Muhammad Asim AzeemMrs. Stite’s 3 rd period AP English Language and Composition

HUEY P. LONG’S “EVERY MAN A KING” SPEECH

Huey Pierce Long, Jr.

• Born August 30, 1893, and died September 10, 1935

• He was assassinated at the age of 42• He was the 40 th governor of Louisiana, from

1928-1932• Later on became a Senator for the sate for

Louisiana, 1932-1935• He was a Democrat, and he respectfully viewed

the freedoms of people• He found the Federal Reserve System and the

distribution of wealth to be corrupt and dysfunctional

SPEAKER

Louisiana Senator Huey Long broadcast his Every Man a King speech over the NBC radio network on February 23, 1934

The speech is also called the share the wealth speechThe time period of this speech was set during the

great depressionTo address the Nation of a proposal, called “share the

wealth”

OCCASION

His audience was the entire nation, it was broadcasted over the radio so that every one could hear his message

This message was meant for all to be heard, but intended to spark some change in the government

AUDIENCE

His purpose for his speech was to set forth new laws that would help the people living in poverty, which was nearly 75% of the nation

He wanted to establish the wealth tax 4% of the nation owned 85% to 95% of the wealth

and that 75% of the nation owned nothingThis is what inspired him to take action, the

staggering statistics of the nation at the time

PURPOSE

The tone throughout the speech was affi rmative, reinsuring and optimistic

He was forth right in his ambitions, he wanted the people to get what they deserved, he wanted every American citizen to be wealthy, he wanted no select few to be praised higher than another

TONE

Huey Long had established automatic ethos, this was established through him having been the governor of Louisiana and a senator for the state

ETHOS

He had appealed to the emotions of the people, through his sympathetic approach of the people of our nation being in poverty.

He kept addressing the children of America, and their future

“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?”

He also mentions God/Lord several times through out the speech

“..through the wisdom of the Lord..”

PATHOS

His logic of this whole thing was justified through his use of statistical data to reiterate on his point that the American people are not properly able to sustain themselves, and living in debt and poverty.

“Now, let us take America today. We have in American today, ladies and gentlemen, $272,000,000,000 of debt. Two hundred and seventy-two thousand millions of dollars of debt are owed by the various people of this country today. Why, my friends, that cannot be paid. It is not possible for that kind do debt to be paid.”

LOGOS

Huey’s choice of words are appropriate in emphasizing the urgency of this issue

“But the Scripture says, ladies and gentlemen, that no country can survive, or for a country to survive it is necessary that we keep the wealth scattered among the people, that nothing should be held permanently by any one person, and that 50 years seems to be the year of jubilee in which all property would be scattered about and returned to the sources from which it originally came, and every seventh year debt should be remitted.”The use of scattered shows that wealth should be for

everyone, and that it should not be hesitated on whether or not someone deserves wealth

Permanently is a very strong word, that shows how Huey viewed the distribution of wealth

DICTION

He places phrases and words in a way that it best shows his perspective the clearest

“Now, what did they mean by that? 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?” It shows how he was very unhappy with how the

whole nation was dysfunctional

SYNTAX

Thesis statement: His thesis statement outlined the entire focus of his whole speech

“It is not the diffi culty 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, or rather the one little problem that is affl icting this country, because in order to cure all of our woes it is necessary to scale down the big fortunes, that we may scatter the wealth to be shared by all of the people.”

Allusion: He uses god to show a sense of order “anything that has been disclosed to man through his own individual mind or through the wisdom of the Lord which the Lord has allowed him to have.”

OTHER RHETORICAL STRATEGIES

Imagery: This emphasizes how bad things are in our nation

“..when we have today in America thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of children on the verge of starvation in a land that is overflowing with too much to eat and too much to wear?”

Metaphor: He uses this metaphor to express the distribution of wealth

“Now, my friends, if you were off on an island where there were 100 lunches, you could not let one man eat up the hundred lunches, or take the hundred lunches and not let anybody else eat any of them. If you did, there would not be anything else for the balance of the people to consume.”

WORK CITED

• https://www.google.com/search?q=huey+p+long&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=Jj0vU-OWHOy40QHeooG4DA&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=643&safe=active&ssui=on#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=TBQxIfNRI0usLM%253A%3BQXdxqOgmMcjoMM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.geauxto.com%252Flouisiana%252F0eb387e0.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.geauxto.com%252Flouisiana%252Fid16.htm%3B312%3B382

• https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/content/long-everymanking-speech.html

• http://www.hueylong.com/programs/share-our-wealth-speech.php• http://www.geauxto.com/louisiana/id16.htm• http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/hueyplongking.htm