The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-09-10
Present Louisiana Political Setup
 Makes Huey Long LOokLike a Piker
Ring Rules State
 as of Old, Basks
 in FarIey's Favor
By NEA Service

New Orleans, La, Sept. l0.-It is just two years since Baton Rouge eye specialist stepped into a corridor of the state capitol building and put a pistol bullet into the body of Sem ator Huey Long.
 That pistol shot that ended the career of Louisiana's dictator has had some momentous and surpris- ing consequences.
 For one thing, it started flood of more than $l00,00O, 900 in fed- eral money flowing into the state.
 For another, it enabled a lot of uneasy heads to sleep well O nights once more.
 For still another, it removed from the scene the builder and operator of the most Hitleresque political machine ever devised in America-and left the machine running more smoothly, ruthlessly and efnciently than ever before.
 Not Hearing, but Seeing
 In the two years since he has died, Huey Longs political heirs have frightened up on his practices and forgotten his principles.
 Louisiana TO longer hears or reads the daily speeches and proc lamations in which the late King fish" used to proclaim his love for the common people.
 But every day Louisiana sees the activities of political ma chine that, in the words of the man in the street, makes Huey look like piker."
 To see how this happened, 1t is necessary to go back to the eve of Senator Longs assassination. Roosevelt's Bitter Foe
 In the late summer of 1885, Huey Long was the Number One thorn in. the side of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was the irrepressible gadf1y self-ap- pointed to make life uncomfort- able for the president. In public speeches he called President Roosevelt "a liar and faker," and publicly dared the president to take up the charge, saying If he does I'll prove 1t on him."
 At time when the federal gov- ernment was pouring out billions of dollars to the states for relief and reconstruction, Huey put through the Louisiana legislature laws making 1t a crime for state or local officials to accept federal moneys. In a public speech he declared that President Roosevelt can go slapdam to hell with his patronage"-this after Postmaster General James A. Farley had handed federal patronage in Louisiana to Huey's political foes.
 One Convicted, Sentenced
 From Washington came reprisals. Agents of the U. s. Treasury De- partment, according to sworn testi- mony before a Senate committee, spent more than two years inves- tigating the incomes of Senator Long and the members of his inner council in Louisiana.
 Some IS of his closest personal and political intimates were indict- ed by 8 federal grand jury on charges of income tax frauds and evasions totaling hundreds of thou sands of dollars. One of them State Representative Joseph Fisher of Jefferson Parish-was found guilty and sentenced to IS months in federal prison.
 And then, just two years ago, pr. Carl Austin Weiss fired the shot that ended Senator Longs life. Dr. Weiss, If you have forgotten, was instantly killed by the bullets of Senator Longs bodyguards, who had come up just too late to save their boss.
 Indictments Quashed
 Immediately after the senator died, things began to happen. Sen- ator Longs political heirs, scram- bling over one another on his va cant throne, began negotiating with the national administration in Washington. Richard Webster Leche, once Longs puppet and now him. self governor of Louisiana, went to New York to confer with Postmaster General Farley. Further confer ences followed between other mem- bers of the Long machine and rep resentatives of the Roswell admin istration.
 Not long aftr that, U. S. District Attorney Rene A. Viosca quietly stepped into the court of U. s. Judge Wayne G. Borah in New Orleans and moved that all of those income tax indictments against the Huey Long crowd be quashed.
 From Louisiana went up a howl to high heaven. The federal grand jury that had voted the indictments