|
And now, on top
of that, they order war on me because
nearly 4 years ago I told Hoover's crowd
it wouldn't do and because 3 years ago
I told Roosevelt and his crowd it wouldn't
do. In other words, they are in a rage
at HUEY LONG because I have said, "I
told you so."
I am not overstating
the conditions now prevailing in this
country. In their own words they have
confessed all I now say or ever have said.
Mr. Roosevelt and even Mrs. Roosevelt
have bewailed the fact that food, clothes,
and shelter have not been provided for
the people. Even Gen. Hugh S. Johnson
said in his speech of Monday night that
there are 80 million people in America
who are badly hurt or wrecked by this
depression. Mr. Harry Hopkins, who runs
the relief work, says the dole roll has
risen now to 22,375,000 persons, the highest
it has ever been. And now, what is there
for the Roosevelt crowd to do but to admit
the facts and admit further that they
are now on their third year, making matters
worse instead of better all the time?
No one is to blame, except them, for what
is going on because they have had their
way. And if they couldn't change the thing
in over two years, now bogged down worse
than ever, how could anyone expect any
good of them hereafter? God save us two
more years of the disaster we have had
under that gang.
Now, my friends,
when this condition of distress and suffering
among so many millions of our people began
to develop in the Hoover administration,
we knew then what the trouble was and
what we would have to do to correct it.
I was the first man to say publicly--but
Mr. Roosevelt followed in my tracks a
few months later and said the same thing.
We said that all of our trouble and woe
was due to the fact that too few of our
people owned too much of our wealth. We
said that in our land, with too much to
eat, and too much to wear, and too many
houses to live in, too many automobiles
to be sold, that the only trouble was
that the people suffered in the land of
abundance because too few controlled the
money and the wealth and too many did
not have money with which to buy the things
they needed for life and comfort.
So I said to the
people of the United States in my speeches
which I delivered in the United States
Senate in the early part of 1932 that
the only way by which we could restore
our people to reasonable life and comfort
was to limit the size of the big man's
fortune and guarantee some minimum to
the fortune and comfort of the little
man's family.
I said then, as
I have said since, that it was inhuman
to have food rotting, cotton and wool
going to waste, houses empty, and at the
same time to have millions of our people
starving, naked, and homeless because
they could not buy the things which other
men had and for which they had no use
whatever. So we convinced Mr. Franklin
Delano Roosevelt that it was necessary
that he announce and promise to the American
people that in the event he were elected
President of the United States he would
pull down the size of the big man's fortune
and guarantee something to every family--enough
to do away with all poverty and to give
employment to those who were able to work
and education to the children born into
the world.
Mr. Roosevelt made
those promises; he made them before he
was nominated in the Chicago convention.
He made them again before he was elected
in November, and he went so far as to
remake those promises after he was inaugurated
President of the United States. And I
thought for a day or two after he took
the oath as President, that maybe he was
going through with his promises. No heart
was ever so saddened; no person's ambition
was ever so blighted, as was mine when
I came to the realization that the President
of the United States was not going to
undertake what he had said he would do,
and what I know to be necessary if the
people of America were ever saved from
calamity and misery.
So now, my friends,
I come to that point where I must in a
few sentences describe to you just what
was the cause of our trouble which became
so serious in 1929, and which has been
worse ever since. The wealth in the United
States was three times as much in 1910
as it was in 1890, and yet the masses
of our people owned less in 1910 than
they did in 1890. In the year 1916 the
condition had become so bad that a committee
provided for by the Congress of the United
States reported that 2 percent of the
people in the United States owned 60 percent
of the wealth in the country, and that
65 percent of the people owned less than
5 percent of the wealth. This report showed,
however, that there was a middle class--some
33 percent of the people--who owned 35
percent of the wealth. This report went
on to say that the trouble with the American
people at that time was that too much
of the wealth was in the hands of too
few of the people, and recommended that
something be done to correct the evil
condition then existing.
