Assassination of Huey Long

Long on the cover of Time in 1935

Huey Long rose to national stature in the early 1930s for his criticism of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal.[3] Long instead proposed the Share Our Wealth program, which called for massive federal spending, a wealth tax, and wealth redistribution.[4] Failing to pass legislation in the Senate, Long formed a national political organization, the Share Our Wealth Society. The network of local clubs operated outside of and in opposition to the Democratic Party and Roosevelt. By 1935, the society had over 7.5 million members in 27,000 clubs across the country. Long's Senate office received an average of 60,000 letters a week, resulting in Long hiring 48 stenographers to type responses.[5] Long's newspaper American Progress averaged a circulation of 300,000, with some issues reaching 1.5 million.[6]

Long had previously acknowledged the possibility of his own death.[7] Some even claimed that he had a morbid fascination with it.[5] In a 1935 speech, he claimed that his political enemies had a plot to kill him with "one man, one gun, one bullet."[8] Long had even sensationally claimed that Chicago gangsters were after him.[9] His own right-hand-man, Gerald L. K. Smith, declared in 1935 that "the only way they will keep Huey Long from the White House is to kill him." In spring 1935, one of Long's opponents in Louisiana warned, "I am not gifted with second sight. ... But I can see blood on the polished floor of this Capitol. For if you ride this thing through, you will travel with the white horse of death."[10]

On September 8, 1935, Long left his twelfth floor suite at the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans. While leaving, the hotel's owner Seymour Weiss[note 1] asked Long where the deduct box[note 2] was. Long replied, "I'll tell you later, Seymour." The deduct box was never found.[11] Long travelled to the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge in order to pass House Bill Number One, a re-redistricting plan which would oust political opponent Judge Benjamin Henry Pavy.[12]

At 9:20 p.m., just after passage of the bill effectively removing Pavy, Long left the House, followed by an entourage. As he proceeded down a corridor, Pavy's son-in-law Carl Weiss stepped out from behind a column, and, according to the official version of events, fired a single shot with an FN Model 1910 semi-automatic pistol from four feet (1.2 m) away.[13][14] Long was struck in the torso, yelped, and ran down a hallway "like a hit deer", one witness claimed.[13][15] Long's bodyguards, nicknamed the "Cossacks" or "skullcrushers",[13] responded by firing at Weiss with their own pistols, killing him; an eyewitness report claimed that Weiss had been shot more than sixty times by the bodyguards. Long was able to run down a flight of stairs and across the capitol grounds, hailing a car to take him to the Our Lady of the Lake Hospital.[8]

Long was rushed to the hospital, where an emergency surgery was held to close perforations in his intestines.[8][12] Long's condition improved within several hours and he appeared to be recovering. However, by the next morning it was realized that Long was hemorrhaging from his kidney. It was concluded that Long was too weak to survive from a second surgery.[16] Long died at 4:10 a.m. on Tuesday, September 10, thirty-one hours after being shot.[17] According to different sources, his last words were either "I wonder what will happen to my poor university boys" or "God, don't let me die. I have so much to do".[18][12] There has been controversy about whether Long could have survived with better surgical care; biographer T. Harry Williams concluded that Long died as a result of medical incompetence.[17][19] Alan Brinkley wrote that Long's doctors "hopelessly bungled" the operation.[20]

An autopsy was not conducted on Long or Weiss (until Weiss' exhumation in 1991).[21]

The FN Model 1910 which Carl Weiss allegedly used to shoot Huey Long, on display at the Old State Capitol

The assassin Weiss was a well-respected 28 year-old ear, nose, and throat specialist from Baton Rouge. His father was president of the Louisiana Medical Society.[22] Weiss was not involved in politics and had just had a son with his wife Yvonne, the daughter of Judge Pavy.[13][8] It was rumored that Long referred to the Pavys as having "Negro blood", possibly motivating Weiss,[23] but there is no written record of Long saying that.[22] Weiss owned a gun which he often carried with him during house-calls, a common practice at the time.[13] Weiss' house was not searched by the authorities after the shooting and there is no evidence that he premeditated the killing.[8]

At the time, Weiss's wife and their families did not accept his guilt. Indeed, Weiss's parents indicated that he had seemed quite happy earlier on the day that Long was shot.[24]

