Dear Editor,
When I listen to Bernie Sanders, a democratic candidate for President, I can’t help but reflect back to the rhetoric of Huey Long and his 1934 “Share the Wealth” presidential platform. Long advocated a cap on wealth, free education, pensions for elderly, a shortened work week and a debt moratorium. According to the Huey Long Official Website, “The nation’s economic collapse was the result of the vast disparity between the super-rich and everyone else.” While Long sounded more like Bernie Sanders, his personality was more like that of Donald Trump with the flamboyant demagoguery and exaggerated hand movements.
This Presidential race has many months left, but the election is at a critical turning point of history for democracy as envisioned by the founders of our great country.
In a speech made in 1863, Abraham Lincoln, said “ We have been the recipients’ of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”
A state-wide prayer rally was recently hosted in Baton Rouge by Franklin Graham, Son of noted Evangelist Billy Graham. He stated that he had examined all the Democratic candidates for president and did not think that any of the Democrats had the ability to correct the course of our country. He further stated, “Before you Republicans start “high-fiving” each other, let me tell you I have examined the Republican Presidential Candidates, and none of them are capable of putting this country back on course.” According to Franklin Graham the only way for this country to turn to its rightful direction is found in the Bible; specifically, II Chronicles 7:14 “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and will heal their land.” It’s not too late to pray and vote!
A. J. Burns
West Monroe, LA
