Share Our Wealth
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Share Our Wealth was a movement begun during the Great Depression by Huey Long, governor and later senator from Louisiana.
Huey Long's 1934 radio broadcast
In February, 1934, Senator Huey Long announced during a nationwide radio address that he was forming the Share Our Wealth Society, dedicated to the redistribution of the nation's wealth. Long had originally been a supporter of the New Deal policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but starting with the formation of the Share Our Wealth Society, began advocating for more radical reforms than Roosevelt was willing to embrace.Major provisions of \"Share Our Wealth\"
The key planks of the Share Our Wealth platform included:- No person would be allowed to accumulate a personal net worth of more than 100 to 300 times the average family fortune, which would limit personal assets to between $1.5 million and $5 million. Annual capital levy taxes would be assessed on all persons with a net worth exceeding $1 million.
- Every family was to be furnished with a homestead allowance of not less than one-third the average family wealth of the country.
- Every family was to be guaranteed an annual family income of at least $2000 to $2500, or not less than one-third of the average annual family income in the United States.
- No person would be allowed an annual income in excess of 100 to 300 times the average annual family income. Income taxes would be levied to ensure this.
- An old-age pension would be made available for all persons with the beginning qualifying age set at 60.
The death of Huey Long
The official slogan of the Share Our Wealth movement was "Every Man a King," which also became the title of a song co-written by Long in 1935 to promote his proposal.Huey Long was a radical populist, extremely popular in his home state of Louisiana, but was widely viewed as having one of the most corrupt administrations in American history during his term as governor. Many saw his Share Our Wealth proposal as an unworkable plan that threatened the more moderate reforms of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. Many also suspected that Huey Long was planning on using the Share Our Wealth Society as a vehicle for mounting a third party challenge to Roosevelt during the 1936 Presidential election. Any Presidential ambitions which Long had were cut short by his assassination on September 8, 1935 in Baton Rouge.
Program mismanagement after Long's death
After Long's assassination, the control of the Share Our Wealth Society fell to Gerald L. K. Smith, who was widely viewed as a political demagogue. Smith brought the Share Our Wealth Society into a brief coalition with the followers of radio priest Charles Coughlin and old-age pension advocate Francis Townsend in support of the short-lived Union Party, a third party effort which ran William Lemke of North Dakota for President in 1936, but under his leadership, the Share Our Wealth movement quickly fell apart.After the demise of "Share Our Wealth," Gerald L. K. Smith continued to be active in politics, although (his critics point out) he never did enter the mainstream of American politics. Late in his life, Smith became increasingly interested in the topics of anti-Semitism, extreme forms of anti-Communism during the post-World War II years, and Smith became an early advocate of Holocaust denial.
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