It was at about
the same time that many of our publications
began to deplore the fact that so few
people owned so much and that so many
people owned so little. Among those commenting
upon that situation was the Saturday Evening
Post, which, in an issue of September
23, 1916, said: "Along one statistical
line you can figure out a Nation bustling
with wealth; along another a bloated plutocracy
comprising 1 percent of the population
lording it over a starving horde with
only a thin margin of merely well-to-do
in between."
And it was, as
the Saturday Evening Post and the committee
appointed by Congress said, it was a deplorable
thing back in 1916, when it was found
that 2 percent of the people owned twice
as much as all of the remainder of the
people put together, and that 65 percent
of all of our people owned practically
nothing.
But what did we
do to correct that condition? Instead
of moving to take these big fortunes from
the top and spreading them among the suffering
people at the bottom, the financial masters
of America moved in to take complete charge
of the Government for fear our lawmakers
might do something along that line.
And as a result,
14 years after the report of 1916, the
Federal Trade Commission made a study
to see how the wealth of this land was
distributed, and did they find it still
as bad as it was in 1916? They found it
worse! They found that 1 percent of the
people owned about 59 percent of the wealth,
which was almost twice as bad as what
was said to be an intolerable condition
in 1916, when 2 percent of the people
owned 60 percent of the wealth. And as
a result of foreclosures, failures, and
bankruptcies, which began to happen prior
to and in the year of 1929, before the
campaign of 1932, and at this late date,
it is the estimate of all conservative
statisticians that 75 percent of the people
in the United States don't own anything,
that is, not enough to pay their debts,
and that 4 percent of the people, or maybe
less than 4 percent of the people, own
from 85 to 90 percent of all our wealth
in the United States.
Remember, in 1916
there was a middle class--33 percent of
the people--who owned 35 percent of the
wealth. That middle class is practically
gone today. It no longer exists. They
have dropped into the ranks of the poor.
The thriving man of independent business
standing is fast fading. The corner grocery
store is becoming a thing of the past.
Concentrated chain-merchandise and banking
systems have laid waste to all middle
opportunity. That "thin margin of
merely well-to-do in between" which
the Saturday Evening Post mentioned on
September 23, 1916, has dwindled to practically
no margin of well-to-do in between. Those
suffering on the bottom and the few lords
of finance on the top are nearly all that
are left.
It became apparent
that the billionaires and multimillionaires
even began to squeeze out the common millionaires,
closing in and taking their properties
and wrecking their businesses. And so
we arrived (and are still there) at the
place that in abundant America where we
have everything for which a human heart
can pray, the hundreds of millions--or,
as General Johnson says, the 80 million--of
our people are crying in misery for the
want of the things which they need for
life, notwithstanding the fact that the
country has had and can have more than
the entire human race can consume.
The 125 million
people of America have seated themselves
at the barbecue table to consume the products
which have been guaranteed to them by
their Lord and Creator. There is provided
by the Almighty what it takes for them
all to eat; yea, more. There is provided
more than what is needed for all to eat.
But the financial masters of America have
taken off the barbecue table 90 percent
of the food placed thereon by God, through
the labors of mankind, even before the
feast begins, and there is left on that
table to be eaten by 125 million people
less than should be there for 10 million
of them.
What has become
of the remainder of those things placed
on the table by the Lord for the use of
us all? They are in the hands of the Morgans,
the Rockefellers, the Mellons, the Baruches,
the Bakers, the Astors, and the Vanderbilts--600
families at the most either possessing
or controlling the entire 90 percent of
all that is in America. They cannot eat
the food, they cannot wear the clothes,
so they destroy it. They have it rotted;
they plow it up; they pour it into the
rivers; they bring destruction through
the acts of mankind to let humanity suffer;
to let humanity go naked; to let humanity
go homeless, so that nothing may occur
that will do harm to their vanity and
to their greed. Like the dog in the manger,
they command a wagon load of hay, which
the dog would not allow the cow to eat,
though he could not eat it himself.
