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The Earl of Louisiana
In the summer of 1959, A. J. Liebling, veteran writer for the New Yorker, came to Louisiana to cover a series of bizarre events which began when Governor Earl K. Long was committed to a mental institution. Captivated by his subject, Liebling remained to write the fascinating yet tragic story of Uncle Earl's final year in politics. First published in 1961, The Earl of Louisiana recreates a stormy era of Louisiana politics and captures the style and personality of one of the most colorful and paradoxical figures in the state's history.
This new edition of the work includes a foreword by T. Harry Williams, Pulitzer prize-winning author of Huey Long: A Biography.
This new edition of the work includes a foreword by T. Harry Williams, Pulitzer prize-winning author of Huey Long: A Biography.
252 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1970
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A.J. Liebling
42 books72 followersAbbott Joseph "A. J." Liebling was an American journalist who was closely associated with The New Yorker from 1935 until his death.
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August 22, 2025
"Longism" was the populist, pragmatic and corrupt political idea that dominated Louisiana politics from the mid 1920s through 1960. Established by Huey Long, whose assassination in 1935 prevented it from going national, and kept alive in Louisiana by his brother Earl, Longism did much to elevate the lives of poor people—while lining the pockets of well-connected elites—and made the state weirdly progressive in an era of reactionary dominance in the South.
A.J. Liebling’s The Earl of Louisiana, chronicles the end of Longism through the story of the 1959 Louisiana governor’s election. It is arguably among the best accounts ever written about any episode of American political history. Liebling, the preeminent American political reporter of his era, made his reputation as a World War II correspondent. He also wrote about boxing and dining—his reports from Paris introduced American readers to French haute cuisine. His reporting on American and world politics as a staff writer for New Yorker magazine gave him the freedom to cover any story, anywhere in the world. In 1959, attracted by the story of Governor Earl Long, he chose Louisiana.
Uncle Earl, as his supporters called him, had just gone through an bizarre odyssey: Committed to a federal mental institution in Texas by his wife, having his allies transfer him to a state facility in Louisiana, and finally, still as sitting governor, pulling strings to get himself released. His enemies took solace in the fact that his tenure would end within a year. Louisiana governors can not succeed themselves and are required to sit out a term if they wanted to run again. Uncle Earl had finished the term of a resigned governor in 1939-1940, was elected in his own right from 1948-1952 and again for a third term that began in 1956 and would end in 1960. Or so everyone thought; Uncle Earl had something else in mind.
After escaping the mental institutions, he announced that he would be candidate in 1959 for the term beginning 1960 and intended, if elected, to resign a day before taking office. After all, the Louisiana Constitution only stipulated that a governor could only not succeed himself. That piqued Liebling’s interest to find out more about the man and the state. As he soon learned, "Maneuvers like Earl’s scheme to succeed himself immediately enrage the Longs’ opponents because they never think of them first."
Liebling’s first stop was New Orleans to get a primer on Louisiana politics. When he met Larry Comiskey who, along with his brother Joe, controlled the Old Regulars, the Democratic machine that ran much of the city, he got a profound lesson on politics and patronage: "It’s better to get a hundred little jobs for a hundred little fellows dan one big one big job for a big fella, because den you got a hundred you can count on to work for ya, instead of one dat might likely cut your throat in da bargain."
Liebling’s real revelation, however, was that he really wasn’t in the United States. Instead, he had landed in the "the westernmost of the Arab states." This was a place of tribal intrigue made up of complex, agile factions, political pashas and an Imam named Earl K. Long. It resembled Lebanon rather than anything he had seen in the United States. And the heat and humidity were much worse than the Middle East. There was New Orleans, where urban Catholicism, mixed with a mélange of ethnicities, clashed with the oil-based economy south of the city that was run by authoritarian political bosses like Leander Perez, who used his wealth and iron hand to maintain his racist, rural fiefdom. Add in the Cajun areas in southwestern and south central Louisiana to the hard-line pro-segregation, Protestant areas of the north with the incessant poverty that characterized each region and parts of the Middle East seemed tame to Liebling.
Elections in Louisiana are unique. Traditional party primaries didn’t choose candidates to face each other. Instead, in the state’s open primary system (then known as the rerun system) the top two candidates—if neither has 50 percent plus 1 of the vote—face each other in a runoff election. Originally this was done to make sure Republicans never had a chance. Today, with the changed political demographic of the South, it generally means Republicans drown out Democrats. The most recent election was the exception to the new rule. This added to the Middle Eastern flavor of building temporary, previously inconceivable alliances. In the past few years, some states have also adopted this system, further polarizing politics.
When Long announced his intention to run, the major candidates each had their own personal histories with him to overcome. deLesseps "Chep" Morrison was a young, popular multi-term mayor of New Orleans who had lost to Uncle Earl in 1955. Jimmie Davis, a former governor from 1944-1948, was from Shreveport, the second largest city in the state in the northwest corner. This "singing governor" was famous for having penned the song You Are My Sunshine and spent a number of years since his term was up owning a music club in California that was suspected of being integrated! Willie Rainach was a state legislator from the northeast part of the state who, in addition to being a political boss, was a secret leader of the Ku Klux Klan. He made his reputation as chair of the legislature’s Committee on Segregation who championed legislation to disenfranchise the state’s blacks to prevent the “mongrelization” of whites’ purity. A legislative debate caused an exasperated Uncle Earl to remind Rainach, "you got to recognize that niggers is human beings."
Liebling traveled to central Louisiana to see Long for himself at a campaign rally. He got a taste of why Long had a devoted following rooted in populist rhetoric and deeds:
But the enemies of Longism couldn’t bear the prospect of another four years of Uncle Earl. "The Democratic State Committee had declined to receive his candidacy unless he resigned as Governor before September 15, the day on which entry fees were due." This put Uncle Earl in a bad position. "If he resigned at once, in order to run, he would forfeit seven months of power and patronage, from September 15, 1959 to April 18, 1960, the day before the vestigial election. During that time the Lieutenant Governor would be Governor, free to fire all Earl’s appointees and put in his own, and to make all the deals that Earl would otherwise have the opportunity to make. More, an ex-Governor is in a less advantageous position to campaign than a Governor. Worse, the Federal people, all Republicans, were known to be hot on Earl’s trail with a mess of Income Tax charges."
