''My First Days in the White House'' is a book written by

Huey Long Huey Pierce Long Jr. (August 30, 1893September 10, 1935), nicknamed "the Kingfish", was an American politician who served as the 40th governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a United States senator from 1932 until his assassination ...

. Called his "second autobiography" and published posthumously in 1935, it emphatically laid out his presidential ambitions for the election of 1936.

Summary

Approaching the 1936 presidential elections,

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

Senator Huey Long details a political fantasy in which he is president of the United States. Through imaginary conversations Long outlines his policies, including the "

Share Our Wealth Share Our Wealth was a movement that began in February 1934, during the Great Depression, by Huey Long, a governor and later United States Senator from Louisiana. Long first proposed the plan in a national radio address, which is now referred t ...

" plan, a

balanced budget A balanced budget (particularly that of a government) is a budget in which revenues are equal to expenditures. Thus, neither a budget deficit nor a budget surplus exists (the accounts "balance"). More generally, it is a budget that has no budge ...

, an income cap of 500,000 dollars per year, and a program to eliminate

dust storm A dust storm, also called a sandstorm, is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. Dust storms arise when a gust front or other strong wind blows loose sand and dirt from a dry surface. Fine particles are transporte ...

s. He also proposes to "reorganize and modernize" the American

air forces An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an ar ...

, presumably as either a more autonomous component of the

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

, or a separate branch altogether (later carried out in the

National Security Act of 1947 The National Security Act of 1947 ( Pub.L.br>80-253 61 Stat.br>495 enacted July 26, 1947) was a law enacting major restructuring of the United States government's military and intelligence agencies following World War II. The majority of the pro ...

). Long fantasizes about his inauguration as President of the United States, detailing that he would be sworn in on the Bible his father had read to him and his brothers and sisters. He also detailed his nomination picks for his cabinet, listed below. Long does not name a

Secretary of Agriculture The United States secretary of agriculture is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The position carries similar responsibilities to those of agriculture ministers in other governments. The department includes several organi ...

Postmaster General A Postmaster General, in Anglosphere countries, is the chief executive officer of the postal service of that country, a ministerial office responsible for overseeing all other postmasters. The practice of having a government official respons ...

, instead saying that those offices should be filled "from the recommendations of the farm organizations" and " according to their merit and record of service" respectively, with Long appointing two unnamed individuals. The book also suggests that the Director of the Budget should be elevated to a cabinet position, with

Al Smith Alfred Emanuel Smith (December 30, 1873 – October 4, 1944) was an American politician who served four terms as Governor of New York and was the Democratic Party's candidate for president in 1928. The son of an Irish-American mother and a C ...

of New York filling the role. The book does not name Long's

vice president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...

References

External links

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in

HathiTrust HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally ...

digital library 1935 non-fiction books American political books American memoirs Books published posthumously Works by Huey Long {{US-poli-bio-book-stub