

“ On the other hand, if he performed an emergency operation, and it was discovered later that the critically wounded patient would have had a better chance for recovery if some other procedure had been followed, he would still be blamed for a great man’s death. No one could confront a more harrowing choice.”
On the other hand, it can be taken for granted that Arthur Vidrine must at least momentarily have entertained the thought of the rewards and renown that would be his portion if by timely, courageous, and skillful surgery he, rather than others, saved the life of the Kingfish of Louisiana. ”

“ But no one knew better than Franklin Roosevelt that much of his success in the Long-toured regions was due to the gentleman from Winnfield. He was one of the few political leaders who did not underestimate the Long potential, who correctly evaluated the Long influence in overturning the politics of Arkansas to make Hattie Caraway the first woman ever elected to a full term in the United States Senate. He had few illusions, if any, on the score of the national organization of personal followers Long was building through his Share-Our-Wealth clubs. ”

“ In these respects, as in matters of politesse, Roosevelt was the very antithesis of the gentleman from Louisiana. Yet neither would brook opposition from within his partisans’ ranks. The breach between Roosevelt and as selfless a supporter as James A. Farley was to all intents and purposes identical with the disagreements that broke the ententes between Long and every campaign manager and newspaper publisher who had ever supported his candidacy. Escaping conviction on impeachment charges, he announced: “I’ll have to grow me a new crop of legislators in Louisiana.” ”

“ But so widespread was public interest in the Kingfish, who had challenged Roosevelt, and who only a month before had said the New Deal was at least cognizant of a plot to murder him, that newspapers in many distant cities lost no time in dispatching special correspondents and photographers to Baton Rouge to cover the day’s top news story. The fight to save the Kingfish’s life was just beginning. ”

“ Nearly thirty years have passed since those notations were entered on an official form to be filed in the archives of East Baton Rouge parish. Death has by now claimed many of the witnesses whose testimony might have been of value in determining what actually took place in the marble-walled corridor where the Kingfish, hurrying along with characteristically flapping stride, received his mortal wound. But many other presential witnesses yet survive.
No inquest worthy of the name has ever been conducted to decide and record officially what the circumstances of Huey Long’s assassination were. ”

“ No one was abroad on the streets; lights in the houses, yes, but no [110] people or cars on the streets. To outward appearances, it was the most deserted community I ever saw, and going to Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium we had to drive right through the center of town.
“At the hospital we were met by highway police, identified ourselves, which was required, and then we were conducted to the entrance where someone else took us up to the ward where Huey had been placed....”
Word of the shooting of Huey Long had spread through the capitol’s corridors and offices with almost explosive speed. ”