Louisiana's Kaiser

Louisiana's Kaiser

Louisiana is a state unto itself. Many are its traditions, fine and enviable. One of them is that in its 117-year career in the Union it has never removed a governor by impeachment. Last week it prepared to shatter this tradition.

For ten months Huey P. Long has been Louisiana's governor. To many it seemed ten months too long. He had ruled the state as a political dictator, had tramped into the Legislature at Baton Rouge to issue his orders, had played hob with the State's appointive boards and commissions. For ten months his opponents cringed before him, treasuring their grievances. Last week the gusty wind of popular favor veered 180 degrees and a hurricane of public condemnation swept down upon the young man who styled himself the "Kaiser of Louisiana."

Governor Long was farm-born 35 years ago at Winnfield in the upper part of the state. At 13 he peddled school books, developed an amazing gift of gab. Then he took to selling a lard substitute, conducting baking contests. The winner of such a contest in Shreveport became his wife. He hustled through a three-year college course in seven months to jump headlong into state politics--''on the people's side." His campaigns were never dull and usually triumphant. The cities to the south were against him but in the northern reaches of the state he firmly grounded his political influence with the farmers and their ilk.

Today he is 35, 5 ft. 7 in. in height, already portly. His chin is dimpled, his cheeks cherubic, his eyes small and brown, his hair a wavy reddish brown -- and his tongue a restless lance of dispute and invective. Still rustic in manner, if not in thought, he keeps the countryman's water bucket and gourd dipper prominently displayed in the executive offices. To win his election he promised the state's farmers paved roads, free hospitals, free school books. As governor he spent money like an Osage Indian on a spree to fulfill these pledges, soon found that more revenue must be forthcoming to keep up the splurge. In March he called a special session of the Legislature to prepare new tax measures. Instead it prepared for his impeachment. Louisiana is, among other things, an oil state, with many a refinery for its own production and for shipments from Mexico and South America. Governor Long proposed a 5 cent tax upon every barrel of refined oil and gasoline. Unsentimental businessmen rose to curse him with the charge that he was inflicting the state with a manufacturers' tax which would drive industry out of Louisiana. The Long oil tax caused the impeachment explosion. He was charged with: 1) Using his ap pointive power to control the courts; 2) Attempting to bribe legislators with patronage promises; 3) Employing the militia to loot and pillage private property; 4) Carrying concealed weapons; 5) Deporting himself scandalously at a New Orleans "studio" party; 6) Demolishing the Executive Mansion and disposing of its furniture; 7) Putting a $20,000 ice machine into a penitentiary without public bids.

Of the 19 charges against him, the last, subornation of murder, was the most serious. One Harry A. ("Battling") Bozeman, onetime pugilist and Long bodyguard, offered a sworn affidavit in which he stated: ''Huey P. Long sent for me to come to the Governor's Mansion about five or six weeks ago. The governor said to me: " 'Battling Bozeman, I am the Kaiser of this state. When I crack my whip whoever dares :o disobey my orders, I'll fire 'em. They won't last as long with me as a snowball will in Hell.' " 'Shut that door over there,' he says. 'Come down here and sit down by me.' The Governor had been drinking. I smelled it on his breath. "He says: 'Battling Bozeman, I am going to call an extra session of the Legislature,' and he says, 'This J. Y. Sanders Jr. [Jared Y. Sanders Jr., State Representative, leader of the Long opposition] is going to disapprove of all my measures, and I want to do away with this --.' "I says: 'Governor, what do you mean?' "He says: 'I mean for you to kill the -- --, leave him in the ditch where nobody will know how or when he got there. I'm governor of this state and if you were to be found out I would give you a full pardon and many gold dollars.' " The articles of impeachment caused a riot in the Legislature when a Long supporter rigged the electric voting-machine to flash the red lights of adjournment against the legislators' will. Members cursed, jostled and fought.

Governor Long retorted that the Standard Oil Company of Louisiana was behind the impeachment because he had dared to propose an oil tax. Much duty money had been "sluiced" into Baton Rouge, he claimed, to buy his downfall. With all newspapers against him, Louisiana's Kaiser, with 20 assistants, issued a special newssheet of his own, defending himself under the head, CROSS OF GOLD: HUEY P. LONG V. THE STANDARD OIL. Rabbi Walter Gilbert Peiser refused to invoke God's blessing upon the Legis- lature because his prayers "would be coarsened and cheapened ... by a Chief Executive . . . unworthy of high office." Lieutenant Governor Paul N. Cyr asked God to forgive him for ever supporting "this most cruel tyrant of all times "