Petition & Privilege
Petition & Privilege
Why Louisiana will not be an exhibitor at Chicago's "Century of Progress" Fair this summer was last week explained to an Alexandria, La. audience by Arch Johnson of the World's Fair staff, as follows:
"Because the late Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago voted against seating the delegation of Senator Huey P. Long at the Democratic National Convention. . . . When Governor Allen was appealed to, he also forbade the sending of the exhibit to Chicago."
Of far more consequence last week to the chunky, rumple-headed Louisiana "Kingfish" than keeping his State out of the Century of Progress was the matter of keeping himself in the U. S. Senate. To Vice President Garner 24 Louisiana citizens dispatched a sizzling petition calling for the ousting of Senator Long on eleven charges. The Vice President turned the petition over to the Senate which whisked it temporarily out of sight to a committee. Its chief sponsor was John Milliken Parker, onetime (1920-24) Governor of Louisiana and longtime enemy of the Long machine.
Mr. Parker & petitioners volunteered to furnish the Senate with evidence to prove that Huey P. Long:
"Is personally dishonest, corrupt and immoral and his continuance in office is repulsive ... to the nation.
"Has created and maintained in Louisiana a system of corruption and debauchery unparalleled in the history of the State, not even excepting the so-called Louisiana Lottery.
"Has operated a system of so-called racketeering . . . collecting . . . money tribute for himself personally and his associates.
"Has made elections a farce.
"Has gained control of the Legislature and no relief can be obtained from that source . . . has boasted publicly that he controlled its members like a deck of cards, bought them like loads of potatoes . . . escaped impeachment by bribery and other corrupt methods.
"Has declared openly that he controlled State courts. . . . Relief from the courts under existing conditions is impossible. . . . The only hope for relief is through the Senate of the U. S."
As a personal stingaree Petitioner Parker wired Vice President Garner: "Senator Long knows neither truth, honesty nor decency. His black record is nationally known. Psychiatrists have stated in my presence that he is a dangerous paranoiac. . . . The Senate should have him permanently incarcerated in Washington. . . . He is the greatest menace to American decency and civilization."
The petition's reference to a Federal investigation of Huey Long's income started press stories that the Senator might soon be prosecuted by the Treasury on charges of tax evasion. Senate wiseacres concluded that the widening rift between Senator Long and President Roosevelt is attributable to this tax matter, held by the Administration like a club over the Louisianian's unruly head.
"Kingfish" Long, an adept at political rough-&-tumble, at first waved the Parker petition aside as a triviality. Confident no Democratic Senate would heed its demands, he roared: "Those fellows are a lot of disgruntled ex-office-holders. I ran 'em out of their jobs. They're busy getting up these petitions all the time. One of 'em comes out about every two weeks to carry on a newspaper campaign against me. I don't even want to read this one." But after the newspapers of the land had front-paged the ouster petition, Senator Long began to take a more serious view of it. What concerned him most was whether the petition was privileged under the Senate rules--that is, whether citizens by petitioning the Vice President could gain immunity for the publication of their charges against Senators. Suddenly touchy about the Senate's good repute, the "Kingfish" exclaimed:
"If this thing is legitimate there is nothing on earth to exempt any member of the Senate from any kind of calumny . . . nothing to prevent a man's saying Senator Jones is the father of seven illegitimate children or that Senator Smith burned down a Catholic church and killed four nuns."
Mindful of the Senatorial practice of excoriating defenseless private citizens under the cloak of constitutional immunity, philosophical Senator Ashurst of Arizona gently interjected: "Let us remember that he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. If in the Senate--and I apply this admonition to myself--we were more careful respecting the tender subject of human character and the reputation of other persons who cannot answer here, we would have more sympathy extended to us when we find ourselves the subjects of calumny."
Few Senators use more abusive language than Louisiana's Kingfish. Last February he ferociously denounced Samuel Tilden Ansell, counsel for the Senate committee investigating Senator Long's election, as "a thief and a rascal and a crook." When Questioned by North Carolina's Bailey about his privilege of immunity, Senator Long loudly blustered: "I do not claim any privilege from this scoundrel anywhere on earth under God's living sun. ... I invite him to sue me in any court and I will not defend the suit except on the ground that he is a scoundrel."
When General Ansell took Senator Long at his null and sued for $500,000 damages in the District of Columbia Supreme Court, the Kingfish promptly crawfished behind Senatorial immunity, challenged General Ansell to sue him in his home State of Louisiana where he again promised not to invoke his constitutional defense.
When more Louisiana petitions kept arriving this week in the Senate, it became clear that Citizen Parker was in deadly earnest. And when John Parker is in earnest he can fight, even at 70. A slim, wiry, suntanned Louisiana aristocrat, scion of wealthy Mississippi planters, one of the South's richest cotton factors, he is the antithesis of a red-headed ragamuffin from Shreveport. Before the turn of the century, he headed the New Orleans Cotton Exchange. A lifelong foe of civic indecency, he started his political career in 1913 by hiring the New Orleans Athenaeum and lashing local crookedness. In 1920, with the aid of the "best people," he got himself elected Governor. So vicious were Huey Long's attacks that Governor Parker sued him for criminal slander, won a conviction. The judge, however, suspended sentence because of "the rashness of youth." Later Huey Long helped that judge on to the State Supreme Court.
Governor Parker's greatest single achievement was breaking by armed force the murderous grip of the Ku Klux Klan on Louisiana.
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