So now, ladies
and gentlemen, we come to that plan of
mine for which I have been so roundly
denounced and condemned by such men as
Mr. Farley, Mr. Robinson, and Gen. Hugh
S. Johnson, and other spellers and speakers
and spoilers of the Roosevelt administration.
It is for the redistribution of wealth
and for guaranteeing comforts and conveniences
to all humanity out of this abundance
in our country. I hope none will be horror-stricken
when they hear me say that we must limit
the size of the big man's fortune in order
to guarantee a minimum of fortune, life
and comfort to the little man; but, if
you are, think first that such is the
declaration on which Roosevelt rode into
the nomination and election of President.
While my urgings are declared by some
to be the average of a madman, and by
such men as General Johnson as insincere
bait of a pied piper, if you will listen
to me you will find that it is restating
the laws handed down by God to man; you
will find that it was the exact provision
of the contract and law of the Pilgrim
Fathers who landed at Plymouth in 1620.
Here's what the
Pilgrim Fathers said in the contract with
the early settlers in the year 1620. I
read you article 5 from that contract:
"5. That at ye end of ye 7. years,
ye capital & profits, viz. the houses,
lands, goods, and chattels, be equally
divided betwixt ye adventurers, and planters;
which done, every man shall be free from
other of them of any debt or detriment
concerning this adventure."
So the Pilgrim
Fathers wrote into the covenant to do
just exactly what the Bible said to do,
that they should have an equal division
of the wealth every seven years. I don't
go that far; I merely advocate that no
man be allowed to become so big that he
makes paupers out of a million other people.
You will find that
it is the cornerstone on which nearly
every religion since the beginning of
man has been founded. You will find that
it was urged by Bacon, Milton, and Shakespeare
in England, by Socrates, Plato, Theognis,
and other wisest of men in Greece, by
Pope Pius XI in the Vatican, by the world's
greatest inventor, Marconi in Italy, by
Daniel Webster, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Abraham
Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, William Jennings
Bryan, and Theodore Roosevelt in the United
States, as well as by nearly all of the
thousands of great men whose names are
yet mentioned in history.
The principle was
not only the mainspring of Roosevelt's
nomination and election, but in the closing
speech of Herbert Hoover at Madison Square
Garden in November 1932, even Hoover said:
"My conception of America is a land
where men and women may walk in ordered
liberty, where they may enjoy the advantages
of wealth, not concentrated in the hands
of a few but diffused through the lives
of all."
And so now I come
to give you again that plan, taken from
these leaders of all times and from the
Bible, for the sponsoring of which I am
labeled America's menace, madman, pied
piper, and demagogue.
I propose:
First. That every
big fortune shall be cut down immediately
by a capital levy tax to where no one
will own more than a few million dollars,
as a matter of fact, to where no one can
very long own a fortune in excess of about
three to four millions of dollars. I propose
that the surplus of all the big fortunes,
above the few millions to any one person
at the most, shall go into the United
States ownership. How would we get all
these surplus fortunes into the United
States Treasury? Not hard to do. We would
not do it by making everyone sell what
he owned; no. We would send everyone a
questionnaire. On that he would list the
properties he owns, lands and houses,
stocks and bonds, factories and patents,
and so on. Every man would place his appraisal
on his property, which the Government
would review and maybe change on some
items. On that appraisal the big fortune
holder would say out of what property
he would retain the few millions allowed
to him, the balance to go to the United
States. Say Mr. Henry Ford should allow
that he owned all the stock of the Ford
Motor Co., worth, say, $2 billion; he
could claim, say $4 million of the Ford
stock, but $1,996,000,000 would go to
the United States. Say the Rockefeller
fortune was listed at $10 billion in oil
stocks, bank stocks, money, and stores.
Each Rockefeller could say whether he
wanted his limit in either the money,
oil, or bank stocks, but about nine billion
and eight hundred million would go to
the Government. And so, in this way, the
Government of the United States would
come into the possession of about two-fifths
of its wealth, which on normal values
would be worth, say, $165 billion.
