Long according to our author suffered a series of small strokes that left him impaired which was the reason for his celebrated rant to the Louisiana legislature that became national news. Something he stayed with right through his last controversial term as Governor which began in 1956 In his conversation he also quietly tried to get blacks enrolled as voters in Louisiana seeing this wasĪn inevitable future. Though Earl could be a crude cuss and occasionally spout an 'N' word Strom Thurmond, but stayed loyal to Harry Truman who ran The opposition were fine upstanding moral reformers who wanted to make sure government was efficiently run for special interests and were rabid segregationists.Įarl became Governor again in 1948 and the crunch for him came when he did not bolt the party and support States Rights candidate J. They also did a lot for the ordinary people and that includedĮvery so often black people though they never challenged seriously the South's segregationist social order. The paradox of Louisiana politics in those one party years. Governor Earl Long became Governor for the first of three times in 1939. When Leche went to prison after resigning Lieutenant In fact many of said associates went to jail because of various corruptionĬharges including Governor Richard Leche. In Louisiana and was showing national ambitions when he was assassinated in September of 1935.Įarl was one of many of the cogs of the machine that had to undergo quite an adjustment when Huey Kurtz's book gives Earl his proper perspective and place in Louisiana andĮarl was born in 1895 two years younger that his brother Huey who built the famous Long machine I knew little of the Long family of Louisiana or of brothers Huey and EarlĪnd the rest. Trying to put the Governor of Louisiana in a mental asylum because Governor Earl K. When I was a lad I remember seeing the newspaper and television accounts of how his family was

Earl K. Long by Michael L. Kurtz