Posted on 05/19/2016 3:12:01 PM PDT by BBell
New Orleans and the state government prepared to go to war over control of the city in the summer of 1934. At 10 o'clock one Monday night that July, as Sen. Huey Long sat in his suite atop the Roosevelt Hotel, National Guardsmen under his control broke down the doors of the registrar of voters office across Lafayette Square from City Hall.
The heavily armed forces searched and surrounded the building. Snipers trained their guns on the office of Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley, a former political ally of Long who was now his bitter adversary.
A tense standoff ensued. Long, claiming corruption was rampant in the city, stationed an estimated 2,500 forces in New Orleans, some at the Soule Building, where the voter registration office was located, and others to Jackson Barracks. Meanwhile, the city deputized a force of about 500 special police officers, armed them with submachine guns and stationed them outside City Hall.
Long, whose mayoral candidate (the editor of Long's propaganda mouthpiece) had lost the election that January, was trying to strip Walmsley of power over the police department and to establish his own tax assessment entity. From Long's hotel suite, Gov. O.K. Allen issued an order declaring "partial martial law," claiming some New Orleanians had tried to vote with ballots filled out by city employees and had threatened violence if their votes were not counted. A new election was scheduled for September, and Long didn't want to lose.
"What's all the fuss about?" Long said to a reporter for The New York Times in an interview from his hotel suite. "Hasn't the governor got a right to protect a state office with the militia if he wants to? Who's going to stop him?"
Walmsley denounced Long's attempted power grab as despotic, likening him to Hitler and appealing
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
I expected the Thompsons, but the Browning (or is it a Maxim?) is a little over the top.
A little over the top? Nothing was a little over the top when it came to Huey Long. The man loathed the thought of losing anything.
Worthwhile reading. Thanks for posting.
Partial martial law, eh? Charges of voter fraud, former political allies literally going to war against each other, government officials being arrested...spooky parallels.
Huey Long was widely regarded as a populist.
Interesting that the Times-Pic is revisiting this event now.
Browning... You gotta admit ol’ Huey was “go big or go home”.
I had the same thoughts.
A lot of nice let’s point our weapons at each other pictures.
A chicken in every pot - Free college for all - things haven’t changed much in eighty years.....
Ah, those lovely bits of history they never taught us about.
Betting there wasn’t a registration or license in the bunch.
Lots of trigger fingers in the wrong place, too.
The Kingfish was a tyrant. He hated my great uncle, who was president of Standard Oil Company of Louisiana. Long blamed Standard Oil for all of the woes of the poor in the state. Long would pay LSU students $5 each and give them a ride on a chartered train from Baton Rouge to New Orleans to support the LSU football team against Tulane. One year my cousin, son of the Standard Oil executive, snuck out and went on the train to the game. His father forbade him to keep the $5 from Long, saying it was blood money. My cousin deposited it in a savings account and promised that he would never use it but would donate it to a Catholic charity on his death, which occurred at age 93 in 2011.
My grandfather also despised Long. Long had shown up to campaign at my grandfathers hunting club dinner. Long sat next to my grandfather at dinner...after Long had eaten all of the duck on his plate, he reached over to take a piece off of my grandfathers’ plate. My grandfather stabbed Long in the hand with his fork. Long was so shocked that he didn’t have the balls to try to have my grandfather arrested.
Thanks for the story. He was a tyrant and a damn good manipulator.
Huey was a nut. His brother Earl Kemp Long was screwy too, with an added side of alcoholism to spice up the drama. The Long political dynasty lasted all the way from the Civil War to the late 1980’s. Neither the Kennedys or the Bushes will ever out endure them.
They sure do know how to “party” down in the “Big Sleazy”, then and now.
I knew Rep. Edwin Edwards (D-La). Do I have to say anything more?
Guess Long forgot to “duck” your uncle’s fork. GOOD!
Great photos!
Huey long abused every speck of power he had or could steal. His daughter was blackballed from all the sororities at LSU. He subsequently passed a law that no sorority on any University campus in the state could have living quarters. That law remained on the books until it ‘expired’ sometime after I graduated from Tulane in 1966. Vindictive despot - kind of reminds me of the Clintons.
He was a bleeping Fascist. Thank God for Mr. Weiss.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.