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Dennis Donovan

(18,770 posts)
Sun Sep 8, 2019, 05:57 AM Sep 2019

84 Years Ago Today; Gov Huey Long shot at the Louisiana State Capitol - dies 2 days later

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long


Gov Huey P Long

Huey Pierce Long Jr. (August 30, 1893 – September 10, 1935), nicknamed "The Kingfish", was an American politician who served as the 40th governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and was a member of the United States Senate from 1932 until his assassination in 1935. As the political leader of Louisiana, he commanded wide networks of supporters and was willing to take forceful and dictatorial action. He established the long-term political dominance and dynasty of the Long family.

During Long's years in power, large expansions were made in infrastructure, education and health care. Long was notable among southern politicians for avoiding race baiting and explicit white supremacy, and he sought to improve the conditions of impoverished blacks as well as impoverished whites. Under Long's leadership, hospitals and educational institutions were expanded, a system of charity hospitals was set up that provided health care for the poor, and massive highway construction and free bridges brought an end to rural isolation.

A Democrat and an outspoken left-wing populist, Long denounced the wealthy urban Baton Rouge and D.C. elites, oligarchs and the banks. Initially a supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first 100 days in office, Long eventually came to believe that Roosevelt's "New Deal" policies were an insufficient compromise and did not do enough to alleviate the issues of the poor or tackle the Depression. In time, he developed his own solution: the "Share Our Wealth" program, which would establish a net asset tax, the earnings of which would be redistributed so as to curb the poverty and homelessness epidemic nationwide during the Great Depression.

Long's Share Our Wealth plan was established on February 23, 1934 with the motto "Every Man a King." To stimulate the economy, Long advocated federal spending on public works, schools and colleges, and old age pensions. Long argued that his plan would enable everyone to have at least a car, a radio, and a home worth $5,000.

Long split with Roosevelt in June 1933 to plan his own presidential bid for 1936 in alliance with the influential Roman Catholic priest and far-right radio commentator Father Charles Coughlin. Long was assassinated in 1935, and his national movement soon faded, but his legacy continued in Louisiana through his wife, Senator Rose McConnell Long; his son, Senator Russell B. Long; and his brothers, Earl Kemp Long and George S. Long, as well as several other more distant relatives. He remains a controversial figure in Louisiana history.

<snip>

Assassination and aftermath
On September 8, 1935, Long was at the State Capitol attempting to oust a long-time opponent, Judge Benjamin Henry Pavy. At 9:20 p.m., just after passage of the bill effectively removing Pavy, Pavy's son-in-law Carl Weiss, a physician from Baton Rouge, approached Long, and, according to the generally accepted version of events, shot him in the torso with a handgun from four feet (1.2 m) away. Long's bodyguards responded by firing at Weiss with their own pistols, killing him; an autopsy found that Weiss had been shot more than sixty times by Long's bodyguards. Long died on September 10 at 4:10 a.m. According to different sources, his last words were either, "I wonder what will happen to my poor university boys," or "I have so much to do."


The FN Model 1910 which Carl Weiss used to shoot Huey Long, on display at the Old State Capitol, Baton Rouge.

There has been controversy about whether Long might have survived with better surgical care.

Long's body, dressed in a tuxedo, lay in an open double casket (of bronze with a glass lid) in the State Capitol rotunda. Some 200,000 people entered Baton Rouge for his funeral. Tens of thousands saw the funeral in front of the Capitol on September 12; presiding was Gerald L. K. Smith, co-founder of Share Our Wealth and subsequently of the America First Party. Long was buried on the grounds of the new State Capitol, and a statue at his grave depicts his achievements. Within the Capitol, a plaque marks the site of the assassination. A statue of Long is in Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol.


Huey Long's Burial Site

</snip>


There's a compelling school-of-thought regarding whether Dr Weiss actually did shoot Long:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Weiss


Dr Carl Weiss

Carl Austin Weiss Sr. (December 6, 1906 – September 8, 1935) was an American physician from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who was implicated in the assassination of U.S. Senator Huey Long, at the Louisiana State Capitol on September 8, 1935.

