Jim Bradshaw: Questions linger about Huey Long's death

When Huey Long was shot in the state capitol on Sept. 8, 1935, nobody could understand why Dr. Carl A. Weiss, a mild-mannered specialist from Baton Rouge, would do such a thing. Weiss himself was shot dead during the confrontation, so could not say.
The prevailing story at the time was that Weiss was upset about a bill in the legislature that would strip power from Opelousas Judge Benjamin H. Pavy and District Attorney R. Lee Garland, both staunch Long opponents. Weiss was married to Judge Pavy’s daughter, Yvonne.
The Opelousas Clarion-News, a newspaper with a definite anti-Long bias, certainly linked the bill and the shooting in its edition of September 12, running a story headlined “Pavy-Garland Struck Blow in New Bill” immediately next to the report of Long’s death.
That story began with this: “Realizations of the extent to which reprisal politics would lead a man in his grasp for power and ability to punish his opponents was understood in St. Landry Parish … when it was learned that the … legislature had passed [the bill].”
Until then, St. Landry and Evangeline made up the 13th Judicial District, with Pavy as judge and Garland as district attorney. Under the new legislation, St. Landry would be combined with Lafayette, Acadia, and Vermilion parishes into the 15th Judicial District and Evangeline Parish would be by itself  in the 13th.
  “Judge B. H. Pavy will become a secondary figure in the Fifteenth District and District Attorney R. Lee Garland will become an assistant district attorney,” the newspaper reported, adding that Long supporters J. Cleveland Fruge and Herman Guillory would become judge and district attorney in Evangeline.
The bill, H.R. 1, was passed by a vote of 73-14 on the day after the shooting, when, the Associated Press reported, “Long … was fighting a grim fight … against life and death from a pistol wound fired at close range … by Dr. Carl A. Weiss.”   The AP report continued, “Why Dr. Weiss shot Senator Long was unanswered today.”
Judge Pavy’s brother, A. J. Pavy, told the Associated Press that Dr. Weiss was “a calm and deliberate man although somewhat high strung,” and that “there was nothing on his part to indicate to his family that he would ever do such a thing. He felt bitterly toward Senator Long, but no more than many other persons I know, and … had no specific grievances against the senator.”
Long biographer T. Harry Williams, wrote: “Carl Weiss was considered to be a brilliant young doctor, perhaps a genius … [who] was also accomplished in music, painting, mathematics, and mechanics.” But, Williams said, some of his peers also considered him a “brooding and intense and unstable man.” (“Huey Long: A Biography,” 1969)
In the years since the assassination, there have been various accounts of just what transpired that fateful night. Some of those accounts raise doubt over whether Weiss shot Long, claiming that the senator was accidentally shot by a bodyguard. They say Weiss didn’t even have a gun.
Dr. Donald Pavy, nephew of the judge, is one who believes that account, writing: “It is my conclusion that Dr. Carl Weiss had an inner seething to confront Senator Long and tell him personally how unfair he was to others, particularly his family. On the night of September 8, 1935, he passed in front of the capitol, saw an empty parking place and parked. He entered and went into the corridor where Huey was walking.
"Weiss asked to speak to the senator. … After the third very rough rebuff, Weiss, frustrated, lost his composure, screamed at Long and hit him on the lip. A scuffle occurred and Weiss was hit by bodyguard Elliot Coleman. One bodyguard, probably [Joe] Messina … [who was] always close and often to the rear of Huey, pulled his gun, which hung up in the holster and misfired, striking Huey in the back.” (Accident And Deception: The Huey Long Shooting, 1999)
Other bodyguards, thinking Weiss had fired the shot, then shot him.
Williams dismisses that story. He concludes: “[Weiss] went to the capitol that Sunday night to remove a tyrant. He went on his own and on an impulse, but one that had come to him many times before, and he went knowing that he himself would undoubtedly be killed. He did not care. He was willing to be a martyr.”
Others, such as author David Zinman (The Day Huey Long Was Shot, 1993) and journalist Jonathan Alter, have since concluded that, “Most history books, like the 1969 Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘Huey Long,’ by T. Harry Williams, are too definitive in recording as fact that the assassin was Dr. Carl A. Weiss.”
It is unlikely that an undisputed version of just what happened will ever be known. Open questions remain, at least in some minds, of whether Dr. Carl Weiss fired the fatal bullet, and, if so, why he did it.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.