On April 23, 1934, United States Senator Huey P. Long delivered his most well-known speech to the American people via radio. His speech became known as “Every Man A King.” During this time period, the United States had felt the effects of the Great Depression for about five years and looked to the president for a solution to their suffering. Both presidents during this time, President Herbert Hoover and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had the responsibility of facing the economic depression and leading the United States out from the clutches of the Great Depression. Feeling that he himself would resolve the issues more effectively, the senator committed himself to run for president in 1936, threatening the current president Roosevelt. …show more content…
To begin, a demagogue is a revered public figure that is, “[a] mass leader, charismatic, and heroic,” and has the ability to rally support behind his words. Additionally, the four-stage development of demagogic discourse includes “guilt, victimization, redemption, and salvation.” That being said, Long utilizes the socioeconomic predicament of his audience combined with the ineffectual leadership of the nation to elicit this powerful response from his audience. With regards to the first stage to the demagogic discourse, Long attacks the elite from his opening statement. His claim that the elite will, “not allow us,” to fix the problems facing the people because it would require the government to, “scale down the big fortunes.” In these phrases, he accuses the elite of being greedy, for they would not want divide their wealth, as well as explains that they would place their greed for their fortunes ahead of the well-being of the people. By labeling the elite as selfish, greedy “capitalists,” he blames them for the problems facing the people, hoping to guilt them into contributing to his Share Our Wealth Society. He continues to develop this guilt by explaining that the Mayo brothers, a wealthy family of scientists, donated their fortune to help the sick instead of allowing their fortune to, “lay up on this earth.” He continues to praise them, pronouncing them, “10 times more worthy,” than the other capitalists because they contributed to the solution (turning over the fortunes to help the people). The first and third stages of the demagogic discourse complement each other; the first blames the elite for the problems, and the third offers them a way to rectify their
In the 1930s, the time of the Great Depression, most Americans were struggling merely to survive while a select few hoarded the collective wealth of the nation. A man named Huey P. Long stands out from many other politicians and promoted economic equality across Americans. In his speech “Every Man a King,” he blames the rich for the strife of the poor. As a lawyer from a poor agricultural community, Long became the advocate for farmers in Louisiana.
so when the election of the 1930’s came, King had a new opponent. His opponents name was Richard Bennett. Bennett suggested that tariffs should be raised, and that the wealthy and stable should give to the poor; while King was campaigning for lower tariffs, attempting to help those who were poor and needy without taking from ...
Martin Luther King Jr.’s Impasse in Race Relations is a speech that confronts the audience of the past, present, and future aspects of race relations. The speech addressed by King refers to an impasse as a situation in which there is no escapes or progresses. In the speech, King reveals the different feelings and reasoning’s as to what Negroes have experienced and dealt with. He also shares and interprets various violent and non-violent approaches to racial problems. In this essay, I will present my thoughts and opinions based on King’s ideas introduced in his speech.
As a society, we often judge people solely by what is said of them or by them; but not by what they did. We forget to take into account the legacy that one leaves behind when they sometimes fail at completing the current task. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the charismatic man who stood at the helm of American government during the most trying decade in our brief history, the 1930s, set out to help the “common man” through various programs. Many historians, forgetting the legacy of the “alphabet soup” of agencies that FDR left behind, claim that he did not fix the Great Depression and therefore failed in his goal. What this essay desires to argue is that those historians are completely right. Through his many programs designed to help the economy, laborers, and all people lacking civil rights, President Roosevelt did not put an end to the Great Depression; however he did adapt the federal government to a newly realized role of protector for the people.
“I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people,” was the famous slogan of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. After long periods of continuous downfall, the people of the nation were consumed with negative feelings due to the lack of effort put forth by President Hoover during the Great Depression. Not only were the people agitated with his poor effort, but more with his method to resolve the situation they were in. Hoover believed in the concept of rugged individualism. This was a term he used during his presidency in the stages of the depression. The idea of rugged individualism was created in order so that the government would be less depended on and that the people of the nation should fend for themselves more in times of distress. It would be obvious that during this era, a majority of the United States would not appreciate or accept the concept of rugged individualism. In fact, there was much tension and turmoil that was set out against President Hoover in the later stages of his presidency due to this factor. It was more so that the people were ready for a change. The nation needed the help and support of a dedicated government. It was more of a need that they longed for to be put out of the economic and social depression that they were in. It was certain that Hoover was not the right man to help them get out of it (Kingsbury). Luckily, the nation soon did find that there was someone out there who would be dedicated enough to get it out of its distress. There was no greater man for the job than Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Being a Democratic politician, Roosevelt would not only win the nation over with his social tactics, but more so with his political party. With...
