Speedy O. Long

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Speedy Oteria Long (born June 16, 1928)is a lawyer in Jena, Louisiana, in La Salle Parish, who is one of the relatively few surviving members of the popular Long political dynasty. He was a conservative Democratic congressman from central Louisiana between 1965 and 1973. Prior to his tenure in the since disbanded Eighth Congressional District, Speedy Long had been a member of the Louisiana state Senate (1956-1964). After he left Congress, he became the district attorney (1973-1985) for the Jena-based 28th Judicial District.

Early years in La Salle and Winn parishes

Long was born in tiny Tullos, on the La Salle and Winn Parish boundary. He was named "Speedy" because he was born two months prematurely. His father, Felix Long, the Tullos barber, was also a town council member and later the mayor. Speedy Long recalled that his family ate and breathed politics. He joked that he had been reared to regard Huey P. Long, Jr., as God Almighty, Earl Kemp Long as Jesus the Son, and Eighth District Congressman {George S. Long|George Shannon Long]] as St. Peter. He attended the public schools of La Salle and Winn parishes and graduated from Winnfield High School in 1945, just days before his 17th birthday.

Thereafter, he served in the U.S. Navy from April 1946 to February 1948. He graduated from Northeast Junior College (now the University of Louisiana at Monroe) in 1950 and from Northwestern State University (then College) in Natchitoches, in 1951. Long was recalled to active duty during the Korean War in the Navy between 1951 and 1952. He graduated from Louisiana State University Law School in Baton Rouge in February 1959 and was admitted to the Louisiana bar thereafter. He opened his practice in Jena.

State senator at 27

Speedy Long was elected to the Louisiana Senate in 1956, when he was only 27 years old. In 1963, he ran for state insurance commissioner on a Democratic intraparty "ticket" headed by his friend John McKeithen (1918-1999), a Columbia lawyer and one of the then three state public service commissioners, who was seeking the party's gubernatorial nomination in a crowded field. Also on the ticket was former Lafayette Mayor Ashton J. Mouton (1916-1988), a candidate for lieutenant governor. Mouton had been elected mayor at the age of 31 in 1948; he served until 1956. Long and Mouton lost their races, but McKeithen was elected governor. Long was defeated by an Italian-American, Dudley A. Guglielmo. Mouton lost out to incumbent Clarence C. "Taddy" Aycock of Franklin in St. Mary Parish.

Speedy Long challenges Gillis Long, 1964

Long left the state senate in 1964 and immediately launched a campaign against his cousin, Gillis William Long (1923-1985) of Alexandria, for the Eighth District House seat, a position often held by a member of the Long family. In the summer of 1960, Earl Long had won a Democratic primary by a 6,000-vote margin for the seat held by Harold B. McSween of Alexandria and also held prior to 1958 by Long's late brother, George S. Long. When Earl Long died as the Democratic congressional nominee, the nomination reverted to McSween, the choice of the Democratic State Central committee. Two years later, in 1962, Gillis Long unseat McSween in the Democratic primary.

Gillis Long had been an unsuccessful gubernatorial contender against John McKeithen in the primary held in December 1963. He was a freshman House member who had not fully consolidated his hold on the district. Therefore, he was most vulnerable to his cousin's challenge. Speedy Long made it clear to voters that he was far different from his cousin Gillis, whom he dubbed a "Washington lawyer." Speedy Long, "just a Jena lawyer," vowed to vote far more conservatively on policy issues than Gillis Long had done in his one term in Congress.

Speedy Long said that he would model many of his votes in accord with north Louisiana Congressmen Joe D. Waggonner, Jr., of Plain Dealing in Bossier Parish and Otto Ernest Passman (1900-1988) of Monroe in Ouachita Parish. He pointed out that Gillis Long often voted with the liberal members of the delegation from south Louisiana, specifically, Thomas Hale Boggs, Sr., (1914-1972) of New Orleans, Edwin E. Willis (1904-1972) of St. Martinville, and James H. "Jimmy" Morrison (1908-2000) of Hammond, to expand the scope of the national government at the expense of the states.

The entire Louisiana congressional delegation voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which President Johnson signed into law only a few days prior to the Long-Long primary. Speedy Long denounced the Civil Rights Act as a violation of constitutional property rights and accused Gillis Long of barely raising a whimper of opposition though Gillis Long did vote against the bill on final passage, much as most other southern lawmakers had done, even some with regrets.

In time, Gillis Long supported federal civil rights laws, as the Louisiana political climate changed. Speedy Long, however, upset Gillis Long for the Democratic congressional nomination in the famous "battle of the Longs." Speedy's margin was some 4,900 votes. Relations between the two cousins were strained for years afterwards.

