In fact, as the 1920s gave way to the depression wracked decade of the 1930s, and as seemingly insignificant small-time demagogues like Mussolini in Italy, Franco in Spain, Stalin in the Soviet Union and Hitler in Germany began to amass vast power overseas, even some of those who supported in general Long's progressive agenda, became to look at him with alarm.
Writing in The Nation in January 1935, Raymond Gram Swing described Long this way: "He is a dictator. He rules and his opponents better stay out of his way. He punishes all who thwart him with grim relentless efficient vengeance."
The way Swing saw it, Long was a conundrum and what made Long so dangerous was the very fact that he had done so much good. "One does not understand the problem of Huey Long or the menace he represents to American democracy until one admits that he has done a vast amount of good for Louisiana," Swing wrote. "He had this to justify all that is corrupt and preemptory in his methods. Taken all in all, I do not know any man who has accomplished so much that I approve of in one state in four years, at the same time that he has done so much that I dislike. It is a thoroughly perplexing, paradoxical record."
Even now, more than 70 years after his death, Long's tactics remain a subject of debate. But his impact on the state has never been disputed. In the brief biography of Long posted on its Web site, the Louisiana Secretary of State's Office puts it succinctly: "No other governor in Louisiana history affected the political and social landscape like Huey Long. His impact lasted far beyond his death."
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| Seal of the Louisiana Secretary of State |
What is also beyond dispute is that within two years of taking office as governor, Long had consolidated almost unprecedented power, and had launched what could only be described a revolutionary social restructuring campaign.
And by the end of his second year in office, Long was already setting his sights on national office.
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