Carl Weiss

For the World War II Navy Cross recipient, USMC, see Carl W. Weiss.

Dr. Carl Austin Weiss (December 6, 1906–September 8, 1935) is best known as the alleged assassin of Huey Long. Weiss was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1906. He graduated from Tulane University Medical School and did postgraduate work in Austria. Carl was the son-in-law of Judge Benjamin Pavy, a long-time political opponent of Long. Carl's father-in-law was a judge supposedly about to be gerrymandered out of office, Carl's own father was a prominent eye specialist who had treated Sen.Long.

The shooting

On September 8, 1935, Weiss shot Huey Long in the Capitol building at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Long's bodyguards then opened fire (filling his body with as much as fifty bullets) Weiss died at the scene.

Long died two days after the shooting from internal bleeding following an incompetent attempt to close the wounds by Dr. Arthur Vidrine. Rumors spread that Huey should have recovered from the wounds, and that his doctors killed him. According to his sister, Lucille Long Hunt, his last words were: "Don't let me die, I have got so much to do." No autopsy or x-ray was ever recorded.

The Motive?

It has been speculated that Weiss, who was of Jewish descent[1] and had visited Germany earlier in 1935, saw possible parallels between Huey Long and Adolf Hitler and was determined to stop a potential dictator.

Doubts

Persistent rumors allege that Weiss actually had no gun and struck Long with only his hand, and Long was accidentally shot by his own guards when they opened fire on Weiss [2]. These rumors are supported by several witnesses and the fact that Long had a bruised lip when he went in for surgery. Followers of Long say that he slipped and hit the marble wall at the scene of the crime. Other theories hold that Long's assassination was arranged to prevent him from winning the presidency in 1936, either from within the Democratic Party or as a third party candidate backed by the Share Our Wealth organization. It was widely understood that Long's populist progressive policies had earned him many powerful enemies who would not have wanted him to become president [3]. Two months prior to his death, in July 1935, Long had claimed that he had uncovered a plot to assassinate him [4].

Long had positioned himself to run against Roosevelt in the 1936 elections, announcing his bid in August 1935. One month later, he was dead.

It was later claimed by historian and Long biographer T. Harry Williams that the senator had never, in fact, intended to run for the presidency in 1936. Instead, he had been plotting with Father Charles Coughlin, a Catholic priest and populist talk radio personality, to run someone else on the soon-to-be-formed Share Our Wealth Party ticket. According to Williams, the idea was that this candidate would split the left-wing vote with President Roosevelt, thereby electing a Republican president and proving the electoral appeal of SOW. Long would then wait four years and run for president as a Democrat in 1940.

During the 1990s, the NBC television Unsolved Mysteries hosted by the late Robert Stack raised the possibility that Weiss did not kill Long but that the powerful senator was accidentally shot to death by his own bodyguards protecting him from danger. Weiss's son has been trying to clear his father's name for years.

Misc.

The character of Adam Stanton in Robert Penn Warren's All The King's Men is partially based on Weiss.