A chair opposite him was waiting, and I took it.
I had glimpsed a sizable law library off the reception area, but Hamilton’s own office was modest, though that mahogany desk must have cost a small fortune. Vintage prints of riverboats, a signed photo of FDR and a few diplomas were the sole wall decorations; a couple of file cabinets were against a side wall. On his desk were a few framed photos, facing away from me; family photos, no doubt. One of them would be of his wife, Mildred-organizer of the anti-Long Women’s Committee of Louisiana.
I knew, from what Alice Jean had told me, that Hamilton had been special counsel to two state boards, patronage appointments from the previous administration, before the Kingfish had fired him, and battle lines had been drawn between them ever since.
I didn’t even have to ask a question: Hamilton was ready, willing and eager to speak his anti-Long piece.
“If you in the North think Huey Long is a peculiarly Southern phenomenon, Mr. Davis, you may soon learn how sadly mistaken you are.” He was sitting in a swivel chair and he rocked back easily in it as he spoke; his smile was gentle, his eyes hard, “First of all, the ‘Kingfish’ is no clown…. The Northern papers take that rustic-fool facade entirely too lightly, too lit’rally.”
I shrugged. “Makes good copy.”
“It makes good sense for Huey to sugarcoat his tyranny.”
“‘Tyranny’ is a pretty strong word, Mr. Hamilton.”
His smile stayed gentle, amused; and his speech remained softly Southern in cadence. But the words themselves were harsh.
“Make no mistake, Mr. Davis,” he said. “The Kingfish is an American Mussolini, a home-grown Hitler…a queer mixture of Fascism, baloney and old-fashioned bossism, Tammany Hall-style.”
That seemed a little overstated to me, but I merely nodded, and made notes.
“Louisiana under Huey P. Long,” the attorney continued, “is a banana republic with a particularly odious, megalomaniacal dictator. He owns the state government, the governor, the state university, the treasury, the state buildings and the Louisianians inside ’em. With a few isolated exceptions-my friend Judge Pavy, for one-Long owns the courts, as well. His secret police terrorize, and kidnap at will-”
I raised my pen as I interrupted. “My understanding is that Huey won his last election, handily. And that his candidates for other offices are usually big winners, too-”
Hamilton’s sorrowful eyes flared with anger. “He runs the elections, he counts the votes! He wields life-and-death power over private business, through his bank examiners, his homestead agents, his boards and commissions….”
“Is that why a law-abiding citizen, like yourself, took up arms and rose up against him?”
I was referring to uprisings in both New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
Last year in New Orleans, Huey-at odds with local politicians-had passed legislation giving the state (i.e., himself) control over the New Orleans police and fire departments; and usurped the city’s authority over voter registration and election machinery, as well. Huey had Governor O.K. Allen declare martial law, and soon the New Orleans police and an “army” of local citizens were facing down the National Guard. The comic opera situation had attracted both the national press and the White House, and-eventually-civic leaders had convinced both sides of the conflict to declare an armistice.
But the Baton Rouge uprising, earlier this year, had been the work of Hamilton’s Square Dealers. The group consisted largely of embittered Standard Oil employees who feared Huey’s personal war on Standard would drive out the company that kept the community financially afloat.
“Armed insurrection was not our goal,” Hamilton said quietly, the rocking in his swivel chair ceasing. “Only to rid the state of obnoxious dictatorial laws.”
I gave him a smirk. “Come on now, Mr. Hamilton. You wore little blue uniforms, you formed ‘battalions,’ you marched and drilled….”
His frown turned his dark eyebrows into one straight, furrowed line. “We were a paramilitary organization. So are the Boy Scouts. Neither group is inherently violent.”
“Your slogan was ‘Direct Action.’ One of your members spoke openly about hanging Huey and his puppet governor and all the rubber-stamp legislators-”
He bit the words off: “It was not our purpose to assassinate or murder anybody. For God’s sake, man, we numbered two ex-governors among our membership, and the mayor of New Orleans.” He shook his head. “I must say, I’m disappointed with the tack you’re takin’, Mr. Davis. I’m not certain this interview should…”
I replaced the smirk with an easygoing smile. “Mr. Hamilton, please understand. The things that are happening down here are difficult for folks up North to grasp.”
His eyes were scolding. “That’s the point I’ve been tryin’ to make. Don’t feel so smug about it. Huey’s already in Washin’ton, and he’s knockin’ at your door. He’ll smile and grin and guffaw his way into America’s house and steal off with the Bill of Rights and the Constitution and every man, woman and child’s immortal soul.”
That all seemed pretty arch to me, and perhaps my expression showed it. Hamilton sat forward, leaned his elbows on the desk and looked at me, wearily.
“You see, Mr. Davis, after our impeachment efforts failed, and when Long began pushin’ through his ‘special legislature sessions’ in 1934-there have been six such sessions in the past thirteen months-well, it created a sort of…wildness in the air.”
“‘Somebody oughta kill that guy’ became more than just a wisecrack, you mean?”
Sitting back, Hamilton nodded gravely.
I asked, “Is ‘a wildness in the air’ why three hundred armed Square Dealers stormed and occupied the East Baton Rouge courthouse, last January?”
He winced at the memory. “You must try to understand, Mr. Davis…. Long sneaked a bill through that gave his stooge O.K. Allen leeway to appoint new members to the governing board of our parish-our last vestige of representative government had been stolen from us.”
“I thought storming the courthouse had to do with one of your people being arrested.”
He nodded slowly. “Yes, that did fuel the ill-advised episode.”
“So Huey sent the militia in, and the Square Dealers folded.”
He shook his head, quickly. “No. We received word that our arrested member had been released, and we went home. The irony is, that ‘member’ was an undercover agent of Huey’s all along. In fact, during his ‘arrest,’ he was probably reportin’ in, deliverin’ names and phone numbers. That would certainly explain the airport debacle.”
The morning after the seizing of the courthouse, a hundred armed Square Dealers had arrived at the Baton Rouge airport, where they were greeted by five hundred national guardsmen with machine guns and teargas.
The sorrowful eyes took on a haunted aspect. “Most of the Square Dealers were gassed, and one was shot. Half a dozen were hospitalized. No fatalities, thank God. Some of us made it to our cars, or into the woods, before anything serious happened…other than abject humiliation, that is.”
“What possessed you to send a hundred of your men to the airport, anyway?”
His laugh was short, deep, humorless. “That’s the most humiliatin’ part. Even those of us in leadership capacities didn’t know why we were there! We all received urgent anonymous phone calls, urgin’ us to get out to the airport.”
“Phone numbers provided by Huey’s spy?”
He sighed. “I can only assume so. At any rate, that was the end of the Square Dealers, for all intents and purposes. A while later Huey banned the organization, officially. Martial law wasn’t lifted in Baton Rouge until only just last month.”
“When you say the Square Dealers are ‘officially’ dead, do you mean…?”
A brave smile formed on that lived-in face. “That unofficially, the anti-Long movement is very much alive? Oh yes, Mr. Davis. Yes indeed.”