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On the Air. Three weeks before. Huey Long had spurred his attack on the Administration by demanding an investigation of its most vulnerable member. Postmaster General Farley. Charges hurled against "General" Farley by "Kingfish" Long were that he gave away free stamps (TIME, Jan. 21), was interested in a race track wire service, had accepted party funds from a man about to be tried for using the mails to defraud, had intervened to save a Kansas City gangster and a banking group, which included Ambassador-at-Large Norman Davis and his brother, from Federal prosecution, had personally profited from PWA contracts. Just after Senator Long's running fight with Senator Robinson in the Senate last week, the Post Offices & Post Roads Committee quietly announced that it found insufficient evidence for an investigation of the Postmaster General.
That was Huey Long's cue to howl that the Administration had now decided to "turn on the heat from all sides" against him. From National Broadcasting Co. he asked for 45 minutes instead of a half-hour radio time on a coast-to-coast hookup. "I'll cover Johnson's case from Hell to breakfast!" cried he. "There will be 25,000,000 people listening to me tonight. Give me 15 more minutes and I'll have the whole world listening!"
Out across the nation rolled the nasal, back-country accents of the "Kingfish." "It has been publicly announced that the White House orders of the Roosevelt Administration have declared a war." cried he. "The lately-lamented, pampered, ex-Crown Prince, General Hugh S. Johnson, one of those satellites loaned by Wall Street to run the Government . . . was apparently selected to make the lead-off speech. . . . What is the trouble with this Administration? . . . They think that Huey Long is the cause of all their worry. They go gunning for me, but am I the cause of their misery? Well, they are like old David Crockett who went out to hunt a possum. . . . Soon he discovered that it was not a possum at all that he saw in the top of the tree; it was a louse in his own eyebrow. . . ."
There were further reflections on the "gum'ment" and "Franklin De-lah-no Rosy-felt," but as his speech continued Senator Long's reputation for political shrewdness began to become more understandable. With the nation at its loudspeaker eager for another session of name-calling, with every important newspaper in the land primed to print his speech the next morning, Senator Long devoted the first five minutes to his enemies and the remaining 40 to propagandizing his Share-The-Wealth Plan. For his plan to make "every man a king" by limiting personal capital to $4,000,000, by guaranteeing at least $5,000 for a homestead and a $2,000 to $2,500 annual income to every family in the nation, the "Kingfish" claimed a galaxy of precedent: