Speaker 1: You am now listening to soft Core History.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome back to Softcore History. I'm your
host for the week Damage Ester, joined as always by
Robert Fox.
Speaker 1: What's going on?
Speaker 2: We are a little worse for the wear?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, me, I'm more so. I think I'm more
so from illness than from hangover because I had pumped
my stomach full of meat before I went out drinking.
Speaker 2: Although tough way to open up the episode with the
local events.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, we were not out drinking at Buford's. Uh so,
don't worry about that. We went south, you way south? Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, thoughts with everybody that was affected at Beuford's.
I've been there so many times a lot. It's like
a huge sports bar.
Speaker 1: Bufords, and it's previous iteration steampunk. Yeah yeah, I've been
to that bar a bunch of times.
Speaker 2: Many a first date there in my twenties.
Speaker 1: Great cocaine bathrooms upstairs. I think it's downstairs too. It's
just like these like heavy metal wall like ceiling, the floors,
stalls like that. The first time I walked in, I
was like, it's like, you know what you made this for?
Nobody needs to poop here?
Speaker 2: Now, there's a lot of people wipe in their noses.
Speaker 1: There's even like a cell phone thing like a special
stand in each in each tall right at right, at
like chest level.
Speaker 2: I don't want to make light of what just happened,
so I'm gonna move on.
Speaker 1: I not make in light of it. It's just I've
been there a lot. I'm giving you how well I
know that.
Speaker 2: Bar inside and out. They have like a huge screen
in the back to watch games.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's a great spot.
Speaker 2: It's great.
Speaker 1: They used to have a three one three there. I
don't know if they still do well.
Speaker 2: Today we're gonna talk about something totally unrelated, not going
with the SEO, not really talking about Iran right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like people need a break. I need
a break from everything.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna talk about politics.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, let's fucking go finally, something.
Speaker 2: Light, specifically one politician.
Speaker 1: Okay, So goofy, goofy guy.
Speaker 2: You could say that. Okay, Today we're talking about a
man whose own philosophy has been described with a wider
net than anything I've ever seen. They're calling him McCarthyism,
European fascism, Stalinism. Can't really pin this guy down.
Speaker 1: Okay, does he just like hop around? Or?
Speaker 2: A New York Times article in nineteen eighty one said,
my guess is that he was a remarkable set of contradictions,
still baffling to biographers. But I had great interest in
what he did in this world, and a greater interest
in him as a focus of myth.
Speaker 1: Who is I'm like, you can't even guess the air out?
Did he die in the eighties and that's why they
were writing about him?
Speaker 2: No? Okay, died in the thirties.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay.
Speaker 2: He has been called a denigogue and the closest thing
to a dictatorship in America.
Speaker 1: Were you an FDR today?
Speaker 2: No? Okay, one of the FDR's main opponents, though, oh
all right, on his side.
Speaker 1: On his side, okay, the only one I remember, because
I'm not I don't know much.
Speaker 2: About like the I think you should know who this is.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll just say all my FDR now is really
just World War Two. And then obviously we did that
episode on how eventually he came to be uh butt
heads with Joe Kennedy.
Speaker 2: Wall butt heads with this guy first?
Speaker 1: Okay, in the thirties. I assume mm hmm, okay.
Speaker 2: Early thirties, right during the depression, in the heat of it. Yeah,
but you should know this guy because you were married
in his state in Louisvier. Is this that?
Speaker 1: Do they make a movie about him? Two movies about him?
Making a remake James Gandelfini.
Speaker 2: I'm unfamiliar with that, okay, but as Huey Long, Huey Long, Okay,
I don't think that was him. Huey Long.
Speaker 1: I do know the name. Actually, I don't know much
about him, but I do. I have read the name before.
Speaker 2: The King of Louisiana. Hell yeah, he's also a nickname,
the Kingfish.
Speaker 1: The Kingfish. Yeah, that's a good that's a good name.
I'm looking at this movie now to see if it
is that. That's a that's a that's a good loser
in a name too, like it's a bay you name.
Oh yeah, I Kingfish don't know you.
Speaker 2: So. Long was born the seventh of nine children into
a middle class farming family in a poor Louisiana town
in eighteen ninety three. This town of Winfield was oddly progressive, Okay.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, if it's poor, you know what I mean,
there's a decent chance they'll just adopt that those politics
for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they actually stayed loyal to the Union during
the Civil War.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, look at them? Was it was it like
they just didn't have slaves, Like they're one of the
few Southerners who were like, boy, this is fun fucking
our economy.
Speaker 2: Possibly, but it was just more like, why are you
going to fight for the rich man? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Fifth fair enough. Yeah, so it's kind of like that
Matthew McConaughey movie Too Different that was not in Louisiana,
but they were like, I'm tired of dying for rich man.
Speaker 2: Long was homeschooled until age eleven before entering the public
school system, and I guess just stunted on his classman's
for a few years and convinced his teachers to let
him skip seventh grade.
Speaker 1: Sure, good for him.
Speaker 2: Not that Louisiana had the best education system at the time.
Speaker 1: He probably were now, he probably stunted on them by
being the only one that could read. Like his parents
just like sat him down and taught him how to
read at home. Then he got to school. Yeah, and
you have a real leg up when you're the only
one in class that can read the books you really
start throwing the curve.
Speaker 2: At Winfield High School, he and his friends formed a
secret society, with their mission being to run things, laying
down certain rules that students would have to follow.
Speaker 1: So a little high school illuminati. Yeah, what was the
one at Alabama?
Speaker 2: That's so stupid. Machine she I love the machine, the
fucking ma she Oh my god. The faculty learned of
Long's antics and warned him, Hey, we have school rules.
Can you just chill out? Yeah, just follow those?
Speaker 1: Can you not create a secret underground society slash government
like your children? This is pointless.
Speaker 2: So he fired back by creating flyers that criticized.
Speaker 1: Teachers anonymous, I assume, but everyone knew.
Speaker 2: And the state mandated fourth year of secondary education. Uh no,
non anonymous. He was expelled in nineteen ten.
Speaker 1: Okay, so he was. He put his name, I mean,
even if it was anonymous, so they know they know
he's fucking doing that. He was against four years of
high school. Well buddy, you can leave early if you want.
Speaker 2: Long then successfully petitioned to fire the principal to who
like the school board, the town.
Speaker 1: That's really funny.
Speaker 2: So he got them fired. But then he didn't turn
to the school just.
Speaker 1: Took him down with him.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if I'm going down, you're coming right down with me.
How do you even get him fired? Like erd expelled student?
Just like why would they listen to him? What was
this principal doing?
Speaker 2: He's very good at arguing clearly. At a state debate
competition in Baton Rouge, he won full tuition to LSU.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, go Taggers, But.
Speaker 2: Because the scholarship did not cover textbooks or living expenses,
his family could not afford to send him to attend,
and he was also unable to go because he didn't
technically graduate high school.
Speaker 1: Ah okay, so he got the scholarship but didn't have kings. Like,
can I get cash? Then?
Speaker 2: I guess I don't think he got it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably not. They're probably like no, because there's no
money involved.
Speaker 2: Have saved us? Yeah, well that's your coin.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no there's no check to write. You just
go for free. Doesn't cost to It doesn't cost for
us to pay for you what it costs for you
to pay for you, right, so fuck off.
