Every Man a King: Inequality Quotes
How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1
I believe that was the judgment and the view and the law of the Lord, that we would have to distribute wealth ever so often, in order that there could not be people starving to death in a land of plenty, as there is in America today. (21)
Long frequently referred to the Bible during his speech as a way of giving divine cred to his own policies. People took their Bible very seriously, and who could argue with what the prophets thought about economic justice? People going hungry during a famine is a tragedy; people starving while there's plenty to go around is also epically unjust. That's what bothered Huey Long.
Quote #2
How many of you remember the first thing that the Declaration of Independence said? It said: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that there are certain inalienable rights for the people, and among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" and it said further, "We hold the view that all men are created equal." Now, what did they mean by that? Did they mean, my friends, to say that all men are created equal and that that meant that any one man was born to inherit $10,000,000,000 and that another child was to be born to inherit nothing? (6-9)
Long also uses the foundational principles of the U.S. to support his views on inequality. The Declaration of Independence was treated as a holy document in its own right, and its central message about the fundamental equality of all men was a powerful piece of evidence that Long used in his favor. No matter that the founders weren't really thinking about economic equality when they wrote that line; Long just added it to his argument.
Quote #3
We have trouble, my friends, in the country, because we have too much money owing, the greatest indebtedness that has ever been given to civilization, where it has been shown that we are incapable of distributing the actual things that are here, because the people have not money enough to supply themselves with them, and because the greed of a few men is such that they think it is necessary that they own everything, and their pleasure consists in the starvation of the masses, and in their possessing things they cannot use, and their children cannot use, but who bask in the splendor of sunlight and wealth, casting darkness and despair and impressing it on everyone else. (26)
The crushing debt that faced most Americans after the crash of the stock market in 1929 was a measure of inequality that often went ignored in these types of discussions, but Huey Long wasn't one to leave ammunition on the table when he was making an argument. He also points out here that the problem goes beyond a few people having most of the money—it's that those guys almost enjoy seeing everyone else suffer.
Quote #4
Now, ladies and gentlemen, if I may proceed to give you some other words that I think you can understand—I am not going to belabor you by quoting tonight—I am going to tell you what the wise men of all ages and all times, down even to the present day, have all said: that you must keep the wealth of the country scattered, and you must limit the amount that any one man can own. You cannot let any man own $300,000,000,000 or $400,000,000,000. If you do, one man can own all of the wealth that the United States has in it. (40-42)
Long's argument hinges on this idea that allowing massive concentrations of wealth in a tiny portion of the population is unjust and unsustainable. Long was convinced this would result in economic collapse because the masses, tired of being hungry and shut out from opportunity, would storm the castle and institute a socialist government. For an added bonus, we get the insistence that Long won't make us suffer through any more quotations; we should just take his word for it.
Quote #5
So, we have in America today, my friends, a condition by which about 10 men dominate the means of activity in at least 85 percent of the activities that you own. […] They own the banks, they own the steel mills, they own the railroads, they own the bonds, they own the mortgages, they own the stores, and they have chained the country from one end to the other until there is not any kind of business that a small, independent man could go into today and make a living […]. (47)
Long drives home the fact that this inequality is totally baked in to the current system. This sets up his argument that desperate times call for radical measures. And coincidentally, he's got a few ideas to put out there. You can just see that he's gonna come after those rich guys.
Of course, just because some men are obscenely rich doesn't necessarily mean that everyone else has to remain poor. Long knew that the concentrated wealth was just a symptom of an unfair system designed to rewarded greed, insane consumption, and profit over the welfare of workers and families. Redistributing some of the wealth would just be the beginning of reform. Laws would have to change, and greed would have to be punished, not rewarded.
Quote #6
God told you what the trouble was. The philosophers told you what the trouble was; and when you have a country where one man owns more than 100,000 people, or a million people, and when you have a country where there are four men, as in America, that have got more control over things than all the 120,000,000 people together, you know what the trouble is. (115-116)
Long sums up his trifecta of religion, patriotism, and personal gain. Basically he's saying that anyone with half a brain can see that he's right.