critically acclaimed political histories of the U.S. civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and American wartime dissent. His book, Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds: LBJ, Barry Goldwater and the Ad that Changed American Politics, was named by the Washington Post as one of the best political books of 2011.
Mann’s essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Politico and Smithsonian. He has discussed his research and appeared as a political analyst on numerous national television and radio programs, including MSNBC, CBS News, ABC News and National Public Radio.
Mann applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, Kingfish U: Huey Long and LSU, and reported the following:
I'm not sure the Page 99 Test works with Kingfish U. Page 99 is the beginning of a discussion of Huey Long's relationship with his handpicked LSU president, James Monroe Smith:Visit Robert Mann's website.Long could be brutal with Smith and others, which was not so much a matter of showing his displeasure or reprimanding them but dominating them. Richard Leche, a Long ally and appeals court judge who became Louisiana governor after Long’s death, observed Long’s response to a friend and supporter who entered the governor’s office one day. When Long saw the man, Leche recalled, “Huey’s face just clouded over, and Huey just gave him down the country. The fellow was completely crushed and finally left with his shoulders sagging.” When the man left Long’s office, Leche said, “Huey’s face became wreathed in smiles again.” Long turned to Leche and explained, “Did you ever see a [man] driving a mule down a country road? The old mule will just be going down the road and all of a sudden, the [man] will say, ‘Whoa.’ And the mule will stop and the [man] will get off and go over to a fence and pull a picket off, and he’ll just whale the daylights out of the mule. And then he gets up and off they go. Now, that mule wasn’t doing anything, but the [man] knows the mule and knows the mule might do something if he don’t teach him a lesson. Now, that fellow hasn’t done anything, but I got to do that to keep him a pretty good guy, which he is.” Leche concluded, “That’s how [Long’s] mind worked.”The page is as much about Smith as Long. One might not understand from this page, alone, that the book is about Long's domination of LSU from 1930 through September 1935. Long's relationship with Smith is an important aspect of the book, but it's only one part of the picture. It does not, for example, touch on how Long took over the football team and the band and presided over construction projects and other initiatives, large and small, at the school.
For all his meddling in LSU’s affairs, Long found, in Smith, an able administrator and competent university leader. “In my humble opinion,” Fred Frey later asserted, “the best all-around and most effective president during all that time [Frey’s forty years at LSU] was James Monroe Smith.” Frey and others remembered Smith as a consummate politician, who knew how to manage Long and the legislature, who enjoyed great rapport with faculty, staff, and students, and who cared about research and graduate education. “His office door was always open to everyone,” Frey recalled, “from the top people to the bottom people, including the janitors. He was always glad to see anyone and to try and help them.” As further evidence of Smith’s capabilities, Frey submitted Smith’s personnel decisions, which included hiring three successive, respected deans of administration....
What this page reveals is important to the book. It discusses Long's innate understanding of human nature and how he used and manipulated people to achieve his goals. How Long established his dominance over officials at LSU was a microcosm of his domination of Louisiana government and what he likely had in mind for the rest of the country. However, I think it doesn't begin to explain the outrageous and unorthodox nature of Long's involvement with LSU, which is the purpose of the book.
--Marshal Zeringue
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