Today in History: The King Fish Was Assassinated

On this day (September Eight) in 1935 the King Fish, Huey Long, was assassinated. Long was a populist politician who had served both as Governor and Senator of Louisiana. He abandoned his support for FDR when he decided that the New Deal was not doing enough to curb poverty. He created a “Share Our Wealth” platform that would have taxed the wealthy and redistributed their income to the poor in direct financial assistance (which FDR had believed to be unconstitutional when he became president). He was planning to challenge FDR for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. He was murdered by the son-in-law of a political opponent he had just succeeded in removing from office.