Baton Rouge doctor
Weiss was born in Baton Rouge to Carl Adam Weiss, M.D., and the former Viola Maine. Weiss's father was a prominent eye specialist who had once treated Senator Long. Weiss was educated in local schools and graduated from St. Vincent's Academy.[citation needed] He then obtained his bachelor's degree in 1925 from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He did postgraduate work in Vienna, Austria, and was thereafter awarded internships in Vienna and at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. In 1932, he returned to Baton Rouge to enter private practice with his father. He was president of the Louisiana Medical Society in 1933 and a member of the Kiwanis International.

The Pavy-Opelousas connection
In 1933, Weiss married Yvonne Louise Pavy of Opelousas, the seat of St. Landry Parish. The couple had one son, Carl Austin Weiss Jr., who was born in 1934, shortly before the elder Weiss's death. (Weiss Jr died 2 August 2019.) Pavy was the daughter of Judge Benjamin Henry Pavy (1874–1943) and Ida Veazie (died 1941). The Pavy family was part of an anti-Long political faction. Judge Pavy's brother Felix Octave Pavy (1879-1962), a physician in Leonville and Opelousas, had run for lieutenant governor in 1928 on an intraparty ticket, and had been defeated by Paul N. Cyr, a Jeanerette dentist who was endorsed by Long.

Similarly, Judge Pavy, Weiss' father-in-law, was the Sixteenth Judicial District Court state judge from St. Landry and Evangeline parishes. He did not seek reelection in 1936, after Long had the legislature gerrymander the seat to include a majority of pro-Long voters within a revised district.

Murder of Huey Long
On September 8, 1935, Weiss confronted and shot Huey Long in the Capitol building in Baton Rouge. Weiss was cornered and killed in turn by Long's bodyguards, being shot sixty-one times. In an unusual public response, thousands attended his funeral.

Alternate theories & denials of the assassination
In the years since the event, theories have arisen that Weiss did not actually murder Senator Long; with some speculating that Long was, in fact, killed by a stray bullet fired from the gun of one of his bodyguards.

Family denials
At the time, Weiss's wife and their families did not accept his guilt. Indeed, Weiss's parents indicated that he had seemed quite happy earlier on the day that Long was killed. Many people close to the family, as well as politicians of the time, doubted the official version of the shooting.

Weiss's son, Carl Jr., an infant at the time of his father's death, has since vigorously disputed the assertion. In a 1993 interview on the NBC program Unsolved Mysteries, he proffered the assertion that Long was accidentally shot by one of his own bodyguards. Donald Pavy, a medical doctor and first cousin of Weiss's wife Yvonne Pavy, conducted a scientific study of the case and concluded in his book Accident and Deception: The Huey Long Shooting that Weiss did not shoot the governor-turned-senator.

A Louisiana State University Professor, T. Harry Williams, wrote in his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Long:

... no one had taken it very seriously, for unless all the witnesses to the event were lying or mistaken, only four shots had been fired while Huey was still in the corridor, the two from Weiss's pistol that struck Huey and Roden's wristwatch, respectively, and the two from the revolvers of Roden and Coleman that dropped Weiss. By the time the other guards had got their guns out and started to fire Huey had run from the scene.


</snip>


Disclosure: I've been professionally associated with Dr Weiss' grandson, Dr Carl A Weiss III. Never spoke of the shooting, but I have seen interviews with his father and am split on Dr Weiss' guilt.
11 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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84 Years Ago Today; Gov Huey Long shot at the Louisiana State Capitol - dies 2 days later (Original Post) Dennis Donovan Sep 2019 OP
Weiss' guilt: I've not followed this, but was he not there with a gun? Is the dispute hlthe2b Sep 2019 #1
Dr Carl Weiss Jr believed Long's bodyguards fired the fatal shot when trying to shoot his father Dennis Donovan Sep 2019 #2
I read an article just this a.m. Crafty Girl Sep 2019 #5
good morning mr donovan rampartc Sep 2019 #3
thanks for the history! I've never heard the full story before. Coventina Sep 2019 #4
K&R smirkymonkey Sep 2019 #6
.. Mc Mike Sep 2019 #7
A common (logic impaired) thread in conspiracy theory - PAMod Sep 2019 #8
No, the point is that his aide put forth the notion that Mc Mike Sep 2019 #9
Thanks for posting this Niagara Sep 2019 #10
My opinion ismailkho Dec 2021 #11

hlthe2b

(101,715 posts)
1. Weiss' guilt: I've not followed this, but was he not there with a gun? Is the dispute
Sun Sep 8, 2019, 06:18 AM
Sep 2019

that he did fire, but it wasn't actually HIS bullet that killed Long?

