The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-10-30
HENRY GEOaGE.

Henry George; yesterday, in twinkling
he was gone.
The admiration at his coming was as
sudden and as sincere and as startling
MS the distress at his going.
He came bringing tidings of good cheer
to those who labor and are heavy laden;
The went with these tidings yet warm
upon his lips.
The core of his life was a struggle to
find way out for the poor.
| He was more than great; he was sin
cere.
| Fifty-eight years old, with three years
of schooling, he left the teacher, at thlr-
teen years of age, at the head of his
class. His life might well fall apart
into three periods: until, at twenty years
of age, he appeared on the Pacific Coast,
he was an adventurous sailor lad before
the mast; for the next twenty years, he
had only the printers lease" for his
PARTNER as a bread-winner; in 1880, APP
lpeared his Progress and Poverty, and
George appeared, and as we have SAID,
the world beheld him. In 1881, the Lon
don Times declared: 1.-THE back Of the
California economist can no longer be
ignored" Since that year, he had been
a resident of New York city.
For forty years he fought his way
toward hearing for his message; since
then the man of labor has known that
lin Henry George he had an advocate
to whom the world would respectfully
listen.
Wearing this fashion of armor he
came forward in 1856 at the behest of
the common people as a candidate for
the mayoralty of New York. Since then
his life has been taken up with a steady
inquiry along different lines of his chosen
work, together with addresses that won
applause from the masses of Australia
and the United Kingdom.
At no instance of his, the poor men at
the incipiency of the present contest for
the Mayoralty of Greater New York
looked about them again for their leader,
and hearing, he again came forward.
The rest is fresh history.
! We do not think it needful to do more
! than to allude to his well-known writ
ings; the man is what we are concerned
with. While we have advocated Van
Wyck, the nominee of the regular Demo
cratic organization, the words from
Hon. Thos. G. Sherman, of New York, a
few days ago, might as well have been
said by us as by any opponent of Henry
George. Il shall not vote for him"
wrote Mr.. Sherman, "but it would be
! impossible to find a purer man in public
and private life, or one who might more
safely be trusted with respect to his own
actions and the actions of all others, so
far as he could control them, than is
Mr.. George"
In the midst Of it all, there has not
been breath against his clear name.
His so-called theories viciously and
falsely distorted into socialism" by the
monied power, whose only available
hindrance was the cunningly fashioned
web OF "the dreamer" which was wound
about him, seemed practical enough to
the simple ill-fed folk who followed him
as a deliverer on the East Side night
after night and along the skirts Of Har-
lem. But of this men know too well.
1t is as a distinct force among men
that Henry George must be reckoned
with. He came upsetting the universal
ly received classical dieta of Adam
Smith and the economists that followed
him, even as the passion of the human
heart as expressed by Wagner defed the
c,cssical cannons of Mozart and his
school. 1t might be said that through
him labor was first put upon a nationally
basis. His remedy, though not
largely accepted, may never be, and yet
the stimulus OF the inquiry froced men
of thought to take up the problem Of the
poor. If that be the chief meaning OF
his life, it means hearing for labor that
it never had before in the case of The
People versus so-called Republic. One
cannot say less of this heroic man, nor
would he have even been satisfied with
less. Thus, while the man is no longer
here to be leaned upon by millions who
loved him, he has left behind him a
force which he distinctly and dynam-
cally vitalzed.
How the poor lad pressed his way,
and how he was pressed back with the
tannt, ''you dreamerp' With a body
strong, with the stadent habit, he went
forth with a zeal and energy that would
have taxed the frame of VIM. j. Bryan.
The masses crowded upon him, and
would not see in their blind devotion, the
cba1nuvc fl,at atbnrinO