timely and instructive warning from history -- 24-year-old lawyer Huey
Long defends anti-war Louisiana State Senator S. J. Harper in 1918
================
Huey Long, the populist "Kingfish" of Louisiana, Senator, creater of the
national "Share Our Wealth" program and threatening Democratic candidate
bidding fair to depose Franklin Roosevelt in the 1936 elections until
gunned
down in 1935 was, bar none except possibly Gandhi, the greatest (in terms
of
ability, effort and chosen causes) political mind of the 20th-century.
Here are excerpts from T. Harry Williams, Huey Long (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1969) about a famous case of the 24-year-old lawyer, of whom
Supreme
Court Justice (and former President) WIlliam Howard Taft would later say
was
one of the finest legal minds ever to argue a case before his court:
Full-fledged laywer at age twenty-one.
"Whatever deception Huey may have employed in arranging the examination,
he used none when he came before the committee. He was well prepared and
serious, and he answered the questions in a straightforward manner and
with
accuracy. Only once did he resort to impudence, and he did it knowing
that
a brash answer woud please the interrogator. George H. Terriberry, an
expert on admiralty law, asked what young Mr. Long knew about his
specialty.
Nothing, Huey replied. Terriberry pressed the issue. "What would you do
in
a case involving admiralty law?" Huey handled this one easily. "I'd
associate Mr. Terriberry with me," he said, "and divide the fee with him."
The committee had no hesitation in passing him. Almost immediately, on
May
15, 1915, he appeared before the supreme court and was formally admitted
to
the bar. ..."
Dark Counsel from "Faust"
"In the course of his work as a compensation lawyer he had frequently
denounced the Louisiana employers' liability law for the meager payments
it
allowed to injured workers, but these statements were scarecely heard
beyond
Winn parish. Then in the spring of 1916 he went to Senator Harper, who
was
a member of the senate committee on capital and labor and sympathetic with
the working class, and showed the old man some amendments he had drafted
to
the law. His proposals advocated raising the maximum amount allowable in
injury cases and requiring companies to pay damage assessments in a lump
sum
instead of installments. Harper readily agreed to present them to the
committee, but it probably did not occur to him that he could use the
young
lawyer's help in Baton Rouge. Huey accompanied him, nonetheless, probably
having invited himself.
"Huey had never seen a legislature in session before, and the sight of
this one filled his idealistic young mind with disgust. Them members
seemed
afraid of some mysterious power, he recalled; they kowtowed before it and
guarded their talk as if fearing they "would slip on something" if they
ventured too far. Around the capital he met an older man named "Faust",
whom he did not otherwise identify, who revealed to him what the hidden
power was -- it was the great business interests and particularly the
Standard Oil Company. But the people could change the situation, Huey
argued. Yes, agreed, Faust, but they could not be aroused. A leader who
tried to stir them would be hired over by the interests, Faust said.
"Or,"
he concluded, smiling at Huey, they will snuff you out if they can." p.
109
First Showdown, a Promising Defeat
"...He was denied permission to speak and was ridiculed when he tried to
get the floor. Once when he arose, the chairman asked him whom he
represented. "Several thousand common laborers," Huey answered. Were
they
paying him anything? the chairman pressed. No, snapped Huey. "They seem
to
have good sense," the chairman observed, to loud laughter. Other memebers
of the committee wanted to know why a twenty-two-year-old lawyer who had
just begun practice thought he was competent to advise the legislature on
such a weighty issue. Finally, toward midnight, somebody moved that the
committee adjourn without taking any action, a procedure tantamount to
rejecting the amendments.
Huey had taken all that he could. Without asking for recognition, he
got
up from his seat at the foot of the table and began to speak. Later he
thought well enought of his remarks to re****duce them in his
autobiography.
His rendition was probably accurate for the most part, although it bears
some evidence of having been polished up. His opening sentence revealed
that his protestations of political innocence had been nothing but
pretense.
"For twenty years has the Louisiana Legislature been dominated by the
henchment and attorneys of the interests," he cried. "Those seeking
reforms have from necessity bowed their heads in regret and shame when
witnessing the victories of these corruping influences at this capitol."
ANd now these same influences had the brazen audacity to deny to a
laborer's family a fair compensation for a grievous injury or a lost life.
