But a new legislature, meeting in May 1936, adopted another statute, superseding this law and reshuffling Louisiana’s judicial districts once more to add a new one--the twenty-seventh--consisting of St. Landry parish alone. This act, a constitutional amendment, would not become operative until ratified by popular vote at the November elections. That obviously made it impossible to elect a judge at the same time, so the new bill provided that within thirty days after its ratification, the governor should _appoint_ a judge for the new district, his term not to end until that of the judges _elected_ in 1936 should have run its course. In other words, the appointee would serve for six years. Needless to say, the appointee was not Benjamin Pavy. * * * * * Another facet of the Long paradox is presented by the saint-or-sinner image which his contemporaries and their successors yet seek to preserve. Until the Kingfish’s name has lost all popular significance, debates will be waged over the issue of whether the man was an uninhibited genius, or merely a conscienceless opportunist endowed with exceptional mental agility. On this point the testimony of one of the three brothers Huey so heartily disliked might well shed some light. Some days after the fallen leader’s funeral, and while the legislature was still in session, a number of the Long satraps were gathered in Governor Allen’s office, lamenting the confusion into which a virtually leaderless assembly (in the sense of having too many leaders) had fallen. The leitmotiv of the parley held that things weren’t like that in the good old days when the Kingfish was around to issue orders and see to it that they were carried out. The conversation finally veered to what a remarkable thing it was for a little bit of an old town like Winnfield to have produced a superman like ol’ Huey, especially when you realized it had never given to the world anyone else of comparable stature. Earl Long, himself one of the thus disprized other products of Winnfield, listened in morose silence for a time to these observations. Finally he got up, moved to the door, paused, and said: “You folks are right, of course. Huey was the only smart one from Winnfield. No manner of doubt about it.” He scratched his chin meditatively and then added: “But I’m still here!” * * * * *