Sam Jones won.
Earl Long was brooding, morose, tense.
After twelve years, the powerful Long machine was wrecked.
Except for a single bulb burning in a downstairs office, the lights went out in the great white Governor's mansion in Baton Rouge, the night Sam Jones defeated Earl Long in the primary run-off for Louisiana's governorship. Five uniformed officers guarded the grounds, chasing away small boys who tried to plant anti-Long signs in the shrubbery. Outside, the night was clamorous: whistles, bells, automobile horns, the music of six bands rising from a parade two blocks away. Overflow from the parade surged past the mansion, shouting insults at the Governor. Confetti drifted down from the windows along Baton Rouge's Third Street; marchers in the parade threw handfuls of aluminum sales-tax tokens in the crowd. Because Earl Long had called Sam Jones "high-hat, sweet-smelling Sam Jones," marchers wore high hats, carried mops. Baton Rouge had seen nothing like it since the Armistice. Neither had Lake Charles, where 20,000 people formed in a four-mile parade, stores closed, theatres cut their programs, thousands of tax tokens were dumped, and police roped off the business district so crowds could dance in the street to hillbilly bands.
The night of the Sam Jones victory parade, Governor Long left turbulent Baton Rouge, drove to New Orleans, where the Long machine had won. He went to the Jung Hotel, kept his room number secret. His armed bodyguard threatened to smash the camera of any photographer who tried to photograph him. After two days of seclusion, newspapermen got to him, asked for a statement. "I don't owe the newspapers a God damned thing," said Louisiana's bitter, beaten Governor.
Victory. So ended last week the rule of the political machine that Huey Long built—though not until May 14 will Sam Jones become Governor. It ended after a day of quiet balloting that gave Sam Jones 283,384 votes, Earl Long 263,443. But far bigger than the 20,000-vote margin was the anti-Long victory. In the Legislature, where there had been no opposition since 1929 ("I can buy and sell legislators," said Huey Long, "like sacks of potatoes") only 37 of 100 members were returned Longsters.
The Senate, where before the election only hearty, vigorous James Noe, onetime Long lieutenant, had fought the Long machine, would now have 23 Jones supporters and independents, and only 16 Longsters. The Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Superintendent of Education, were anti-Long. Totally destroyed in New Orleans was the Louisiana Democratic Association that Huey set up when he was getting control of the city. And out through the State's remaining 63 parishes (Louisiana equivalent of counties) the potent parish sheriffs, who bulk large in Southern rural life, were put in their place: 41 sheriffs were for Earl Long, but he carried only 14 of their parishes.