Then we would turn
to the inventories of the 25 million families
of America. All those who showed properties
and money clear of debts that were above
$5,000 and up to the limit of a few millions
would not be touched. But those showing
less than $5,000 to the family free of
debt would be added to, so that every
family would start life again with homestead
possessions of at least a home and the
comforts needed for a home, including
such things as a radio and an automobile.
These things would go to every family
as a homestead, not to be sold either
for debts or taxes or even by consent
of the owner except by the consent of
the court or Government, and then only
on condition that the court hold it to
be spent for the purpose of buying another
home and comforts thereof.
Such would mean
that the $165 billion or more taken from
big fortunes would have about $100 billion
of it used to provide all with the comforts
of home and living. The Government might
have to issue warrants for claim and location,
or even currency to be retired from such
property as was claimed, but all that
is a detail not impractical to get these
homes into the hands of the people.
So America would
start again with millionaires, but no
multi-millionaires or billionaires; with
some poor, but none too poor to be denied
the comforts of life. America, however,
would still have maybe a $65 billion balance
from these big fortunes not yet used to
set up the poor people. What would we
do with that? Wait a moment. I am coming
to that, too.
Second. We propose
that after homes and comforts of homes
have been set up for the families of the
country, that we shall turn our attention
to the children and the youth of the land,
providing first for their education and
training. We would not have to worry about
the problem of child labor, because the
very first thing which we would place
in front of every child would be not only
a comfortable home during his early years
but the opportunity for education and
training, not only through the grammar
school and the high school but through
college and to include vocational and
professional training for every child.
If necessary, that would include the living
cost of that child while he attended college,
if one should be too distant for him to
live at home and conveniently attend,
as would be the case with many of those
living in the rural areas.
We now have an
educational system, and in States like
Louisiana--and it is the best one--where
school books are furnished free to every
child and where transportation by bus
is given to every student, however far
he may live from a grammar or high school;
there is a fairly good assurance of education
through grammar and high school for the
child whose father and mother have enough
at home to feed and clothe them. But when
it comes to a matter of college education,
except in few cases the right to a college
education is determined at this day and
time by the financial ability of the father
and mother to pay for the cost and the
expense of a college education. It don't
make any difference how brilliant a boy
or girl may be, that don't give them the
right to a college education in America
today.
Now, Gen. Hugh
Johnson says I am indeed a very smart
demagogue, a wise and dangerous menace.
But I am one of those who didn't have
the opportunity to secure a college education
or training. We propose that the right
to education and the extent of education
shall be determined and gauged not so
much by the financial ability of the parents
but by the mental ability and energy of
a child to absorb the learning at a college.
This should appeal to General Johnson,
who says I am a smart man, since, had
I enjoyed the learning and college training
which my plan would provide for others,
I might not have fallen into the path
of the dangerous menace and demagogue
that he has now found me to be.
Remember, we have
$65 billion to account for that would
lie in the hands of the United States,
even after providing home comforts for
all families. We will use a large part
of it immediately to expand particularly
the colleges and universities of this
country. You would not know the great
institutions like Yale, Harvard, and Louisiana
State University. Get ready for a surprise.
College enrollments would multiply 1,000
percent. We would immediately call in
the architects and engineers, the idle
professors and scholars of learning. We
would send out a hurry call because the
problem of providing college education
for all of the youth would start a fusillade
of employment which might suddenly and
immediately make it possible for us to
shorten the hours of labor, even as we
contemplate in the balance of our program.
And how happy the
youth of this land would be tomorrow morning
if they knew instantly their right to
a home and the comforts of a home and
to complete college and professional training
and education were assured! I know how
happy they would be, because I know how
I would have felt had such a message been
delivered to my door.
