Why Did Huey Long End The Great Depression

At the end of the 1920’s America was in a state of despair. The stock market crashed, thousands lost their jobs, and were struggling to provide for their families. In an effort to restore the economy legislation such as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, proposed reforms in the banking system, monetary system and fiscal policies along with regulation security. Despite the numerous legislation that was passed to help the end the Great Depression, it only helped lessen the effects, not completely end it. There were two leaders that stood out during the Great Depression and felt that President Roosevelt wasn’t doing enough to end the depression. There was Huey Long, a U.S. senator and governor from Louisiana and Charles E. Coughlin, who was a

At first, his use of the radio was based around delivering religious sermons to gain support for the church and trying to rid the community of anti-Catholics. Gradually he began to introduce his political concerns into his radio broadcasts, gaining attention from Americans regardless of their religion who were in desperate need of a solution to the Great Depression. His radio broadcasts that were once religious sermons, quickly turned into attacks against communists, the distribution of wealth, and prohibition. One of his proposed solutions called for change in American society in order to get out of the Depression, but he never presented details to it. He voiced opinions from the general population blaming the Depression on the wealthy and corrupt businessmen. Within a matter of time his broadcasts started many controversies and many stations did not allow him to air his broadcasts. Eventually he created his own radio network to continue his broadcasts. Coughlin and his supporters organized the National Union for Social Injustice whose goal was to promote social justice and the ideologies of the populists. Coughlin used the support from this group to attack the reforms that the New Deal proposed such as the regulation of the banks and powers of the government. He also supported for control of the economic system by the federal government. Coughlin was a supporter of Roosevelt during his 1932

Long predicted that there would be there would be an abuse of power and corruption in the government. Brinkley also states that “Decades later, even in campaigns that involved no candidate intimately identified with the Longs, questions of wealth, of privilege, and of social reform repeatedly surface.” (Brinkley 265) Brinkley’s statement is accurate since we still face problems with our economy and corrupt politicians still exist. There are still reforms that are trying to tax the wealthiest in our nation and help out the lower classes. On Father Coughlin’s side Brinkley seems to believe that Coughlin’s sermons and radio broadcasts, seemed turned into tirades of political and social reform, to get attention for himself, instead of the American people. According to Brinkley, Coughlin started to lose his popularity when the sermons he made began to focus around conservatism. In addition to this he started controversies among different groups of people such as the Jewish and Catholics. It obvious that his messages must have been getting out of hand if radio stations refused to air his