Henry Heltz has unique insight into the state’s 20th-century political history that is unrivaled by anyone alive today. The retired Louisiana State Police trooper served as the driver for four sitting governors—Earl Long, Robert Kennon, Jimmie Davis and John McKeithen—as well as for U.S. Sen. Russell Long when he was in Baton Rouge.
During the era when Louisiana’s elected officials—often larger than life—held considerable clout on the national political stage, Heltz had a vantage point into behind-the-scenes deals, and he has the stories to prove it.
There was the time, for instance, when he was bringing Long, then-chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, to the airport to catch a flight back to Washington, D.C. Once inside the terminal, Long received a frantic message that the president needed to speak to him on urgent business.
“They rushed us into this little private office, and he got the White House on the phone,” Heltz says. “When the president came on the line, before he could even explain why he was calling, Sen. Long said, ‘Now, Mr. President, I need a favor.’”
As it turns out, Long was trying to negotiate a deal for Delta Airlines, which wanted to offer overseas flights. The president agreed to see what he could do to help. Long then turned his attention to the president’s reason for calling.
“He was a gentleman but a strong leader,” Heltz says. “He knew how to get what he wanted, but he did it in a subtle way.”
At 83, Heltz is mentally sharp and physically fit. The latter he can attribute, at least in part, to the manual labor he does around the Long family property, where he is caretaker. He lives there, too, in the family home that was Long’s local abode—and escape—and he maintains the 6.5 acres of land that will remain in the family’s possession even after the Long Farm TND is developed.
Heltz didn’t aspire to be a driver when he entered the State Police in 1950, but once he got the gig, he realized he had a good thing going. Earl Long, Russell Long’s uncle and Huey P. Long’s brother, was governor back then, and Heltz found himself involved in several of Uncle Earl’s often-publicized misadventures.
“We were up at Winnfield one time and I was driving a new, black Cadillac limo, and Gov. Long made me drive it through the woods to chase a wild hog,” Heltz says. “It scraped the new car all up, but that’s just the way he was. He would take a notion to doing something wild and you just had to do it.”
Heltz was fond of the flamboyant governor. He liked the more reserved Kennon as well. But the guitar-playing, ballad-writing Davis was his favorite.
“He was the most accommodating and considerate,” says Heltz, who used to drive Davis to his singing engagements around the state, and continued to do odd jobs for him after he’d left office.
Heltz retired in 1970, but he didn’t stay idle for long. A friend called and asked him if he’d be interested in going to work for Sen. Russell Long as his local driver. Heltz initially declined, but after meeting Long in person he changed his mind.
“He was the easiest-going person I ever met,” Heltz says. “He never raised his voice to me, and I never heard him raise it at other people either. I don’t know if he would hide his anger, but he never expressed it that I saw.”
Sitting in a metal slider rocker near the pool that Long so enjoyed, Heltz recalls how the late senator looked forward to coming to the farm to relax and unwind. There, he would sit and rock and really ponder, something that was easier to do prior to the cell phone era.
Not that Long didn’t use the farm for business as well. On the contrary, he frequently held private meetings there with local businessmen and politicos, away from the limelight of the state capital and the prying eyes of downtown Baton Rouge. He also used it to throw down-home political fundraisers on the sprawling lawns around the house.
“During the campaigns we’d have huge parties under tents and in the barns,” Heltz says. “Barringer Foreman Road [on which the house sits] was a dirt road at the time, and the ladies would have to walk down that dirt road, and sometimes it would get so muddy you couldn’t even drive a car down it.”
Heltz enjoys waxing nostalgic about the old days at the Long farm. But he is enthusiastic about plans to develop the property into a TND because of the potential it has to enhance the community. He feels certain his former boss would feel the same.
“He would love it,” Heltz says. “That was always his long-term plan—to develop this property into something real nice.”