I cannot deliver
that promise to the youth of this land
tonight, but I am doing my part. I am
standing the blows; I am hearing the charges
hurled at me from the four quarters of
the country. It is the same fight which
was made against me in Louisiana when
I was undertaking to provide the free
school books, free busses, university
facilities, and things of that kind to
educate the youth of that State as best
I could. It is the same blare which I
heard when I was undertaking to provide
for the sick and the afflicted. When the
youth of this land realizes what is meant
and what is contemplated the billingsgate
and the profanity of all the Farleys and
Johnsons in America can't prevent the
light of truth from hurling itself in
understandable letters against the dark
canopy of the sky.
Now, when we have
landed at the place where homes and comforts
are provided for all families and complete
education and training for all young men
and women, the next problem is what about
our income to sustain our people thereafter.
How shall that be arranged to guarantee
all the fair share of what soul and body
need to sustain them conveniently. That
brings us to our next point. We propose:
No. 3. We shall
shorten the hours of labor by law so much
as may be necessary that none will be
worked too long and none unemployed. We
shall cut the hours of toil to 30 hours
per week, maybe less; we may cut the working
year to 11 months' work and 1 month's
vacation; maybe less. If our great improvement
programs show we need more labor than
we may have, we will lengthen the hours
as convenience requires. At all events,
the hours for production will be gauged
to meet the market for consumption. We
will need all our machinery for many years,
because we have much public improvement
to do; and, further, the more use that
we may make of them, the less toil will
be required for all of us to survive in
splendor.
Now, a minimum
earning would be established for any person
with a family to support. It would be
such a living which one, already owning
a home, could maintain a family in comfort,
of not less than $2,500 per year to every
family.
And now by reason
of false statements made, particularly
by Mr. Arthur Brisbane and Gen. Hugh S.
Johnson, I must make answer to show you
that there is more than enough in this
country and more than enough raised and
made every year to do what I propose.
Mr. Brisbane says
I am proposing to give every person $15,000
for a home and its comforts, and he says
that would mean the United States would
have to be worth over a trillion dollars.
Why make that untrue statement, Mr. Brisbane?
You know that is not so. I do not propose
any home and comfort of $15,000 to each
person--it is a minimum of $5,000 to every
family, which would be less than $125
billion, which is less than one-third
of this Nation's wealth in normal times
of $400 billion.
General Johnson
says that my proposal is for $5,000 guaranteed
earning to each family, which he says
would cost from four to five hundred millions
of dollars per year, which he says is
four times more than our whole national
income ever has been. Why make such untrue
statements, General Johnson? Must you
be a false witness to argue your point?
I do not propose $5,000 income per year
to each family. I propose a minimum of
from $2,000 to $2,500 income per year
to each family. For 25 million families
that minimum income per family would require
from $50 billion to $60.6 billion. In
the prosperous days we have had nearly
double that for income some years already,
which allowed plenty for the affluent;
but with the unheard prosperity we would
have, if all our people could buy what
they need, our national income would be
double what it has ever been.
The Wall Street
writer and statistician says we could
have an income of at least $10,000 to
every family in goods if all worked short
hours and none were idle. According to
him, only one-fourth of the average income
would carry out my plan.
And now I come
to the remainder of the plan. We propose:
No. 4. That agricultural
production will be cared for in the manner
specified in the Bible. We would plow
under no crops; we would burn no corn;
we would spill no milk into the river;
we would shoot no hogs; would slaughter
no cattle to be rotted. What we would
do is this:
We would raise
all the cotton that we could raise, all
the corn that we could raise, and everything
else that we could raise. Let us say,
for example, that we raised more cotton
than we could use.
But here again
I wish to surprise you when I say that
if everyone could buy all the towels,
all the sheets, all the bedding, all the
clothing, all the carpets, all the window
curtains, and all of everything else he
reasonably needs; America would consume
20 million bales of cotton per year without
having to sell a bale to the foreign countries.
The same would be true of the wheat crop,
and of the corn crop, and of the meat
crop. Whenever everyone could buy the
things he desires to eat, there would
be no great excess in any of those food
supplies.