Speaker 2: Instead, he entered the workforce as a traveling salesman in
the rural south.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, a lot of poor women with vacuum cleaners
they didn't end up wanting.
Speaker 2: In September nineteen eleven, Long attending seminary class at Oklahoma
Baptist University at the urge of his mother, a devout
Baptist Okay. Living with his brother, George. Long attended the
school for only one semester, rarely appearing at lectures, and decided,
you know what preaching is just now for.
Speaker 1: Me, Well, it sounds like he would prefer to preach
about himself.
Speaker 2: So he went to law school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go, two sides of the same coin.
Speaker 2: He attended the University of Oklahoma College of Law for
a semester in nineteen twelve.
Speaker 1: How do you afford that? I guess he's been working.
Speaker 2: He borrowed one hundred dollars from his brother, Okay, but
then he immediately lost that at the roulette tables in
Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1: That it actually doesn't sound on brands so far for
this guy. He's see. I mean, he's like fast and loose,
but he doesn't sound.
Speaker 2: Like he gets bit by the gambling bud.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that'll do it.
Speaker 2: And buddy, I've been there, I'm there right now.
Speaker 1: How'd you go for dude?
Speaker 2: Ah?
Speaker 1: He lost okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: Did not pull through turn money. While he was studying
law part time, he continued to work as a salesman.
Of the four classes Long took, he received one incomplete
and three s's. He later confessed he learned little because
there was too much excitement with all those gambling houses
around the law school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's just so, he's just skipping lectures to go
to Indian casinos or whatever.
Speaker 2: I've been to those Oklahoma casinos too. They're not very good.
Speaker 1: They're not fun. Have you been to like the big
fancy one, the.
Speaker 2: One on the Texas border.
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. I went for the World Long Drive Competition
in like twenty sixteen. Nice because that's where it was
being held.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wanted to see if I could enter it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, then you show up late.
Speaker 2: I was. I was like a day late. Okay, but
hit the blackjack tables and you had to pay an annie.
Oh yeah, you six dollars for five dollars hand.
Speaker 1: That sucks.
Speaker 2: So it's like a dollar always goes to the house anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're getting taxed.
Speaker 2: You're getting taxed like you're.
Speaker 1: Gonna fucking win most of the time. Anyway.
Speaker 2: It's just really turned me off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that sucks a lot.
Speaker 2: He then met his future wife, Rose McConnell, had a
baking contest he had to promote shortening that he was selling.
The two began a two and a half year relationship
and married in April of nineteen thirteen. They had three
kids as well. On their wedding day, Long had no
cash with them and had to borrow ten dollars from
his fiance to pay the.
Speaker 1: Priest ten dollars.
Speaker 2: In nineteen what thirteen.
Speaker 1: That is so much money to have to give a
priest to marry you in nineteen guest day.
Speaker 2: Of your life? Right, I guess you wouldn't pay ten
dollars and marry wife again?
Speaker 1: What's the one? What's the twenty twenty or why? I guess? Yeah,
what's the twenty twenty six equivalent of that? That's got
to be a stupid amount.
Speaker 2: So let's go January of nineteen thirteen.
Speaker 1: Ten dollars. I'm guessing.
Speaker 2: Oh, it goes all the way back to exactly nineteen thirteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's when the inflation calculator starts. That's sweet.
Speaker 2: It's got to be like a girl three hundred and thirty.
Speaker 1: Bucks three hundred. Okay, that's maybe that's right, Maybe that's right.
Speaker 2: How much did you pay the guy to do your
little ceremony? It's like ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Nothing, who's a friend?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you had to pull something out for him.
Speaker 1: He would never I think we did give him a present.
I'm pretty sure we got a gift.
Speaker 2: I would hope. Yeah, just doing it. Have the goodness
of his heart.
Speaker 1: So long ago, I don't fucking know.
Speaker 2: Shortly after the marriage, Long revealed to his wife his
aspirations to for a statewide office, the governorship, the Senate,
and ultimately the presidency.
Speaker 1: I like that from I mean from it. Clearly from
a very young age, he was just looking around at everyone.
Speaker 2: And being like, I'm smarter than you are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just want to spit on your heads, like
I stand above you.
Speaker 2: His entire platform was to kind of represent the little guy. Yeah,
the poors, yeah, taxi, elite, oat, the rich.
Speaker 1: All that fun stuff. But he was at but he's
an actual poor person saying that, and not not like
some cul de sac dwelling person with a grad school
degree that they can't pay off.
Speaker 2: Not a NEPO baby.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Long enrolled at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans.
In the fall of nineteen fourteen, after a year of study,
he successfully petitioned Louisiana Supreme Court for permission to take
the bar test. And yeah, he just passed with flying colors.
Speaker 1: Yeah that sounds a r right. That's interesting too that,
uh I think so he did that, uh like just
took basically just took the bar, right, like, didn't finish
law school, just took the bar. And I think Louisiana
is also the state that Frank abagnahil Junior. I believe
so Yah passed the bar, which is weird to me
by just like studying his dick off and like because
he lied to everything, which is weird to me because
my parents have said that the louis who are both attorneys,
you don't know, they've told me before that the Louisiana
bar is like the weirdest fucking bar test in America.
Speaker 2: Just like the most obscure question.
Speaker 1: It's just like, well, their system of law is just
like a little bit different.
Speaker 2: It's America.
Speaker 1: That's Napoleonic code type of shit. And yeah, that's just
it's just they're just like if you go to law
school and then go down to Louisiana and trying to
take a bar like you're fucked. I think Louisiana, Texas
and maybe California or all kind of hard, but Louisiana
is hard because it's like he went to law school
in America then have to go take a law test
in a borderline different country.
Speaker 2: Nineteen fifteen, Long established the private practice in Windfield. He
represented poor plainiffs, usually in worker compensation cases. Long avoided
fighting in World War One by obtaining a draft deferment
on the grounds that he was married and had a
dependent child. You get out of the draft for that,
I guess, so you're good.
Speaker 1: Woo, I'm uscle forty.
Speaker 2: So oh we got at a world war. I don't
think that matters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it mattered less. Certainly they're not putting me on
the front line, so I'm getting a desk job at
this point.
Speaker 2: Listen, you're just as good as an eighteen year old
to get blown up by a drunk.
Speaker 1: I agree with that. I agree with that. All meets
the same at the end of the day.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighteen, Long invested one fifty dollars in a
well that struck oil. However, the Standard Oil Company refused
to accept any of its oil in its pipelines, costing Long.
His investment episode served as a catalyst for Long's lifelong
hatred of Standard Oil Company.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was just and I assume that spread
out to like most corporations eventually, where he was just like,
these guys are fucking everyone.
Speaker 2: That same year, Long entered the race to serve on
the three seat Louisiana Railroad Commission. In the Democratic primary,
Long polled second behind incumbent Burke Bridges, which is a
solid name.
Speaker 1: That is good.
Speaker 2: That's just Burke Bridges over there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sold Burke.
Speaker 2: Since no candidate garnered a majority of the votes, a
runoff election was held, for which Long campaign tirelessly across
northern Louisiana. The race was close, but Long ultimately defeated
Burke by just six hundred and thirty six votes.
