Huey
P. Long supported the presidential campaign of Franklin
D. Roosevelt in 1932. However, he was highly critical of some
aspects of the New Deal. He disliked
the Emergency
Banking Act because
it did little to help small, local banks. Long bitterly attacked the
National
Recovery Act for
the system of wage and price codes it established. He correctly forecasted
that the codes would be written by the leaders of the industries involved
and would result in price-fixing. Long told the Senate: "Every
fault of socialism is found is this bill, without one of its virtues."
Long claimed that Roosevelt
had done little to redistribute wealth. When Roosevelt refused to
introduce legislation to place ceilings on personal incomes, private
fortunes and inheritances, Long
launched his Share Our Wealth Society. In February 1934 Long announced
a scheme to rectify the existing maldistribution of wealth in the
United States. He told the Senate: "Unless
we provide for redistribution
of wealth in this country, the country is doomed." He added the
nation faced a choice, it could limit large fortunes and provide a
decent standard of life for its citizens, or it could wait for the
inevitable revolution.
Long quoted research that
suggested "2% of the people owned 60% of the wealth". In
one radio broadcast he told the listeners: "God called: 'Come
to my feast.' But what had happened? Rockefeller, Morgan, and their
crowd stepped up and took enough for 120,000,000 people and left only
enough for 5,000,000 for all the other 125,000,000 to eat. And so
many millions must go hungry."
Long's plan involved taxing
all incomes over a million dollars. On the second million the capital
levy tax would be one per cent. On the third, two per cent, on the
fourth, four per cent; and so on. Once a personal fortune exceeded
$8 million, the tax would become 100 per cent. Under his plan, the
government would confiscate all inheritances of more than one million
dollars.
This large fund would then
enable the government to guarantee subsistence for everyone in America.
Each family would receive a basic household estate of $5,000. There
would also be a minimum annual income of $2,000 per year. Other aspects
of his Share Our Wealth Plan involved government support for education,
old-age pensions, benefits for war veterans and public-works projects.
Long employed Gerald
L. K. Smith,
a Louisiana preacher, to travel throughout the South to recruit members
for the Share our Wealth Clubs. The campaign was a great success and
by 1935 there was 27,000 clubs with a membership of 4,684,000 and
a mailing list of over 7,500,000.
Some critics pointed out
that all wealth was not in the form of money. Most of America's richest
people had their wealth in land, buildings, stocks and bonds. It would
be very difficult to evaluate and liquidate this wealth. When this
was put to Long he replied: "I am going to have to call in some
great minds to help me."
Leaders of the Communist
Party and Socialist
Party also attacked
Long's plan. Alex Bittelman, a communist in New
York wrote: "Long says he wants to do away with concentration
of wealth without doing away with capitalism. This is humbug. This
is fascist demagogy." Norman
Thomas claimed
that Long's Share
Our Wealth scheme
was an insufficient and dangerous delusion. He added that it was the
"sort of talk that Hitler fed the Germans and in my opinion it
is positively dangerous because it fools the people."
Huey
P. Long admitted
that certain aspects of his scheme was socialistic. He said to a reporter
from The
Nation: Will you please tell me what sense there is
running on a socialist ticket in America today? What's the use of
being right only to be defeated? On another occasion he argued: "We
haven't a Communist or Socialist in Louisiana. Huey P. Long is the
greatest enemy that the Communists and Socialists have to deal with."
Some economists claimed
that if the Share Our Wealth plan was implemented it would bring and
end to the Great
Depression. They
pointed out that one of the major causes of the economic downturn
was the insufficient distribution of purchasing power among the population.
If poor families had their incomes increased they would spend this
extra money on goods being produced by American industry and agriculture
and would therefore stimulate the economy and create more jobs.
In
May 1935 Long began having talks with Charles
Coughlin, Francis Townsend, Gerald
L. K. Smith, Milo Reno and Floyd
B. Olson about a joint campaign to take on President Franklin
D. Roosevelt in the 1936 presidential elections. Two months later
Long announced that his police had discovered a plot to
kill him. He now surrounded himself with six armed bodyguards.
On
the 8th September, 1935, Carl Weiss, a
physician and the son-in-law of Benjamin Pavy, shot Huey
P. Long while he was in the state senate. Long's bodyguards immediately
killed Weiss. At first it was thought that Long was not seriously
wounded and an operation was carried out to repair the wound. However,
the surgeons had failed to detect a bullet had hit his kidney. By
the time this was discovered Long was to weak to endure another operation.
Huey Long died on 10th September, 1935. According to his sister, Lucille
Long, his last words were: "Don't let me die, I have got so much
to do."
