SHARE the WEALTH: Huey Long vs. Wall Street

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Huey P. Long:
Just the Facts: A Biographical Sketch 13

Lots of Opinions (About Huey P. Long)
Huey’s Contemporaries Remember the Kingfish 19

“The only road to salvation . . .”
Hermann Deutsch on Huey’s campaign for Mrs. Caraway 21

“We who know him best, love him most . . .”
Gerald L. K. Smith on Huey, the public figure … 21

“He has done a vast amount of good for Louisiana . . .”
Raymond Gram Swing on Huey’s accomplishments 22

“The most colorful figure I have interviewed . . .”
Roy Wilkins recalls his interview with Huey on race relations 26

“I editorially criticized his tightening grip on our state . . .”
Long critic Hodding Carter recalls his fight with Huey 27

“He was head and shoulders stronger . . .”
James Farley on Huey’s presidential ambitions 28

Huey’s mind: “more clarity, decisiveness, and force . . .”
Raymond Moley on the brain power of Huey Long 30

“He gave the people tax exemptions . . .”
John T. Flynn on Huey Long’s populist policies 31

“He had a big strong voice . . .”
John Fournet—a witness to Long’s assassination 34

Huey’s traits: “So distinct and so full of color . . .”
The New York Times remembers Huey—grudgingly 35

“That fearless, dauntless, unmatchable champion . . .”
Populist Republican Sen. William Langer on Huey Long 37

Huey P. Long (In His Own Words)
From Huey’s Writings and Speeches 39

“Redistribute the wealth” and restore America . . .
Huey explains the problem with the American economy 41

“The organized 600 families who control the wealth . . .”
Huey champions the people over the plutocrats 42

“Rockefeller, Morgan, and their crowd stepped up . . .”
Huey says it’s time for the big money interests to share 45

“America must take one of three choices . . .”
Huey calls for the nation to face reality 46

“We propose to limit the size of all big fortunes . . .”
Huey lays out his plan to “Share the Wealth” 53

“Our plan would injure no one . . .”
Huey explains that his policies will benefit all people 65

“Too few of our people owned too much of our wealth . . .”
Huey demonstrates the source of America’s troubles 74

“Life, liberty, and happiness to all people . . .”
Huey promises the end result of his policies of reform 93

A Final Word . . .
Who Killed Huey P. Long? 99

“We are not going to have this good little America here long if we do not take to redistribute the wealth of this country . . .”

“The great and grand dream of America that all men are created free and equal, endowed with the inalienable right of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness— this great dream of America, this great light, and this great hope—has almost gone out of sight in this day and time, and everybody knows it; and there is a mere candle flicker here and yonder to take the place of what the great dream of America was supposed to be.

The people of this country have fought and have struggled, trying, by one process and the other, to bring about the change that would save the country to the ideal and purposes of America. They are met with the Democratic Party at one time and the Republican Party at another time, and both of them at another time, and nothing can be squeezed through these party organizations that goes far enough to bring the American people to a condition where they have such a thing as a livable country. We swapped the tyrant 3,000 miles away for a handful of financial slave-owning overlords who make the tyrant of Great Britain seem mild.

Much talk is indulged in to the effect that the great fortunes of the United States are sacred, that they have been built up by honest and individual initiative, that the funds were honorably acquired by men of genius far-visioned in thought. The fact that those fortunes have been acquired and that those who have built them for the financial masters have become impoverished is a sufficient proof that they have not been regularly and honorably acquired in this country.

Even if they had been that would not alter the case. I find that the Morgan and Rockefeller groups alone held, together, 341directorships in 112 banks, railroad, insurance, and other corporations, and one of this group made an after-dinner speech in which he said that a newspaper report had asserted that 12 men in the United States controlled the business of the nation, and in the same speech to this group he said, “And I am one of the 12 and you the balance, and this statement is correct.”

They pass laws under which people may be put in jail for utterances made in war times and other times, but you cannot stifle or keep from growing, as poverty and starvation and hunger increase in this country, the spirit of the American people, if there is going to be any spirit in America at all.

Unless we provide for the redistribution of wealth in this country, the country is doomed; there is going to be no country left here very long. That may sound a little bit extravagant, but I tell you that we are not going to have this good little America here long if we do not take to redistribute the wealth of this country.”