How Did Huey Long Affect The Economy

Huey Long was born on August 30, 1893 near Winnfield, Winn Parish in the northern region of Louisiana. Huey would grow to become the governor of Louisiana and a U.S Senator which would help him eventually run for presidency during the last years of his life. During the time that Huey Long lived he held complete control of Louisiana through his economic and political stances which he would then submit nationally in order to help the economic crash that had taken place during his time. This economic crash would be known as the Great Depression and would have a negative effect on the United States for several years by causing people to lose their jobs and everything they owned. Huey would attempt transferring the success of leadership he had

Huey would have a major impact on the Great Depression by taking control of the economy and submitting ideas to the current president, Franklin Roosevelt, which seemed both communistic and

In January 1934 Huey would create a Share Our Wealth Society which would promote the redistribution of wealth among American citizens. This new idea would pick up high popularity among citizens but would catch disagreement from Roosevelt once again. Huey and his ideas would then meet hardship due to the reelection of Roosevelt (Starr, Page 508). Prior to Huey’s Share the Wealth Program, Roosevelt declared a national bank holiday in response to continuing runs on banks on March 6, 1933. Congress would grant Roosevelt sweeping powers to regulate banking. The week following this, most American banks would resume operations but this whole motion would not settle well with Huey furthering their rivalry. This was in response to the Great Depression growing worse. Huey would respond by stating that there needed to be a 100% tax on the rich (Bondi, Page 93-117). Huey kept getting high appraisal for his ideas and he was a huge fan of John L. Lewis and claimed that he was the Huey Long of Labor which would help him gain greater popularity among the labor unions (Bondi, Page 133). Huey Long’s “Share the Wealth” deal would be unveiled through a national radio address on February 23, 1934. By 1935, Huey’s Share Our Wealth Society had over 7.5 million members in 27,000 clubs across the country and Long’s Senate office would be flooded with thousands of letters daily.