Taking all the foregoing into account, it would seem clearly impossible to accept either the hypothesis that Carl Weiss, Jr., was the chosen instrument of a political murder cabal to whose membership he was almost wholly unknown, or the proposition that his was a nature sufficiently ruthless to take the life of a fellow being in reprisal for the loss of a long-held political office by his wife’s father. As concerns the idea that Dr. Weiss was motivated by the “pure patriotism” ascribed to him by his wife’s uncle, Dr. Pavy, there can be little doubt that this was possible. But it is also not to be doubted that there is a basis beyond parental affection for the elder Dr. Weiss’s statement at the inquest into his son’s death that “my son was too superbly happy with his wife and child, too much in love with them to want to end his life after such a murder.” On the other hand, no such contradiction is an integral part of the hypothesis that he made this sacrifice to shield his wife and his son from exposure to groundless odium. This would appear to be the only assumption in full accord with all the known circumstances, even though Dr. Weiss’s belief that Huey Long would exhume a long-buried slander reflecting on his loved ones was tragically erroneous. On the basis of the situation as he saw and understood it, the only way to safeguard them was to silence Long before he could utter the libel. If the only price at which this assurance could be purchased was the forfeit of his own life, the compulsive paternal urge to protect his beloved baby son might well be strong enough to overcome every inhibition that was normally part of his character and background. He took no one into his confidence, realizing that anyone to whom he confided would inevitably thwart his plan. Thus we may picture him leaving to his family the happy memory of an afternoon of carefree affection, and departing alone to weigh in solitude one factor of the situation against another, as he understood them. Should he thereupon have decided that “this man will never slander my son as he has slandered others in the past if I can silence him,” we can only surmise that it was with this thought in mind that he entered the marble-walled corridor where he died to make certain that some words Huey Long never intended to utter would remain unsaid. EPILOGUE “_Finality is not the language of politics._” ----DISRAELI To the Huey Long murder case the preceding chapters offer a solution which fits every determinate fact of what took place in Baton Rouge on September 8, 1935, everything pertinent that led up to the climactic moment of violence, and what followed. Yet it goes without saying that many will reject this rationalization of available evidence. The arguments will go on and on.