Rhetorical Analysis Of Huey P. Long's Speech

Huey P. Long, the writer and speaker of the “Every Man a King” speech, was the governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and a United States Senator from 1932 until 1935 when he was unfortunately assassinated a month after announcing his run for the United States 1936 Presidential Election. When Huey Long made his Every Man a King speech on NBC radio waves in 1934 the United States was enduring the biggest financial crisis in its history after the Wall Street crash in 1929 which caused the Great Depression of the 1930s. Unemployment was hovering around twenty percent and as Long points out the income gap between most Americans and the rich of the country was extremely high. With his speech, Long tries to point out this income gap to the American …show more content…
During the Great Depression unemployment was around twenty percent and people are frustrated, tired and looking for strong statements that lead to answers, not so long winded logical reasoning behind a problem. Long appeals to these emotions and channels them into his speech to really get on the side of his audience. People in America have seen and lived the daily struggles of the Great Depression and Long is not afraid to speak about them and address it. What Long seems to go back to in his speech is his message that there are children out there starving to death while there are some people out there, mainly the wealthy elite, that have so much that they can not only eat more than they can ever consume but so could their family for generations to come. Long echoes the frustration of the lower class and really gets them on his side by stating “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.” After getting the lower class on his side Long then points blame at the rich and points them out as their enemy by stating “greed of a few men is such that they think it is necessary that they own everything, and their pleasure consists in the starvation of the masses…….casting darkness and despair and impressing it on everyone else.” While stating that he on the side of the general public and then developing a target for people to blame for everything Long will and has effectively established a trust and build to his audience. This speech tells the people what the problem is, how it is effecting them and ruining their lives, and then tells those people who is entirely to blame for their awful situation.