Huey, speaking of the New Deal in the Senate proclaimed, “Every fault of socialism is found in this bill, without one of its virtues!”
Huey always felt that the unfair distribution of wealth was the underlying cause of all problems – that 2% of the population owned 60% of the wealth. Consequently, when he arrived in the Senate he immediately proposed a new program for wealth distribution which he called “Share Our Wealth”. This plan imposed heavy taxes on the wealthy and prevented any family from owning a larger fortune than $5 million and an annual income of $1 million. Huey thought that every man ought to be a “king” with a debt-free “homestead” of $5,000 and an annual income of $2-3,000 as well as an old-age pension. Although there was much good intended by this plan, it was not realistic because much of the wealth was not in cash but in investments. As one man charged of this program “it is the sort of talk that Hitler fed the Germans and in my opinion it is positively dangerous because it fools the people.”
Many people, however, did believe that Huey’s plan could work and that unequal distribution of wealth was the cause of the depression. My husband employed Gerald Smith to travel throughout the South and actually start “Share Our Wealth” clubs. This campaign was a success and by 1935 there were 27,000 clubs, with a membership of 4,684,000, and a mailing list of 7,500,000! Huey’s writing could be as convincing and inspiring as his speaking and he made a huge impact on the nation through these mailings.
In 1932 during his term as senator, an event occurred that brought more public recognition and attention to my husband. Hattie Caraway of Arkansas was the wife of a US Senator. When he passed away in 1931, she completed his term which lasted until 1932. Surprising the nation, Miss Hattie announced that she would run for another term in the democratic primary although she had no money and no organization. No woman had ever run for a full term before, and there were already six men in the race – it was expected that Miss Hattie would come in at the bottom. 
That, however, was before she approached Huey and asked for his help with campaigning. Kingfish agreed, and when he was through, Hattie not only won the seat, but beat her closest competitor by a ratio of 2-1. An analysis of the vote showed that in the districts where Huey spoke, Miss Hattie won by a landslide, whereas in the districts where Huey did not speak, she was practically ignored.
Herman Deutsch in an article for the Sunday Evening Post (October 1932) wrote about Huey’s campaign for Hattie,
“Huey Long would have these same farmers convinced that they were starving and would have to boil their old boots and discarded tires to have something to feed the babies till the Red Cross brought around a sack of meal and a bushel of sweet potatoes to tide them over; that Wall Street's control of the leaders - not the rank and file - of both Democratic and Republican parties was directly responsible for this awful condition; that the only road to salvation lay in the reelection of Hattie W. Caraway to the Senate.”
Also during his Senate term, Huey published his autobiography Every Man a King and a paper American Progress, which was financed by political contributions from his Louisiana political machine.
It was around 1935, I believe, that Huey, after meeting with many leaders of the time – Charles Coughlin and Francis Townsend among others - first began talking about running in the ‘36 presidential election against Roosevelt. Many did not take my husband seriously, but those who knew his skill with words and his influence, knew he was no one to be trifled with. As one observer noted, “hostile communities and individuals move toward him like an avalanche once they see him and hear him speak.” James Farley, campaign leader for President Roosevelt once said, “we kept a careful eye on what Huey and his political allies, both in office and out of office, were attempting to do.” I later found out that they had run a secret poll attempting to figure out how many votes Huey might be able to win if he ran on a third-party ticket. According to this study, Huey would have been able to pull between 3,000,000 and 6,000,000 votes at the minimum, just enough to possibly knock Roosevelt out. This poll shows Huey’s success at making himself a national figure with a strong following in both the North and the South.
Even if this poll wasn’t completely accurate, it did show that Huey had a strong following and with a campaign like he would have run, he may have been able to sway many more, leading FDR to comment “It’s all very well for us to laugh at Huey. But actually we have to remember that he is really one of the two most dangerous men in the country.” (the other man being Douglas MacArther)
The strength of Huey’s campaign will never be known for sure as his death halted all future plans.
