Historic Louisiana

Lose Oil Company, controlled by Long
interests. Within parishes like Plaquemines,
local bosses created their own private oil
holding companies. As government officials,
they leased the vast marshlands of Louisiana to
powerful northern oil companies in return for
secret royalties.
Longism long survived Huey. Its immediate
heir was his brother, Earl, who served as
governor in 1939, 1948 to 1952, and again
from 1956 to 1960. His most potent heir was
his son, Russell, who served as United States
senator from 1948 to 1985. Other Long
relations served in the United States House of
Representatives, notably Gillis Long and
Speedy Long. They all strongly supported the
national Democratic Party. Governor Robert
Kennon (1952-1956) was the purest reformer
in the twentieth century. He reinstalled state
civil service, fought gambling, and at the same
time tried to preserve segregation.
Governor John J. McKeithen (1964-1972)
was the closest Louisiana came to melding
the extremes. A close ally of the Longs and of
the oil industry, he was an avowed reformer.
He promoted code of ethics and state civil
service. Remarkably, however, he was on the
constructive side of the racial conflicts of the
sixties. Governor Edwin Edwards began where
McKeithen ended as a reformer and supporter
of integration. He presided over the 1973
revision of the state constitution. But when the
state had valuable franchises to distribute,
whether hospital beds, bank charters, or
riverboat gambling licenses, he felt that the
payment should go to his friends, not to the
state. But his federal conviction on corruption
charges is perhaps more a tribute to the
incredible complexity of the laws then to any
intention by Edwards to violate them.
Edwards is the public man who saw political
office as an opportunity for private
aggrandizement. He typifies the Louisiana
political climate that oscillates between private
corruption and public reform.
For all the misfortunes and burdens of the
past century, Louisiana is a better place today
for all its people. The suppression of slavery
and segregation has broadened opportunities
for the mass of its people.
✧
A crowd gathers to listen to Earl Long
give a speech in 1940.
COURTESY OF THE LOUISIANA STATE MUSEUM.
CHAPTER VI ENDNOTES
1
Howard, L. Vaughan. Civil Service Development in Louisiana (New Orleans, 1956). p. 9.
2
The Daily States, November 17, 1898.
3
Common Council of the City of New Orleans, Ordinance No. 15,391, C.S., June 22, 1899.
4
Official Proceedings of the City Council, May 1, 1900, in Dreyfous files.Official Proceedings of
the City Council, May 1, 1900, in Dreyfous files.
CHAPTER VI
77