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A favorite saying of the Dictator was: "I'm a smart man. There are very few men in the United States as smart as I am, and none in Louisiana." In truth, he left no successors, only stooges. These, Governor Allen, Lieutenant Governor Noe and Col. "Abe" Shushan, the machine's moneyman, quit their leader's death bed in a panic. The best thing they could think of was to throw a cordon of police around the State House, hold troops ready in New Orleans to prevent a possible "coup d'état." With equal melodrama, the suppressed anti-Long forces throughout the State began to serve threateningly and the Square Deal Association ominously warned the Legislature: "Heed the example of the man who has just passed away." Whether by bullets or ballots, in sight was a bitter dogfight for the dead man's big shoes. Meantime, the Dictator's death had put a vastly different complexion not only on the fortunes of Louisiana, but life in the U. S. Senate, the doings of the next Democratic Convention, even the tenor of the 1936 national political campaign.