Huey Long's Share Our Wealth Proposals Argument Essay

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An Analysis of Huey Long’s “Share Our Wealth”

The purpose of this paper is to provide a discussion concerning Huey Long’s speech, “Share Our Wealth,” delivered in a nationwide radio broadcast in April 1935, with respect to the Preamble to the United States Constitution and The Declaration of Independence. The point is made that while there are some similarities in the arguments and goals presented by Long and these two foundational documents, there are far more differences including most especially his views concerning income and inheritance limits as a means to achieving a perfect Union. An analysis of Long’s speech with respect to the Preamble and the Declaration of Independence drawing on relevant excerpts is followed by a summary of the research and key findings concerning these issues in the conclusion.

Preamble and “Share Our Wealth” by Huey Long

How does Long’s arguments relate to the Preamble?

The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution is just 57 words long, but it succeeds in succinctly summarizing the numerous constitutional provisions and protections that follow. Although they are well known, it is important to present the Preamble in its entirety in order to evaluate its relationship to Long’s Share Our Wealth speech.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

This inspiring words are reflected in Long’s speech when he calls for domestic tranquility and the promotion of the general welfare through the establishment of gradations of various minimum and maximum income levels that were intended to ensure all American families with the basic necessities of life, including homes, old age pensions, and most especially universal educational and employment opportunities. Viewed from a modern perspective, Long’s speech certainly does not rise to the oratory level of the Preamble, the contemporary sentiments, arguments and proposals he advanced were directly aligned with the views of many Americans during this challenging period in the nation’s history.

As noted above, both the Preamble and Long’s arguments include provisions for domestic tranquility and the promotion of the general welfare of the nation’s citizenry. Long’s arguments, though, are in direct opposition to the Preamble’s goals concerning securing “the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” since Long calls for limits on the amount of money Americans can earn and how much they can inherit. While these arguments may in fact contribute to “a more perfect Union” from Long’s perspective, placing any types of limits of the amount of money Americans can earn and pass on to subsequent generations smacks of downright anti-Americanism today.

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Given these basic differences in arguments, there is little room for the Preamble to support Long’s arguments, but there is some modest support for some of his views as noted below.

What are both their arguments and how can the Preamble support Long’s argument?

Both Long’s speech and the Preamble make it clear that creating a perfect Union requires a number of guarantees that are either directly related or involve sufficient overlap to suggest broad-based similarities in outcomes concerning what constitutes a perfect Union. In essence, this is where the support for Long’s arguments end in the Preamble. Indeed, the Preamble also makes it clear that it is essential to codify these guarantees in a foundational document in order to preserve and protect them for future generations. It is fortunate that the Founding Fathers had the foresight to include the Preamble and the provisions that followed in the U.S. Constitution because otherwise if Long had his way, the United States may well have ended up resembling a national Ben & Jerry’s where no one would be allowed to earn more than others according to various arbitrary and arcane formulas.

In fact, the arguments in the Preamble and Long’s speech diverge on a number of important points. For example, while the Preamble calls for the provision of the common defense and the promotion the general Welfare, it does not call for the executive branch to feed and clothe every American citizen who may be hungry or need a new suit. By very sharp contrast, Long argues that President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inability or seeming unwillingness to provide these guarantees further exacerbated the desperate economic plight in which many American families found themselves in 1933.

This baffling argument was despite Long’s concession in his speech that the president had already borrowed billions of dollars to provide short-term relief for American families. In this regard, Long first complains that “Instead of his promises, the only remedy that Mr. Roosevelt has prescribed is to borrow more money” followed by his objection to the burden that the interest payments on this debt would represent for the current and even next generation of American taxpayers. These objections were advanced despite Long’s call for universal higher education at the government’s expense. For instance, Long concluded his Share Our Wealth speech by proposing that “there should be an education for every youth in….....

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