Speaker 1: Damn and by the way Railroad Commission, I don't know
how it worked then worked now in that state, But
in Texas railroad comissioner deals with oil among obviously railroads too,
but like oil is I think a part of their purview.
So this guy got fucked by Standard Oil and was
immediately like what office.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's exactly what it did. So he forced utilities
to lower rates, ordered railroads to extend service to small towns,
and demanded that Standard Oil cease the importation of Mexican
crude oil and use oil from Louisiana.
Speaker 1: Wells, okay, so he's like, keep it local, stop importing
shit cheaper oil. Probably, God knows what you could do
what you had to pay a Mexican back then. You
didn't even have to pay an American very well back then.
Speaker 2: And I mean they were going down to like Paraguay and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's funny that even back then they're like, god,
damn it, three cents a day to these Irish assholes.
Speaker 2: No thanks, pass get us some South and Central American slaves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you pay them in half a banana in nineteen
thirteen or whatever year that was, like gets just.
Speaker 2: Free, not on the United fruit companies. Watch yeah, true,
not getting bananas, valuable commodity bananas.
Speaker 1: Someone was telling me, was it Shay it was no,
it was Boosh last night was saying when his relative
first got to America from Sicily, the first thing they
did off the fucking dock was eat a banana, because
they only never only heard grand stories of bananas.
Speaker 2: And now you can't even get a real banana, can't.
You know?
Speaker 1: I don't even like bananas.
Speaker 2: So in the governor election of nineteen twenty, Long campaign
heavily for John M. Parker. After Parker was elected, the
two then became bitter rivals. Their break was largely caused
by Long's demand and Parker's refusal to declare the state's
oil pipelines public utilities.
Speaker 1: So he wanted to well, I guess not nationalized, but
you know, state control of the oil pipelines. Yeah, and yeah, man,
he just lost he lost his ass on an investment,
and he was so petty, could not take that. L
could not and maybe he was maybe he did get fucked.
I don't know, but he just made it his life's
fucking mission. Imagine you're like a young adult or like
a kid basically, and like a team beats your team
in a playoff game, and you're so mad that you
dedicate your life to like get playing for your team
and then just to beat that other team one day.
Like he just I mean, he wanted to be president anyway,
but he took like a detour. He was like, oh,
this is how I'm gonna do it because I have
to fuck this these people on my way up.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's my lifelong goal to tell Lebron James
to sit down after what he did to me when
I was sixteen at his basketball camp. Yeah, this academy
clowned you, clown me in front of the five hundred campers,
told me to sit my ass down. So I think
my best opportunity is maybe be a waiter a hostess.
Take a seat here, Lebron.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that's probably it's the only chance
I have sit down. What this is your table, so
please have a seat. Sorry, I'm sorry, sorry to offend you. Yeah,
I didn't mean too. Then you just walk away. Yeah,
such a shame, that's right.
Speaker 2: By nineteen twenty two, Long had become chairman of the
Commission now called the Public Service Commission, and that year
Long prosecuted the Cumberland Telephone and Telegraph Company for unfair
rate increases. He successfully argued the case on appeal before
the United States Supreme Court, which resulted in cash refunds
two thousands of overcharged customers. After the decision, Chief Justice
and former President William Taft. Yeah, yep, praise Long as
the most brilliant lawyer who ever practiced before the court.
Speaker 1: Damn. I mean that's high praise. That is like I
feel like Taft isn't the most storied Supreme Court justice
of all time.
Speaker 2: But like he has to be like one of the
more interesting ones. It's taff he's a president.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Is he the only one to do that?
Speaker 1: Yes? Yeah, yes, yeah, No one else is.
Speaker 2: I don't know if anybody's just kind of slipped in.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, wait no. It's definitely a unique story in
American history. I don't think that it's it's ever been
the other way either. I don't think a Supreme Court justice.
Speaker 2: Well you're for life. You can't run for president, you
could retire, you can be like you know what, now
I should be like the pope. You should have to die.
Speaker 1: I agree, you need to die in your chair like
Ruth bader Ginsburg.
Speaker 2: I just get one last bang of the gabble.
Speaker 1: Yeah, r get bader Ginsburg. It was just I mean,
she died in her chair five years before she died.
Speaker 2: But well, the olds are running the country. Yeah, she's
like everyone else is old. Why can't I stay?
Speaker 1: Why? What is it? People keep going on? And I
don't disagree with the Jerry out jerryatocracy or something like that. Yeah,
it's pretty accurate. There's a good meme going around for
whatever reason. It's with Jason Alexander in it. But it's
like him at different phases of his life, and it's like,
it's nineteen ninety five and the president was born in
nineteen forty six. It's two thousand and six, and the
president was born in nineteen forty six. It's twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: And the president was born in nineteen forty six.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: On August thirtieth, nineteen twenty three, Long announced his candidacy
for the governorship of.
Speaker 1: Louisiana nineteen twenty three.
Speaker 2: He denounced Governor Parker as a corporate stooge, vilified standard oil,
and attacked local political bosses. Louisiana was essentially a one
party state under the Democratic Old Regulars, holding mock elections
in which they invoked the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.
The Old Regulars presided over a corrupt Louisiana government.
Speaker 1: By the way, All the Kings Men is based on
the life of Huey Long.
Speaker 2: Okay cool.
Speaker 1: It is a fictional It was a fictional novel that
has been adapted in movies twice. I think the first.
Speaker 2: Version of it glad we figured that out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the first version of it was like
extremely highly praised, and then the second version was kind
of like good. I don't know, a good remake, but yeah,
that was. So that's based on how long.
Speaker 2: Well the story gets really good soon.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Louisiana was one of the least developed states that had
just three hundred miles of paved roads, thirty lowest literacy rates.
Speaker 1: Let me stop you right there. You don't need to
use the past tense. It still is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he actually kind of changes it drastically. Okay, Yeah, because.
Speaker 1: Like, man, you drive through, especially from Texas. I've only
driven through from Texas. I don't know what it's like
driving down like from the North or from Florida. Uh,
but god damn. You get in Louisiana and you're just
like immediately until you get to New Orleans. Basically even
Baton Ruge, you're like woof, Like you just drive through
the state and you're like, good lord.
Speaker 2: So long came in third in the primary and was eliminated.
The Ku Klux Klan's prominence in Louisiana was the campaign's
primary issue. Well, the other two candidates either strongly opposed
or supported the clan. Long remained neutral, alienated in both sides.
Speaker 1: Let's see how the shakes out. So he was the
actual meme where it's like making one of moderates and
like they guy, like if one side is the Klan,
and they're like they aren't people, they don't deserve rights.
On the other sides like or like he's like, we
want to kill them. On the other sides like we
are we deserve basic human rights, and the moderates like no, no, no,
let's hear everyone.
Speaker 2: Now. I guess he was that meme though.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He also failed to attract Catholic voters, which eliminated his
chances in the south of the state, which was heavily Catholic.
Speaker 1: Uh. Not a great Not a great look for a
state that organizes its counties by parish Yeah, they're called
parish counties.
Speaker 2: However, Long blamed heavy rain on election day for suppressing
butter turnout. Yeah sure among his base in the north,
where voters could not reach the poles over dirt roads
that had turned to mud. It was the only election
Long ever.
Speaker 1: Lost and he had a built in excuse.
Speaker 2: I mean, you gotta have it in your back pocket.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Stolen election, stolen by God.
