Huey Long's Proposal

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The raging Roosevelt administration declared war on Mr. Huey Long during a time of economic trouble. As war was declared on Mr. Huey Long, the man himself put out a six-point proposal in which he would discus solutions to the United States economic problems. Huey Long pitches three significant proposals of wealth, education, and land to solving the United States’ economic problems. As stated numerous times throughout the Huey P. Long’s “Sharing the Wealth” speech it is said that the only way to restore people to reasonable life and comfort was to “limit the size of the big man’s fortune.” A report in 1916 showed that one percent of the people owned about 59 percent of the wealth. The distribution was worse off than it ever was. Too much of the wealth was in the hands of too few people and so Long introduced the ‘big fortune cut’. Mr. Long’s first of six proposals was his most significant proposing that every big fortune be cut. He states “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…shall go into the United States ownership.” This proposal prevents one from owning excess fortunes of up to three to four million dollars and gives the surplus to the United States, the government. In order to get this excess, questionnaires of the ownership of properties such as lands and houses, stocks and bonds, and factories and patents are sent to everyone. An appraisal is to be places on the man’s properties of which the US would review and change some items and say what he would retain the Another crucial point Mr. Huey Long makes is in his second proposal. In his first proposal he ends saying America would ‘start again’ so to speak bringing him to propose children’s needs, most importantly education. The children of the nation are where the American peoples future lie. Presenting the youth with

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