Brittany Walker
10/13/2015
Hist 302 W
Voices of Protest Review
In his book Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression Alan Brinkley covers the lives and works of two of the major public figures who supported the popular peoples protest against the New Deal. Brinkley begins his book by presenting a biographical history of both Huey Long and Father Coughlin. Although Father Coughlin and Huey Long were both political figures supporting popular dissent to the New Deal, they were very different men. Brinkley tells us that Long grew up in a poorer neighborhood in Louisiana and this helped shape his views and his sympathy for the plight of the lower classes and those struggling hardest during the depression. Father Coughlin on the other hand was a Priest from Canada who moved to the United States during the onset of the Great Depression in an effort to help those who were suffering. …show more content…
They both felt that the depression was “deeply rooted in the economic system” and that the wealthy “had caused the problem in the first place” (97). Long proposed his “Share Our Wealth Plan” which would redistribute the concentration of wealth in the country in an effort to fix the economic hard times. Brinkley points out however that Long’s plan was flawed and had numerous problems, particularly with the fact that the wealth of the nation was not liquidized and east to distribute and he did not feel as if there would be enough wealth in the nation in order to fix the depression as Long suggested
10/13/2015
Hist 302 W
Voices of Protest Review
In his book Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression Alan Brinkley covers the lives and works of two of the major public figures who supported the popular peoples protest against the New Deal. Brinkley begins his book by presenting a biographical history of both Huey Long and Father Coughlin. Although Father Coughlin and Huey Long were both political figures supporting popular dissent to the New Deal, they were very different men. Brinkley tells us that Long grew up in a poorer neighborhood in Louisiana and this helped shape his views and his sympathy for the plight of the lower classes and those struggling hardest during the depression. Father Coughlin on the other hand was a Priest from Canada who moved to the United States during the onset of the Great Depression in an effort to help those who were suffering. …show more content…
They both felt that the depression was “deeply rooted in the economic system” and that the wealthy “had caused the problem in the first place” (97). Long proposed his “Share Our Wealth Plan” which would redistribute the concentration of wealth in the country in an effort to fix the economic hard times. Brinkley points out however that Long’s plan was flawed and had numerous problems, particularly with the fact that the wealth of the nation was not liquidized and east to distribute and he did not feel as if there would be enough wealth in the nation in order to fix the depression as Long suggested