Uncle Earl couldn’t afford to be out of power that long so he came up with a new idea. He recruited Jimmy Noe, an oil man who owned radio stations (WNOE still exists in New Orleans and KNOE is in Monroe) to run for governor with Uncle Earl on the same ticket for Lieutenant Governor. Although it was never said out loud, most people assumed that if elected, Noe would resign a day into his term to let Earl back into the Governor’s Mansion. But the factional support had shifted.
Morrison led the primary vote, followed by Davis, Rainach and Noe. Uncle Earl finished a strong third in the Lieutenant Governor’s race although he received 60,000 more votes than Noe did for Governor. But it didn’t matter; the machinations to stay in office weren’t successful. Now tribal factions had to get what they could. Liebling: "The rerun system gives them a chance to salvage part of their losses. In a close race between the two top men, a candidate who finishes a good third can often turn a handsome profit. Even a man who finishes down the list can sometimes make a good thing of it if his votes include a particularly deliverable bloc—say a group of parishes where his family bank owns a mortgage on every farm. It is delightfully Middle Eastern." Even Allen "Black Cat" Lacombe, who finished a distant seventh for Governor quickly endorsed Morrison because, as he told one of Liebling’s colleagues, "There is a job at the city jail I have my eye on."
When Noe and Uncle Earl failed to make the runoff, the strong finish by Rainach meant that Davis and Morrison would have to outdo each other as a defender of segregation. This inflamed the already course political campaign to become even more racist—something that Longism kept a lid on for decades. Huey Long...
Uncle Earl was still governor, but now he was being courted by two people he despised. Eventually, Rainach and Uncle Earl lined up behind Davis who won fairly easily against the hapless Morrison. A few months later, Uncle Earl decided to run for Congress to retake the seat that he felt was his family’s right. He campaigned as hard as he ever had, suffered a heart attack on Election Day and didn’t tell anyone about it. His heart gave out almost as soon as he was told he won. Liebling thought that the tragedy was heightened because Congress wouldn’t have had such an esteemed new member since the election of John Quincy Adams.
Sadly, the Davis Administration pandered to his worst instincts and foreshadowed Nixon’s Southern Strategy and the politics of punitive resentment that characterizes much of today’s American conservative politics and policies. One of Davis’s first acts was to pass a bill to bar illegitimate children from receiving welfare benefits. When the state cut more than $7.5 million from the program, it also forfeited more than $22 million in federal matching funds. According to Liebling, “The net savings to the state of Louisiana…would be $1,340,000—a handsome return for starving 22,000 children to death.” The action led to worldwide outrage, even motivating some British communities to raise funds for starving children in Louisiana. Liebling saved his most outraged, prophetic and sarcastic prose for a commentary that is as contemporary today as the day it was written:
(This book is included in a Library of America volume of Liebling.)
A.J. Liebling’s The Earl of Louisiana, chronicles the end of Longism through the story of the 1959 Louisiana governor’s election. It is arguably among the best accounts ever written about any episode of American political history. Liebling, the preeminent American political reporter of his era, made his reputation as a World War II correspondent. He also wrote about boxing and dining—his reports from Paris introduced American readers to French haute cuisine. His reporting on American and world politics as a staff writer for New Yorker magazine gave him the freedom to cover any story, anywhere in the world. In 1959, attracted by the story of Governor Earl Long, he chose Louisiana.
Uncle Earl, as his supporters called him, had just gone through an bizarre odyssey: Committed to a federal mental institution in Texas by his wife, having his allies transfer him to a state facility in Louisiana, and finally, still as sitting governor, pulling strings to get himself released. His enemies took solace in the fact that his tenure would end within a year. Louisiana governors can not succeed themselves and are required to sit out a term if they wanted to run again. Uncle Earl had finished the term of a resigned governor in 1939-1940, was elected in his own right from 1948-1952 and again for a third term that began in 1956 and would end in 1960. Or so everyone thought; Uncle Earl had something else in mind.
After escaping the mental institutions, he announced that he would be candidate in 1959 for the term beginning 1960 and intended, if elected, to resign a day before taking office. After all, the Louisiana Constitution only stipulated that a governor could only not succeed himself. That piqued Liebling’s interest to find out more about the man and the state. As he soon learned, "Maneuvers like Earl’s scheme to succeed himself immediately enrage the Longs’ opponents because they never think of them first."
Liebling’s first stop was New Orleans to get a primer on Louisiana politics. When he met Larry Comiskey who, along with his brother Joe, controlled the Old Regulars, the Democratic machine that ran much of the city, he got a profound lesson on politics and patronage: "It’s better to get a hundred little jobs for a hundred little fellows dan one big one big job for a big fella, because den you got a hundred you can count on to work for ya, instead of one dat might likely cut your throat in da bargain."
Liebling’s real revelation, however, was that he really wasn’t in the United States. Instead, he had landed in the "the westernmost of the Arab states." This was a place of tribal intrigue made up of complex, agile factions, political pashas and an Imam named Earl K. Long. It resembled Lebanon rather than anything he had seen in the United States. And the heat and humidity were much worse than the Middle East. There was New Orleans, where urban Catholicism, mixed with a mélange of ethnicities, clashed with the oil-based economy south of the city that was run by authoritarian political bosses like Leander Perez, who used his wealth and iron hand to maintain his racist, rural fiefdom. Add in the Cajun areas in southwestern and south central Louisiana to the hard-line pro-segregation, Protestant areas of the north with the incessant poverty that characterized each region and parts of the Middle East seemed tame to Liebling.
Elections in Louisiana are unique. Traditional party primaries didn’t choose candidates to face each other. Instead, in the state’s open primary system (then known as the rerun system) the top two candidates—if neither has 50 percent plus 1 of the vote—face each other in a runoff election. Originally this was done to make sure Republicans never had a chance. Today, with the changed political demographic of the South, it generally means Republicans drown out Democrats. The most recent election was the exception to the new rule. This added to the Middle Eastern flavor of building temporary, previously inconceivable alliances. In the past few years, some states have also adopted this system, further polarizing politics.
