Huey Long Quotes

Huey Pierce Long Jr. , self-nicknamed The Kingfish, was an American politician who served as the 40th governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a member of the United States Senate from 1932 until his death by assassination in 1935. A Democrat, he was an outspoken populist who denounced the wealthy and the banks and called for a "Share Our Wealth" program. As the political leader of the state, he commanded wide networks of supporters and was willing to take forceful action. He established the long-term political prominence of the Long family.

Long's Share Our Wealth plan was established in 1934 under the motto "Every Man a King," also the title of his autobiography. It proposed new wealth redistribution measures in the form of a net asset tax on corporations and individuals to curb the poverty and homelessness epidemic nationwide during the Great Depression. To stimulate the economy, Long advocated federal spending on public works, schools and colleges, and old age pensions. He was an ardent critic of the policies of the Federal Reserve System.

A supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election, Long split with Roosevelt in June 1933 to plan his own presidential bid for 1936 in alliance with the influential Catholic priest and radio commentator Charles Coughlin. Long was assassinated in 1935, and his national movement soon faded, but his legacy continued in Louisiana through his wife, Senator Rose McConnell Long; his son, Senator Russell B. Long, and his brothers, Earl Kemp Long and George S. Long, as well as several other more distant relatives.

Under Long's leadership, hospitals and educational institutions were expanded, a system of charity hospitals was set up that provided health care for the poor, massive highway construction and free bridges brought an end to rural isolation, and textbooks, bought with tax monies rather than individually by parents, were provided to schoolchildren. He remains a controversial figure in Louisiana history, with critics and supporters debating whether he could have potentially become a dictator or was a demagogue.

✵ 30. August 1893 – 10. September 1935
Huey Long photo
Huey Long: 20   quotes 23   likes

Famous Huey Long Quotes

“Every man a king, but no one wears a crown.”

Written on banners used in the 1928 gubernatorial election; quoted in Hugh Davis Graham, Huey Long (1970), p. 39.

Huey Long Quotes about school and education

Huey Long Quotes

“For the present you can just call me the Kingfish.”

Every Man a King (1933), p. 277.

“They kept on hollering, and I simply had to put my foot down. I said, 'I'm the governor and I say the ignorant in this state have to learn, blacks as well as whites.”

And they learned.
Huey Long on conservative resistance to illiteracy programs for Negroes (Williams p. 706)

“Quote me as saying that that Imperial bastard will never set foot in Louisiana, and that when I call him a sonofabitch I am not using profanity, but am referring to the circumstances of his birth.”

When the head of the Ku Klux Klan, Hiram W Evans, threatened to campaign against Long in Louisiana; quoted in "Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, & the Great Depression," Alan Brinkley. Random House Digital: 2011.

“Treat them just the same as anybody else, give them an opportunity to make a living, and to get an education.”

Huey Long on his Negro policy as President (Williams p. 704)

“We swapped the tyrant 3,000 miles away for a handful of financial slaveowning overlords who make the tyrant of Great Britain seem mild.”

1933 Congressional Record, 72d Cong, 2d sess., Vol. 76; quoted in Hugh Davis Graham, Huey Long (1970), p. 55.

“When the United States gets fascism, it will call it anti-fascism.”

Originally reported by Robert Cantrell. But years later Cantrell told Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. that that was his own summary of his conversation with Long, not Long's exact words. See They Never Said It by Paul F. Boller and John H. George (1990) https://books.google.com/books?id=6zfnCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA94&dq=when+fascism+comes+to+america,+it+will+be+called+anti-fascism&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjo0sSQ0_TRAhWmwVQKHQ85C9M4KBDoAQguMAQ#v=onepage&q=when%20fascism%20comes%20to%20america%2C%20it%20will%20be%20called%20anti-fascism&f=false.
Misattributed
Variant: When the United States gets fascism, it will call it 100 percent Americanism.

“I wonder why he shot me.”

Said on September 8, 1935 on his way to the hospital following being shot outside the State Capitol; quoted in Harry T. Williams, Huey Long (Vingtage Books/Random House, 1969), p. 866.

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