Twelve Years

Looking at Huey Long, old Louisiana aristocrats used to shake their heads. "Many of our Governors have been scoundrels," they said, "but up to now they have always been gentlemen." Right they were: from the reign of Carpetbagger Henry Clay Warmoth (1868-72) to the reign of Huey Long, too many amiable scoundrels and gentlemen figure-headed Louisiana life. And they left so much essential work undone that when Huey Long came bellowing and blasting his way to power in 1928 it was less like an election than like Louisiana's first payment of a longaccumulated fine for gross negligence.

Last week it looked as if Louisiana, after twelve years of the Long machine, had just about paid in full. Ended was a long, bitter, five-sided primary campaign, in which Huey's brother, Governor Earl Long, wrapped the mantle of Huey around him, with some opponents saying he had no right to wear it and some saying it was no mantle. Loud were the old-fashioned charges of fraudulent registrations, theft, tyranny, dictatorship, broken with old-fashioned cries of "Turn the rascals out." All this noise indicated that the voters were out in force as they had not been since Huey's early days. When the votes were counted they stood (virtually complete) : Governor Long, 204,901 ; his four opponents, 292,223.

Nobody doubted that No. 2 man, Sam Houston Jones, 42, log-cabin-born lawyer from growing Lake Charles (pop. 15,791) in West Louisiana, had a good chance in the run-off next month. A medium-sized, moderately colorless, moderately prosperous small-town ex-assistant prosecutor of unquestioned honesty, Sam Jones's greatest appeal lay in his name. Driving through the Louisiana countryside, motorists reported a warm grass-roots emotion at seeing signs that asserted with quiet dignity: This Is a Sam Jones Town. They felt that a politician named Sam Jones might travel far.

Sam Jones's prospects looked still brighter when the No. 3 man in the primary, ex-Governor James Noe, one time Huey Long lieutenant, came out for him. A few minutes after Noe's swing was announced, distraught Governor Long called a special session of the Legislature, hurriedly pushed through some abject vote-getting bills--repeal of the sales tax that has loaded Louisiana pockets with brass and aluminum tokens, repeal of the tax on gasoline used by boats, which has made Louisiana fishermen grind their teeth, statutory opening of the books of the State bond and tax board for examination.

In the general tumult, even Louisiana Republicans came out in the open, held a primary along with the Democrats. It was their first in Louisiana since the primary law was enacted, and almost the first time Republicans have come out in the open since the days of the carpetbaggers. Their total registration: 709.

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