I have to say, Long is certainly a controversial figure that evokes the word corruption, but it surely does seem that he accomplished a lot in his few short years as Governor. I still find it inexplicable that he would pair up with the likes of Father Coughlin. I guess I should read a biography one of these days...

Dennis Donovan

(18,770 posts)
2. Dr Carl Weiss Jr believed Long's bodyguards fired the fatal shot when trying to shoot his father
Sun Sep 8, 2019, 06:28 AM
Sep 2019

And, I'm also kinda mixed about Long's legacy, although I think, overall, he was a dangerous demagogue.

Crafty Girl

(28 posts)
5. I read an article just this a.m.
Sun Sep 8, 2019, 09:54 AM
Sep 2019

that said his son believed the gun remained in his car during the confrontation.

rampartc

(5,263 posts)
3. good morning mr donovan
Sun Sep 8, 2019, 06:28 AM
Sep 2019

i'm a great fan of huey long, the first of 2 (or if you count Wellstone, 3) us senators to be assassinated. modern ballistics might have determined if Weiss fired the fatal shot, or if long was shot by his own bodyguard. in either case Weiss certainly pulled his gun.

huey long was a populist, and an incredible orator. did his challenge of fdr from the left lead to his death (as I was told by my father) or was it a personal grudge of Weiss (the official story), or was it possibly "business as usual" in that era of wildcat oil? long's win or lose corporation may have been the most corrupt enterprise in American history.

no one would have considered huey long to be a "socialist" or a "communist" but he falls way to the left of fdr or the new dealers. as governor he provided education, health care, and infrastructure to the poorest state in the union.

https://www.hueylong.com/perspectives/huey-long-quotes.php

Coventina

(26,852 posts)
4. thanks for the history! I've never heard the full story before.
Sun Sep 8, 2019, 06:36 AM
Sep 2019

Gerrymandering is wrong, no matter who does it.

Mc Mike

(9,107 posts)
7. ..
Sun Sep 8, 2019, 11:18 AM
Sep 2019

In his stump speeches he regularly named Morgan, Mellon, and Rockefeller as the main enemies of the people who's votes he was trying to get. After he was murdered, a bunch of right wing liars tried to pin the assassination on 'FDR bumping off the competition'. But one of Huey's aides, Sidney Songy, made open claims that a group from Standard Oil (Rockefeller) was actually behind Long's murder.

PAMod

(904 posts)
8. A common (logic impaired) thread in conspiracy theory -
Sun Sep 8, 2019, 11:35 AM
Sep 2019

Namely, that because someone wanted him dead, they must have been involved in the slaying...

Mc Mike

(9,107 posts)
9. No, the point is that his aide put forth the notion that
Sun Sep 8, 2019, 11:41 AM
Sep 2019

some people whose names were included in that list of powerful enemies Long named were involved in his assassination, Mod.

A common logic impaired debating tactic, is setting up a fake straw man argument, then attacking that.

Niagara

(7,406 posts)
10. Thanks for posting this
Sun Sep 8, 2019, 12:03 PM
Sep 2019

And thank you for the history lesson. It's something that I didn't learn in history class.





R.I.P. Huey Pierce Long Jr.

ismailkho

(1 post)
11. My opinion
Fri Dec 17, 2021, 02:09 PM
Dec 2021

i'm a great fan of huey long, the first of 2 (or if you count Wellstone, 3) us senators to be assassinated. modern ballistics might have determined if Weiss fired the fatal shot, or if long was shot by his own bodyguard. in either case Weiss certainly pulled his gun.

huey long was a populist, and an incredible orator. did his challenge of fdr from the left lead to his death (as I was told by my father) or was it a personal grudge of Weiss (the official story), or was it possibly "business as usual" in that era of wildcat oil? long's win or lose corporation may have been the most corrupt enterprise in American history.

no one would have considered huey long to be a "socialist" or a "communist" but he falls way to the left of fdr or the new dealers. as governor he provided education, health care, and infrastructure to the poorest state in the union.

https://1mquotes.com/en/huey-long
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