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White to move and mate in two #717 - Huey Long [1]
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Date: 2025-09-11
Huey’s decision to support Mrs. Caraway had been taken suddenly. when he learned that she was thinking of entering the race, he had advised against it. “You haven’t a chance to win,” he said. She agreed but said she would go down fighting. On the morning after this conference Huey came to her office. “Mrs. Caraway,” he said, “I’m going to come into your campaign.” She expressed gratification but said that he must not use the campaign as an excuse to jump on Robinson. He said that he wouldn’t. Then he told her to give him a statement that she had been attending to her duties in the Senate but that now she was going back to Arkansas to look after her own affairs. He would read the statement in the Senate and make a speech extolling her record. Later he would join her in Arkansas and enter her campaign.5
He read her statement the next day and recounted her votes on important measures. Mrs. Caraway had consistently voted on the side of the common people, he cried. “We have had in this body entirely too much representation from some of the Southern states that has not been in accord with the will and the varied interests of the people,” he said, looking at Joe Robinson. Still looking at Robinson, he said that senators who called themselves progressives ought to help this little woman in her hour of need.6
He always called Mrs. Caraway “the little woman” when he talked about her plight. This led some of his friends to believe that Huey had decided to support her because he felt sorry for her. He had a sentimental and chivalric streak, they believed, and Mrs. Caraway had touched it. They were partly right. He was sentimental or, rather, thought he was, which was almost the same thing, because conceiving of himself as being so he occasionally did impulsive, generous things. There were times when he may have honestly believed that he had gone to Mrs. Caraway’s aid because she was a woman in distress, but usually he admitted his real motive. When he went back to Louisiana to inform his leaders that he was going to support her, he had to fight down objections from some of them. He was taking on a hopeless task, they said. He brushed their arguments aside. “I can elect her,” he said, “and it will help my prestige.” He was moving with his customary calculation. If he could elect Mrs. Caraway, he would take a long step on the road that he had marked out for himself; he would demonstrate that the influence of Huey Long was not confined to Louisiana but that it could be extended to other Southern states and possibly even to other parts of the country. And as part of the triumph he would give a big scare to Joe Robinson.7
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