Although most believe that Weiss did confront Long, some claim that he only punched Long. In a 1935 affidavit, nurse Jewel O’Neal, who helped treat the dying Long, claimed that while treating Long's bruised lip, he told her, "That's where he hit me."[22] Proponents of this theory claim that Long was caught in the crossfire as his bodyguards shot at Weiss, being hit by one of the bullets which ricocheted off the marble walls.[13][25]

Francis Grevemberg, head of the Louisiana State Police in the 1950s, claimed in an affidavit that during a 1953 gambling raid, he heard three state troopers say that bodyguards Joe Messina and Murphy Roden opened fire on Weiss after he punched Long. He also claimed that one of Long's former security guards told him that Weiss's gun was removed from his car and planted at the scene. Grevemberg claims he was told not to investigate.[17][22] Delmas Sharp Jr., the son of one of Long's bodyguards, claimed that in 1951 his father brought him to a bar owned by Messina. He stated that his father identified Messina as the man who killed Long. Messina turned his back on his colleague but did not deny the claim.[22]

In a 1986 book, Ed Reed claimed that two bullets, not one, were found in Long's body. He relied on testimony from Long's mortician, who claimed that a doctor returned late at night to remove an additional bullet from Long's corpse.[17] This was not the only discrepancy. Weiss’ brother, Tom Ed Weiss, who arrived at the scene an hour after the shooting, claimed that Weiss' car had been moved from where witnesses had seen it at the door of the Capitol and that his brother's gun had been removed from the glove compartment. Additionally, the coroner did not find car keys in Weiss's pockets.[22]

A bullet hole in a marble column, marking a stray bullet from one of Long's bodyguards

Weiss' son, Carl Weiss Jr., believed his father to be innocent: "I don't believe that he fired a fatal shot or indeed that he carried a gun into the state Capitol that night." In a 1985 conversation with Long's son Russell, Weiss learned of the existence of his father's gun. With James Starrs of George Washington University, Weiss located the gun in a New Orleans safe-deposit box owned by Mabel Guerre Binnings, the daughter of Louis Guerre, the state's head of crime investigations in 1935. After a legal battle, she gave up possession of the box in 1991. It contained Weiss' .32 caliber automatic pistol, a .32 caliber bullet that had been fired and had a blunt tip from an impact, and photos of Long's clothing showing a single bullet hole. After firing a test bullet, State Police investigators concluded that the bullet was not fired by Weiss' gun. However, it could not have been from one of the bodyguards as they carried a larger caliber.[17]

As Weiss was never given an autopsy, his body was exhumed in 1991.[21][26] His remains were examined at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History. Although nearly all soft-tissue had decomposed, pathologists were able to study his damaged bones. They concluded that at least 24 bullets struck Weiss, though eyewitness accounts suggested that there had been at least 60. It was likely that a number of bullets had passed through soft-tissue, missing Weiss' bones. They were also able to determine the angle of impact of each bullet: Weiss was shot from the front seven times, thrice from the right, twice from the left, and twelve times from behind. This indicates that Weiss was killed in an erratic crossfire. A .38 caliber slug was found in Weiss' skull, having entered below his left eye. According to ballistics expert Lucien C. Haag, a bullet of this size should have had enough energy to exit the skull. He claimed that this lack of force was indicative of it passing through another body. It is believed that this bullet passed through Weiss' arm: suit fiber was attached to the bullet and there was damage to bones in Weiss' arms. Starrs claims that this suggests that Weiss was in a "defensive posture", with arms raised before him.[13]

After the assassination, the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York (MONY) dispatched company investigator K. B. Ponder to validate the nature of Long's death. His 1935 report concluded:

There is no doubt that Weiss attacked Long, but there is considerable doubt that Weiss ever fired a gun. ... There is no doubt that his death was accidental, but the consensus of more informed opinion is that he was killed by his own guard and not by Weiss.[17]

In determining that Long's death was accidental, MONY paid a $20,000 life insurance claim to Long's widow. This information was only publicly released in 1985, fifty years after Long's death.[17]

• Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy
• List of assassinated American politicians
• List of United States Congress members killed or wounded in office
• List of United States Congress members who died in office (1900–1949)