Speaker 2: Long spent the next four years building his reputation and
political organization in the heavily Catholic urban South. Government mismanagement
during the Great Mississippi Flood of nineteen twenty seven also
gained along the support of the Cajuns, whose land had
been deeply affected.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because here's the thing. He's he's not in office
at this point, right, or is he still holding his
old office and he just ran for governor.
Speaker 2: No, he's kind of just traveling now.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's the worst type of person. It's good,
but like, they have such a leg up because they
have nothing. They can say whatever they want because they
will they have no record to juxtapose that against. They
can just walk around and be like, fuck these guys, right,
they're doing everything wrong. And instead of being like, well, wait,
what are you doing and only ask him like, well,
what would you do? And he can just tell you
whatever the fuck he feels like.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He formally launched his second campaign for governor in
nineteen twenty seven, using the slogan every Man is a King.
But no one wears a crown.
Speaker 1: Sure, I feel like that'd be pretty easy to combat.
When everyone's a king, no one's a king.
Speaker 2: If you have two kings, you have none.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's my favorite line from I watched
a lot of kids movies, obviously because I have three children,
and The Incredibles it came out in two thousand and six,
and they say some shit in that movie that you
would never catch in a kid's movie now. And one
of them is like the boy, the fucking flash kid
or whatever is like, I just want to like I'm special,
Like I'm better than these people. I'm so freaking fast,
and his mom goes, honey, everyone is special, and he
goes which means no one is. Yeah, And I was like,
you know what, you run that.
Speaker 2: Line hit so hard for you.
Speaker 1: It's just like damn god, damn. Now, but now what
Pixar movies like everyone is special and because of that,
everyone is special lives all lot like literally, I guess
it's not Pixar, but in Conto is.
Speaker 2: Like all just bags and meat that are going to
meet our end to a drone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to a piece of metal, I mean piloted by
a bag of meat three thousand miles away.
Speaker 2: But maybe or the AI will eventually just pilot it itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah. True, you can just get got by a drone
swarm that a human didn't even code. It was vibe coded.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're starting to integrate a lot of AI into
the military.
Speaker 1: I know. They think they just signed with Claw. Whoever
owns Claude wouldn't do it, so they went with just
Sam Almon. Sam Almond was like, oh, yeah, yeah, but
here's the thing.
Speaker 2: That's not a good dude. No, that might be one
of the worst people out there now.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and he doesn't he doesn't get as much
shit because I don't think he's not really like I
guess he's a little bit of attention horn, but he's
not like Elon Osk or Zuckerberg or something where you're
just always hearing about him.
Speaker 2: Nah. He's deep into it though. Oh oh yeah, he
wants to essentially make a god.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like him and Peter Tielpe was like, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know if human being should keep existing.
Speaker 1: You know, let's give birth to our mechanical child and
let them take over the universe.
Speaker 2: Remember the guy that made or tried to make mechanical Jesus.
We did an episode on him in Patreon.
Speaker 1: We did this is It's all been tried before.
Speaker 2: Nothing's new, everything you can think, everything's a rerun tried before.
When the six year old incumbent governor called Long a
liar during an encounter in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel,
Long punched him in the face.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah it. Long can do whatever he wants. He
doesn't hold a fucking office. No, an he prought him
to be fair.
Speaker 2: But he does win the Democratic nomination for the second
run a governor. And then if you win the Democratic nomination,
you're right your governor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Republicans aren't winning elections in the South at that point.
It's completely reversed.
Speaker 2: Fifteen thousand Louisiana's traveled to Baton Rouge for lungs inauguration.
He set up large tents, free drinks, and a jazz
band on the capitol grounds. It was very similar to
I guess what Jackson did at the White House. He
just threw a razor.
Speaker 1: Oh good for him, I mean, but here's the thing though,
Jackson to the White House like yeah, that's a little odd.
You're like, oh, okay, I guess they're doing that. That's
just par for the course in Louisiana. I mean, those
people are are fucking pickled, that's how drunk they are,
like just like they would. There would have been a riot
if there wasn't a jazz band and liquor.
Speaker 2: But this is a Dole affair.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Once in office on May twenty first, nineteen twenty eight,
Long moved quickly to consolidate power, firing hundreds of opponents
in the state bureaucracy at all ranks, from cabinet level
heads of departments to state road workers. It ever you
know slided him or did him wrong, You're gone.
Speaker 1: How would you even know? There's no tweets to check.
Speaker 2: Every state employee who depended on Long for a job
was expected to then pay a portion of their salary
at election time directly into his campaign fund his war chest.
Speaker 1: Boy, that sounds legal. He gets a little off the top,
good lord, no one sued him for that.
Speaker 2: He literally becomes king of Louisiana.
Speaker 1: I mean, the book is called All the Kings Met.
Speaker 2: He would appear unannounced on the floor of both House
and Senate meetings and bully the opponents. When an opposing
legislator once suggested Long was unfamiliar with the Louisiana Constitution.
Long responded, I'm the constitution around here, now.
Speaker 1: Look at me. Yeah, I'm what's I'm a little disappointed
actually because he seems like the sort of like psycho
that could start reciting the CONSTITUTIONE like he would just
do that to dunk on someone.
Speaker 2: Mm hm. But didn't bother do whatever he wants, didn't bother.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just like, no, I make the rules.
Speaker 2: One program Long approved was a free textbook program for
school children. But this angered a lot of Catholics who
usually sent their children to private schools.
Speaker 1: So they're picking up the tab for books they're not getting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but Long assured them that the books would
be granted directly to all children, regardless of whether they
attended public school. Yet, this assurance was criticized by conservative constitutionalists,
who claimed it violated the separation of church and state
and sued Long. The case went to the US Supreme
Court again, and it was ruled in favor of Long.
How he's just given textbooks to kids? Man, Yeah, I
guess so.
Speaker 1: I mean that's an inter deputy interesting case. In fact,
that's probably why school choice is viable because it would
presumably be a but if you're not, if you can
do it for any religious institution, then I guess it's
not a violation because you're not doing something in favor
or negatively against a religion. Yeah right, that's the only
That's what it sat. It's like you, you know, congressor whatever,
which I'll not favor or fuck any religion.
Speaker 2: Basically, this is where he kind of loses me. He's
irritated by the immoral gambling dens and brothels and oh,
just pulling the ladder up.
Speaker 1: Immoral.
Speaker 2: It's like, Doug, you almost didn't go to law school
because you blew the one hundred dollars on the roulette table.
Speaker 1: So he gets fucked in an investment. Maybe maybe he
has a claim there. I don't really know. But the
gambling thing is like, dude, you made a choice. You
walked into a place where everyone knows you will probably
lose your money, Like anyone with a brain knows what
walking into a casino entails.
Speaker 2: You say goodbye to that money. Yeah, if you walk out,
it's a nice, pleasant surprise.
Speaker 1: And he's just like, they tricked me.
Speaker 2: The minute you take it out of the ATM.
Speaker 1: That's gone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in your head it should be gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah you yeah, yeah, yep yeah. There's no world in
which you go there as a as a ploy to
make money. It is a it is it's gaming. It's gaming.
It's a game. You are paying to play a game.