When Long announced his intention to run, the major candidates each had their own personal histories with him to overcome. deLesseps "Chep" Morrison was a young, popular multi-term mayor of New Orleans who had lost to Uncle Earl in 1955. Jimmie Davis, a former governor from 1944-1948, was from Shreveport, the second largest city in the state in the northwest corner. This "singing governor" was famous for having penned the song You Are My Sunshine and spent a number of years since his term was up owning a music club in California that was suspected of being integrated! Willie Rainach was a state legislator from the northeast part of the state who, in addition to being a political boss, was a secret leader of the Ku Klux Klan. He made his reputation as chair of the legislature’s Committee on Segregation who championed legislation to disenfranchise the state’s blacks to prevent the “mongrelization” of whites’ purity. A legislative debate caused an exasperated Uncle Earl to remind Rainach, "you got to recognize that niggers is human beings."
Liebling traveled to central Louisiana to see Long for himself at a campaign rally. He got a taste of why Long had a devoted following rooted in populist rhetoric and deeds:
"We got the finest roads, finest schools, finest hospitals in the country—yet there are rich men who complain. They are so tight you can hear ‘em squeak when they walk. They wouldn’t give a nickel to see a earthquake. They sit there swallowin’ hundred-dollar bills like a bullfrog swallows minnows—if you chunked them as many as they want they’d bust."In the days before media-driven politics, Liebling realized that he was in the presence of the last great political stump speaker.
"Amen, Earl," the old man said. "God have mercy on the poor people."
"Of course, I know many fine rich people," the Governor said, perhaps thinking of his campaign contributors. "But most of them are like a rich old feller I know down in Plaquemines Parish, who died one night and never done nobody no good in his life, and yet, when the Devil come to get him, he took an appeal to St. Peter.
"I done some good things on earth," he said. "Once, on a cold day in about 1913, I gave a blind man a nickel." St. Peter looked all through the records, and at last, on page four hundred and seventy-one, he found the entry. "That ain’t enough to make up for a misspent life," he said. "But, wait," the rich man says. "Now I remember, in 1922 I give five cents to a poor widow woman that had no carfare." St. Peter’s clerk checked the book again, and on page thirteen hundred and seventy-one, after pages and pages of this old stump-wormer loan-sharked the poor, he found the record of that nickel.
"That ain’t neither enough," St. Peter said. But the mean old thing yelled, "Don’t, sentence me yet. In about 1931 I give a nickel to the Red Cross." The clerk found that entry, too. So he said to St. Peter, "Your Honor, what are we going to do with him?"
The crowd hung on Uncle Earl’s lips the way the bugs hovered in the light.
"You know what St. Peter said?" The Governor, the only one in the courthouse square who knew the answer, asked. There was, naturally, no reply.
"He said: Give that man back his fifteen cents and tell him to go to Hell."
He had the crowd with him now…
But the enemies of Longism couldn’t bear the prospect of another four years of Uncle Earl. "The Democratic State Committee had declined to receive his candidacy unless he resigned as Governor before September 15, the day on which entry fees were due." This put Uncle Earl in a bad position. "If he resigned at once, in order to run, he would forfeit seven months of power and patronage, from September 15, 1959 to April 18, 1960, the day before the vestigial election. During that time the Lieutenant Governor would be Governor, free to fire all Earl’s appointees and put in his own, and to make all the deals that Earl would otherwise have the opportunity to make. More, an ex-Governor is in a less advantageous position to campaign than a Governor. Worse, the Federal people, all Republicans, were known to be hot on Earl’s trail with a mess of Income Tax charges."
Uncle Earl couldn’t afford to be out of power that long so he came up with a new idea. He recruited Jimmy Noe, an oil man who owned radio stations (WNOE still exists in New Orleans and KNOE is in Monroe) to run for governor with Uncle Earl on the same ticket for Lieutenant Governor. Although it was never said out loud, most people assumed that if elected, Noe would resign a day into his term to let Earl back into the Governor’s Mansion. But the factional support had shifted.
Morrison led the primary vote, followed by Davis, Rainach and Noe. Uncle Earl finished a strong third in the Lieutenant Governor’s race although he received 60,000 more votes than Noe did for Governor. But it didn’t matter; the machinations to stay in office weren’t successful. Now tribal factions had to get what they could. Liebling: "The rerun system gives them a chance to salvage part of their losses. In a close race between the two top men, a candidate who finishes a good third can often turn a handsome profit. Even a man who finishes down the list can sometimes make a good thing of it if his votes include a particularly deliverable bloc—say a group of parishes where his family bank owns a mortgage on every farm. It is delightfully Middle Eastern." Even Allen "Black Cat" Lacombe, who finished a distant seventh for Governor quickly endorsed Morrison because, as he told one of Liebling’s colleagues, "There is a job at the city jail I have my eye on."
When Noe and Uncle Earl failed to make the runoff, the strong finish by Rainach meant that Davis and Morrison would have to outdo each other as a defender of segregation. This inflamed the already course political campaign to become even more racist—something that Longism kept a lid on for decades. Huey Long...
...adopted a policy of speaking disrespectfully of Negroes in public to guard against being called a nigger lover, and giving them what they wanted under the table, to make sure they would vote for him. As the poorest Louisianans of all, they benefitted disproportionately from his welfare schemes; it would be a dull politician who would try to disenfranchise his own safest voters.As Liebling observed, "The result reminded me of one of those automobile accidents in which a driver, swatting at a wasp, loses control of his car and runs it into a bayou full of alligators. The sequel was to prove that the [New Orleans newspaper] Times-Picayune, in its eagerness to get rid of the Governor, had helped move Louisiana back into the class of Alabama."
Earl inherited and emphasized this policy, and Morrison, starting in New Orleans, where the Negro vote is important, competed for it. To be fair to both, Earl genuinely liked Negroes—for all I know, Huey did, too—while Morrison believes in their rights. Both were inevitablists and shrewd in the law.
