The Kingfish and the Constitution: Huey Long, the First Amendment, and the Emergence of Modern Press Freedom in America

The King fish and the Constitution: Huey Long, the First Amendment, and the Emergence of Modern Press Freedom in America. By Richard C. Cortner. (Westport: Greenwood, 1996. xiv, 196 pp. $55.00, ISBN 0-313-29842-4.)

Louisiana's flamboyant political leader, Huey P. Long, has received considerable attention from scholars, from the acclaimed, sympathetic 1969 biography by T. Harry Williams to the recent, more critical studies by William Ivy Hair (1991) and Glen Jeansonne (1993). In The Kingfish and the Constitution, the political scientist Richard C. Conner focuses on Long's bitter battles with the major metropolitan newspapers in Louisiana, which often subjected him to relentless criticism. In the manner of most dictators, Long brooked no dissent from within his political encourage and frequently denounced the "lying newspapers" of Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans. Countering the...