Martin Luther King Jr’s most compelling point was that every person has the same rights
During the Great Depression, Huey Long had an idea on how to fix the situation and Franklin D. Roosevelt, during his inaugural speech, talked about how change would come no matter how hard it was. When Roosevelt took office, America was getting someone who could try and undo all of the damage that Herbert Hoover left behind. Huey Long, Louisiana’s 40th governor, was suggesting different ways to fix the economy three years into Roosevelt’s presidency. Both of these men inspired many Americans that the Depression would not last forever.
For the opposition and supporters alike, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was revered as a man who helped keep the United States intact during the lamentable days of The Great Depression. After a decade of unprecedented economic ruin, most recognized that Roosevelt took necessary measures to ensure the subsistence of American society. However, where disagreement resided was in the question of whether the New Deal did too much or too little in regards to implementing lasting political, economic, and societal change. Emphasizing this divide, many of the leading politicians and thinkers of the Depression era vocalized their thoughts on Roosevelt’s New Deal policies. Roosevelt’s adversaries, for example, were starkly damning. Huey
FDR enters the election with a strong, but not unbeatable, hand. The measures that FDR took during his first term in the White House didn’t produce prosperity. But they were able to pull the country out of depression and made sure that millions of people were better off than they had been when he first took office (Boller, P.240). Still the economy remained sluggish and eight million Americans were without jobs. At this election, he brought out the New Deal that would help all groups and firms. By this time Roosevelt had become the center of both passionate adoration and burning hatred. With millions of Americans support he had become more popular than the New Deal itself (Boller, P.240). Critics from various points on the political spectrum such as Father Coughlin and Dr. Francis Townsend had spent much of the previous two years attacking the President. They supported Representative William Lemke of the newly formed Union Party in the 1936 election (American President: A Reference Resource).
In Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech, “I have a Dream,” he inspires the crowd to take a stand with the following words, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Clay felt like he had been quite for far too long, listening to Lula the Hyena harass him with her belittling words. Lula tells lies, is deceitful, and manipulative; these characteristics represent the oppressive white community. I will describe to you how Clay’s reactions, Dutchman, were solely based on Lula preying upon his weaknesses, like the troubles that the black race felt while battling Civil Rights.
Many people attain an impatient tone of voice when trying to fight for what they believe is the correct thing to do in a time of opposition. Everybody has their own opinion of what is right and some will go to extreme lengths to prove how theirs will better benefit their cause. Before the revolutionary war many had their own opinion of what would be best for our country as a whole including Patrick Henry. Patrick Henry's “Speech to the Second Virginia Convention uses imagery, diction, and details to build the impatient tone of the speech giving his view on what should be done in terms of breaking away from Great Britain.
Abraham Lincoln, known for his revolutionary campaign that was the first to state slavery was wrong. History portrays Abraham Lincoln as someone who wanted equal rights for all races that statement is not necessarily true. He wanted the slaves to be free but did not think that whites and blacks could live peacefully together. He changes the way he words things in his speeches in order to gain both sides of the disagreement in order to hold office. His views on slavery increases dramatically while the United States becomes closer to fighting in the civil war.
Long was poised to run for president in the 1936 to run for president against Franklin Roosevelt, and with Huey's Share Our Wealth program he would have surely one. He was a man unlike no other, he fought through political gridlock to actually accomplish things. He was one the most influential and controversial politicians in Louisiana. Some of our most cherished government institutions like social security, veteran benefits, student financial aid to public works projects were call pushed by the peoples champ Huey Long.
Listening to the words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, he once said that “In our seeking for economic and political progress, we all go up - or else we all go down,” indicating the need of a unified country in order to solve the crisis. The Great Depression, and the many hardships that accompanied it, greatly altered American society in the 1930s in many ways such as the questioning of the capability of government, the economic effects on the nation, and the perception of society, its morals, and its values.
Martin Luther King Jr is one of the wisest and bravest black man the world has ever seen. He has set the path way for the black community and other miniorities. In his Nobel Prize Speech the “Quest for Peace and Justice”, King had three major points that he addressed in the “Quest of Peace and Justice”. One of the points he made was about racial injustice and how we need to eliminate it. King stated that, “when civilization shifts its basic outlooks then we will have a freedom explosion”. Overtime things must change, nothing never stays the same. King’s way of making parallels with this is making the claim is saying, “Oppressed people can’t oppressed forever, and the yearning will eventually manifest itself”. He insisted that blacks have,