US Democrat Huey Long, nicknamed the ‘Kingfish’, was once described by by President Roosevelt as “one of the two most dangerous men in America” (the other being General Douglas MacArthur).
Long was an enourmously popular American politician who served as Governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a U.S. senator from 1932 to 1935 & was shaping up as a contender for the presidency when he was assassinated.
He was known as much for his political rhetoric & fiery style (in some ways not dissimilar to Mussolini’s – see old footage on Youtube) as for his radical radical policies that earned him a long list of powerful enemies.
Huey Long originally won fame at the expense of Standard Oil Company (founded by John D. Rockefeller), which he sued for unfair business practices, & which he continued to oppose throughout his career. Long also criticised the banking houses of Morgan and Rockefeller which owned stock in the Federal Reserve System. Long believed that the Federal Reserve Bank controlled the monetary system to their own benefit, instead of the general public’s, and that their policies were the true cause of the Great Depression.
During the Great Depression, Long began a radical reform movement: the Share Our Wealth Society. The movement was dedicated to the redistribution of wealth in the USA. Long claimed that 2% of the population owned 60% of the wealth but, it redistributed evenly, there would be enough wealth for everybody to enjoy a comfortable standard of living.
The Share of Wealth 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.
Every family would have a basic household grant of $5,000 and a minimum annual income of $2,000-3,000 (or one-third the average family income). Long supplemented his plan with proposals for free primary and college education, old-age pensions, veterans’ benefits, federal assistance to farmers, public works projects, and limiting thework week to thirty hours.
By 1935, the society had over 7.5 million members in 27,000 clubs across the country & there were indications that Long was considering exploiting this support to break from the Democrats and form a third party.
In May 1935 Long entered discussions about a joint campaign to take on President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1936 presidential elections. In July, Long announced that his police had discovered a plot to kill him & surrounded himself with armed bodyguards at all times.
On 8 September 1935, Huey Long was apparently shot at the Capitol in Baton Rouge by Carl Weiss, a Louisiana physician. The details of the shooting are hazy & there is disagreement as to whether Weiss, who was gunned down immediately in a hail of bullets, actually had a gun when he confronted Long. Furthermore, one of the bullets removed from Long’s body came from the gun of a bodyguard (claimed to be a ricochet).
Long died 2 days later at the age of 42. His last words were reportedly, “God, don’t let me die. I have so much left to do.”
Huey long’s ideas have been alternately described as facist or radically socialistic. Critics called his governership of Louisiana dictatorial & yet his slogan was: “Every Man a King but no man wears a crown”. It’s intriguing to wonder how his political career might have developed had he lived. However, his untimely death ensured that Huey Long & his ideas were relegated to the footnotes of history.
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