LOUISIANA: Jimmy the Stooge

"Who the hell's Smith?" Huey Long snorted in 1930 when one of his stooges suggested that Dr. James Monroe Smith would make a properly pliant president for Louisiana State University. Last week a pertinent question in Louisiana was-"Where the hell's Smith?"

James Monroe Smith was dean of the College of Education at Southwestern Louisiana Institute at Lafayette when Huey snatched him to Baton Rouge. Tall, bald, Dr. Smith shaped into an ideal academic puppet. Huey began to spend $13,500,000 on L. S. U. for sumptuous buildings, a monster swimming pool, "professional" footballers, a huge Medical Center in New Orleans....

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