(1)
Huey P. Long, Share Our Wealth pamphlet (1934)
For 20 years I have been
in the battle to provide that, so long as America has, or can produce,
an abundance of the things which make life comfortable and happy,
that none should own so much of the things which he does not need
and cannot use as to deprive the balance of the people of a reasonable
proportion of the necessities and conveniences of life. The whole
line of my political thought has always been that America must face
the time when the whole country would shoulder the obligation which
it owes to every child born on earth - that is, a fair chance to life,
liberty, and happiness.
Here is what I ask the
officers and members and well-wishers of all the Share Our Wealth
Societies to do:
First. If you have a Share
Our Wealth Society in your neighborhood or, if you have not one, organize
one - meet regularly, and let all members, men and women, go to work
as quickly and as hard as they can to get every person in the neighborhood
to become a member and to go out with them to get more members for
the society. If members do not want to go into the society already
organized in their community, let them organize another society. We
must have them as members in the movement,
so that, by having their cooperation, on short notice we can all act
as one person for the one object and purpose of providing that in
the land of plenty there shall be comfort for all. The organized 600
families who control the wealth of America have been able to keep
the 125,000,000 people in bondage because they have never once known
how to effectually strike for their fair demands.
Second. Get a number of
members of the Share Our Wealth Society to immediately go into all
other neighborhoods of your county and into the neighborhoods of the
adjoining counties, so as to get the people in the other communities
and in the other counties to organize more Share Our Wealth Societies
there; that will mean we can soon get about the work of perfecting
a complete, unified organization that will not only hear promises
but will compel the fulfillment of pledges made to the people.
It is impossible for the
United States to preserve itself as a republic or as a democracy when
600 families own more of this Nation's wealth - in fact, twice as
much - as all the balance of the people put together. Ninety-six percent
of our people live below the poverty line, while 4 percent own 87
percent of the wealth. America can have enough for all to live in
comfort and still permit millionaires to own more than they can ever
spend and to have more than they can ever use; but America cannot
allow the multimillionaires and the billionaires, a mere handful of
them, to own everything unless we are willing to inflict starvation
upon 125,000,000 people.
Here is the whole sum and
substance of the share-our-wealth movement:
1. Every family to be
furnished by the Government a homestead allowance, free of debt, of
not less than one-third the average family wealth of the country,
which means, at the lowest, that every family shall have the reasonable
comforts of life up to a value of from $5,000 to $6,000. No person
to have a fortune of more than 100 to 300 times the average family
fortune, which means that the limit to fortunes is between $1,500,000
and $5,000,000, with annual capital-levy, taxes imposed on all above
$1,000,000.
2. The yearly income of
every family shall be not less than one-third of the average family
Income, which means that, according to the estimates of the statisticians
of the United States Government and Wall Street, no family's annual
income would be less than from $2,000 to $2,500. No yearly income
shall be allowed to any person larger than from 100 to 300 times the
size of the average family income, which means; that no person would
be allowed to earn in any year more than from $600,000 to $1,800,000,
all to be subject to present income-tax laws.
3. To limit or regulate
the hours of work to such an extent as to prevent overproduction;
the most modern and efficient machinery would be encouraged, so that
as much would be produced as possible so as to satisfy all demands
of the people, but to also allow the maximum time to the
workers for recreation, convenience, education, and luxuries of life.
4. An old-age pension
to the persons of 60.
5. To balance agricultural
production with what can be consumed according to the laws of God,
which includes the preserving and storage of surplus commodities to
be paid for and held by the Government for the emergencies when such
are needed. Please bear in mind, however, that when the people of
America have had money to buy things they needed, we have never had
a surplus of any commodity. This plan of God does not call for destroying
any of the things raised to eat or wear, nor does it countenance wholesale
destruction of hogs, cattle, or milk.
6. To pay the veterans
of our wars what we owe them and to care for their disabled.
7. Education and training
for all children to be equal in opportunity in all schools, colleges,
universities, and other institutions for training in the professions
and vocations of life; to be regulated on the capacity of children
to learn, and not on the ability of parents to pay the costs. Training
for life's work to be as much universal and thorough for all walks
in life as has been the training in the arts of killing.
8. The raising of revenue
and taxes for the support of this program to
come from the reduction of swollen fortunes from the top, as well
as for the support of public works to give employment whenever there
may be any slackening necessary in private enterprise.
(2)
Huey
P. Long, radio broadcast (14th January, 1935)
God invited us all to come
and eat and drink all we wanted. He smiled on our land and we grew
crops of plenty to eat and wear. He showed us in the earth the iron
and other things to make everything we wanted. He unfolded to us the
secrets of science so that our work might be easy. God called: "Come
to my feast." But what had happened? Rockefeller, Morgan, and
their crowd stepped up and took enough for 120,000,000 people and
left only enough for 5,000,000 for all the other 125,000,000 to eat.
And so many millions must go hungry and without these good things
God gave us unless we call on them to put some of it back.
