Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1939-09-14

couple of tickets to the machine
controlled baseball park or take a
few more subscriptions to the I'M
readable machine-oWned newspaper.
But now, with the former president
of Louisiana State University under
indictment for embezzling university
funds and half dozen inquiries SIM
mering over misuse of PWA and WPA
funds, income tax evaSions, and cleo
ton frauds, the squeeze is on the
machine itself, and the employees are
getting an understandable kick out of
watching the ducks fly in another
direction.
Since the assassination of Huey
Long, LouiSiana's politics have flour
lShed without much attention from
the rest of the nation. AS far as
most people were concerned, the death
of the dictator ended the dictator
ship. Observers predicted that his
powerful vote-getting organization
would fall apart in few months,
that his followers were so jealous
of each other that they would set
to fighting among themselves I'm
fortunately, that didn't happen. Al
most as soon as the Kingfish was
laid away in the shadow of his tow
ering Capitol, the factional fight did
split his lieutenants into two camps
But before the machine had time to
totter, it was firmly in the hands of
the three Long henchmen who had
no reason to be jealous of each other:
Squat and sWarthy Robert S. Maestri,
mayor of New Orleans; Seymour
Weiss, part owner of a chain of
Louisiana hotels, and easy-going $50
pound Richard w. Leche, who re-
signed as governor few weeks ago.
Under their tutelage the machine that
Huey had built up attained its full
power and for four years has ruled
Louisiana with an iron hand
There had always been two fac
tons in the Long organization, and
it was only the Kingfish's genius that
brought them together and held them
in line. On the one side were the
Jealous "Share Our Wealthers," men
like the Rev Gerald L. K. Smith
and James A. Noe, Huey's legislative
assistant in Baton Rouge. AS vote
getters who could captivate the rag
tag of rural Louisiana with visions
of land where every man was king,
they were topped only by Huey
himself. But to the faction headed
by Maestri, Weiss and Leche, Share
Our Wealth. had, naturally enough,
never sounded too inviting. Maestri,
who has been dubbed Red Light
Bob" because his father started a
family fortune by selling furniture
to New Orleans sisters of sin, ran
his personal wealth to an estimated
million dollars by specializing in
Conservation Commissioner Weiss,
who kept the Long campaign funds
in the till of the Roosevelt Hotel,
was also absorbed in various business
ventures. Leche, who had been sec
rotary to Huey's rubber-stamp gov
ernor, the late o. K. Allen, came into
office a man of moderate means, but
when he retired recently he had
accumulated a sum thought to be in
the millions, also from oil land in
vestments-all outside Louisiana, he
insists. These gentlemen were inter-
ested in getting wealth, not sharing it.
Consequently, as soon as patronage
and election machinery was under
control, the "Share Our Wealth" ad-
vocates were dropped. Smith grad
uated to sharing the wealth on
national scale, first with Father
Coughlin, then as Townsend Plan
ner. Disgruntled, James A. Noe con-
tinued to sit in the state Senate as
a one-man opposition. If the new
machine bosses had any qualms of
conscience about dropping the "Share
Our Wealth" contingent, they told
themselves that Huey had never taken
his panacea too seriously, that he re-
garded it as device to get the votes
of Louisiana's poverty cleo
torate and as a foundation for
nationwide appeal which he hoped
would sweep him into the White
House. Nevertheless the Maestro
Weiss-Leche combination still needed
the rural vote, and to retain it they
fell back on campaign appeal which
only the death of the Kingfish could
have given them-the sacred memory
of Huey Long.
In the 1886 elections, they got their
first chance to try it out when Leche,
the front man for the machine, was
put up for governor. The Leche
platform offered three pledges: to
make full investigation of the death
of Long; to bar recourse to a sales
tax, which Huey had sworn would
never come to louisiana; and to per-
petuate all the laws Huey had passed
sin the interests of the people" Leche
was elected by an overwhelming
majority.
But almost before the new gov
ernor had been sworn in, the mass
of Long followers had reason to howl
that they had been tricked. First a
bill to probe Huey's death was
mysteriously buried in committee, and
Leche went on the air to explain
that since Mrs Huey P. Long, who
had been appointed to fill her hus-