Huey Long's First Inaugural Address Analysis
The years of the Depression were disastrous. The crisis seems to deepen as the years went by. The unemployment rate peaked at 25% in the year of 1932. With no end in sight, the Americans people looked to their government to protect them against starvation, hopelessness, and perpetual poverty.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his First Inaugural Address, the United States was middle of the Great Depression. The economy was at rock bottom. In his first Inaugural Address, Roosevelt vowed to help the nation recover from the Great Depression. He wanted to stabilize and direct the American economy (American Yawp). He says that the greatest task is to “put people to work”, to fix the overbalance of population in the industrial centers by, “engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural …show more content…
Huey Long, a United States Senator, also had ideas about how to help alleviate the problems with the Great Depression. In Huey Long’s “Share the Wealth” speech he explains that there should be a redistribution of the wealth in the United States. He proposed limiting poverty by providing every family with a home, limiting fortunes to 5 million dollars; every family should have an equal income to at least 1/3 of the average American family, giving old age pensions to older people, care for veterans, cash payment of the soldier’s bonus, and education for all of America’s youth. Huey planned on funding this by taxing the wealthy. He is very much like Robin Hood “robbing the rich to give to the poor.” Long’s “Shared the Wealth” was criticized as an American version of socialism. I for one, agree. Long took from the 1% and gave to the 99%. He wanted to control the money and divide it up. This is very much a form of
When Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his First Inaugural Address, the United States was middle of the Great Depression. The economy was at rock bottom. In his first Inaugural Address, Roosevelt vowed to help the nation recover from the Great Depression. He wanted to stabilize and direct the American economy (American Yawp). He says that the greatest task is to “put people to work”, to fix the overbalance of population in the industrial centers by, “engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural …show more content…
Huey Long, a United States Senator, also had ideas about how to help alleviate the problems with the Great Depression. In Huey Long’s “Share the Wealth” speech he explains that there should be a redistribution of the wealth in the United States. He proposed limiting poverty by providing every family with a home, limiting fortunes to 5 million dollars; every family should have an equal income to at least 1/3 of the average American family, giving old age pensions to older people, care for veterans, cash payment of the soldier’s bonus, and education for all of America’s youth. Huey planned on funding this by taxing the wealthy. He is very much like Robin Hood “robbing the rich to give to the poor.” Long’s “Shared the Wealth” was criticized as an American version of socialism. I for one, agree. Long took from the 1% and gave to the 99%. He wanted to control the money and divide it up. This is very much a form of