The Kingfish and the Constitution: Huey Long, the First Amendment, and the Emergence of Modern Press Freedom in America
(Hardback)
Publishing Details
The Kingfish and the Constitution: Huey Long, the First Amendment, and the Emergence of Modern Press Freedom in America
By (Author) Richard C. Cortner
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Praeger Publishers Inc
28th February 1996
United States
Classifications
Tertiary Education
Non Fiction
Political structure and processes
Constitutional and administrative law: general
Media studies
976.306092
Physical Properties
Hardback
216
Description
The Kingfish and the Constitution is an in-depth analysis of the poisonous relationship that evolved between Huey "Kingfish" Long, legendary governor of Louisiana, and the state's daily newspapers. Long's political battle over the newspaper tax in the Louisiana legislature in 1934 and the subsequent battle over the constitutionality of his attempt at censorship by taxation culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Grosjean v. American Press Co. in 1936, a landmark decision that laid the basis for the protection of modern freedom of the press in America. This study will be of interest to scholars and students of political science, constitutional law, and American history.
Reviews
Franklin Roosevelt considered Huey Long one of the two most dangerous men in the US (Douglas MacArthur was the other). In this volume, Cortner (political science, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson) concentrates on Long's assault on freedom of the press between 1928--when he successfully ran for governor of Louisiana--until his death in 1935. ...this well-written and interesting book about an important First Amendment battle merits collection by academic and public libraries.-Choice
"Franklin Roosevelt considered Huey Long one of the two most dangerous men in the US (Douglas MacArthur was the other). In this volume, Cortner (political science, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson) concentrates on Long's assault on freedom of the press between 1928--when he successfully ran for governor of Louisiana--until his death in 1935. ...this well-written and interesting book about an important First Amendment battle merits collection by academic and public libraries."-Choice
Author Bio
RICHARD C. CORTNER is Professor of Political Science at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He is the author of eleven books, including most recently, The Iron Horse and the Constitution: The Railroads and the Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment (Greenwood, 1993).