Speaker 2: So Long sent the National Guard to raid these establishments
with orders of shoot without hesitation. Jesus Christ, what Yeah,
it's your fault. Nobody dies in this, but gambling equipment
is burned, prostitutes are arrested, and over twenty five thousand
dollars was confiscated for government funds.
Speaker 1: Now, I like to think he had a bad encounter
with prostitute too, that just didn't make it to his biography,
Like he embarrassed himself. Possibly came too fast, Yeah, and
still had to pay for the full hour and was
furious about it.
Speaker 2: The Louisiana Attorney General denounced Long's actions as illegal, but
Long rebuked him, saying nobody asked for his opinion.
Speaker 1: You know what it is. I mean, it's like, how
do you even do that without the attorney general? Like
you literally just call up the National Guard and you're like,
all right, this is what we're doing today.
Speaker 2: I really don't understand how he gets away with half this.
Speaker 1: I don't understand how the gambling houses, if they were legal,
couldn't immediately sue the christ out of the Louisiana government
to get all of that money back and damages.
Speaker 2: Long also had the Governor's mansion that was built in
eighteen eighty seven knockdown and in its place had a
much larger Georgian mansion built. Are you familiar with the
capital of Louisiana.
Speaker 1: I mean the building, but no, I mean, I know
Baton Rouge is a gross but.
Speaker 2: The capitol building itself.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I don't know. It off the top
of my head. Pretty unique, unsurprising for that state.
Speaker 2: I mean, look at this thing.
Speaker 1: But oh yeah, yeah, I have seen that before. What
the fuck? That's horrible. Yeah, that's horrible. That's a horrible building.
Speaker 2: That's Huey Long, baby.
Speaker 1: That is disgusting. It's like kind of brutalist, and uh,
it looks it looks a lot like that. The court,
the like famous courthouse in La. You see it in
like La Confidential shit, but it's in a bunch of movies.
Speaker 2: In nineteen twenty nine, Long called a special legislative session
to enact a five cent per barrel tax on refined
oil production to fund his social programs.
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, that's whatever. Like I don't know if
that was good policy, like economically or not, but like
that's that sounds well. This par for the course of
what a politician will potentially do.
Speaker 2: Is obviously met with opposition, and an impeachment resolution was
pulled against.
Speaker 1: Lamu oils Well. It was a big game in Louisiana.
I'm sure sure they had friends and lobbyists all over
that that state legislature.
Speaker 2: Nineteen charges were listed, ranging him from blasphemy to subordination
of murder.
Speaker 1: Do you think he probably has someone killed at something? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, okay, because you'll hear about what he does.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Even Long's lieutenant Governor, Paul Seer, supported impeachment. So sometimes
it be your own guys.
Speaker 1: Really do.
Speaker 2: This devolved into a brawl later known as Bloody Monday.
In the scuffle, legislators through Inkwells attacked each other with
brass knuckles, and Long's brother Earl been a legislator in
the neck.
Speaker 1: The rippity, the out.
Speaker 2: Hard to say.
Speaker 1: I hope he, I really hope he did. Like I
hope you just took a chunk out of that neck.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're gonna bite it into the neck,
you gotta take a chunk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you gotta go full vampire.
Speaker 2: Follow In the fight, the legislator voted to remain in
session and proceed with impeachment. Took place with dozens of witnesses,
including a hula dancer who claimed that Long had been
a little too frisky with her. Oh boy, but the
impeachment failed thanks to a couple bribes dished out by Long.
Speaker 1: That'll do it, so he outbribed the oil companies. Basically,
mm hm, good for him. I mean yeah, at the
end of the day, of all the legislation he tries
to push through, this doesn't sound I mean again, like
I don't know the economics of it, but like that
sounds normal. Like, hey, we're going to tax this business
a little more so we could fund the free textbooks
I promised the state. I guess.
Speaker 2: Following the failed impeachment attempt, Long treated his opponents pretty ruthlessly.
He fired their relatives from state jobs and supported their
challengers in elections. Long concluded that extra legal means would
be needed to accomplish his goals. He said I used
to get things done by saying please. Now I dynamite
him out of my path.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's true that he used to get
things done by saying please.
Speaker 2: I've never heard him actually ask nicely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like now he just doesn't have an
excuse to even like pretend to go through the motions
for a minute before he dynamites you out of his way.
Speaker 2: He then starts to kind of just surround himself with
his bodyguards and goons.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it seems like a valid thing to do.
Speaker 2: At that point, starts criticizing the Lion Press and started
his own newspaper, The Louisiana Progress, the truest social but stime.
Speaker 1: Say, there's a lot of parallels starting to pop up here. Interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Long announced his candidacy for the US Senate in
nineteen thirty. His opponent was Joseph E. Ransdell, at seventy
two years old, Ransdell had served the US Congress since
Long was six. The campaign became increasingly vicious, with The
New York Times calling it as amusing as it was depressing.
Long critic Sam Irby, set to testify on Long's corruption
to state authorities, was abducted by Long's bodyguards shortly before
the election.
Speaker 1: Did they find him?
Speaker 2: Irbi emerged after the election. He had been missing for
four days, but surrounded by Long's bodyguards. He gave a
radio address in which he confessed that he was actually
asking for Long's protection. Oh yeah, sure, definitely not being
held at gunpoint.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he definitely wasn't ever going to testify anything bad. No, No,
he just hung out with Long for four days. Don't
worry about what happened. Just hung out during hurricanes.
Speaker 2: And he was going to do it all before the election.
He's probably going to swing some voters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, strange interesting.
Speaker 2: The New Orleans Mayor labeled it the most heinous public
crime in Louisiana history. Ultimately, on September ninth, nineteen thirty,
Long then defeated Ransdell.
Speaker 1: In the primary, and then I assume.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'd become for the Senate.
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Speaker 2: There were accusations of voter fraud against Long. Voting records
showed people voted in alphabetical order, among them celebrities like
Charlie Chaplin, Jack Dempsey and Babe Ruth.
Speaker 1: That feels a little egregious. I think you can just
make up random names, even like Johnny Telephone would be
better than Babe Ruth.
Speaker 2: Although his Senate term began on March fourth, nineteen thirty one,
Long completed most of his four year term as governor,
which did not end until May of nineteen thirty two.
Speaker 1: So you had two jobs, Yeah, wouldn't leave the first one?
Speaker 2: Yep?
Speaker 1: What just didn't show up? Does everyone he's working for?
Speaker 2: He declared that leaving the seat vacant would hurt Louisiana. Yeah,
you know, can't be given it to his traitorous lieutenant governor.
How's that go?
Speaker 1: Even alive? Still let alone in the job.
Speaker 2: He occupied the governorship until January of nineteen thirty two,
and he prevented his lieutenant governor, who threatened to undo
Long's reforms, from succeeding in the office. In October of
nineteen thirty one, Sear learned Long was away at Mississippi
and declared himself the state's legitimate governor.
Speaker 1: So he just had a coup.
Speaker 2: He threw a coup.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a governor coup. You don't see those a lot.
Speaker 2: So Long ordered the National Guard troops to surround the
capitol to block the coup and petition the Louisiana Supreme Court.
He successfully argued that Syr had vacated the office of
lieutenant governor when they went trying to assume the governorship
and had the court eject Sir.
Speaker 1: I assume it was his guys on the court at
that point. M Yeah, like the Supreme courts just stacked
with his boys.
