"Jimmy the Stooge"

"Who the hell's Smith?" Huey Long snorted in 1930 when one of his stooges suggested that Dr. James Monroe Smith would make a properly pliant president for Louisiana State University. Last week a pertinent question in Louisiana was-"Where the hell's Smith?"

James Monroe Smith was dean of the College of Education at Southwestern Louisiana Institute at Lafayette when Huey snatched him to Baton Rouge. Tall, bald, Dr. Smith shaped into an ideal academic puppet. Huey began to spend $13,500,000 on L. S. U. for sumptuous buildings, a monster swimming pool, "professional" footballers, a huge Medical Center in New Orleans. Contractors, politicians and public jobsters fattened, and the student body jumped from 2,100 to 8,550. Midway in this adventure into education, Huey announced: "If there's any title I'm proud of, it's Chief Thief for L. S. U."

That title is now in jeopardy. Dr. Smith installed himself & family in a campus mansion (built & paid for by the university), bought a $3,000 car in a year when faculty salaries were in arrears. No man to stop the fun was Huey's political heir, Governor Richard Webster Leche (rhymes with "flesh"). "I swore to uphold the Constitution of Louisiana and the United States, but I did not take any vows of poverty," Dick Leche used to say. One of L. S. U.'s new buildings is Leche Hall.

When prospering, arthritic Dick Leche found it wise to quit last week and turn over the Governorship to Huey's brother, Earl (TIME, July 3), James Monroe Smith was nowhere in sight, someone having seen to it that he had plenty of time to vanish after he resigned. By the week-end the man whom L. S. U. students publicly derided as JIMMY THE STOOGE had become a peril to the whole post-Huey machine in Louisiana, and particularly to Earl Long's hopes of being elected Governor in his own right next year.

More was soon known of the educator's finances. Three banks in New Orleans and Baton Rouge disclosed that they had just lent Dr. Smith $500,000 on notes signed by himself as president of L. S. U. The big brokerage house of Fenner & Beane in New Orleans had just asked him to withdraw $375,000 in L. S. U. bonds which he had posted as collateral for gambling in wheat futures. The State Attorney General announced that these notes were worthless and the bonds were unauthorized.

The East Baton Rouge Parish (County) Grand Jury indicted Dr. Smith for embezzling $100,000. Broker Charles Fenner said that Jimmy Smith in his gamblings had acted for perhaps a dozen "friends." First to be so identified was small-fry Business Manager Edgar N. Jackson, who had put $2,000 on the chance that a European war would boom wheat prices.

All that was publicly known of President Smith's movements for seven days was that Jack Adams drove Dr. and Mrs. Smith to the Chisca Hotel in Memphis on June 25, then returned to BatonRouge where he was arrested as a material witness.

Next thing Louisiana knew, Dr. & Mrs. Smith had turned up at Brockville, Ont., and State and local authorities were tumbling over themselves for the glory of bringing back the fugitives. Dr. Smith in his hey-heyday had bought a $20,000 plane wherein to lug promising athletes to L. S. U. and on week-end pleasure trips This was the craft in which L. S. U.'s president was to be flown home to face charges. Inasmuch as the flying "football beef" (as the students called it) had only four seats and required a pilot, only one officer could go along if both Dr. & Mrs Smith were to be returned in it. Sheriff N. H. De Bretton at Baton Rouge demanded the honor for one of his men. "Not in the State's airplane," rejoined General Louis Guerre of the State Police. At this juncture Earl Long settled the row: Dr. Smith should come back by plane, in custody of one State policeman, one local investigator. Mrs. Smith would follow by train, also in custody. The plane flew to Brockville, flew back again without Dr. Smith when he refused to be separated from his wife. Eventually Dr. Smith & wife, with Louisiana officers, set off for Baton Rouge in Dr. Smith's auto. Dr. Smith declared himself in a hurry to get back to fight the charges against him.

Meantime, WPA, PWA, Congress and the U. S. Department of Justice peered more intently than ever into the use of Federal funds and the status of certain income taxes in Louisiana. Attorney Gen eral Frank Murphy in Washington intimated that he had known for weeks of matters amiss in Baton Rouge. Recently Mr. Murphy accepted an honorary de gree from L. S. U.

Louisiana's second Governor Long on his first day in office put flowers on the grave of Brother Huey. Earl Long also conferred with New Orleans' Boss & Mayor Robert S. Maestri, who is the most potent politician left in Louisiana. For his motto Earl Long picked up a Biblical proverb: "Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right."

"This maxim," observed the pious New Orleans Times-Picayune, ". . . is an admirably appropriate motto for an incoming Governor of Louisiana at this time."

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