Word: kingfish
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There was Governor Oscar Kelly Allen, who with tears coursing down his cheeks, gave out the first official statement on the Dictator's death: "It . . . marks the passing of the greatest hero in the fight for the common rights of all the people of America.'' "The Kingfish" had no truer friend than Oscar Allen. Twelve years Long's senior, he had grown up with him in Winn Parish. Waxing wealthy in oil and merchandise, he had staked Long to his political start in 1918 when Long ran for a place on the Louisiana Railroad Commission. As Governor, Oscar Allen...
...merchant, president of the New Orleans Levee Board and builder of one of the biggest, most expensive ($4,000,000) and most useless airports in the world for his personal glorification, was not destined to figure largely in the Long inheritance. Like Oscar Allen, his chief service to the Kingfish...
...whose pretty eyes flowed freely outside the Dictator's hospital room door while he fought for life. At 18 she started as Long's private secretary. He made her Secretary of State, later State Supervisor of Public Accounts, handling millions, her records immune to audit. Her power with the Kingfish arose from a personal relationship. No sooner was he dead than more potent lieutenants began planning to oust her in favor of Long's brother Earl...
...many successors. They fell into two classes: Insiders, functioning as behind-the-scenes manipulators of the tightest, most profitable political dominion the nation has ever known; and Outsiders, the vote-getting political front of the Long machine which rarely lost a ballot battle in Louisiana since the Kingfish took over in 1928. Last week, after a solemn meeting in Governor Allen's office in which they shook his hand, loyally pledged him their fealty for the time being, these were the men who began measuring each other and themselves for the Kingfish's shoes...
Senator Long clapped his hand to his side, staggered down the corridor. Attracted by the crackle of gunfire, friends rushed forward, carried the wounded "Kingfish" out a rear door, put him into a car, started for Our Lady of the Lake Hospital. On the way Huey Long held his hand to his bleeding side, spoke only once: "I wonder...