◆The Barbaric Yawp Project

Every Man a King I came from Winn Parish, Louisiana. You do not know Winn Parish. The timber companies took the timber and left stumps. The cotton market crashed and the farmers lost their land. Standard Oil found oil under Louisiana, piped the profits to New York, and left the people with the worst roads in America, the worst schools, the highest illiteracy rate. That is where I came from. And I decided to do something about it. Not study it. Not form a commission. Not give a speech and go home. Do something about it. I became governor of Louisiana in 1928. Before I was governor, Louisiana had 331 miles of paved roads. I built 9,000 miles. Before I was governor, poor children had no textbooks. I made them free. For every child. I built the finest charity hospital in the South. I abolished the poll tax so poor men could vote. I taxed Standard Oil. I want you to hear that. I taxed Standard Oil. The company that had been draining Louisiana for thirty years — I made them pay. The newspapers called me a communist. The oil men called me every name they could think of. I built the roads anyway. Now I am watching a man use my language. The language I developed standing on courthouse steps telling people the money was being stolen — that the banks and the corporations had arranged the country for their own benefit and the common man was paying for it. He is using that language. And then cutting taxes for the wealthy. Gutting the agencies that protect the water and the food. Putting the bank in charge of the treasury. The Share Our Wealth program I was building toward in 1935 — the program they killed me before I could finish — would have capped personal fortunes at a few million dollars, guaranteed every family a minimum income, provided free education through college. That is a program. What I am watching is not a program. What I am watching is a performance. The anger is real. I know that anger. I built a career on that anger. That anger is the most justified thing in American politics. But the anger is being used to deliver the opposite of what the angry people need. They are angry at the bank. He gave the bank more power. They are angry at the corporations. He cut their taxes. They are angry at the rigged game. He rigged it further — toward the people who already had everything. I know what it takes to fight Standard Oil. I know because I fought Standard Oil. You cannot fight Standard Oil with a speech. You cannot fight Standard Oil by making its owners richer. You fight Standard Oil by taxing Standard Oil. By passing laws it cannot buy. By building roads and schools and hospitals with the money it has been stealing from your state. That is the fight. Not the performance of the fight. The actual fight. I was not a gentle man. I controlled the legislature. I removed judges who ruled against me. I used the powers of my office in ways that made the good government people very unhappy. I know what I was. But the roads were real. The schools were real. The hospital was real. The children who learned to read were real. You can judge my methods. But do not tell me the program was wrong. The program worked. The poor people of Louisiana were better off because I was governor. That is the test. Not whether the speeches were fine. Not whether the methods were clean. Were the people better off. I ask that question now. Are the people better off? Not the shareholders. Not the real estate developers. The people. The ones in the towns that stopped. The ones waiting for the program promised in the language I invented. Are they better off? If the answer is no — then what you have is not populism. What you have is the speech without the roads. The anger without the hospital. The kingdom — without the king. Every man a king, I said. I meant it. Prove that you mean it. Build the roads.