The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-10-31
THE LATE HENRY GEORGE
HOW HE VIEWED HIS CANDIDACY
FOR MAYOR OF NEw~YoRK CITY.
Incidents of His Early Manhood and
How He Achieved Fame-His EnOr-
NOUS Capacity for Work.

In the Review of Reviews for November
appears a character sketch of Henry
George, written during the progress of the
New York mayoralty campaign and partly
based thereon 1t was prepared by Arthur
McEwen, and the Journal prints the APP
pended extracts from advance sheets:
Driving down Madison avenue the other
evening with Henry George our cab passed
a crowd listening to a speech from an
earnest young man whose rosrum was a
dray. He was one of the missionaries OF the
Manhattan Single-tax Club, which for sew
eral years has been holding meetings Of this
kind regularly throughout New York. The
mayoralty canvass is to this club put an
emphasized movement of its sustained prop
uganda. There is hardly city in the United
States where like meetings, on the streets
or in halls, do not make part OF the think
ing life of the community. I looked at the
frail little figure in the shadow of the cab
seat before me-a small, elderly man, be-
ginning TO bend under the piled years, rest
very tired. TO the glance of the moment
there seemed no more force in him than in
weary child. One looking on him so had
TO know the fact in order to believe 1t pos
sble that this man had stirred the world
and profoundly affected it's thought and
bent. 1t is not overcounting TO say that
millions are convinced that he has revolu-
tionized political economy by disproving the
received theory of wages, Kidding the doc
trines of Nautilus and tracing the cause or
the unequal distribution of wealth to the
ownership by some of the resources of ma
ture which should belong to all-that he
had transformed a dismal science, ap-
proved by the fortunate and selfish as ex-
| planning and justifying their monopoly of
| the good things of life into joyful science
! that arms the poor with reason and logic in
demanding that the fruits Of their labor
| shall remain with them and not go unearned
| to others.
In the millions to whom Progress and
| Poverty is the Koran and Henry. George
| the prophet embraced more than the
| poor, who may naturally be expected to
listen. gladly to gospel so millenniai in It's
George was to his headquarters from the
| Waldorf, where he had made a call upon
one of the most Intelligent, ardent and help
| full of his discipleS-a millionaire The goS-
| pei Of the single tax has its converts IN
! every walk of life, wherever there are men
| of that temperament which recognizes the
| obligation of keepership to the weaker
| brother
Doesn't it thrill you Mt times" asked,
nodding at the crowd ard the orator, when
! you think of all the fires you have kindled
! round the globe?"
Yes" he said, sitting up: This candi-
| dacy of mine for mayor of Greater New
York is a message to the men everywhere
| who think with me, which tells them that
| our cause is not receding but advancing,
| and that we may hope to see at least the be-
| ginning of the better time before we die.
He had mistaken my meaning, what l
thought of was pride in personal achieve,
| ment; what he thought of was the cause.
A SUPREME MOMENT.
His eldest son has told me of a supreme
| moment in his fathers life when self bazed
| up exultant and triumphant. 1t was in Lon
| don one morning in 1888. The night before
he had addressed a great meeting in st.
Jamess Hall. Henry Labouchere presided,
and the audience was an uncommon one.
many of his hearers being of the social as
we'll as of the intellectual arstocracy and
the politically eminent
Four years before he had been earning his
bread as an inspector of gas meters in San
Francisco and putting his thought into
progress and Poverty A year before he
had been drudging as the editor of a news
paper. Yet earlier, he had followed his trade
as journeyman printer. Earlier still, he
had reached California as a sailor before
the mast, lived precariously on odd Jobs.
canvassed for subscribers for a newspaper,
pedded interchangeable anything TO
support the wife he had married on nothing
at twenty-one and the family that soon
came 70 them. He had helped as printer
TO set the type of his book, cast it in cleo
trotyped plates and in 1879 found pub
Usher in Appleton. In 1880 he came to New
York on an emigrant ticket, bought with
borrowed money, and suffered extreme nov
erty rather than return to anonymous jour-
nalisrn and forsake his determination to
stand by his convictions and share the rate,
| i'll or good, of his own written thoughts.
His book made its way, attract tract m more re
England, where skip amy edition having
led to a large sale the London Times said
| it could no longer be ignored, and gave 1t a
| full-page review. Within a few hours not q
copy OF Progress and Poverty was unsold
by the booksellers OF London. New editions
| succeeded as fast as presses could print
| them.
| When George visited England in 1888 he
vas far from being an obscure person, but
| the degree and kind of interest felt in him
was not NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. the edu-
Gated il the mass viewed him WITH d f iepec
| lance, or with curiosity as a mere visionary
having an unusual gift of eloquence. or
, with fear as a disturbing mailman THOSE
who deemed him grander Adam Smith,
those who abhor d him as a more modern
Murat, and thos who felt they must be
where fashion led alike thronged st.
Jamess Hall. He was for the hour Lon
don's lion-that much was sure.
His son tells me that his father, not see
ing the boy came alone into the room next
morning and turned over the newspapers on
the table. The Times. and all the rest; gave
extended reports of the meeting and the ad-
AT last said Henry George speaking
aloud and to himself, "at last / am fam
oo "And," says his son. che went away into
the next room, never noticing me, his face
lighted up. ~
HIS y PACITY FOR WORK.
'sIt amazes me-" said his wife lately
fresh from reading the proofs of stin an
other edition of Progress and Poverty,
chow the man ever found the slime to do
the reading and the thinking bound in that
book. I'm not speaking of the intellectual
ability needed to do it at all, but just the
work it stands for. He was a busy man,
buster than anybody 1 knew in toiling for
us, yet he read endlessly, and must have
thought about these things with one part
of his head while he used another part ev-
cry day to make a living
How thoroughly he read as well as wide
ly-for history, and philosophy, and the
poets, and general literature claimed him
concurrently with Smith, and Ricardo, and
the French encyclopedists-and now thor
ough he felt his thought was before he put
pen to paper mis- book, l learned when
Progress and Poverty had been before
the world for some time. Herbert Spencer,
ard Huxley and the Duke of Argyll, and
many Others had disSented from its teach
ings and given their reasons. Mr.. George
has a mind above the small pride of con-
sstency, an open mind, that is large enough
to be willing to receive the truth from any
quarter, whether the reception be agreeable
to his preconceptions or not He is scarce
ly less a contender for opinion because
it is his than was Darwin whose graft
tude was greater to one that pointed out
an error than TO one who accepted him as
a master.
What" / asked has all this criticism
done for you? Has 1t made you doubtful on
any important point?'
NO he said. las yet I have seen no
criticism that is not answered by the book
Wi+hin tho ,,ast roon,A no renoarlxed +bs+