And to make it worse, they claimed that they were acting in the name of
justice. "What subterfuge!" Huey declared. It was like an infidel
invoking God or an anarchist calling on the government for protection.
These were strange, strong words to fling at a legislative committee.
Huey was charging that his hearers -- and the majority of the legislators
--
were purchased tools of the cor****ations. The committee memebers were
outraged and immediately proceeded to express their feelings by voting
down
the amendments.
Huey defending anti-war socialist Senator S. J. Harper brought up on
charges
under the "Espionage Act" in 1917
"It had been a spectacular political debut for Huey, and he was grateful
to the man who made it possible, Senator Harper. He had a genuine regard
for the old solon who had lent him money when he went to Tulane and come
to
his aid in the DeLoach case. He had to respect too the way Harper had
pulled himself up in the world. As a youth Harper had come to Winnfield
from the country and had worked as a carpenter. Often he made only
seventy-five cents a day, but he saved his money and eventually had
enought
to start a general merchandise store and to become a cotton buyer. He
was
also able to indulge a taste for reading. He bought books, acquiring over
the course of the years a fair-sized library, and as he read he meditated,
he developed a set of distinctly unconventional ideas. He was
vociferously
against war, the Bible, Wall Street bankers, corsets and high heels for
women, intoxicating liquors, strict discipline in prisons, the microbe
theory [showing he read Tolstoy -- de], algebra, and any new notion about
education. The list of things he favored was shorter and included
socialism, practical education, and limitations on wealth. He was
exceedingly critical of clergymen and was probably an atheist. Like some
other rurual radicals of the time, he was convinced that most of the big
international bankers were Jews and were working together to further the
power of world Jewry. His study of their machinations led him to
correspond
with Henry Klein of New York City, a Jew who had become a Christian, and
who
had written pamphlets denouncing bankers, the Standard Oil Comapny, and
the
Jews in general. Klein apprised Harper of even wider ramifications of the
Jewish menace. The Zionists, working throught the governing Sanhedrin of
the Jews, were plotting nothing less than the takeover of the United
States
and other great countries. To prove the charge, Klein supplied Harper
with
a copy of a document detailing the plan, the Protocols of Zion, which
later
scholar****p would expose as fraudulent but which seemed genuine enough to
Harper. He gave free voice to all his ideas, and it was a mark of the
unorthodoxzy of Winn voters that they would elect such a man to represent
them in the legislature.
Some recorders of the Long story have concluded that Harper was young
Huey's political mentor and that the senator's economic notions formed the
basis of Long's subsequent economic philosophy. The supposition stems
from
the known intimacy of the two men and from an assumption that the older
one
must have been the dominant partner. ALthough the conjecture has a
certain
plausibility about it, it is, like many that have been made about Long,
erroneous. Contem****aries who knew both menwell state emphatically that
Harper had very little influence on Huey. If influence was exerted, they
imply, Huey exerted it. This is apparent even without their testimony.
It
simply was not in Huey's nature to follow anybody out of blind admiration
or
to borrow ideas blindluy. He was too calculating to do either. He could
admire Harper's independence and courage, and he could agree with some fo
the senator's ideas, such as placing limitations on wealth. But he was
too
realistic to commit himself further. He could see thea the breadth of
Harper's intellectual interests was a weakness in a politician -- the old
man embraced too many ideas, so many that some of them had to be
eccentric.
It was all right to talk about limiting wealth, for example, but to
advocate
socialism was something else. It was fine to condemn Wall Street bankers,
but to denounce Jewish bankers was another thing. If only for his ideas
about Jews, Huey would have looked on Harper with condescension. He had
no
strong prejudices of any kind himself, but if he had had, he would have
concealed them -- a politician was downright foolish if he alienated any
group of voters.
Still, he felt an obligation to help Harper, and he seized an early
op****tunity to repay it. The senator had been on outspoken opponent of
America's entrance into the World War. He muted his sentiments somewhat
after the war was declared, but then he demanded that it be financed by
conscripting wealth. Specifically he advocated that the government issue
legal tender certificates instead of bonds; it should emulate the Civil
War
example of "our Grand Old Ex-president Abraham Lincoln," he said, using
brave words for a Southern politician. [note: maybe not so brave -- the
people of Longs' and Harper's Winnfield Parish were opposed to secession
in
the war between the states, thinking that the secession was a only a rich
man's cause. --de] At first Harper confined his remarks to conversations
and correspondence, but inevitably he grew bolder. He published a
pamphlet
detailing his views. Entitled The Issues of the Day -- Free Speech --
Financial Slavery, it denounced bankers and war profiteers, charged that
the
war was being waged not for democracy but for Wall Street, and called for
a
conscription of wealth. A minority of people already owned most of the
national wealth, the pamphlet claimed and they would own all of it before
this war was ended. Harper followed up this blast by announcing early in
1918 that he would be a candidate for Congress. He had gone too far.
