Today starts a new occasional feature on the “Moore to the Point” site: the “Worth Reading” recommendation. The first volume put forward is Richard B. White Jr.’s Kingfish: The Reign of Huey P. Long (Random House, 2006).
Growing up in the overflow of cajun country, I always viewed Huey Long, the titanic former governor and U.S. Senator from Louisiana, as an enigma. He seemed to be in the public mind a composite of George Washington and Adolf Hitler. For years, the Long dynasty ruled Louisiana and, in more ways that one, transformed the state’s politics. Of course, the picture of Huey Long most Americans retain is that of Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men.
White’s history is fast-paced and engaging. How could it be boring when it is describing the closest the United States came to a revolutionary dictator?
Of special interest to Christians is White’s description of Long’s use of Christianity for his own political purposes, even describing himself as a dry, devout Baptist in north Louisiana and as a hard-drinking, Mass-going Catholic in south Louisiana. The truth is, he was an impious, hard-drinking Baptist. But he could make the crowds believe whatever he wanted.
In the book, White pictures the turbulent relationship between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Long, as Roosevelt uses Long for his political purposes in 1932 but shortly thereafter begins to see the grim possibilities of Long’s demagogic appeal.
The common thread through the book, from Long’s humble north Louisiana roots through his assassination on the precipice of a presidential campaign, is ego. Long was consumed by a soul-deadening pride. As he put it, “Listen, there are smarter guys than I am, but not in Louisiana.”
An assassin’s bullet put an end to his ego, but not to his legend. Anyone interested in political intrique or in the complexities of the human psyche will find something of interest in Kingfish.
