Huey Long, “Share Our Wealth”
“Share Our Wealth” Plan was a drastic program of wealth distribution as an alternative to the President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. It was a Radical relief program proposed by Senator Huey Long in the 1930s to allow the government to take the money from the wealthy through taxes and provide a guaranteed minimum income to poor. The program appealed to the hopeless lower middle class Americans during the Great Depression, guaranteeing everyone to be fair.
Huey Long was the governor of Louisiana who improved medical care, public services, and education to help underprivileged people. Long based his ideas of “Share Our Wealth” Plan on the biblical laws. He based his idea from God’s laws of sharing and making sure that everyone in society should be equal.
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According to “Share Our Wealth” Plan, every person should be guaranteed at least a $2000 annual income. “Share Our Wealth” Plan empowered the government to limit the personal income to $1 million, and inheritance to $5 million. Moreover, it was a 100% tax on all annual incomes over $1 million, and appropriation of all in excess of $5 million. Long proposed to give this money to every American family for a comfortable income and home supply. He believed that “Share Our Wealth” Plan was the attempt to redistribute the wealth and it could end the Depression easily by using the tax system. He predicted that if his ideas were not adopted into the society, then the existing system would destroy the American life and
invention that he wanted nothing more than to share it with his people. He felt that it
turn us into the fifty first state of the United states. In his book At Twighlight in the Country, he shares many of these views. He fought very valiantly against the free trade agreement, speaking out against it whenever possible. Urging government leaders to reconsider what we were giving the United States and what little we would be receiving in return. He also continually spoke out about how our culture continued to disappear and become more like that of the United States. How soon our culture could be undistinguished from our southern neighbors. He completely believed that we simply sold out our country and the politicians should be ashamed.
... of that era. He saw that all can be corrupted by power and that no group for that reason should be better than another.
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.
...servation. His most important points were as follows: education taught the Negro to feel inferior, it has not prepared Negroes to make an adequate living in his community and mis-educated the Negroes are hindering racial development rather than aiding it.
Franklin D. Roosevelt once asserted “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people,” in belief for a change, for a better nation, and for guidance to those who have lost all faith in humanity. During the Great Depression, the United States faced many different scenarios in which it caused people to doubt and question the “American Dream.” The Great Depression began in 1929 and ended in 1939. In these ten years, people went through unemployment, poverty, banks failed and people lost hope. President Herbert Hoover thought it wasn’t his responsibility to try and fix such issues in the nation.
Andrew Carnegie, was a strong-minded man who believed in equal distribution and different forms to manage wealth. One of the methods he suggested was to tax revenues to help out the public. He believed in successors enriching society by paying taxes and death taxes. Carnegie’s view did not surprise me because it was the only form people could not unequally distribute their wealth amongst the public, and the mediocre American economy. Therefore, taxations would lead to many more advances in the American economy and for public purposes.
One writer criticizes President Roosevelt for suggesting that citizens try to live on seven cents per day. Roosevelt is also criticized for indulging in luxuries such as cars, airplanes, and vacations. The same writer also states that the Roosevelts, “have every comfort that the common people of our great nation is toiling to provide” (McElvaine, 186). There is a great amount of discontent among the poor regarding their treatment in New Deal relief programs. It is common during this period for welfare to not be distributed evenly.
During the 1920’s, America was a prosperous nation going through the “Big Boom” and loving every second of it. However, this fortune didn’t last long, because with the 1930’s came a period of serious economic recession, a period called the Great Depression. By 1933, a quarter of the nation’s workers (about 40 million) were without jobs. The weekly income rate dropped from $24.76 per week in 1929 to $16.65 per week in 1933 (McElvaine, 8). After President Hoover failed to rectify the recession situation, Franklin D. Roosevelt began his term with the hopeful New Deal. In two installments, Roosevelt hoped to relieve short term suffering with the first, and redistribution of money amongst the poor with the second. Throughout these years of the depression, many Americans spoke their minds through pen and paper. Many criticized Hoover’s policies of the early Depression and praised the Roosevelts’ efforts. Each opinion about the causes and solutions of the Great Depression are based upon economic, racial and social standing in America.
In the end, he gave away about 90% of his own money to various causes. He also preached to others to do the same as in giving money for education and sciences.The problem, however, was that there was such a contrast between the rich and the poor. By this he was referring to the inequalities in rights, hereditary powers, and such things. He also felt we should have a continuum of forward progress, i.e.
Portrayed as a Southern demagogue, Huey Long, who was also known as King Fish, was a major character on the American political stage around 1930s, an era during the Greate Depression that brought a worldwide economic crisis; many people lost their jobs. According to Frank, Robert H. and Bernanke, Ben S., 25% of American lost their jobs at that time. Huey Long was good at raising his audience’s anger towards the rich. Unlike some Southern demagogues, Huey Long did not criticize African-Americans to seek support from racists; his target was always the rich. He said, “It is the fact that the rich people of this country – and by rich people I mean super rich – will not allow us to solve the problems” (Para 4). During the Depression, when many people lost their jobs and had trouble with supporting their family, the rich easily became the target of their anger. Huey
light to his society as they believed that what's done individually but not collectively cannot be
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.
capabilities. He truly paved the way for women to lead a full religious life. This implied that they
all He had preached and taught. The fact of the matter is this: all the