Editing Huey Long (section)

===Assassination===
{{Main|Assassination of Huey Long}}
[[File:Huey Long Statue at Louisiana State Capitol.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=Photograph of a statue of Long before the capitol|Long's grave and statue in front of the capitol]]
On September 8, 1935, Long traveled to the State Capitol to pass a bill that would [[gerrymander]] the district of an opponent, Judge Benjamin Pavy, who had held his position for 28 years.<ref name="Brinkley249"/> At 9:20&nbsp;p.m., just after passage of the bill effectively removing Pavy, the judge's son-in-law, [[Carl Weiss]], approached Long, and, according to the generally accepted version of events, fired a single shot with a handgun from four feet (1.2 m) away, striking Long in the torso. Long's bodyguards, nicknamed the "[[Cossacks]]" or "skullcrushers", then fired at Weiss with their pistols, killing him. An autopsy found Weiss had been shot at least 60 times.<ref name="clues">{{cite news|last=Rensberger|first=Boyce|date=June 29, 1992|title=Clues From the Grave Add Mystery to the Death of Huey Long|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/06/29/clues-from-the-grave-add-mystery-to-the-death-of-huey-long/cbdd5297-27a1-4534-96bb-68175daf3573/|access-date=June 11, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200516143655/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/06/29/clues-from-the-grave-add-mystery-to-the-death-of-huey-long/cbdd5297-27a1-4534-96bb-68175daf3573/|archive-date=May 16, 2020|url-status=live}}</ref> Long ran down a flight of stairs and across the capitol grounds, hailing a car to take him to [[Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center|Our Lady of the Lake Hospital]].<ref name="mystery"/> He was rushed to the operating room where surgery closed perforations in his intestines but failed to stop internal bleeding.<ref>[[#Brinkley|Brinkley (1983) [1982]]], p. 250.</ref> Long died at 4:10&nbsp;a.m. on September 10, 31 hours after being shot.<ref name="NOLA"/> According to different sources, his last words were either "I wonder what will happen to my poor university boys" or "God, don't let me die. I have so much to do."<ref>[[#Lowe|Lowe (2008)]], p. 239.</ref><ref>[[#Williams|Williams (1981) [1969]]], p. 876.</ref>

Over 200,000 people traveled to Baton Rouge to attend Long's September 12 funeral.<ref>[[#White|White (2006)]], p. 268.</ref> His remains were buried on the grounds of the Capitol; a statue depicting Long was constructed on his grave.<ref name="clues"/><ref name="mystery">{{cite news |last=Scott|first=Robert Travis|date=September 5, 2010|title=The enduring mystery of who killed Huey P. Long|url=https://www.nola.com/news/politics/article_b997fc67-d3e8-5a86-803b-2e19a06e38e0.html|work=[[The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate|The Times-Picayune]]|location=New Orleans|access-date=June 11, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200609021810/https://www.nola.com/news/politics/article_b997fc67-d3e8-5a86-803b-2e19a06e38e0.html|archive-date=June 9, 2020|url-status=live}}</ref> Although Long's allies alleged he was assassinated by political opponents, a federal probe found no evidence of conspiracy.<ref name="NOLA">{{cite news |last=Scott|first=Robert Travis|date=September 8, 2010|title=Controversy, mystery still surround the death of Huey P. Long|url=https://www.nola.com/news/politics/article_1f01fd4b-424d-55d6-95cc-b3782e81da79.html|work=[[The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate|The Times-Picayune]]|location=New Orleans|access-date=June 9, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200609021757/https://www.nola.com/news/politics/article_1f01fd4b-424d-55d6-95cc-b3782e81da79.html|archive-date=June 9, 2020|url-status=live}}</ref> Long's death brought relief to the Roosevelt Administration, which would win in a landslide in the 1936 election. Farley publicly admitted his apprehension of campaigning against Long: "I always laughed Huey off, but I did not feel that way about him." Roosevelt's close economic advisor [[Rexford Tugwell]] wrote that, "When he was gone it seemed that a beneficent peace had fallen on the land. [[Charles Coughlin|Father Coughlin]], [[Milo Reno|Reno]], [[Francis Townsend|Townsend]], et al., were after all pygmies compared with Huey. He had been a major phenomenon." Tugwell also said that Roosevelt regarded Long's assassination as a "providential occurrence".<ref name="FDR"/>

Evidence later surfaced that suggests Long was accidentally shot by his bodyguards.<ref name="beast">{{cite news |last=Alter|first=Jonathan|date=September 20, 2015|title=Was Huey Long Killed by His Own Bodyguards?|url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/was-huey-long-killed-by-his-own-bodyguards|work=[[The Daily Beast]]|access-date=June 11, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200118141455/https://www.thedailybeast.com/was-huey-long-killed-by-his-own-bodyguards|archive-date=January 18, 2020|url-status=live}}</ref> Proponents of this theory assert Long was caught in the crossfire as his bodyguards shot Weiss, and a bullet that ricocheted off the marble walls hit him.<ref name="clues"/><ref>{{cite news |last=Carmichael|first=Ellen|date=September 7, 2019|title=The Truth about Huey Long|url=https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/truth-about-huey-long/|work=[[The National Review]]|access-date=June 11, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200604194914/https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/truth-about-huey-long/|archive-date=June 4, 2020|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Marcus|first=Frances Frank|date=October 21, 1991|title=Researchers Exhume Doctor's Grave To Resolve Part of Huey Long Legend|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/21/us/researchers-exhume-doctor-s-grave-to-resolve-part-of-huey-long-legend.html|work=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=December 29, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190818130419/https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/21/us/researchers-exhume-doctor-s-grave-to-resolve-part-of-huey-long-legend.html|archive-date=August 18, 2019|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref name="09112018Agarwal">{{cite web |last1=Agarwal |first1=Divyansh |title=Letters Shed Light on Huey Long's Murder Mystery |url=https://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2018/09/11/letters-shed-light-on-huey-longs-murder-mystery/ |website=Circulating Now from the NLM Historical Collections |publisher=National Library of Medicine |access-date=March 9, 2024 |date=September 11, 2018}}</ref>