Morrison sees no chance of stemming the tide of Federal court decisions. He suffers under the disadvantage of living in the contemporary world, while the Perezes and Rainachs remain in the Jurassic. It was the gift of the Longs that they could straddle the intervening million years.
Uncle Earl was still governor, but now he was being courted by two people he despised. Eventually, Rainach and Uncle Earl lined up behind Davis who won fairly easily against the hapless Morrison. A few months later, Uncle Earl decided to run for Congress to retake the seat that he felt was his family’s right. He campaigned as hard as he ever had, suffered a heart attack on Election Day and didn’t tell anyone about it. His heart gave out almost as soon as he was told he won. Liebling thought that the tragedy was heightened because Congress wouldn’t have had such an esteemed new member since the election of John Quincy Adams.
Sadly, the Davis Administration pandered to his worst instincts and foreshadowed Nixon’s Southern Strategy and the politics of punitive resentment that characterizes much of today’s American conservative politics and policies. One of Davis’s first acts was to pass a bill to bar illegitimate children from receiving welfare benefits. When the state cut more than $7.5 million from the program, it also forfeited more than $22 million in federal matching funds. According to Liebling, “The net savings to the state of Louisiana…would be $1,340,000—a handsome return for starving 22,000 children to death.” The action led to worldwide outrage, even motivating some British communities to raise funds for starving children in Louisiana. Liebling saved his most outraged, prophetic and sarcastic prose for a commentary that is as contemporary today as the day it was written:
Many unmarried mothers try, illegally, to get rid of their children before they are born, and letting them starve to death is a time-tested and, in Louisiana now, a state-sanctioned method of getting rid of them as soon after they are born as possible. It is better than abortion because it saves the mothers from committing a Mortal Sin, and better than letting the children live because they would grow up in unsuitable surroundings and some might eventually become members of the NAACP. The Louisiana law is a promising demographic innovation in the Western world…Fifty-five-plus years later, the lid that hid most public racism in Louisiana, the South, and the rest of the United States has been removed—or more to the point, Liebling’s observation that "Any Southerner knows that 'minority' is the plural of 'nigger'" is as true today as when he wrote it; perhaps truer since the election of President Barack Obama. In the end, Liebling "realized that (Uncle Earl) was the only effective Civil Rights man in the South." Given today’s perspective, that seems strange. But when judged by the standards of that era, this might be the most misunderstood legacy of Longism.
(This book is included in a Library of America volume of Liebling.)
January 27, 2013
Liebling's account of the lesser (shorter?) Long brother at the end of his political road soars in many moments. Liebling imagined Earl Long to be a "peckerwood Caligula" and was pleased to be disabused of the notion, though truth be told, Earl was plenty crazy, and the instances on display in this book are uproariously funny. There is a liberal use of phonetics at work in the book, which helps capture aural argot at work in New Orleans and Louisiana on a whole, and which is particularly strong in a passage in which Liebling asks a question of a political bagman, only to have it answered with: "Damfino." I was on the floor.
A few years ago, an anthology called "Just Enough Liebling" came out that includes the best parts of "The Earl of Louisiana", and I'd recommend reading that, because it focuses on Earl and not the byzantine backstage electoral processes of parish elections. If you haven't read Liebling, though, treat yourself.
A few years ago, an anthology called "Just Enough Liebling" came out that includes the best parts of "The Earl of Louisiana", and I'd recommend reading that, because it focuses on Earl and not the byzantine backstage electoral processes of parish elections. If you haven't read Liebling, though, treat yourself.
August 29, 2016
It may be denial on my part that makes the territory covered seem so improbable. Though just a toddler, I was alive during the last campaign of Earl Long of Louisiana, so surely things could not have been so different during my time on earth. Right? But then again sometimes 50 years is a long time, and a lot can change. Plus the early ‘60s was an amazing time of change and Earl Long comes across to my eyes as the last of a unique breed.
During Earl Long’s last year in the Governor’s office he had some sort of break down, declared mentally unstable and flown against his will to a hospital in Texas under direction of his wife and nephew. When Earl got out he continued campaigning for another term even though ineligible. His announced plan was to quit shortly before his term expired have the lieutenant governor take over and therefore he would not technically be taking another consecutive term.
Anyway that was the story that brought Liebling from New York to New Orleans, a place he obviously fell in love with.
As for the spirit of the times, it is hard to imagine such blatant racism, so cruel that it makes the Longs (Huey and Earl) come off as quite magnanimous. Or maybe not…
“..the Long family’s position on the Southern issue. ‘They do not favor the Negro,” a Negro educator once told me, “but they are less inflexibly antagonistic than the others,’” pg. 23
Race is a prominent element is this record of that election year (1959) but for all of Liebling’s northern liberality I don’t think he ever mentions talking to an actual black person, well aside from the quote just above I guess.
A.J. Liebling must have been quite a character and I like his presentation, but I think it does have the feel of a different age of journalism. I like it, but it is different. One thing is that I found it hard to prepare quotes from the book for examples in this review, because the ones I really liked were not one- liners. He sets up a small story and it takes paragraph or two to finish it off. It is well worth it but you can’t just take one sentence to show how good he is.
His analysis is a little free-wheeling, such as one of his recurring observations that New Orleans is part of the Arab and Mediterranean culture
The Mediterraneans who settled the shores of the interrupted sea scurried across the gap between the Azores and Puerto Rico like a woman crossing a drafty hall in a sheer nightgown to get to a warm bed with a man in it. Old, they carried with them a culture that had ripened properly, on the tree. Being sensible people, they never went far inland. All, or almost all, the interior of North America was therefore filled in from the North Atlantic coast, by the weakest element in that incompletely civilized population-those who would move away from salt water.
The middle of Louisiana is where the culture of one great thalassic littoral impinges on the other, and a fellow running for Governor has got to straddle the line between them. Pg. 89
See what I mean about trying to pull one bit out? One piece is tied to another, then another and suddenly I am pasting the whole page in here.