Speaker 2: Now, Governor and Senator elect, Long returned to complete and
his legislative agenda with renewed strength. He continued his intimidating
practice of presiding over legislator shouting shut up or sit
down when legislators voice their concerns.
Speaker 1: You know, some guy from some random Paris you don't
even give a shit about. He's a real whiner, stands
up out of his seat to monologue about something. Yeah,
you might want to scream, shut up, I get it,
I get it.
Speaker 2: In a single night, Long past forty four bills in
just two hours, one every three minutes. He later explained
his tactics that the ends justify the means.
Speaker 1: I mean, he didn't need to explain it. That seems
to be his moo the entire time. He's well.
Speaker 2: He often joked his legislature was the finest collection of
lawmaker's money could buy. He organized and concentrated his power
into a political machine. A one man operation. To address
record lowe cotton prices amid Great Depression surplus, Long proposed
the Major Cotton Producing States Mandate a nineteen thirty two
cotton Holiday, which would ban cotton production for the entire year.
Speaker 1: To drive the price up.
Speaker 2: Okay, Long created a public's works program that was kind
of unprecedent in the South, constructing roads, bridges, hospitals, schools,
and state buildings.
Speaker 1: God knows that state needed it. Yeah, I mean, good lord.
Speaker 2: He drastically changes it. So during his four years as governor,
Long increase paved highways in Louisiana from three hundred and
thirty one miles to two thy three hundred and one miles.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, they did some stuff that was definitely
needed clearly.
Speaker 2: And constructed twy eight hundred and sixty miles of gravel roads.
By nineteen thirty six. The infrastructure program begun by Long
and completed nine thousand, seven hundred miles of new roads,
doubling Louisiana's road system.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, especially like roads in particular, if that
shit shows up that your average dick isn't going to
be like, wow, do you do it? You know what
I mean, We'll hold on a minute. You're should be
happy of a real fucking road. Yeah, that rain isn't
going to keep you from work for three days.
Speaker 2: Again, man, the mud. Yeah, he's petty. He built one
hundred and eleven bridges and started construction on the first
bridge over Mississippi entirely in Louisiana, the HUEP Long Bridge. Yeah,
I got to name it after yourself. Of course, these
projects provided thousands of jobs. During the depression, Louisiana employed
more highway workers than any other state. His infrastructure spending
increased the state government debts from eleven million dollars in
nineteen twenty eight to one hundred and fifty million in
nineteen thirty five.
Speaker 1: I feel like everyone was kind of willingly going into
debt back. I mean like FDR was doing the same
thing right, public works everywhere. It's funny that he was
an FDR opponent because he was probably taking quite a
bit of fucking federal money to build those roads.
Speaker 2: His problem with FDR was FDR wasn't hardcore.
Speaker 1: Enough that that makes sense. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He increased LSU's funding and intervened in the university's affairs,
expelling seven students who criticized him in a school newspaper.
Good lord, it's like coach k ask him, what's your major? Yeah,
you're a major. I can get you removed here.
Speaker 1: I feel like coach k could have gotten a kid
expelled for writing a bad op ed in this.
Speaker 2: He still can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he probably still can. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I guarantee still goes to his office every day.
Speaker 1: What else is he gonna do?
Speaker 2: Just life feed up on Shire's desk. Yeah, yeah, no,
he's He's staying there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, here's how I need his camp.
Speaker 2: Boozer Long founded the LSU Medical School in New Orleans, UH.
He also raised the of relevance of the football program.
He converted the school's military marching band into a flashy
show band of the South and hired Costa Rican composer
Castro Carazo as the band director.
Speaker 1: It is to this day it's called Tiger Band. I
think right, it's one of the best bands in the country.
It's like them in Ohio State. Half the HBCU bands,
I guess. So the talk dude, yeah, neck play neck.
Speaker 2: As well as nearly double in the size of the stadium,
he arranged for lower train fair so students could go
to away games. Long's contributions resulted in LSU gaining a
Class A accreditation from the Association of American Universities. So
finally on the board, baby Yeah, Long also had night
schools that taught over one hundred thousand adults how to read.
Speaker 1: I mean again, he's like a man of the people,
but like for the worst reasons. Yeah, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 2: He does a lot of good, right, but he does
a lot bad.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's annoying, but it makes sense when you
when you're an adult and you think about like, you know,
you always thinking like why do I have to show
my work? You know, this is why? Yeah, why didn't
you show my work? I got the right answer.
Speaker 2: Look, look at everything you got done.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, he did it in the worst way possible.
If you like make a country a country or a
place better, but in a way that endangers the future
existence of that place's institutions. You haven't done a good yamey.
Speaker 2: Just can't kidnap political opponents right, right, and then force
them to apologize really on air, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like it's again, like you have to do it
the right way or it doesn't fucking matter.
Speaker 2: His provision of free textbooks contributed to a twenty percent
increase in school enrollment. He modernized public health facilities and
ensured adequate conditions for the mentally ill and he essentially
got rid of property tax through a tax reform.
Speaker 1: All right, good for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's like the first two thousand dollars in
property assessment back then was waived, so more than half
the state's homeowners didn't have property tax.
Speaker 1: So you ended upoper taxing two year over a certain threshold. Yeah, okay,
sick I would love that here, it's fucking opposite.
Speaker 2: Some historians have criticized other policies like high consumer taxes
on gasoline and cigarettes, a reduced mother's pension, and low
teacher salaries. Didn't fuck with teachers because again I think
he uh, he just holds a grudge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he hated the staff of his high school, so
he doesn't want those people to ever make money. Uh.
The gasoline obviously speaks for itself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's his beef with big tobacco?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm actually fine with that tax. I
mean whatever, dude, that's actually how just the whole country
does it. Now. There's tax the fuck out of cigarettes.
It's like a barrier to entry.
Speaker 2: Yeah. During the first one hundred days of Roosevelt's presidency
in spring of nineteen thirty three, Long's attitude towards Roosevelt
and the New Deal was disappointment, where that Roosevelt had
no intention of radically redistributing the country's wealth. Long became
one of the few national politicians to oppose Roosevelt's New
Deal policies from the left.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but like it's We talked about this a little
bit in the in the Kennedy episode for Joe Junior
about how just like there were two there were almost
like two Democratic parties, right, there were the Northern Democrats
and the.
Speaker 2: Southern Democratic Democrats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and FDR obviously from New York, and he's got
to run a whole country and get anyone to agree
to it at all. And I guess Long's just sitting
there perplexed about why FDR doesn't kidnap a Republican senator
from California and make them vote for it.
Speaker 2: I guess I can't do that. I do that, and
we am.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's go to the guy over in Illinois and
I'll just beat the fuck out of him.
Speaker 2: I got these guons, Yeah, any help. Roosevelt considered Long
a radical, instated that Long, along with General Douglas MacArthur,
we're two of the most dangerous men in America. When
did he say that in the thirties, like thirty three,
he was already fuck MacArthur.
Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, MacArthur, we need you to an episode of
MacArthur because FDRs saying that in the thirties, but obviously
still hires him to like run the war in the
Pacific along with Nimitz and uh. But then eventually obviously
Truman's like, oh my god, this guy's insane during the
Korean War and it's.
Speaker 2: Like just get them out, fuck out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he needed to a whole episode his weird ship.