(3)
Raymond Gram Swing, The
Nation (January, 1935)
By November 1934 the "Share
Our Wealth" campaign had recruited 3,687,'641 members throughout
the country in eight months. (The population of Louisiana is only
2,000,000.) Every member belongs to a society, and Huey has the addresses
of those who organized it. To them can go circulars enough for all
members. The "Share Our Wealth" organization is first of
all a glorified mailing list, already one of the largest in the land,
but certain to grow much larger once the Long campaign gets under
way. It is the nucleus of a nation-wide political machine. And though
the movement is naively simple, its very simplicity is one secret
of its success. Anyone can form a society. Its members pay no dues.
They send an address to Huey and he supplies them with his literature,
including a copy
of his autobiography. He urges societies to meet and discuss
the redistribution of wealth and the rest of his platform. He promises
to furnish answers and arguments needed to silence critics.
I doubt whether Huey and
the Reverend Gerald L. K. Smith realize that property as such cannot
be redistributed. How, for instance, divide a factory or a railroad
among families? Value lies in use, and if the scheme were to be realized,
all property would have to be nationalized, and the income from use
distributed. The income from $5,000 would not be much for each family,
not more than $200 or $300, certainly not enough to make true the
dream of a home free of debt, a motor car, an electric refrigerator,
and a college education for all the children, which is Huey's way
of picturing his millennium. And if property is to be nationalized,
why not share it equally? Why give the poor only a third, and decree
the scramble for the other two-thirds in the name of capitalism? If
Huey were to ask himself this question, he probably would answer that
since both he and America believe in capitalism, he must advocate
it. But probably he has not thought the platform through. He conceived
of it early one morning, summoned his secretary, and had the organization
worked out before noon of the same day. It isn't meant to be specific.
It is only to convey to the unhappy people that he believes in a new
social order in which the minimum of poverty is drastically raised,
the rich somehow to foot the bill through a capital levy. It may be
as simple as a box of kindergarten blocks, but could he win mass votes,
or organize nearly
four million people in eight months, by distributing a primer of economics?
(4)
Hodding Carter, Huey Long: American Dictator (1949)
In 1934 Long formalized
the program which he hoped would eventually win him the Presidency.
The hazy concept of a national redistribution of wealth, presented
fifteen years before by the obscure state Senator from Winn Parish,
took definable shape in a national "Share Our Wealth" organization.
No dues were necessary. Huey produced the expense money as easily
as the nation disgorged the followers, both by the hundreds of thousands.
No matter that the Share Our Wealth program was demonstrably impracticable
as presented. It was believable: a limitation of fortunes to $5,000,000;
an annual income minimum of $2,000 to $2,500 and a maximum of $1,800,000;
a homestead grant of $6,000 for every family; free education from
kindergarten through college; bonuses for veterans, old-age pensions,
radios, automobiles, an abundance of cheap food through governmental
purchase and storage of surpluses.
(5)
John
T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth (1944)
After a tempestuous career
as governor of Louisiana, Long was elected to the Senate and, before
he took his seat, played a decisive role at a critical moment in the
nomination of Roosevelt. Fearing neither God nor man nor the devil,
he was not intimidated by the White House or the Senate. At his first
meeting with Roosevelt in the White House, he stood over the President
with his hat on and emphasized his points with an occasional finger
poked into the executive chest. He found very quickly that he could
move as brusquely around the Senate floor as he had the lobbies of
the state legislature. He strode about the Capitol followed by his
bodyguards. He ranted on the Senate floor. He made a fifteenhour
oneman filibustering speech. He made up his mind very soon that
the New Deal was a lot of claptrap and proceeded to preach his own
gospel of the abundant life.
He cried out: "Distribute
our wealth it's all there in God's book. Follow the Lord."
This was the prelude to his SharetheWealth crusade. Huey
proclaimed "Every man a King" with Huey as the Kingfish.
He made it plain he was no Communist despoiler. He assured Rockefeller
he was not going to take all his millions. He would not take a single
luxury from the economic royalists. They would retain their "fish
ponds, their estates and their horses for riding to the hounds."
When he began, he had no
plan at all. He just had a slogan and worked up from there. But by
1934 he was ready to launch the movement with Gerald L. K. Smith,
a former Shreveport preacher, at its head. The program was simple.
No income would exceed a million dollars. Everybody would have a minimum
income of $2500. The money would be provided by a capital levy which
would remove the surplus millions from the rich which revealed
that Huey really did not know any more about economics than the President
did. There would, of course, be oldage pensions for all, free
education right through college for all, an electric refrigerator
and an automobile for every family. The government would buy up all
the agricultural surpluses against the day of shortages. As a matter
of course, there would be short working hours for everyone, and bonuses
for veterans. All surplus property would be turned over to the government
so that a fellow who needed a bed would get one from the fellow who
owned more than one.
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