His Levant/ Louisianna connection idea is, I think, based on and earlier time’s cliché that was embedded in people’s minds about the nature of the Arab world then.
On meeting the mayor of New Orleans…
The ceremonial coffee is a link between Louisiana and the rest of the Arab world. It is never omitted even though your host is going to throw you out when you have drunk it. pg. 54
Louisiana and New Orleans especially must have been quite a sight back then.
Morrison sees no chance of stemming the tide of Federal court decisions. He suffers under the disadvantage of living in the contemporary world, while the Perezes and Rainachs remain in the Jurassic. It is the gift of the Longs that they could straddle the intervening million years. Pg 179
One of the last political memories before I left the Great State was of the Governor devising political catfish bait. The cat is not a fish to be taken on bird feathers with whimsical names. It demands the solid attraction of chicken guts surrounded by then aura of asafetida: “Smells bad, but cats love,” the manual says.
…But other hands had been setting other troutlines with baits even more persuasive to the legislators….They (the statesmen) left the baits on his hooks untouched; they did not seem to be hungry. Pg. 145
And now Uncle Earl himself…
We got the finest roads, finest schools, finest hospitals in the country- yet there are rich men who complain. They are so tight you can hear ‘em squeak when they walk. They wouldn’t give a nickel to see a earthquake. They sit there wallowin’ hundred-dollar bills like a bullfrog swallow minners-if you chunked them as many as then wan they’d bust. Pg. 96
About his rival Mayor deLesseps S. Morrison of New Orleans…”I hate to say this- I hate to boost old Dellasoups-but he’ll be second again…(he always referred to him as Dellasoups)..I’d rather beat Morrison than eat any blackberry, huckleberry pie my mama ever made. Oh how I am praying for that stump-wormer to get in there. I want him to roll up them cuffs, and get out that little old tuppy, and pull down them shades and make himself up. He’s the easiest man to make a nut out of I’ve ever seen in my life”. The “tuppy” for “toupee”, was a slur on Morrison’s hair, which is thinning, though only Long has ever accused him of wearing a wig. Pg. 26
…if he was going to make up with Mrs. Long, and if he didn’t think that would help him get the women’s vote in the primary.
He said, “If dat’s da price of victory, I rather go ahead and be defeated. After all, lots of men have lost elections before.” Pg. 125
Oh yeah. It’s a very good book.
During Earl Long’s last year in the Governor’s office he had some sort of break down, declared mentally unstable and flown against his will to a hospital in Texas under direction of his wife and nephew. When Earl got out he continued campaigning for another term even though ineligible. His announced plan was to quit shortly before his term expired have the lieutenant governor take over and therefore he would not technically be taking another consecutive term.
Anyway that was the story that brought Liebling from New York to New Orleans, a place he obviously fell in love with.
As for the spirit of the times, it is hard to imagine such blatant racism, so cruel that it makes the Longs (Huey and Earl) come off as quite magnanimous. Or maybe not…
“..the Long family’s position on the Southern issue. ‘They do not favor the Negro,” a Negro educator once told me, “but they are less inflexibly antagonistic than the others,’” pg. 23
Race is a prominent element is this record of that election year (1959) but for all of Liebling’s northern liberality I don’t think he ever mentions talking to an actual black person, well aside from the quote just above I guess.
A.J. Liebling must have been quite a character and I like his presentation, but I think it does have the feel of a different age of journalism. I like it, but it is different. One thing is that I found it hard to prepare quotes from the book for examples in this review, because the ones I really liked were not one- liners. He sets up a small story and it takes paragraph or two to finish it off. It is well worth it but you can’t just take one sentence to show how good he is.
His analysis is a little free-wheeling, such as one of his recurring observations that New Orleans is part of the Arab and Mediterranean culture
The Mediterraneans who settled the shores of the interrupted sea scurried across the gap between the Azores and Puerto Rico like a woman crossing a drafty hall in a sheer nightgown to get to a warm bed with a man in it. Old, they carried with them a culture that had ripened properly, on the tree. Being sensible people, they never went far inland. All, or almost all, the interior of North America was therefore filled in from the North Atlantic coast, by the weakest element in that incompletely civilized population-those who would move away from salt water.
The middle of Louisiana is where the culture of one great thalassic littoral impinges on the other, and a fellow running for Governor has got to straddle the line between them. Pg. 89
See what I mean about trying to pull one bit out? One piece is tied to another, then another and suddenly I am pasting the whole page in here.
His Levant/ Louisianna connection idea is, I think, based on and earlier time’s cliché that was embedded in people’s minds about the nature of the Arab world then.
On meeting the mayor of New Orleans…
The ceremonial coffee is a link between Louisiana and the rest of the Arab world. It is never omitted even though your host is going to throw you out when you have drunk it. pg. 54
Louisiana and New Orleans especially must have been quite a sight back then.
Morrison sees no chance of stemming the tide of Federal court decisions. He suffers under the disadvantage of living in the contemporary world, while the Perezes and Rainachs remain in the Jurassic. It is the gift of the Longs that they could straddle the intervening million years. Pg 179
One of the last political memories before I left the Great State was of the Governor devising political catfish bait. The cat is not a fish to be taken on bird feathers with whimsical names. It demands the solid attraction of chicken guts surrounded by then aura of asafetida: “Smells bad, but cats love,” the manual says.
…But other hands had been setting other troutlines with baits even more persuasive to the legislators….They (the statesmen) left the baits on his hooks untouched; they did not seem to be hungry. Pg. 145
And now Uncle Earl himself…
We got the finest roads, finest schools, finest hospitals in the country- yet there are rich men who complain. They are so tight you can hear ‘em squeak when they walk. They wouldn’t give a nickel to see a earthquake. They sit there wallowin’ hundred-dollar bills like a bullfrog swallow minners-if you chunked them as many as then wan they’d bust. Pg. 96
About his rival Mayor deLesseps S. Morrison of New Orleans…”I hate to say this- I hate to boost old Dellasoups-but he’ll be second again…(he always referred to him as Dellasoups)..I’d rather beat Morrison than eat any blackberry, huckleberry pie my mama ever made. Oh how I am praying for that stump-wormer to get in there. I want him to roll up them cuffs, and get out that little old tuppy, and pull down them shades and make himself up. He’s the easiest man to make a nut out of I’ve ever seen in my life”. The “tuppy” for “toupee”, was a slur on Morrison’s hair, which is thinning, though only Long has ever accused him of wearing a wig. Pg. 26
…if he was going to make up with Mrs. Long, and if he didn’t think that would help him get the women’s vote in the primary.
