Every Man a King: Religion Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Line)

Quote #1

Why should we hesitate or why should we quibble or why should we quarrel with one another to find out what the difficulty is, when we know that the Lord told us what the difficulty is, and Moses wrote it out so a blind man could see it, then Jesus told us all about it, and it was later written in the Book of James, where everyone could read it? (17)

This boils down to "all the answers can be found in the Bible." Long presents this as the most obvious thing in the world.

Quote #2

I refer to the Scriptures, now, my friends, and give you what it says not for the purpose of convincing you of the wisdom of myself, not for the purpose, ladies and gentlemen, of convincing you of the fact that I am quoting the Scriptures means that I am to be more believed than someone else; but I quote you the Scripture, or rather refer you to the Scripture, because whatever you see there you may rely upon will never be disproved so long as you or your children or anyone may live; and you may further depend upon the fact that not one historical fact that the Bible has ever contained has ever yet been disproved by any scientific discovery or by reason of anything that has been disclosed to man through his own individual mind or through the wisdom of the Lord which the Lord has allowed him to have. (18)

Yep, that's just one sentence. But it's a doozy, and an important one. If Long's going to use the Bible to prove his argument, you know he's going to make sure that nobody can question its infallibility. And, by extension, Huey Long's.

Quote #3

But the Lord gave His law, and in the Book of James they said so, that the rich should weep and howl for the miseries that had come upon them; and, therefore, it was written that when the rich hold goods they could not use and could not consume, you will inflict punishment on them, and nothing but days of woe ahead of them. (54)

Look out, Jeff Bezos. Being rich—it's like the eighth deadly sin, according to Huey Long. Long knew that his audiences knew the Bible. He wasn't telling them anything they hadn't read before, but he was a master at applying it to their own financial realities. In 1934, it wasn't very hard to get poor people riled up about the greedy rich who were controlling all the resources. Long's proposed punishment would be a punishing tax rate on the millionaires.