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By Wesley
Harris
When Huey Long was elected to the United State Senate in
1930, he was reluctant to give up control of his post as Louisiana’s governor.
He refused to permit Lieutenant Governor Paul Cyr to move up and assume the
office. Instead, he delayed officially taking his Senate seat until closer to
election time, and, for a time, he seemed to hold both offices. Cyr eventually
lost a court battle and his position as lieutenant governor.
When Long did leave the governorship, he intended to
maintain complete control of the office of Louisiana’s chief executive. His
plan was to ensure one of his puppets took the office. O.K. Allen was Long's floor leader in the Louisiana Senate and
Long placed his support behind the man he could control in the governor’s
office.
Nicknamed the Kingfish after a stereotypical,
smooth-talking conman in the Amos and
Andy radio show, Long was either loved or roundly hated by Louisianans. No
middle ground existed. When he went out in public, citizens wanted to hug him
or hit him. As many as six or seven bodyguards in plainclothes, often backed up
by more visible uniformed National Guardsmen, went everywhere with Long.
In his book, Louisiana
Hayride, Harnett Kane described the tactics used by the bodyguards. “The
protection men snarled at luckless Louisianans who got in Huey’s way, and used
their fists sometimes if the path was not cleared quickly enough. As to
reporters and photographers, Huey told his men to ‘let go.’ That order meant
sluggings from