He said, “If dat’s da price of victory, I rather go ahead and be defeated. After all, lots of men have lost elections before.” Pg. 125
Oh yeah. It’s a very good book.
April 7, 2023
This is one of the finest examples of 20th century political long form reportage, and I frankly wish it would have gone on longer. Liebling’s work is a true classic in terms of Southern political history. The portrait of Earl Long is much different than his notorious brother, but the book revealed an interesting, entertaining human being who is worthy of study.
From Long’s odd bulk buying habits to his stay in a mental institution and subsequent comeback, the author managed to not “muck it up” by getting too in the weeds. Long’s story itself was worthy of its own place; it did not need much more than that. The writer is reminiscent of other “new journalists” of that era, and I would love to read more from him. Also, I now want to read about Jimmy Davis, who preceded and succeeded Long as governor.
From Long’s odd bulk buying habits to his stay in a mental institution and subsequent comeback, the author managed to not “muck it up” by getting too in the weeds. Long’s story itself was worthy of its own place; it did not need much more than that. The writer is reminiscent of other “new journalists” of that era, and I would love to read more from him. Also, I now want to read about Jimmy Davis, who preceded and succeeded Long as governor.
February 14, 2024
Great portrait of the insanity of Louisiana politics. Even if he was a politics and war correspondent he had no trouble relating it to the things he loved: food, boxing and horse racing.
June 2, 2011
Journalist a.j. Liebling wrote this account of the last 18 months of Earl Long, brother of Huey. As the book begins, Earl is governor of Louisiana, just returned from Texas where he had been committed to a mental institution by his wife Blanche who perhaps did not appreciate Earl's penchant for attending strip clubs and befriending Blaze Starr, a notorious burlesque performer. It is 1959 and the legislature has passed a law that a governor can only serve one term. Earl had already served a term and sat out a term and then was reelected. Earl decides he will resign and then run again. Liebling uses the occasion to examine the great state of Louisiana divided between libertine Catholics of New Orleans and the hard scrabble Baptists in the northern part of the state. Liebling likens all of this to Lebanon. The divisions also were between populists like the Longs and oil interests. Progressives and racists. All factions had the good sense to reward their friends and punish their enemies and engage in graft. Eventually Long decides he can not trust the Supreme Court to rule his way and instead runs for lieutenant governor. He is defeated by Jimmie. Davis , a singer who is rememebered for the song, "you are my Sunshine" Davis joins forces with racists to convince the Long supporters that they must abandon populism for racism . Undettered, long then runs for a vacant House seat, wins the primary which is tantamount to winning the election but suffers a heart attack on the day of the vote but refuses to go to a hospital on election day for fear that his opponents would capitolize on the news. He died the next day.
I have spent slot of time in Louisiana and can say that this book captures the spirit of the politics of this state: saints and sinners, con men, racists, big oil men, demagogues, rogues, and eccentrics. They also have great food at least the Cajuns do, and great music too.
I have spent slot of time in Louisiana and can say that this book captures the spirit of the politics of this state: saints and sinners, con men, racists, big oil men, demagogues, rogues, and eccentrics. They also have great food at least the Cajuns do, and great music too.
November 19, 2017
A. J. Liebling is on of the great essayists in American literature. He wrote beautifully on a wide range of subjects but in this book he focuses all his reportorial skills on covering Louisiana politics as epitomized by Governor Earl Long. Long, the brother of the more famous Huey, emerges as a character who if placed in a novel would be characterized as unbelievable.
Set during the run up to the 1960 gubernatorial election in Louisiana the book zeros in on the byzantine plotting of a host of disreputable politicians, most of whom are blatant racist bigots, as they jockey to gain advantage in the Louisiana jungle primary. Long is a scoundrel, most certainly dishonest and probably crazy but he emerges from the wreckage as the most able and humane politician of this motley crew. Such is Liebling's gifts as a writer that the reader is totally entertained as opposed to disgusted by the whole weird extravaganza.
In the Earl of Louisiana the perfect writer encounters the perfect subject.
Set during the run up to the 1960 gubernatorial election in Louisiana the book zeros in on the byzantine plotting of a host of disreputable politicians, most of whom are blatant racist bigots, as they jockey to gain advantage in the Louisiana jungle primary. Long is a scoundrel, most certainly dishonest and probably crazy but he emerges from the wreckage as the most able and humane politician of this motley crew. Such is Liebling's gifts as a writer that the reader is totally entertained as opposed to disgusted by the whole weird extravaganza.
In the Earl of Louisiana the perfect writer encounters the perfect subject.
June 27, 2009
This book is amazing. A.J. Liebling was a politics and war correspondent, but mostly he was really into food, boxing and horse racing, three subjects which he manages to relate everything to, along with ancient Greece and Napoleon. He came to Louisiana right after Earl Long was committed to a sanitarium and followed Long's struggle to get back into office. It's a really great portrait of the insanity of Louisiana politics.
April 7, 2010
Mon dieu! The race for governor of the gret stet of Louisiana in 1959 was not politics as we know it. The past and Louisiana are both foreign countries. For entertainment's sake if nothing else, we need Democrats of the Huey and Earl Long tradition to make a comeback. Who is getting on stage nowadays to defend welfare spending for the "spastics?"
April 20, 2013
This is a fascinating, entertaining look at American politics. Earl Long was Huey's brother. He served as governor of Louisiana in the late 1950s, which is when Liebling went to the state to report on the gubernatorial election. He expected to find just unsophisticated racist trash, but discovered a political scene and a politician that were much less easily dismissed.
gone-gave-away
January 5, 2026Who has the dirtiest politics?
