1932: Fists Fly on Homer Square

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

behind, breaking of cameras, forced ejections of newsmen from the Governor's vicinity.” Newspapers used the term “henchmen” liberally to describe Long’s bodyguards.

Long and Allen appeared together at numerous rallies around the state preceding the 1932 gubernatorial election. On January 2, a rally was held on the Claiborne Parish courthouse square touting Allen for governor. As usual, Long was accompanied by a host of bodyguards.

Long and Allen spoke to the crowd, as well as John Overton, U.S. Congressman, and John B. Fournet, candidate for lieutenant governor. Huey Long was supporting Fournet, Louisiana House Speaker, over his own brother Earl K. Long. Traveling with the Long-Allen party was Marshall [Martial] Voitier, 25, younger brother of Paul “Polo” Voitier, one of Huey’s bodyguards.

A well-known Homer citizen, Herbert S. Ford, knew the opposing candidate, Dudley J. LeBlanc. Ford was a businessman who had served as an infantry captain during World War I and former commander of the Homer American Legion post. He had served with LeBlanc in the Army and was actively campaigning for his friend.

Ford was placing LeBlanc literature in cars parked about the courthouse square as O.K. Allen spoke. Ford had just handed a LeBlanc flier to E. W. Thomson who was seated in a car when Martial Voitier approached, attempted to snatch the papers, and then slugged Ford in the face. Ford went down, grabbing the man’s legs. While down, three other men kicked Ford and hit him in the face and head. Ford’s glasses were broken and his face cut in four or five places.

Town Marshals Jack Baird and C.A. Gandy ran up to break up the melee. Ford yelled he wasn’t going to release the man’s legs until an officer arrived. When Baird identified himself, Ford let go and Voitier was detained.  Several witnesses told Baird that Voitier and others had attacked Ford, knocked him down, and jumped on him. Voitier was arrested for disturbing the peace by fighting in the street.  

Mayor Lamont Seals set bail at $50, which was guaranteed by a personal check from assistant superintendent of the Louisiana Highway Patrol, Louis A. Jones, who was apparently traveling with Long and Allen. Voitier would have to return to Homer for trial in mayor’s court at a date to be determined.

Ford swore out an arrest warrant for Voitier before Justice of the Peace D.W. Knighten charging Voitier with assault and battery. Bail was set at $500 and Homer residents T.W. Gray and Henry Martin posted it. Trial was set for February 1 in district court.

Ford

Long himself appeared before the justice of the peace to complain the bail was too high. “You fellows had better be careful and not make the bond too much,” Long warned. “Because if you do, I will reprieve him, and the thing will be over because he belongs in my party and I am not going to leave without him.”

Homer citizens had been stirred into a fury as the rally continued. They wanted retribution. Incensed friends of Ford were urged to refrain from violence against Voitier and others in the group. The Shreveport Journal reported a large number of men armed themselves and insisted Ford make a statement to the audience. Ford said he was not badly hurt and discouraged any response. Marshal Baird told reporters that there probably would have been more serious trouble if Voitier had not been removed from town quickly.

Within a week of the incident, Voitier was identified as a well-known New Orleans boxer fighting under the name Young McGovern. The LeBlanc campaign released a statement declaring, “The man who brutally assaulted and beat up Mr. Ford at Homer has been positively identified as Young McGovern, the famous lightweight boxing champion at New Orleans.” Voitier was also brother to Paul “Polo” Voitier, one of Long’s trusted bodyguards.

Voitier did not appear in February to face the charges against him.  His bond was forfeited to the court.

The confrontation in Homer mirrored earlier events in Webster Parish. Minden resident J.R. Frey gave an account of the problems he had with “Long-Allen henchmen” when he tried to campaign for LeBlanc.

Frey told a reporter, “Having had some experience with this same bunch [as attacked Ford], I want the voters of the state to know the tactics being employed by the Long-Allen bunch to keep the public from having the advantage of considering the qualification  and fitness of Mr. LeBlanc for governor of Louisiana.

“At Ashland on December 31…Long-Allen henchmen approached me and very positively informed me to scatter no literature there. At Springhill, two days later, Long-Allen henchmen issued their final ultimatum by telling me that I had to stop. I am a man 66 years of age, and, not being physically able to fight the O.K. Allen bunch, I abandoned my work.” Allen won the election.

Roughing up the opposition, including the news media, seems have been standard procedure for those “protecting” Long and his lieutenants. One reporter acknowledged, “Over the years, the Senator’s bodyguards had smashed newsmen’s faces and heads.”

When Public Service Commissioner Francis Williams issued a statement critical of Long for controlling “almost all political offices in the state,” he was assaulted in the State Capitol on June 29, 1932. An unknown assailant struck Williams from behind, knocking him down. Salvador Guercio, an inspector for the Public Service Commission chased after the attacker. Joe Messina, Senate sergeant-at-arms and Long bodyguard, stopped and arrested Guercio. When Williams protested, he was also arrested and the assailant escaped.

A Missouri paper’s editorial denounced Long as “a cheap politician so yellow that he has to hide behind the guns of a plug-ugly bodyguard when he travels into the Louisiana villages of honest men he has insulted and derided.”

In a talk in Monroe on November 8, 1933, Long criticized chain stores in a speech on redistribution of wealth. E.M. Steen, operator of the Jitney Jungle grocery stores, became so incensed, he jumped up and called Long a liar. Long told his bodyguards to “put the __ __ out of the house.” Joe Messina jumped off the stage and rushed for Steen, swinging at the businessman but missing. Messina asked men to hold Steen so he could hit him. State Senator James A. Noe came to Steen’s rescue and Steen agreed to leave with Noe as long as the bodyguards did not accompany them.

Despite being on the state payroll—Messina was paid by the state police, Paul Voitier by the state voter registration office—the bodyguards were not immune from arrest. Highway patrol superintendent Louis Jones, who put up part of Martial Voitier’s bail, was convicted of attempted murder for fracturing the skill of a Louis Boudreaux as the Long foe was being removed from the state capitol in 1933. Paul Voitier was arrested in 1934 for tampering with the voter registration rolls in Orleans Parish. Messina was charged in 1935 with a blackjack clubbing an Associated Press photographer who snapped a picture of Long.

In the end, all those bodyguards could not protect the Kingfish. Confronted by Dr. Carl Weiss in a corridor of the State Capital Building on September 8, 1935, Long was shot in the abdomen, either by Weiss or by the bodyguards who fired at least 61 bullets into Weiss. 

Paul Voitier and Joe Messina were among those accompanying Long at the time. Long died two days later.

Homer’s museum is named in honor of Herbert S. Ford. He died in 1960.