ipl-logo

Rhetorical Analysis Of Huey Long's Every Man A King

1041 Words5 Pages

On the 23rd of April, 1939, Huey Long delivered his national radio speech, “Every Man A King”, in which he addressed the lack of distribution of wealth prevalent within America during the Great Depression. He outlines in his speech his proposed the Share Our Wealth program in an effort to more equally distribute the vast amount of wealth in our country and to help mitigate the obvious distinct differences of one's economic prosperity. Through the rhetoric technique of hyperbole and allusion along with the logical fallacies of argumentum ad numerum and playing on emotions, Long is able to continuously untruthfully spread his ideas on the reason and necessity of redistributing the wealth in America. The use of hyperbole throughout Long’s speech allows him to further emphasize his points and to prove to listeners how great of a problem unequal wealth is within the United States. “The greatest indebtedness that has ever been given to civilization.” (page 3) In this quote, Long tries to quantify the great …show more content…

“Plato said that you must not let any one man be too poor, and you must not let any man be too rich” (page 5). One of the most prominent figures of all times has the same stance on equality of wealth. If this Plato believes it, then it validates Long’s stance on this issue. He then mentions a statement from the Lord, “The lord gave his law, and in the Book of James they said so, that the rich should weep and howl for the miseries that had come upon them” (page 5). This statement, one which lacks true substance and citation, says that the rich should feel guilty for all of the excess which they have in their lives. Therefore, if the rich feel guilty, they will give to the ones who need it and economic equality for everyone would be maintained. The bible, according to Long, said it and therefore the audience must believe his stance to be

Open Document