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From the forthcoming Cd Rom Who Built
Americavolume II
7.7.2
Hear Huey Long Speak and Sing
Huey Long Urges that We Share Our Wealth
Huey Long posed
the most potent political challenge to Franklin Roosevelt in
the first few years of his New Deal administration. How much
of a challenge has long been a subject of debate among
political analysts and historians, but FDR himself regarded
Long as "one of the two most dangerous men in America" (the
other being General Douglas MacArthur). The concern was
great enough for the Democratic National Committee to
commission a secret political poll (perhaps the first use of
polling for this purpose) to gauge his appeal; it found that
he could get as much as 11 percent] of the vote if he ran as
a third party candidate in 1936.
Long first came
to national notice when he became governor of Louisiana in
1928; he ruled the state as a virtual dictator but his
corruption and dictatorship had a progressive side to it,
including massive public works programs, improved public
education and public health, and even some restrictions on
corporate power in the state. Elected to the U.S. Senate in
1930, he delayed taking office for two years so that he
could continue to rule in Louisiana and assure that a close
ally would succeed him. He became an early supporter of
Franklin Roosevelt, campaigning energetically for him at the
Democratic Convention and in the fall election.
By the fall of
1933, however, the Long-Roosevelt alliance had ruptured over
differences on policy and patronage as well as Long's own
growing interest in running for president. Early the next
year, Long organized his own, alternative political
organization, the Share-Our Wealth Society, through which he
advocated a populist program that focused on redistributing
large fortunes through sharply graduated income and
inheritance taxes. Through these measures, Long promised,
every American would be guaranteed a homestead worth $5,000
and an annual income of $2,500. In the next two years, Long
enthusiasts created 27,000 Share-Our-Wealth Clubs with
perhaps as many as eight million members, although some
historians wonder about the depth and commitment of that
support.
One key technique
that Long used to win support was the radio. In Louisiana,
he had regularly used the radio to campaign and present his
policies. (He offered lengthy broadcasts over a New Orleans
radio station that mixed his remarks with musical
selections.) In 1933 when he first introduced three bills in
Congress embodying his ideas on the problem of concentrated
wealth, he took the--then--unprecedented step of buying
radio time from the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) to
speak on behalf of the legislation. As his national
recognition (and ambitions) grew, he spoke with increasing
frequency to national radio audiences. No politician in this
era--except Roosevelt himself--used radio as frequently and
as effectively as Long.
The speech
included here was from one of his 1935 broadcasts. Typical
of Long's remarks from this period, it includes a litany of
charges against Roosevelt and the New Deal (the failure to
break up great fortunes, the persistence of unemployment and
the growth of indebtedness, for instance), populist attacks
on the concentration of wealth in a small number of hands,
and proposals to "share" the wealth and provide a homestead
and guaranteed income for all as well as old age pensions
and a bonus for veterans. Although this speech is typical of
many others, it is not identical, since Long, as is obvious
from this speech, worked only from scattered notes and
ad-libbed.
Long also
garnered attention with his story-telling, his joking and
his quick wit. He embraced the nickname "Kingfish" from a
clownish character on the popular "Amos and Andy" radio show
and answered the phone: "the Kingfish speaking." He adapted
the slogan "Every Man a King, But No One Wears a Crown,"
from a speech by the greatest populist speaker of the
previous generation, William Jennings Bryan. Then, he
popularized the slogan by writing a song around the slogan
and signing it over the radio and on newsreels. His
collaborator in the song, which is included here, was Castro
Carazo, the head of Louisiana State University's Band. (The
band was a long favorite; it received considerably better
funding than the university's law school; he promised to
make Carazo the head of the Marine Band when he became
president.)
Not everyone was
captivated by Long's oratory, humor, or singing. Some of his
sharpest opponents (along with some his strongest
supporters) could be found in his home state of Louisiana.
Hodding Carter, the liberal editor of the Daily
Courier in his hometown of Hammond, Louisiana,
repeatedly warned against Long's corruption and demagoguery.
In this 1935 essay in the New Republic, Carter takes
these criticisms to a national audience that was becoming
increasingly familiar with Long. He attacks Long's
"legislative travesties" and "complete dictatorship"in
Louisiana as well as punches holes in Long's "wealth sharing
nostrums." (Carter would later become famous as an editorial
advocate of racial tolerance as the editor of the Delta
Democrat-Times in Mississipppi; he son would take over
his editorship and also serve as a spokesman for the State
Department during Jimmy Carter's presidency.)
In the end, it
was local opposition to Long that ultimately led to his
demise. In September 1935 he was visiting the state capitol
that he had built in Baton Rouge. Carl Austin Weiss, a young
physician, approached him and shot him point blank. Long's
bodyguards shot Weiss dead, and Long died a few days later.
Although there has been much dispute about Weiss's motives
(or even whether he actually killed Long), the doctor's in
laws were political opponents of Long and the Kingfish had
circulated (untrue) rumors about "Negro blood" in their
family.
A. "Share the Wealth": Huey Long Talks to the Nation
In this April 1935 radio address, Senator Huey Long sharply
criticizes FDR and the New Deal and then sketches out his
alternative program to "share our wealth" by limiting the
size of fortunes and incomes and then redistributing the
excess to provide a minimum income, a homestead for all, and
old-age pensions for the elderly.
B. Every Man a King: Singing a
Populist Tune
Huey Long teamed up with Louisiana State University band
director Castro Carazo to write this tune that incorporated
his slogan, "Every Man A King," which he had adapted from a
quotation by the populist William Jennings Bryan. He
suggested that it would be one his campaign songs when he
ran for president and had it recorded on newsreel by the
well-known band, Ina Ray Hutton and Her All Girl Orchestra.
C. "He's a Demagogue, That's What
He Is": Hodding Carter on Huey Long
Writing in the New Republic of February 1935, Hodding
Carter, a Louisiana newspaper editor, warns that Long has
turned his home state into a "dictatorship" and that his
promises of sharing the wealth are nothing but vote-getting
schemes.
For more reading on Huey Long and the New Deal, see Alan
Brinkley, Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin,
and the Great Depression (1982); T. Harry Williams,
Huey Long (1969); Glen Jeansonne, Messiah of the
Masses: Huey Long and the Great Depression (1993).
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