Jack B. McGuire - Win the Race or Die Trying: Uncle Earls Last Hurrah

WIN THE RACE OR DIE TRYING

Uncle Earls Last Hurrah

Jack B. McGuire

www.upress.state.ms.us

The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of American University Presses.

Photos courtesy the author unless otherwise noted.

Copyright 2016 by University Press of Mississippi

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

First printing 2016

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: McGuire, Jack B., author.

Title: Win the race or die trying : Uncle Earls last hurrah / Jack B. McGuire.

Description: Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016018901 (print) | LCCN 2016005804 (ebook) | ISBN 9781496807649 (ebook) | ISBN 9781496807632 (hardback)

Subjects: LCSH: Long, Earl Kemp, 18951960. | GovernorsLouisianaBiography. | LouisianaPolitics and government18651950. | BISAC: HISTORY / United States / State & Local / South (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV). | HISTORY / Social History. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Political.

Classification: LCC F376.3.L67 (print) | LCC F376.3.L67 M375 2016 (ebook) | DDC 976.3/061092 [B] dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016018901

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

For Sue, Again and Always,
and the grandchildren who
are our joysMackenzie, Liam,
Jack, Charlie, Alex-Anne, and
Madeleine Rose

A last hurrah is defined as a final appearance or effort or final moment or occasion of glory or achievement, especially at the end of a career, or a swan song, such as a politicians last campaign. The word hurrah has been around for several centuries, defined as an excitement, fanfare, or cheer. The term last hurrah was popularized by a novel by Edwin OConnor, The Last Hurrah. The book was published in 1956, followed by a movie adaptation that starred Spencer Tracy.

OConnor chronicled the final campaign of a legendary but fictional politician, Frank Skeffington, who served as governor of his state once and mayor of his city for multiple terms. OConnors book won the Atlantic Prize for Fiction and is regarded as an iconic novel of American politics. It was based on the legendary but very real politician James Michael Curley, mayor of Boston and governor of Massachusetts, who had many characteristics in common with Governor Earl Kemp Long of Louisiana. A book review said that the novel portrays Skeffington as a flawed great man with many achievements to his credit. The reviewer noted that OConnor gave an insightful view of politics, following his subject through rounds of campaign appearances and events, thereby showcasing a dying brand of politics and painting a broad picture of political life in general.

The story is told through the eyes of Skeffingtons nephew, Adam Caulfield, whose uncle has asked him to take an insiders seat for his final race for reelection. Well, Adam, Skeffington tells him, my guess is that the old-fashioned political campaign in a few years will be as extinct as the dodo. Itll be all TV and radio, itll all be streamlined and nice and easy. Oh, mind you, I use the TV and the radio sometimes, but I also get out into the wards. I speak in arenas, armories, street cornersanywhere I can gather a crowd. I even kiss babies. But thats the way Ive always done it, and I must say its usually paid off. But theres no use kidding myself about it. Its on its way out, just as I am. Yes, yes, this is my last campaign, Adam, the last hurrah.

When I read Jack Beattys marvelous biography, The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley, 18741958, I was struck by several similarities between Curley and Long.

Beatty wrote that He never built a machine; such organizations as he put together were no more than temporary platforms to assist his climb. Curley, Beatty said, had no ideas of handing on his political inheritance to the next generation. He was in politics for life.

Throughout his career, Curley had to contend with rough editorial comment, Beatty noted. But the sort of people who read editorials were already lost to Curley anyway.

In the novel, and in life, Skeffington and Curley lost their Last Hurrahs.

Earl Long won his.

Two high school classmates, Byron Unkauf and Jerry Jacobs, went with me to Alexandria to follow Earl K. Longs runoff campaign for the Eighth District seat in the US House of Representatives. It was mid-August 1960, the summer before we entered college. We stayed at the Bentley Hotel and over a three-day weekend went to a dozen of the stump speeches of Uncle Earl, as he called himself, in such towns as Effie, Echo, and Mansura. Some of the photographs of that Last Hurrah included in this book were made by us. It was an unforgettable experience following, watching, and listening to Earl Long at his speakings, with music, singing, giveaways, and old-fashioned oratory by masters of the trade like Bill Dodd and Joe Arthur Sims, and above all, Uncle Earl.

I did not intend to write the story of Uncle Earls Last Hurrah. I had hoped that Robert Gentry, his youthful p.r man would do that, and eleven or twelve years ago I sent him copies of all of the material I had gathered on that campaign, including my correspondence with Congressman Harold McSween, state representative W. K. Brown, and others. I lost most of my own files when our home in Mandeville, Louisiana, flooded in Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Three years ago, I asked Robert for copies of what I had sent him, and he said he would bring them to me at an upcoming induction banquet of the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield. Robert brought me not only my own papers but several boxes of his own files as well and said that I was welcome to copy everything in them. He said it was unlikely that he would ever get around to writing the story of the campaign, but he wanted to see it done, so he urged me to do so and to use any of his papers that would help me.

Roberts files included many newspaper clippings, circulars, and other materials, but their real treasures were his notes about his experiences with Earl Long and the texts of speeches that he, Robert, had given over the years about the campaign. While I did an enormous amount of research and had my own papers and memories of it, this story about Uncle Earls last election could not have been written without the assistance and support of my dear friend Robert Gentry, to whom I am most grateful.

Dr. Edward F. Haas, who has written extensively on New Orleans and Louisiana politics, including histories of the administrations of Mayor deLesseps S. Morrison, in which my father served, and Mayor Victor H. Schiro, in which I served, read the original manuscript and made valuable suggestions. I am grateful for his friendship over more years than either of us want to count.

I am grateful to the anonymous reader for the University Press of Mississippi who recommended publication of the manuscript if the text was reorganized and a number of revisions made. I wish I could thank him or her personally for the critique. My friend Mike Stagg, a fine journalist and political consultant, reworked the manuscript for me, following the readers comments, and edited and vastly improved it. I was very happy that when the Press sent the final manuscript back to the reader, he had the same opinion and it was accepted for publication.