Louisiana or Illinois?
I just read and enjoyed All the Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren. it is about Huey P Long, though fictionalized.
I plan to visit Penn Warrens birthplace soon, we run those Kentucky roads some, as my wifes mother also grew up in the shadows of the Jeff Davis Monument, down in Todd County KY.
I gave the Earl book away before reading.
Louisiana or Illinois?
I just read and enjoyed All the Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren. it is about Huey P Long, though fictionalized.
I plan to visit Penn Warrens birthplace soon, we run those Kentucky roads some, as my wifes mother also grew up in the shadows of the Jeff Davis Monument, down in Todd County KY.
I gave the Earl book away before reading.
November 25, 2009
Essential to understanding the history of American politics - and Liebling may be one of the best writers of the 20th century.
August 31, 2024
A.J. Liebling's books are always pretty dense reads. They're packed with details, and given the eras he writes about (WW2, and in this case, politics in Louisiana), many of these figures now are too obscure for even a hard Jeopardy! question.
In terms of a political book, 'The Earl of Louisiana' is a tremendously entertaining read. You don't have to know anything about Governor Earl K. Long, but you'll recognize the type of politician Long embodied. Long was the type of person who genuinely loved the whole "game" of local politics, so much that if he could not be governor because of term limits, he campaigned for the next best thing in his mind, be it lieutenant governor or a seat on the U.S. House of Representatives.
Like Lyndon B Johnson, Long loved the "behind the scenes" dealmaking that comes with politics, and unfortunately like LBJ, Long's record on civil rights was complex to say the least.
For journalism enthusiasts who want to get into Liebling, 'The Earl of Louisiana' is one of the best starting points. It's not as heady and insider-y as "The Press," nor is it as detailed as his World War 2 reporting, where a reader would strongly benefit from having more than a general knowledge of the events in WW2. And overall, it's a strangely reassuring book for anyone who thinks that we are living in the worst political climate ever in the United States. Liebling's book shows that those patterns were just as prevalent in his era.
In terms of a political book, 'The Earl of Louisiana' is a tremendously entertaining read. You don't have to know anything about Governor Earl K. Long, but you'll recognize the type of politician Long embodied. Long was the type of person who genuinely loved the whole "game" of local politics, so much that if he could not be governor because of term limits, he campaigned for the next best thing in his mind, be it lieutenant governor or a seat on the U.S. House of Representatives.
Like Lyndon B Johnson, Long loved the "behind the scenes" dealmaking that comes with politics, and unfortunately like LBJ, Long's record on civil rights was complex to say the least.
For journalism enthusiasts who want to get into Liebling, 'The Earl of Louisiana' is one of the best starting points. It's not as heady and insider-y as "The Press," nor is it as detailed as his World War 2 reporting, where a reader would strongly benefit from having more than a general knowledge of the events in WW2. And overall, it's a strangely reassuring book for anyone who thinks that we are living in the worst political climate ever in the United States. Liebling's book shows that those patterns were just as prevalent in his era.
January 10, 2020
If you have spent any time in Louisiana and marveled at the unique culture and politics of the place, then you would find this book fascinating. Although it was published in 1960, things have not changed all that much there. The author's style is droll and, for me at least, laugh out loud funny. Earl Long additionally is an interesting subject in addition to the insightful portrayal of the larger context of Louisiana culture and politics.
October 26, 2022
Amazing, beautiful, incredible. Great depiction of 60s Southern politics which usually takes a back burner to the more prominent political events of the 60s but is just as wacky in its own right. Author is a bit long winded but it’s worth the read.
July 14, 2023
Fascinating and still timely, Louisiana politics in general and Governor Earl Long in particular in the period 1959-1960. What starts out here as somewhat farcical takes a dark turn by the end of the book as staunch segregationists take control of the state.
May 22, 2017
5 stars if you want a Northerner's inside look at the 1959 LA election, replete with language and images from the era. Insider's book.
August 22, 2018
A masterpiece. Even if you don't like politics, this is brilliant as human drama. The influence on Thompson in his Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972 is obvious.
September 30, 2019
Spending a few hours in the company of A. J. Liebling remains one of the reading life's greater pleasures.
"The Earl of Louisiana" makes you yearn for the days of lovable political scoundrels...
"The Earl of Louisiana" makes you yearn for the days of lovable political scoundrels...
November 13, 2019
Magnificently written - witty and insightful musings on Louisiana politics.
January 9, 2021
The BEST book about politics ever written. Short and lovely.
February 27, 2022
Up there with WJ Cash’s Mind of the South
May 9, 2022
A fascinating and classic account of one of the most interesting men in Louisiana history in the aftermath of Uncle Earl's forced hospitalization. A must read for any political junkies.
October 24, 2023
Sardonic (though at times serious) look at a bizarre period of Louisiana politics.
December 10, 2023
2.75 not bad not good
April 1, 2024
It’s kind of nice to read this kind of journalistic writing from 1959 Louisiana politics.
November 10, 2024
Some parts were really interesting, some were funny and this helps in understanding past Louisiana politics and its lingering after effects. Some parts were difficult to follow.
July 13, 2025
AJ Liebling would have made for a fantastic dinner guest. Whether it is boxing, food or in this case politics - I think he is one to the best to have ever recorded it.
March 23, 2017
Hard to get into, too much name dropping at the beginning. Didn't really start for me until page 89 or so, when he himself, the "Oil" of the "Gret Stet" of "Loosiana," gave his speech.
