Rating:

4.0 (6 votes)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Who killed Huey Long? Was it an
assassination? A fisticuffs turned fatal? A police cover-up?
This week marks the 75th anniversary of the shooting and death
of the former Louisiana governor and U.S. senator, whose homicide
is still debated by historians and sleuths weighing confusing and
sometimes contradictory evidence in the case.
The school history books say he was shot by Carl Weiss, a young
Baton Rouge doctor who was killed immediately by Long's bodyguards.
To this day, members of the Long family defend that explanation
while relatives of Weiry melieve he was framed.
The official metal plaque marking the fateful spot in the state
Capitol is careful not to take sides. It says only that Long "died
September 10, 1935, from a bullet wound inflicted here on September
8, 1935. He was 42 years old."
On that, everyone agrees. The rest of the story has accumulated
clouds of doubt for three quarters of a century and seems destined
to remain without clear resolution.
"The only premise that I personally believe in, is that no
matter what theory that you believe in personally, there exists
serious and believable evidence that disputes your theory, as well
as all the other theories," said Michael Wynn, a Louisiana
historical collector and co-author of a play about the shooting in
which the audience decides what happened.
No CSI in 1935
The historical truth is complicated by the fact that the
shooting was not investigated with any sort of thorough collection
ed.evidence or methodical methods that would be expected today.
There was no CSI-Baton Rouge in 1935.
The bullet that killed Long has never been produced as evidence.
The gun used by the alleged assassin was picked up in the hall by
the local coroner but it was not clearly and immediately
established at the scene except by witness testimony. It went
missing for more than 50 years.
There was no autopsy and no X-rays of Long. There was no
detailed medical report. No authorities surrounded the Weiss family
home with police tape to secure the site for a crime investigation.
No one has ever presented evidence that Weiss was planning an
assassination.
The closest thing to a public investigation was a coroner's
inquest, which was mainly a series of witness testimony conducted
by the local district attorney, a noted Long opponent. The bulk of
the witnesses did not participate in the inquest until eight days
after the shooting.y want good food."
closely, except for
different recollections of whether they had heard one shot or two
before the retaliatory fusillade, and it was unclear whether the
second shot might have come from Weiss or one of the guards.
This discrepancy, which also showed up in newspaper coverage
right after the shooting, did not seem meaningful at the time. But
it would take on greater significance as historians examined the
evidence in later years amid questions of whether the fatal shot
was fired by one of the bodyguards in Long's entourage.
The central criticism of the inquest is that the witnesses were
either Long supporters or guards, who had their reputations as well
as the fortunes of the Long political faction to protect. One of
the witnesses was a newspaper reporter favored by Long who
moonlighted with a government salary thanks to the senator. His
testimony came days before the bodyguards came forward and was
consistent overall with what they reported. The inquest registered
the deaths as homicides but did not assign blame in the shootings.
As with everything touched by Long, the cause of his death has
become part of a greater legend, the slant of which depends on
whether he is interpreted as a hero of the common man or a villain
of near epic proportions.
Huey Long led a spectacular and controversial political career
that spawned legions of supporters as well as enemies in Louisiana
and beyond. In Depression-era America, his magical persona and
Share Our Wealth philosophy of class warfare grew avid support
across the nation and threatened to disrupt the Democratic Party
and Franklin Roosevelt's hold on the presidency at a crucial time.
In the summer of 1935, Long published a fanciful book, "My First
Days in the White House," and was widely seen as a potent
challenger to FDR.
But Long's socialist agenda and militarist, dictatorial tactics
alsof Open
fans.
ns to the rise of fascism in Europe. He was
loved, hated and, perhaps most importantly, feared. Even while
holding a seat in the U.S. Senate, he broadened his powers in
Louisiana exponentially through legislative sessions granting him
extraordinary control over state and local political realms,
including elections procedures and government employment. He could
hire and fire sheriff deputies, teachers and streetcar drivers. He
waged war on the influence of major corporations and the New
Orleans business and political establishment.