Facing Republican William Walker, 1964

Speedy Long faced a much stronger Republican candidate than was usually offered in the district because of the popularity in Louisiana of the Republican presidential nominee, Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona. Retired Army officer William Stewart Walker of Winnfield, who had earlier lost a state senate race, appeared strong as the Republican congressional nominee. At the Republican National Convention in San Francisco, in fact, Walker secured the endorsement of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Walker won Rapides Parish, which includes Alexandria and Pineville, with 51.4 percent of the vote and nearly won Winn Parish, which was both Walker's home parish as well as the traditional center of the Long dynasty. Walker received 27,735 votes (45.5 percent) to Speedy Long's 33,250 (54.5 percent).

Speedy Long quickly established his hold on the Eighth District. As he had promised, Long voted conservatively in Congress, sometimes in line with the Republican leadership under the direction of a future president, Gerald R. Ford. Speedy Long was reelected to new House terms in 1966, 1968, and 1970.

Running for governor, 1971

Main Article: Louisiana gubernatorial election, 1971-72

In 1971, Speedy Long filed as a Democratic candidate for governor. He entered a huge field that included: Lieutenant Governor C.C. "Taddy" Aycock, 70-year-old former Governor Jimmie Davis, fellow Congressman Edwin Washington Edwards of Crowley, two state senators, John G. Schwegmann, a supermarket mogul from Jefferson Parish, and J. Bennett Johnston, Jr., a lawyer from Shreveport, and Speedy Long's competitive and more liberal cousin, Gillis Long. Speedy Long polled only 61,359 votes.

La Salle Parish district attorney

Speedy Long decided not to run for the U.S. House again. As a result of redistricting, the Eighth District was geographically enlarged to include more liberal and French cultural parishes to the south of Alexandria. The change in district apportionment, pushed by Governor Edwards, proved conducive to the return of Gillis Long to the seat that he had lost eight years earlier. Speedy Long instead was elected district attorney in Jena, a position that he held for a dozen years.

One last run for governor, 1987

In 1987, Speedy Long, then 59, launched a final campaign for governor. He faced a field of seven opponents in the jungle primary, including incumbent Governor Edwards (the father of the jungle primary), Secretary of State James H. "Jim" Brown, originally of Ferriday, three congressmen, W.J. "Billy" Tauzin of Lafourche Parish, Robert L. "Bob" Livingston of suburban New Orleans, and Charles E. "Buddy" Roemer, III, of Bossier Parish.

Speedy Long polled 18,736 votes (1 percent). In La Salle Parish, he received only 643 ballots from his diehard supporters, but Roemer led even there with 3,540 votes. Roemer (33 percent) and Edwards (28 percent) were slated to compete in the general election, but Edwards withdrew, and Roemer became governor based on his plurality primary showing. Livingston, who had hoped to garner a general election berth based on solid Republican support and then tackle Edwards, ran a disappointing third.

Bill Dodd's analysis of Speedy Long

In his Peapatch Politics: The Earl Long Era in Louisiana Politics, former lieutenant governor, state auditor, and superintendent of education William J. "Bill" Dodd said that:

"Speedy O. Long is the maverick of the Long family. He is a small man physically, and some think he is a lightweight mentally, compared with the other Longs, who were bright people. . . . However, Speedy knew his politics and had the usual amount of Long ambition and energy to get ahead. He had something else, something the other Longs didn't have. He had the ability to see things in perspective, and he seems to have made a good self-analysis of his capabilities and desires. He got himself elected to Congress and appeared able to parlay his success into a still bigger office [the governorship]. But he was a segregationist and had sense enough to quit Congress before he got beat. For no apparent reason, . . . he got himself elected to a district attorneyship in one of Louisiana's smallest judicial districts.

"Speedy got tired of Washington . . . and wanted to live at home with his family. So he came home voluntarily and hence became a quiet, plodding, and seemingly happy country prosector and small-town lawyer in central Louisiana. He may be the only Long who was ever happy . . . "

Speedy Long in retirement

Speedy Long resides in the town of Trout in La Salle Parish and maintains a family law office in Jena. He is a Baptist.

Speedy Long was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield in 1998, along with his former congressional colleague Joe Waggonner.

References

1. Billy Hathorn, "The Republican Party in Louisiana, 1920-1980," Master's thesis (1980), Northwestern State University at Natchitoches
2. http://www.lib.lsu.edu/special/williams/abstracts/gillis/longjimmy.htm
3. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=L000429
4. http://www.infoplease.com/biography/us/congress/long-speedy-oteria.html
5. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/909527/posts
6. http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/long.html
7. http://www.sos.louisiana.gov:8090/cgibin/?rqstyp=elcmp&rqsdta=10248710012919
8. http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1966/5/1966_5_40.shtml
9. http://www.cityofwinnfield.com/museum.html

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