Popular sup****t of the war was as intense and huysterical in Louisiana as
in
other parts of the country, and public officials were just as ready to
crush
dissent. A federal grand jury in ALexandria promptly indicted Harper on
the
absurd charge that he had violated the Espionage Act.
Huey volunteered to serve as the senator's counsel. His first step,
after arranging bail for Harper, was to issue a statement to the press
denouncing the indictment as political persecution of a man whose only
crime
had been to oppose the war profiteers. Then, having himself mad the case
a
political one, he demanded an early hearing to take advantage of the
atmosphere he had created. At the trial in Shreve****t Huey associated his
more experienced brother Julius with with him as co-copunsel. WHile
Julius
handled the preliminary motions, Huey circulated among the prospective
jurymen, all of whom, he had discovered were being shadowed by government
agents. He picked out those whom he thought were unfriendly to his case
and
ostentatiously bought them drinks and engaged them in whispered
conversations. When the jurors were called, the government asked each
one
who had been seen with Huey if he had talked about the case. Each one
answred truthfully that he had not. But the skeptical government
attorneys
excused them and thus exhausted all but one of their peremptory
challenges.
At this point a recess was called, and Huey was fearful that what he later
called his "pr****" had been discovered. But when the court reconvened,
the
presiding judge merely read a statement reprimanding Huey for his remarks
to
the press. Huey and Julius were eventually able to win an aquittal for
their client, although not necessarily because of any skill on their part
or
of Huey's sharp work with the jury. The government simply had a shaky
case.
Huey had been quite right to label the prosecution as political and to
fight
it on political grounds.
... Huey hardly ever acted out of pure sentiment or simple motives, and
he did not so act now. Governing everything that he did in this episode
was
a cynical doubt as to what the war was for - he did not believe that it
was
a crusade to make the world safe for democracy. This conviction was
perhaps
his real reason for helping Harper, who had the same suspicion.
.... He was always a little uncomfortable at later charges that he had
been a
draft dodger. But he met every criticism with boldness. "I did not go
into
that war," he proclaimed in the Senate, "I was within the draft age. I
could have gone, except for my dependents. I did not go because I did not
want to go, aside from that fact. . . . I did not go because I was not mad
at anybody over there, for another reason. I did not go because it was
not
the first time in history that the sons of America had volunteered
themselves as cannon fodder under the misguided apprehension that it was
going to be a fight for humanity," when in reality they had been used to
centralize "the wealth of the United States and of the world in the hands
of
the few." Curiously the attack on his war record came in the late
twenties
and early thirties. It was a time when such an accusation helped rather
than hurt his career. Then a man who had realized the "phoniness" of the
World War was thought to be a smart one, indeed."
Huey's skepticism about the nature of the war was a direct result of
his
continuing study of a subject that had interested him for years --
maldistribution of wealth. If a few rich men dominated the economy, he
seemed to reason, then they must be running the government and directing
everything that it did. Early in 1918 he expressed his ideas in a letter
to
the pricipal newspapers of the state. In this document he cited figures
to
prove that two percent of the people owned severy per cent of the wealth.
And every decade this concentration of wealth was increasing, he wrote.
Its
most unfortunate effect was that the ordinary man could no longer provide
an
education his children. "What do yhou think of such a game of life, so
brutally and cruelly unfair, with the dice so loaded that the child of
today
must enter it with only fourteen chances out of a thousand in his favor of
getting a college education. . . . ? he asked.
[Better stop here -- I'd like to type out the whole book --de]
--------
Vote for one:
George W. Bush
John Kerry
Huey Long
(me too)
Read more about Huey Long here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dick_eastman_populism/messages/1
[Also: There was a good movie staring John Goodman as Huey Long, called
Kingfish -- you likely won't find it at Blockbuster or Hollywood Video
--
but maybe if you have a locally owned video store in town ... ]
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