There was plenty of talk about the possibility that someone
might try to assassinate Long. In a speech in 1935, Long alleged a
plot among his enemies to eliminate him by means of, "one man, one
gun, one bullet."
The state was divided into factions of Longs and anti-Longs, a
political dichotomy that would color state politics for generations
after his death. Among the anti-Longs was the Pavy family of St.
Landry Parish, where district judge Benjamin Henry Pavy protected a
pocket of opposition to the Long machine. Carl Weiss was married to
the judge's daughter, Yvonne.
Two members of the Pavy family, a teacher and a school
principal, lost their jobs in a Long purge. On the night of Sept.
8, 1935, the House of Representatives met at the state Capitol in a
special session to pass 39 bills, including one that would alter
Judge Pavy's district and effectively prevent him from re-election.
Although Long was a U.S. senator at the time, he personally oversaw
the proceedings in keeping with his tight grip on the governor's
office and most of the Legislature.
The official version of events is represented in newspaper
reports at the time, a coroner's inquest eight days after the
shooting and a 1992 State Police investigation of new evidence.
That version maintains that Weiss carried a .32 caliber automatic
py col into the Capitol, where the session had drawn crowds of
politicians and onlookers.
As the lawmakers were about to finish their business on that
Sunday night, Long left the House floor and walked down a back
corridor between the House and Senate chambers. His bodyguards went
with him, and along the way Supreme Court Justice John Fournet, a
Long ally, sought a word with the senator. Long darted into the
governor's secretary's office and quickly re-emerged into the hall,
which was now busy with people. He paused to tell one of his aides
to make sure his legislative allies would arrive punctually the
next morning for a meeting.
Wearing a white suit, Weiss was standing nearby next to a marble
column against a wall. In a flash, he stepped forward, catching
Long and his bodyguards unaware.
Weiss shot the senator at close range and the bullet went
straight through Long's abdomen. Judge Fournet knocked Weiss' arm,
possiblggloving the bullet's trajectory into Long's gut instead of
his chest.
Long howled and fled the hall, making his way down a set of
stairs to the ground floor. Meanwhile, one of Long's bodyguards
wrestled briefly with Weiss and grabbed at the doctor's gun. The
guard may have caught his hand in the automatic release mechanism,
possibly preventing another shot.
Backing off, the guard pulled out his own pistol and he and the
other bodyguards unloaded their automatic handguns into Weiss, who
died on the spot. Those in the Capitol that night said it sounded
like machine guns or firecrackers. Bystanders scrambled away,
bullet shells littered the floor and gunsmoke burned eyes and
fogged the view.
On the ground floor, Long found a close political friend who
commandeered a car and got the senator to Our Lady of the Lake
Hospital a couple of blocks away. According to the traditional
version of the story, the surgeons concluded that a single bullet
went into the soft tissue of Long's front abdomen and exited the
back. They operated and closed perforations in the intestines
hoping to stop internal bleeding and infection.
They failed to save him, which was not unusual for gunshot
victims in those days, an age before antibiotics. He may have died
from loss of blood.
Weiss was soon identified as the shooter, and the news media was
quick to pick up on his connection with the Pavy family.
"The first bill introduced at the extra session of the
Legislature which convened Saturday night (the night before the
shooting) took St. Landry Parish out of the 13th Judicial District
and is said to have been aimed at Judge Pavy, one of the anti-Long
leaders in his section of the state," The Times-Picayune reported
the next day.
Other motives have been imputed about Weiss' desire to kill
Long. One is that Long had implied or was about to suggest that the
comvy family ancestry was mixed with African-Americans blood, which
at the time would have been perceived as a grave insult. Whether
Long intended this slur, Weiss may have believed he would,
prompting deep rage against the senator.
The Long machine erupted into accusations that Weiss was part of
a conspiracy, an interpretation that doesn't hold much weight
today. A gubernatorial election was several months away, and the
Long faction branded its enemies as the "Assassination Party."
Carl Weiss' son and members of the Pavy family offer a different
interpretation of events. They believe Weiss went to the Capitol
that night to talk with Long or confront him, not to kill him.
