Huey Long

Huey Pierce Long, Jr. (August 30, 1893 – September 10, 1935), known as "The Kingfish," was a Louisiana governor (1928–1932) and U.S. Senator (1932–1935).

Sourced

• Every man a king, but no one wears a crown.
  • Written on banners used in the 1928 gubernatorial election; quoted in Hugh Davis Graham, Huey Long (1970), p. 39.

• And it is here under this oak where Evangeline waited for her lover, Gabriel, who never came. This oak is an immortal spot, made so by Longfellow's poem, but Evangeline is not the only one who has waited here in disappointment.
  Where are the schools that you have waited for your children to have, that have never come? Where are the roads and the highways that you send your money to build, that are no nearer now than ever before? Where are the institutions to care for the sick and disabled? Evangeline wept bitter tears in her disappointment, but it lasted through only one lifetime. Your tears in this country, around this oak, have lasted for generations. Give me the chance to dry the eyes of those who still weep here!
  • Speech given during the 1928 gubernatorial election; quoted in Hugh Davis Graham, Huey Long (1970), p. 40.

• For the present you can just call me the Kingfish.
  • Every Man a King (1933), p. 277.

• We swapped the tyrant 3,000 miles away for a handful of financial slaveowning overlords who make the tyrant of Great Britain seem mild.
  • 1933 Congressional Record, 72d Cong, 2d sess., Vol. 76; quoted in Hugh Davis Graham, Huey Long (1970), p. 55.

• Education and training for all children to be equal in opportunity in all schools, colleges, universities, and other institutions of training in the professions and vocations in life; to be regulated on the capacity of children to learn, and not on the ability of parents to pay the costs. Training for life's work to be as much universal and thorough for all walks of life as has been the training in the arts of killing.
  • Number 7 in the sum and substance of the Share our Wealth program (1935); quoted in Hugh Davis Graham, Huey Long (1970), p. 74.

• No man has ever been President of the U-nited States more than two terms. You know that; everyone knows that. But when I get in, I'm going to abolish the Electoral College, have universal suffrage, and I defy any sonofabitch to get me out under four terms.
  • Response by Long during an interview with the journalist Forrest Davis (1933); quoted in Hugh Davis Graham, Huey Long (1970).

• "Quote me as saying that that Imperial bastard will never set foot in Louisiana, and that when I call him a sonofabitch I am not using profanity, but am referring to the circumstances of his birth."
  • When the head of the Ku Klux Klan, Hiram W Evans, threatened to campaign against Long in Louisiana; quoted in "Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, & the Great Depression," Alan Brinkley. Random House Digital: 2011.

• I wonder why he shot me.
  • Said on September 8, 1935 on his way to the hospital following being shot outside the State Capitol; quoted in Harry T. Williams, Huey Long (Vingtage Books/Random House, 1969), p. 866.

Un-Sourced

• I'm a dyed-in-the-wool party man. I don't know just what party I am in right now, but I am for the party.
  • in Hardball by Chris Matthews

About Huey Long

• Strictures, reproaches, and intemperate speeches from the Senator of Louisiana are really the wailings of an apostle of despair; he has lost control of himself, he is trying to play billiards with elliptical billiard balls and a spiral cue.
  • Henry Fountain Ashurst

• Long is Chastened by Ashurst Attack
  • New York Times (June 16, 1935), pg. 1