But he was there too for the putting down the
World War One rioters. MacArthur was so patent and Eisenhower though,
I think.
Speaker 2: A lot of people cut their teeth there. Yeah, yeah,
a bonus army. Yeah, iron on vets.
Speaker 1: Vets in a tent city.
Speaker 2: Not a good look.
Speaker 1: No, No, that's really fucking funny, though. God, who I
want to know what MacArthur was saying, Probably weird shit,
or maybe he just wanted to go to war in
the Pacific then because China or Japan was already in China.
He just wanted to get it. Maybe that's what it was.
But it is like with long like, yeah, Like it's
funny because Roosevelt gets dunked on all the time for
being a socialist quasi dictator piece of shit. And even still,
like he obviously had to make concessions to some extent
to like get his shit passed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's two parties.
Speaker 1: He doesn't run. His parties don't run the whole country.
As far as I'm aware, I don't really know what
the congressional makeup was at the time.
Speaker 2: In June nineteen thirty three, in an effort to undermine
Long's political dominance, Roosevelt cut him out of all the
meetings on the distribution of federal funds to Louisiana in
place Long's opponents in charge of the federal programs in
the state. Yeah, and also to discredit Long and damage
his support base, Roosevelt had Long's finances investigated by the
IRS and thirty.
Speaker 1: Four what a fun tool that most presidents like to use.
Apparently you just sick the IRS on them.
Speaker 2: In March nineteen thirty three, Long revealed a series of
bills collectively known as the Long Plan to Redistribute Wealth.
Speaker 1: That's a good. That's a good. That's a good name
for a bill. So it's a little play on words.
You know.
Speaker 2: He would cap fortunes at one hundred million dollars, limit
annual income to one million dollars, and cap individual inheritances
to five million dollars. In a nationwide February nineteen thirty
four radio broadcast, Long introduced his Share Our Wealth Plan.
Speaker 1: Two things on this, It's well established. I think already
that he hates everyone who he has perceived to or
has actually wronged him. He clearly like this is the
type of thing where there's certain people who like have
something that a lot of people might agree with, but
their motives are clearly not pure. So like, to me,
this just sounds like he's obviously always been up his
own ass, giant head, wanted to like just wanted to
be president from a young age. I think he was mad.
I think he grew up angry that he was poor.
I think he just hated rich people, which I mean,
which is bad, because he does. I don't think he's
actually mad that they have money. He's mad that he
didn't get to get to grow up in that money,
that he had to work his fucking dick off to
get to a position of power. And he's just putting.
Speaker 2: It to him, he becomes as corrupt as they are.
Speaker 1: And it is. Yeah. And so the second thing I
was going to say was, you better believe the first
person to skirt those rules on inheritance and making too
much money is going to be fucking Huey Long. Yeah,
like he's not going to abide by his own rule.
He doesn't.
Speaker 2: Ever, The legislation would use the wealth from the Long
plan to guarantee every family a basic household grant of
five thousand dollars and a minimum annual income of one
third of the average family homestead value and income. Long
supplemented his plan with proposals for free college, in vocational training,
veterans benefits, federal assistance to farmers, public works projects, greater
federal economic regulation, a thirty dollars monthly elderly pension, a
month's vacation for every worker, a thirty hour workweek, a
ten billion dollar land reclamation project to end the dust bowl,
and free medical service, and a war on disease. Led
by the Mayo brothers, these reforms Long claimed would end
the Great Depression. The plans were widely criticized and labeled
as being impossible by economics.
Speaker 1: They probably were he got some of it done. Sounds
like you proposed social security.
Speaker 2: With the Senate unwilling to support his proposals. In February
nineteen thirty four, Long formed the Share Our Wealth Society,
a national network of local clubs that operated in opposition
to the Democratic Party in Roosevelt.
Speaker 1: So he just was like creating his own further to
the left party essentially.
Speaker 2: Yeah. By nineteen thirty five, the society had over seven
point five million members and twenty seven thousand clubs.
Speaker 1: Do you think anyone ever left after they accidentally got rich? No,
think any of you had like they had. It was
like a small busin This owner who's just like under
the thumb of life somehow blows up and he's like,
uh h huh, this is pretty cool. I actually am
sharing my wealth by employing like twenty people.
Speaker 2: Now, Uh, having money's kind of dope.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna go just stops responding to letters.
Speaker 2: What happened to Hugh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. We're not here anymore, Move to
a bigger house.
Speaker 2: Popular support for long Share Our Wealth program raised the
possibility of a nineteen thirty six presidential bid against FDR
Long's consolidation of power led to talk of armed opposition
from his enemies in Louisiana. In January nineteen thirty five,
an anti Long paramilitary organization called the Square Deal Association
was formed. Standard Oil employees formed a Square Deal Association
in Baton Rouge, organizing themselves in a militia company and
demanding direct action.
Speaker 1: You had to grab a gun a lot back then
to uh for business reasons. Every union apparently, these guys
who were like the opposite of a union or something.
I don't even know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess just the big business.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: On January twenty fifth, nineteen thirty five, these Square Dealers
now armed Seese. The East Baton Rouge Parish courthouse long
had Governor Allen because it was his boy that took
over the governorship. Right a part of the Senate execute
emergency measures in Baton Rouge. He called in the National Guard,
declared martial law, banned public gatherings of two or more people,
but bade the publication of criticism of state officials.
Speaker 1: Ah, but that's constitutional. Certainly, you can't have.
Speaker 2: More than two people in public.
Speaker 1: How's that even possible? And in that state too, Like wait,
was just justin Baton Rouge.
Speaker 2: Just in Baton Rouge.
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean yeah, you tried to do that in
Louisiana or in New Orleans.
Speaker 2: Good luck?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: The square dealers left the courthouse, but there was a
brief armed skirmish at the Baton Rouge airport. Tear gas
and live ammunition were fired. One person was wounded, but
there were no fatalities. In the summer of nineteen thirty five,
Long called two special legislative sessions in Louisiana. Bills were
passed in rapid fire succession without being read or discussed.
The new laws further centralized Longs control over the state
by creating new Long appointed state agencies. A state Bond
and Tax Board holding sole authority to approve loans to
local governments, a new state Printing Board which would withhold
official printer status from anybody that was uncooperative.
Speaker 1: I mean that is straight up like Soviet shit at
that point.
Speaker 2: A new Board of Election Supervisors which would appoint all
the pole watchers, and state Board of Censors.
Speaker 1: Again straight up just like Soviet communist fascist insane shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, see Stalinism, Yeah, ashes, that is.
Speaker 1: Straight up both of those states I mean it's you know,
horseshoe theory basically at that point, but he's just yeah,
he doesn't again the like that's why you can't celebrate
good things that come from like I don't know, I
guess you can an extent on pure motives, but like
this guy was only ever in it for himself.
Speaker 2: They stripped away the remaining powers of the mayor of
New Orleans.
Speaker 1: Long he just gets to lead the Marti gro Operata posted.
Speaker 2: He had taken over every board and commission in New
Orleans except Community Chest and the Red Cross.
Speaker 1: Good for him.
Speaker 2: A September seventh session past forty two bills, the most
extreme likely aimed at Roosevelt and his federal agents, authorized
Louisiana to fine and imprison anyone who infringed on the
powers preserved to the state in the Tenth Amendment in
the US Constitution.
