Homage to Huey

Last week a statue of Huey Long was unveiled in Statuary Hall in the Capitol. His statue, a hideous bronze, did not seem so much out of place as might have been supposed. The Hall, a ghostly place with mysterious acoustics, is a majestic marble democracy wherein the modest statues of the truly great are crowded out by the effigies of such comparative unknowns as Uriah Rose of Arkansas. George Shoup of Idaho. At night, rats squeak and gibber around the bases of the monuments.

This was the company that Huey joined. The Marine Band played solemnly in the warm afternoon. Two-by-two, 18 Senators marched to the velvet-roped enclosure where Huey's statue, concealed behind a flag, stood in its place between William Jennings Bryan and "Old Bob" La Follette. About 250 spectators, mostly tourists passing through, stopped to see what was going on.

The speeches went quickly, mostly the dutiful words of politicians, some old-fashioned quavering oratory by Huey's friends, through which signs of genuine emotion showed faintly. Old Senator Norris brooded sadly and in silence. Bumbling Alben Barkley talked on & on about other things, until it seemed he was not going to mention Huey at all, finally got around to Huey's courage and prowess in debate, ended with a roar: "Friend and foe alike denounced the way he was taken away!" It was a painful show. The backwoods followers of the Kingfish who still loved him could find no echo of their feeling in what was said. The people who still hated him could only wonder how the statue of such a cheap-Jack could be given Capitol-room. The journalists who remembered him found it strange that the outrageous Huey could produce such a dull afternoon.

Huey Long's children pulled the rope; the flag fell away. In imperishable bronze, one arm upraised, snub features fixed in the grimace of debate, taller by six inches than the Great Commoner beside him, Huey Long took his place among the graven images of the nation.

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