Weiss had an exchange of words with Long in the corridor and
slugged the senator in the jaw. A guard reacted hastily and
accidentally shot Long, or else shot at Weiss and a bullet
ricochetted into Long's stomach.
Weiss was framed and the true story weircovered up in an
orchestrated effort by the top State Police investigator to protect
the bodyguards and foment anger toward Long's enemies and build his
legend as a martyr.
This theory also points to the mild-mannered and professional
character of Weiss, in many ways an unlikely man to carry out a
brazen, suicidal assassination. At 29, he was a successful ear,
nose and throat doctor and the son of another respected physician
in Baton Rouge. He developed his medical skills in New Orleans,
Vienna, Paris and New York. He was regarded as an intelligent,
gifted surgeon with a love of arts, carving and music.
Weiss was happily married with a 3-month-old son, Carl Jr., and
had just bought new furniture and was planning renovations to his
house, which was just a block from the Capitol building.
The day of the shooting, Weiss attended Mass with his family at
St. Joseph's Cathedral and spent the afternoon lounging with his
wi als family in an outing on the Amite River. That evening, he
called an anesthesiologist to remind the colleague about a change
in location for a tonsillectomy the next day. Then he went out to
make a house call, a visit that was later verified by the patient
he saw. His wife and parents were dumbfounded when they learned of
the shooting.
Weiss owned a gun that he kept in the glove compartment of his
Buick, a weapon he carried ostensibly as protection against
possible muggers during night calls. According to the
counter-theory, Weiss either carried the gun into the Capitol
without intending to use it or else Long's men found the pistol in
his car and planted it at the crime scene.
The night of the shooting, Weiss' brother found the locked Buick
parked in front of the Capitol and he said it appeared that someone
had rifled through it. When the brother later returned with a
second set of keys, the car was gone.
Years latpan other provocative but inconclusive evidence to
support the planted gun theory would come to light.
The counter-theory also banks on evidence that Long had a cut
lip, perhaps caused by a blow from Weiss. The Times-Picayune
reported the next day that the man who took Long to the hospital
said there was "a trickle of blood oozing from Sen. Long's lips."
A nurse at the hospital reported the cut lip and quoted Long as
saying, "That's where he hit me."
The inquest also addressed the cut lip, which a doctor described
as an abrasion. Speculation during the inquest suggested it might
have been caused by an accident as Long was weaving down the
stairwell. Also during the inquest, a bodyguard testified he saw
one of the other guards take a swing at Weiss but hit Long instead.
The guard who made the alleged punch later said he never hit Long.
Through the years, conflicting testimonies about the cut lip would
cloud the incident thother.
In the weeks after the shooting, the public's focus was diverted
to the possibilities of a conspiracy with Weiss as its hit man.
There was no strong proof of that, but there was no resounding
protest of the official version of events either. Weiss generally
was recognized as the assassin. It was a time when it might have
been easy to imagine any number of types of people who might want
to kill the Kingfish.
But the story did not end there. Years later, reporters,
historians and other investigators re-examined the evidence, the
gun was found, Weiss' body was exhumed and sensational affidavits
were signed, all offering clues to support both sides of the
discussion -- but no definitive conclusion.
"And so what are we left with?" said David Zinman, a reporter
and author of the book, "The Day Huey Long Was Shot." "In
essence, beyond the testimony at the inquest, which is clouded by
the fact that it comes from men who are part and parcel of the Long
political machine or by guards who vindicate themselves by naming
Weiss, there still is only speculation."
Zinman, who spoke recently as a Baton Rouge symposium on the
Long assassination, began his investigations of the Long shooting
in 1960 and he still is unable to reach a conclusive verdict about
what happened.
"And so the shooting - cloaked in secrecy, never fully
investigated, confused by conflicting details - continues to spawn
a host of intriguing puzzles," Zinman said. "With all the
participants and eyewitnesses nowhow their graves, what really
happened in that narrow back corridor of the state capitol will
probably remain one of Louisiana's enduring mysteries.