Every Man a King by Huey Long

I contend, my friends, that we have no difficult problem to solve in America.

It is not the difficulty of the problem which we have; it is the fact that the rich people of this country -- and by rich people I mean the super-rich -- will not allow us to solve the problems.

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 of 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."

Did they mean, my friends, to say that all me were 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?

That was not the meaning of the Declaration of Independence when it said that all men are created equal of "That we hold that all men are created equal."

Now was it the meaning of the Declaration of Independence when it said that they held that there were certain rights that were inalienable -- the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Is that right of life, my friends, when the young children of this country are being reared into a sphere which is more owned by 12 men than it is by 120,000,000 people? I do not think you will contend that, and I do not think for a moment that they will contend it.

We have in American today more wealth, more goods, more food, more clothing, more houses than we have ever had. We have everything in abundance here. We have a home-loan problem because we have too many houses, and yet nobody can buy them and live in them.

It is necessary to save the Government of the country, but is much more necessary to save the people of America.

Now, we have organized a society, and we call it "Share Our Wealth Society," a society with the motto "every man a king." Every man a king, so there would be no such thing as a man or woman who did not have the necessities of life.

We have to limit fortunes. Our present plan is that we will allow no one man to own more than $50,000,000.

"Every man a king." Every man to eat when there is something to eat; all to wear something when there is something to wear. That makes us all sovereign.

Now, my friends, we have got to hit the root with the axe. Centralized power in the hands of a few, with centralized credit in the hands of a few, is the trouble.

Get together in your community tonight or tomorrow and organize one of our Share Our Wealth societies. This is Huey P. Long talking, United States Senator, Washington, D.C. Write me and let me send you the data on this proposition. Enroll with us. Organize your Share Our Wealth Society and get your people to meet with you, and make known your wishes to your Senators and Representatives in Congress.

I thank you, my friends, for your kind attention, and I hope you will enroll with us, take care of your own work in the work of this Government, and share or help in our Share Our Wealth society.