The death of Henry George: scholar or statesman? - Special Issue: Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Death of Henry George

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, Oct, 1997 by Jack Schwartzman

I

Introduction

In 1897, the economist Henry George was obsessed with two desires: 1) He wished to finish what he thought would be his masterpiece, The Science of Political Economy; and 2) he wished to run (for the second time) for the office of Mayor of the City of New York. Even though he was in poor health, he ardently believed he would live to see his wishes realized. Unfortunately, he failed. He achieved neither goal. The following is the tragic story of George's last year on earth.

II.

The Year 1897

"The year 1897," wrote one of George's biographers, "opened sadly for George. He had a temporary breakdown in health, and this was followed by a stunning domestic calamity. His older daughter, Jennie, now married, died with startling suddenness while on a visit to her parents. Sickness, bereavement, and the dreariness of the political outlook gave George's thoughts a melancholy tinge. He began to be oppressed by a sense of failure."(1)

"Even though he was only fifty-eight, George was beginning to feel old. "While organically sound," observed his son, "the iron constitution with which he had started out was perceptibly weakening under the incessant toil since boyhood and the extraordinary strain of the last sixteen years in putting the breath of life into a world-wide movement and inspiring it with his own passionate enthusiasm. He became conscious as he travelled about . . . that he had lost his old physical elasticity, and he found it required an effort to get back to the newspaper habits of his younger days . . . . It seemed to him . . . that the century was closing in darkness, that the principle of democracy, which triumphed in 1800 with the ascendancy of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency of the United States, might be conquered by the Hamiltonian principle of aristocracy and plutocracy in 1900."(2)

In 1895, George moved to Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, to a house which was the property of his close friend, the noted industrialist/politician, Tom Johnson. It was a refreshing change from the gloomy squalor of East 19th Street in Manhattan. "The tonic of a change was very necessary to George at this time. He had much to discourage him. Public interest in himself and his theories had faded, and a blight seems to have descended on the single tax movement [which] had lost its power to capture popular support . . . . The single tax forces were scattered and dispirited."(3)

Thoughts of death were often in George's mind. His second son, Richard, who was a sculptor, was at work on a bust of his father one day, and the other son, George, Jr., was also present. Their father suddenly said: "When I am dead, you boys will have this bust to carry in my funeral procession, as was the custom with the Romans."(4)

However, George never lost his basic optimism. "The great, the very great advancement of our ideas," he declared "may not show now, but it will. And it will show more after my death than during my life. Men who now hold back will then acknowledge that I have been speaking the truth."(5)

III

The Science of Political Economy

George was determined to complete his book on political economy - his crowning achievement. "But while with an iron will he held himself to his work, he had not the old snap and vigor; and in March [1897] came what seemed like a severe bilious attack . . . Dr. Kelly gave warning that work must stop for awhile . . . . Mr. George would not listen . . . 'I must finish the book before anything else,' was the reply to all suggestions of cessation."(6) At the same time, privately, he was beginning to have doubts. "Once or twice when conscious of physical weakness he had expressed to Mrs. George a doubt of being able to hold out to complete the work."(7)

In addition to his physical fatigue, the criticism of those who were closest to him (and with whom he shared the chapters of his book) was beginning to disturb him a great deal. "Early in 1897, when George was estimating that he would probably need somewhat more than a year to finish, his intimates made comments which indicate them to have been baffled. Dr. [Edward] Taylor praised 'great thought' and elevation of tone, but said also that much of the manuscript seemed irrelevant . . . . But [Louis F.] Post wrote in brutal candor. The sentences were too long - one contained 275 words - and the whole treatment lacked sharpness. George must not let himself think that the work was anywhere done . . . . To the harsher criticisms, George's simple answer was that he would stick to his guns. 'I pit my own judgment against yours . . . and my own judgement is that this will be equal to Progress and Poverty.'"(8)

A Georgist philosopher analyzed The Science of Political Economy. Originally, it was supposed to be a primer of political economy, but "broadened under his hand, . . . it assumed the scope of a complete treatise on economics, a treatise that was to relate the science to all human activity. It was a more ambitious undertaking than anything he had hitherto written, . . . for George was to attempt not only to weld all the material that could be grouped under the shadowy classification of political economy into a unified and comprehensive system of thought, but, of more significance, also to form this refashioned science into a foundation for still another synthetic scheme of a universal philosophy."(9)