Speaker 1: So any federal agent that comes down there just getting arrested.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, try to stop me.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: On September eighth, nineteen thirty five, Long traveled to the
state capitol to pass a bill that with Jerry mannered
the district of an opponent, Judge Benjamin Pavey, who had
held his position for twenty eight years. At nine to
twenty pm, just after passage of the bill effectively removed Pavey,
the judge's son in law, Karl Wise, approached Long and,
according to the generally accepted version of events, fired a
single shot with a handgun from four feet away, striking
Long in the torso. Long's bodyguards, nick named the skull Crushers,
then fired up Weis, great guy, with their pistols, killing
him and autops he found that Weiss had been shot
at least sixty times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, great guy. The skull crushers. What do you even
that's I mean, that's like it's like Harry Potter, shit,
he come Long in his death eaters.
Speaker 2: Yeah uh, he's like, I swear he's not even trying
to hide it.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I swear, I'm a liberator. These
are my goons. I call them the skull Crushers. We're
the good guys.
Speaker 2: This has to be like the biggest fear of what
ma'm Donnie will do in New York. Right, it's any
like I'm not saying he will, but I'm saying this.
Speaker 1: Is He's not gonna have skull crushers. He should. He
probably needs them. He's not gonna have skull crushers, but
it would be yeah, that type of thing where event
I don't know's there's already the president already hates dissent
and tries to fight it like he sues the shit out.
At least he does it through legal avitus. I guess
he's not sending goons to burn down the New York
Times or what. I just sues CBS. Fair enough, fair enough.
Speaker 2: Long ran down a foot of stairs and across the
Capitol grounds, hailing a car to take him to Our
Lady of Lake Hospital. Long then died at four ten
am on September tenth, thirty one hours after being shot.
According to different sources, his last words were either, I
wonder what will happen to my poor university boys?
Speaker 1: You know, go Doggas always singing. It's just it just
means more.
Speaker 2: Just means more in the sec.
Speaker 1: But it just means more. The last thing he said
was talking about the LSU football team.
Speaker 2: Or God, don't let me die. I have so much
to do.
Speaker 1: I gotta say it's B.
Speaker 2: I hope it's A.
Speaker 1: It's probably a. A's yeah, it's a.
Speaker 2: B makes for a better you know, political story but
if it makes more sense.
Speaker 1: If he dogs, Yeah, it makes more sense. Good tigers.
Speaker 2: Over two hundred thousand people traveled to Baton Rouge to
attend long September twelfth funeral. His remains were buried on
the grounds of the Capitol. A statue depicting Long was
constructed on his grave. Long's death brought relief to the
Roosevelt administration, which would win in a landslide in the
nineteen thirty sixth election. They thought he was obviously the
biggest threat, that he was going to the presidency.
Speaker 1: Run and tried it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 2: Who knows. Man.
Speaker 1: What's funny though, is that like Long was very like
anti rich and wealth distribution, but he probably hated Communists. Yeah,
he probably thought like Russians were dog shit.
Speaker 2: If I had to guess, Long though, also wasn't really
a fan of the Communists.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that doesn't surprise me, which is bizarre.
Speaker 2: He's very communist tendencies.
Speaker 1: Extremely I mean, it's just wealth to I mean, I guess,
I don't know. I don't know how he differs really,
but maybe he just didn't like you know why, maybe
because a lot of the Communists in America were rich.
Speaker 2: Case Yeah, it could be the case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of kids coming out of university.
Speaker 2: Evidence later surface that suggests that Long was accidentally shot
by his bodyguards skull crushers proponents of this theory as
sas or. Proponents of this theory assert Loung was caught
in the crossfire as his bodyguards shot Weiss and a
bullet ricocheted off the marble walls that hit him.
Speaker 1: Eh so kind of like the JFK conspiracy theory magic bullet.
The magic bullet was from his own guys, like trying
to fire back, but they were confused or as we've
covered before, violently hungover.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that is the story of Huey Long, King Louisiana.
Speaker 1: The Kingfish, the King figure. I didn't know anything about that.
I I'm glad I figured out that All the King's
Men was about him.
Speaker 2: But okay, glad we got that.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, but yeah, I didn't really know anything
anything about about Huey Long. I knew the name, but
that was that was it.
Speaker 2: Would you say, that's what you learned every day?
Speaker 1: Pretty much? That? I mean, he did a lot of
good for all the wrong reasons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who's today's hitler?
Speaker 1: It was huge long, it's for sure, like if God,
I don't know. It's just like it seems like he
really just wanted to take money from rich people and
like also secure votes to keep himself in power. And
that's how he did it because all the poor people
are going to vote for him. Obviously, I don't think
he cares much for him.
Speaker 2: He might. I think he maybe had a at one point,
good heart. I don't know, it's hard to say. He's
just like, I really made these promises in the campaign trail,
so I gotta deliver.
Speaker 1: He stuck to it. I guess, yeah, he just he
could not deliver. He doesn't like to lose, obviously.
Speaker 2: I mean he's punching old dudes in the fucking face.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, But he's Todays. I mean, he
was murdered people.
Speaker 2: Probably probably who knows. You'll never find those bodies.
Speaker 1: The sums. Oh that's that's that was gator shit twenty
minutes after they dumped it there.
Speaker 2: So I'll say, allegedly killed some guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it.
Speaker 2: I don't want his family to come after me.
Speaker 1: It feels like his skull crushers probably handled some business.
He's certainly by.
Speaker 2: The way crush of skull. The likelyhood that they will
die pretty high.
Speaker 1: For as much as he championed people getting you know, money,
he would have needed no problem firing anyone just for
looking at him sideways. Yeah, like fucking torpedoing their their careers.
Speaker 2: That's our episode for today. We love you guys, thanks
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I haven't hit yet this year, but we're due. We're
gonna get one.
Speaker 1: Have you any like top five top tens hit? I
don't know.
Speaker 2: Okay, the guy I had today, I didn't give him
out in the official columns, Okay, just don't. I don't
want to take credit fair enough, fair enough. I also
don't want to fire out like twenty picks to people,
right That just.
Speaker 1: Seems because they're not gonna pet twenty guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I go with like my three most confident
I'll sprinkle some other guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: And one of the guys that sprinkled was in the
lead today, just didn't tailor more, didn't.
Speaker 1: Get done, couldn't couldn't close.
Speaker 2: Well, at least he wasn't Shane Lowry double double baby
in and out O cost some attorney. Yeah, either way,
we love you, guests. Make sure to leave review five
stars please and thank you on Apple and Spotify. Probably
need it now. Somebody came after us with a one
star review.
Speaker 1: Oh no, they said.
Speaker 2: Something about you. I guess, just dismissing Epstein.
Speaker 1: I didn't I know, I didn't I know. I just said,
how much bandwidth do you want me to fucking put
towards this?
Speaker 2: Subscribe to our YouTube as well. You see our pretty faces.
We're very hungover right now.
Speaker 1: I'm doing right on my head.
Speaker 2: I haven't drank that hard in a while.
Speaker 1: I know at the beginning of the night. You're like
just or when I first saw you, were like, I'm
just going.
Speaker 2: After it today, taking a full swing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, taking a full swing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But for rough Fox, I'm damn re Jester. You just
got a saucer