July 4, 2016
Most people remember Roosevelt's "second most dangerous man in America", though few remember he had a younger, crazier brother. This work fills that gap. Another marvelous book from the writer/reporter from the New Yorker, A.J. Liebling, author of the saccharin Sweat Science. The focus is on Earl Long, governor of Louisiana, as he attempts to scam, campaign, and dirty deal his way into that office yet again. A tall order, especially if state law prohibits consecutive terms and you've been very recently hospitalized for madness. But tall orders seem to have been the norm, given Earl's compulsive personality. Yet the mise en scene of Louisiana state politics and the wildcat way it once functioned really remains the main reason for a modern day reader to read this book. That, and Liebling's magnificent writing. Perhaps a sample is in order; one describing Earl after giving one of his fire and brimstone campaign speeches and he has turned the platform over to other allied, though lesser, politicians on his "ticket":
Pulling his chair slightly out of line, he crossed his legs and turned his profile to the audience, first plucking at his sleeves, which came down as far as his thumbnails, then, when he had disengaged his hands, picking his nose while he looked over at Alick's leading hotel, the Bentley, across the street, described by Louisiana's Great Guide as "a six-story building of brick and stone, with column facade and richly decorated interior." He stared at it as if it contained some absorbing riddle.
When he finished with his nose, he began to bathe his face, his temples and the back of his neck with Coca-Cola from the cold bottle, sloshing it on like iced cologne.
"Cool yourself off, Earl," a voice piped from the crowd, and the Governor shouted back, "I'm a red-hot poppa!"
OMG. Liebling is a master literary craftsman, but how can you not score with people and material like that??
Okay, how about another shot of that moonshine Liebling dispenses with such consummate literary skill and humor(with, of course, more than a little help from his subject):
Tom now turned to deLesseps S Morrison who, when I left, seemed Earl's most formidable rival for the nomination. "Chep(Morrison), the progressive conservative, had chose quietism and decency in making his play for the national crowd here." Tom wrote: "He went back down to Pointe Coupes, his home parish, to announce for governor last weekend. Then he got on water skis and sprayed up and down False River, speaking to the crowd at boat piers. Chep is making the Chamber of Commerce approach: no gimmicks, only a circus bandwagon and a lazy band, which he is using on his stomping tour through the towns."
Get the feeling "no gimmicks" means something different to a southerner than those of us residing north of the D.C.? Actually, that is a problem with this work. Liebling, a New Yorker, viewed the south as one large carnival and Earl as its most talented clown. This prejudice does seep into other misinterpretations. The leading one is Liebling's peculiar notion that Earl was a civil rights leader. Unfortunately, one random remark that "Lincoln was right" doesn't constitute a political platform of any kind; merely a random, likely fleeting, impression. Earl would later jump onto the "racist ticket" after his foundered. This switch had nothing ideological about it(nor did it have anything of the sort for Davis, head of that ticket); just a maneuvering for money and influence which made Louisianan politics work, or, rather, pay. The fact that Loebling might be taken in, even for a moment, by this casual spitball demonstrates the northerner's prejudice that more must exist behind the cynical circus facade of politics, like, say, a belief that doesn't end up in one's wallet. The show wasn't enough. It couldn't be. There had to be a deeper meaning, preferably attached to betterment for an impoverished constituency. Huey, Earl's older brother, exploited this theme deftly, but always made sure either the "foreign"(not of the Gret State)oil companies or the federal government payed for the show. The audience got some free popcorn and something to talk about(Liebling makes frequent reference to Louisianians' love of talking politics, much like the Romans' enthusiasm for discussing the Trinity in Augustine's time), while the politicians divided up the receipts, afterwards. This book does, however, give a vivid description of how wacky and sadly entertaining that show could be.
Pulling his chair slightly out of line, he crossed his legs and turned his profile to the audience, first plucking at his sleeves, which came down as far as his thumbnails, then, when he had disengaged his hands, picking his nose while he looked over at Alick's leading hotel, the Bentley, across the street, described by Louisiana's Great Guide as "a six-story building of brick and stone, with column facade and richly decorated interior." He stared at it as if it contained some absorbing riddle.
When he finished with his nose, he began to bathe his face, his temples and the back of his neck with Coca-Cola from the cold bottle, sloshing it on like iced cologne.
"Cool yourself off, Earl," a voice piped from the crowd, and the Governor shouted back, "I'm a red-hot poppa!"
OMG. Liebling is a master literary craftsman, but how can you not score with people and material like that??
Okay, how about another shot of that moonshine Liebling dispenses with such consummate literary skill and humor(with, of course, more than a little help from his subject):
Tom now turned to deLesseps S Morrison who, when I left, seemed Earl's most formidable rival for the nomination. "Chep(Morrison), the progressive conservative, had chose quietism and decency in making his play for the national crowd here." Tom wrote: "He went back down to Pointe Coupes, his home parish, to announce for governor last weekend. Then he got on water skis and sprayed up and down False River, speaking to the crowd at boat piers. Chep is making the Chamber of Commerce approach: no gimmicks, only a circus bandwagon and a lazy band, which he is using on his stomping tour through the towns."
Get the feeling "no gimmicks" means something different to a southerner than those of us residing north of the D.C.? Actually, that is a problem with this work. Liebling, a New Yorker, viewed the south as one large carnival and Earl as its most talented clown. This prejudice does seep into other misinterpretations. The leading one is Liebling's peculiar notion that Earl was a civil rights leader. Unfortunately, one random remark that "Lincoln was right" doesn't constitute a political platform of any kind; merely a random, likely fleeting, impression. Earl would later jump onto the "racist ticket" after his foundered. This switch had nothing ideological about it(nor did it have anything of the sort for Davis, head of that ticket); just a maneuvering for money and influence which made Louisianan politics work, or, rather, pay. The fact that Loebling might be taken in, even for a moment, by this casual spitball demonstrates the northerner's prejudice that more must exist behind the cynical circus facade of politics, like, say, a belief that doesn't end up in one's wallet. The show wasn't enough. It couldn't be. There had to be a deeper meaning, preferably attached to betterment for an impoverished constituency. Huey, Earl's older brother, exploited this theme deftly, but always made sure either the "foreign"(not of the Gret State)oil companies or the federal government payed for the show. The audience got some free popcorn and something to talk about(Liebling makes frequent reference to Louisianians' love of talking politics, much like the Romans' enthusiasm for discussing the Trinity in Augustine's time), while the politicians divided up the receipts, afterwards. This book does, however, give a vivid description of how wacky and sadly entertaining that show could be.
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