“The day of the inquest—it was a Tuesday and raining like everything—we met at Rabenhorst’s and were taken out in back where Long’s body lay under a sheet. The sheet was lifted and then Dr. Tom, he raised up the right side of the body to show us the wound in the back. It was so small I doubt we’d have even seen it had it not been pointed out to us. But they wouldn’t let us get too close to the body, no more than from here to the other side of the room [indicating a distance of approximately twelve feet]. They never did let us feel around to see could we get out another bullet. They did show us the little old Spanish [sic!] automatic that belonged to Dr. Weiss, and then Dr. Tom filled out the report and we all signed it, and went home through the rain that was still pouring. That afternoon Dr. Weiss was buried.”
Long was buried two days later. Throughout the day and night, Tuesday and Wednesday, his body lay in state as thousands upon thousands filed slowly past the casket in an apparently endless procession to look their last upon him. From near and far came floral offerings: elaborate professional set pieces of broken columns, gates ajar, open schoolbooks, and the like, with ornately gold-lettered, broad ribbons of white or lavender silk; but there were likewise many simple wreaths of garden blossoms, plucked by the hands of those who revered ol’ Huey as the avatar who had been put on earth to brighten and better the lot of the common man. Large as it was, Memorial Hall could not begin to hold the flowers. When they were set up outdoors in the landscaped capitol park, they occupied literally acres of the grounds.
Beginning with daybreak on Thursday, mourners began to stream into Baton Rouge from all sections of the state; by special train from the cities, by chartered bus, by glossy limousine and mud-spattered farm pickup. Looking westward from the observation gallery atop the capitol’s thirty-one-story central section, it is possible to see for nearly seven miles along one of the state’s principal highways. No bridge had yet been built to span the Mississippi at this point. Consequently, as far as the eye could see from this lofty lookout platform, a solid line of vehicles was stalled. They moved forward only a bit at a time, as the Port Allen ferries, doing double duty, picked up deckload after deckload for transfer to the east bank.
Mrs. Long had asked Seymour Weiss to make all funeral arrangements, and because Huey, though nominally a Baptist, was not a church member and thought little of ministers as a class, the problem of selecting an ordained churchman to conduct the services was a sticky one. Religious prejudice was no part of Long’s make-up. He had known Dick Leche as a close friend for years. Yet on the last day, when casting about for a gubernatorial candidate, he did not even know whether this close friend was or was not a Catholic.
Looking back on what happened, and still chagrined by the memory of his decision to select Gerald Smith as funeral chaplain, Seymour Weiss relates that “I didn’t know what to do. If I picked a Catholic priest, a Protestant minister, or a rabbi, I’d offend those that weren’t represented; even if I picked all three for a sort of joint service, those who felt that Huey was neither a Catholic nor a Jew might resent their inclusion, and in addition, the funeral service would be dragged out too long with three obituary sermons to deliver. Then I happened to recall that Gerald Smith had severed his connection with a Shreveport church of which he had been the pastor before being employed by the Share-Our-Wealth movement as an exhorter.
“So I went to him and said: ‘You’re a kind of free-lance preacher without portfolio, and that’s why I’m going to give you the biggest honor you’ve ever had. You’re going to conduct Huey’s funeral service’ ... and that was the worst mistake I ever made in all my life.”
Not that anything untoward occurred to mar the service. Under direction of highway-department engineers, special crews had labored around the clock to have the vault ready. From the great bronze doors of the capitol the cortege was led by Castro Carrazo and his Louisiana State University student band. With drums muffled and the tempo of their march reduced to slow-step they played “Every Man a King,” so artfully transposed to a minor key that what was and still is essentially a doggerel became an impressive and moving dirge. The service that followed was simple and dignified.
In Baltimore, Henry L. Mencken, ever ready to sacrifice fact for the turn of a sparkling phrase, predicted that ere long Louisianians would dynamite Huey’s ornate casket out of its crypt and erect an equestrian statue of Dr. Weiss over the site. The truth is that a monument to the fallen apostle of Share-Our-Wealth has been built above the vault, and that elders still make worshipful pilgrimages to the spot.
Indeed, there have been those who literally canonized the memory of the man who once proclaimed himself Kingfish. Among the personal advertisements in the daily newspapers of South Louisiana one finds cards of thanks to this or to that favorite saint. “Thanks to St. Rita and St. Jude for financial aid.” “Thanks to St. Anthony for successful journey.” “Thanks to St. Joseph for recovery of father and husband.” And among them have appeared such cards as [this]: “Thanks to St. Raymond, St. Anthony, Sen. Huey P. Long for favor granted.” The last one cited appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune of June 11, 1937.
Even those who make up a younger generation to whom Huey Long’s name already has become as impersonal as that of, let us say, Millard Fillmore, still visit the statue, much as they would pause to look at any other historical monument in their travels.