Huey Long: “Share Our Wealth” Address

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Addressing a nationwide radio audience on January 14, 1935, Long wasted no time in attacking President Roosevelt. In the third year of the Roosevelt administration conditions had grown worse, Long argued. The president could no longer be regarded as the country's savior, or as Long put it pithily, “It is not Roosevelt or ruin; it is Roosevelt's ruin.” The nation's leader had not acted on his promises to redistribute wealth and shorten the working hours of Americans who labored in a land of abundance.

Long personalizes the attack on Roosevelt by suggesting that the president prefers the companionship of rich men like John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Long even criticizes himself here, admitting that perhaps he should have known better than to trust Roosevelt to redistribute wealth, given the figures he befriended. As usual, Long presents himself as a simple man who has grown distrustful of the government's promises. Roosevelt, by implication, becomes the symbol of the politician who talks a good line but fails to deliver what he proposes. It is time, Long says, to begin an immediate program to share the country's wealth. And the vehicle for this program, he suggests, will be his Share Our Wealth societies. His expressed goal is to establish one hundred thousand societies that will meet and talk and work to ensure that the land produces everything that the nation's people need.

Long then sets out his seven-point program. The first aim would be to reduce individual fortunes to no more than a few million dollars. After the first million earned, a person would be taxed an increasing percentage of his income; after more than $8 million has been earned, the person's income would be taxed at 100 percent. Second, no person could inherit more than $1 million a year. Third, the taxes on the rich would be redistributed to every family so that all have “common conveniences,” such as automobiles, radios, and freedom from debt. Fourth, a full-employment economy and a thirty-hour workweek would be instituted. Fifth, the Louisiana education program would be expanded to provide free education to all Americans, a plan that would also entail the employment of one hundred thousand new teachers. Sixth, pension plans would be put in place for those over sixty years of age. The final aspect of Long's program would be a moratorium on all unpayable debts.

Long believed that such a program could be instituted within two months. He provides few details about how such a massive redistribution of wealth would actually be administered, instead relying on basic language about his intentions, which are to “straighten things out.” The phrase implies, of course, that the country is not governed fairly and that it is in the grip of crooked men. He reinforces this notion by suggesting that the wealth of the country has been “locked in a vise” by a few powerful and wealthy men.

Long emphasizes that he is not against wealth per se—that, in fact, his plan would increase the number of millionaires by redistributing the enormous wealth of the few. No one would really be injured, and millions would benefit from his plan. “The only difference,” he contends in a memorable phrase, “would be that maybe 10,000 people would own a concern instead of 10 people owning it.” As usual, Long uses elementary facts and figures to make his dramatic point that wealth should be held in common. And, as usual, Long invokes the Bible, suggesting that his plan is part of the divine economy: “But, my friends, unless we do share our wealth, unless we limit the size of the big man so as to give something to the little man, we can never have a happy or free people. God said so! He ordered it.”

Near the very end of his address, Long resorts to one of his favorite ploys: presenting his plans as a kind of parable. In this case he presents an image of the country's wealth as a barbecue that could provide enough for everyone to eat, and yet 90 percent of the food is taken by one man, even though he cannot eat all of it and will have to abandon much of it to rot. This is Long's analogy for the functioning of a capitalist economy that produces goods in abundance and yet leaves people to starve. In his customary way, he presents the national depression in melodramatic terms, suggesting a sharp dichotomy between those who have all the wealth and those who are starving—the haves and the have-nots.

Finally, Long portrays America as God's paradise, a land of plenty—indeed, the site of a feast. It is the Rockefellers and their ilk who are despoiling this paradise, and it is now time, Long concludes, to demand that these thieves “put some of it back.” Even more than in his “Every Man a King” address—a phrase Long also uses in this speech—he expresses outrage not only at the wealthy but also at President Roosevelt personally, who is treated as a man who has reneged on his assurances to help the American people. Consequently, Long's only hope is the people themselves. They must govern themselves when their leaders seem unwilling to do God's work, which should also be America's work.