But for the sake
of the argument, let us say, however,
that there would be a surplus. And I hope
there will be, because it will do the
country good to have a big surplus. Let
us take cotton as an example. Let us say
that the United States will have a market
for 10 million bales of cotton and that
we raise 15 million bales of cotton. We
will store 5 million bales in warehouses
provided by the Government. If the next
year we raise 15 million bales of cotton
and only need 10, we will store another
5 million bales of cotton, and the Government
will care for that. When we reach the
year when we have enough cotton to last
for twelve or eighteen months, we will
plant no more cotton for that next year.
The people will have their certificates
of the Government which they can cash
in for that year for the surplus, or if
necessary, the Government can pay for
the whole 15 million bales of cotton as
it is produced every year; and when the
year comes that we will raise no cotton,
we will not leave the people idle and
with nothing to do. That is the year when,
in the cotton States, we will do our public
improvement work that needs to be done
so badly. We will care for the flood-control
problems; we will extend the electricity
lines into rural areas; we will widen
roads and build more roads; and if we
have a little time left, some of us can
go back and attend a school for a few
months and not only learn some of the
things we have forgotten but we can learn
some things that they have found out about
that they didn't know anything about when
we were children.
Now the example
of what we would do about cotton is the
same policy we would follow about all
other crops. This program would necessitate
the building of large storage plants,
both heated and cold storage, and warehouses
in all the counties of America, and that
building program alone would take up all
the idle people that America has today.
But the money spent would go for good
and would prevent any trouble happening
in the future. And then there is another
good thing. If we would fill these warehouses,
then if there were to come a year of famine
there would be enough on hand to feed
and clothe the people of the Nation. It
would be the part of good sense to keep
a year or two of stock on hand all the
time to provide for an emergency, maybe
to provide for war or other calamity.
I give you the
next step in our program:
No. 5: We will
provide for old-age pensions for those
who reach the age of 60 and pay it to
all those who have an income of less than
$1,000 per year or less than $10,000 in
property or money. This would relieve
from the ranks of labor those persons
who press down the price for the use of
their flesh and blood. Now the person
who reaches the age of 60 would already
have the comforts of home as well as something
else guaranteed by reason of the redistribution
that had been made of things. They would
be given enough more to give them a reasonably
comfortable existence in their declining
days. However, such would not come from
a sales tax or taxes placed upon the common
run of people. It would be supported from
the taxes levied on those with big incomes
and the yearly tax that would be levied
on big fortunes, so that they would always
be kept down to a few million dollars
to any one person.
No. 6. We propose
that the obligations which this country
owes to the veterans of its wars, including
the soldiers' bonus and to care for those
who have been either incapacitated or
disabled, would be discharged without
stint or unreasonable limit. I have always
supported each and every bill that has
had to do with the payment of the bonus
due to the ex-service men. I have always
opposed reducing the allowances which
they have been granted. It is an unfair
thing for a country to begin its economy
while big fortunes exist by inflicting
misery on those who have borne the burden
of national defense.
Now, ladies and
gentlemen, such is the share-our-wealth
movement. What I have here stated to you
will be found to be approved by the law
of our Divine Maker. You will find it
in the Book of Leviticus, from the twenty-fifth
to the twenty-seventh chapters. You will
find it in the writings of King Solomon.
You will find it in the teachings of Christ.
You will find it in the words of our great
teachers and statesmen of all countries
and of all times. If you care to write
to me for such proof, I shall be glad
to furnish it to you, free of expense,
by mail.
Will you not organize
a share-our-wealth society in your community
tonight or tomorrow to place this plan
into law? You need it; your people need
it. Write me, wire to me; get into this
work with us if you believe we are right.
Help to save humanity. Help to save this
country. If you wish a copy of this speech
or a copy of any other speech I have made,
write me and it will be forwarded to you.
You can reach me always in Washington,
D. C.
I thank you.
|
