the kingfish essays

the kingfish essays Huey. P. Long was a man to be reckoned with. Regardless of the attitude one takes toward his radical populist politics, it is indisputable that the Kingfish was Louisiana politics from the late 1920s until his assassination in 1935. He remains one of the great political paradoxes of the 20th century, a man who openly believed in using the machinery of state for economic intervention in pursuit of social and political ends...and yet has been hailed as a champion of the little man, enfranchiser of the poor and the disadvantaged (Wall). Contradictory though he was, with the natural gift of cleverness, his proverbial razor-sharp wit, and claimed affinity with the common man, he learned to use and abuse those time-honored methods for ensuring the absolute supremacy of a political machine (Wall). Long managed to secure his position as the virtual dictator of Louisiana through his strong-arm tactics and by using the old southern politics of personality to publicize his war against the established economic hierarchy. Where he diverts from old southern politics is in his focus on issues and his drive to put his policies into practice. At the time of Longs career, Louisiana politics was still very much the politics of poverty and ruralism. Long fed off this condition and delivered his famous Every man a King on February 23, 1934. The speech was the manifesto of the Share Our Wealth Program and represented possibly the most aggressive plan of governmental economic intervention in the history of the United States. The Kingfish wanted the government to confiscate the wealth of the nation's rich and privileged. He called his program Share Our Wealth. It called upon the federal government to guarantee every family in the nation an annual income of $5,000...He also proposed limiting private fortunes to $50 million, legacies to $5 million, and annual incomes t ...