In 1934 Huey Long created "Share Our Wealth," a national challenger that sought economic redistribution. Our study explores the outcomes of this insurgency and the reasons for its successes and failures. We first review perspectives on success for social protest movements and provide a new definition of success, based on securing collective goods for a beneficiary group through movement organization efforts. Next we elaborate a "political mediation" theory of movement success. This theory holds that to be successful a movement organization must do more than just mobilize supporters and engage in collective action-political conditions must also be favorable to winning new advantages. We then examine historical information about national policymaking in Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and quantitative data on spending by the Works Progress Administration. To assess the influence of Share Our Wealth, we analyze a secret poll undertaken by the Roosevelt Administration. The historical and quantitative analyses indicate that Share Our Wealth achieved partial success in ways that support the political mediation theory. 1935, the New Deal of President In April 1935, the Democratic National Com-I n Franklin D. Roosevelt was at a crossroads. mittee conducted a secret poll, and, to the The programs of his "first 100 days" in 1933 Committee's chairman, James Farley (1938), had failed to end the Great Depression, and the results suggested that Long might hold criticism was mounting. From the left, Sena-the balance of power in the 1936 Presidential tor Huey P. Long of Louisiana promoted a contest. The summer of 1935 saw the beginplan to "Share Our Wealth"; by February he ning of Roosevelt's "second hundred days." claimed that 7.7 million had joined more than In June, Roosevelt demanded the passage of 27,000 Share Our Wealth societies or clubs. four liberal bills and added a "soak;the-rich" tax proposal to his "must" list of indispens-* Direct all correspondence to Edwin Amenta, able legislation. Could Long have upset
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