Henry George the Evangelist

Ivy Akeroyd

[Excerpts from an address delivered in Sydney, Australia, first reprinted in the Sydney Standard, later reprinted in Land and Freedom, January-February 1927]

Again, when teachers of political economy maintain that there is not enough food in the world to support the increasing population, that nature is niggardly and many must starve, that war and pestilence are necessary evils, because they exterminate thousands and leave more for those who survive, is it any wonder that Christ is resolved into a myth?

So in this unjust state of society, masses of people are not only deprived of the just reward of their labor, but are deprived also of their faith and hope deprived of their ideals.

Surely, this is a very terrible state masses of people, embittered by want, without faith and without hope. It is the cause of revolution and anarchy; it has overthrown mighty civilizations.

IT IS JUSTICE THAT DEMANDS OF US

It is in dealing with this question that Henry George stands pre-eminent as evangelist as well as political economist.

He says:

"It is Justice that demands of us to right this wrong; Justice that will not be denied; that cannot be put off Justice that with the scales carries the sword. Shall we avert the decrees of immutable law by raising churches when hungry children moan?

"Though it may take the language of prayer, it is blasphemy that attributes to the inscrutable decrees of Providence the suffering and brutishness that come of poverty; that turns with folded arms to the All-Father and lays on him the responsibility for the want and crime of our great cities. We degrade the Everlasting; we slander the Just One.

"In the very centres of our civilization today are want and suffering enough to make sick at heart whoever does not close his eyes and steel his nerves. Dare we turn to the Creator and ask Him to relieve it? Supposing the prayer were heard, and at the behest with which the universe sprang into being there should glow in the sun a greater power; new virtue fill the air; fresh vigor the soil; that for every blade of grass that now grows, two should spring up, and the seed that now increases fifty fold should increase a hundred fold! Would poverty be abated or want relieved? Manifestly no! Whatever benefit would accrue would be but temporary. The new powers streaming through the material universe could only be utilized through land. And land, being private property, the classes that now monopolize the bounty of the Creator would monopolize all the new bounty. Land owners would alone be benefited. Rents would increase, but wages would still tend to the starvation point!"

"Think of the powers now wasted; of the infinite fields of knowledge yet to be explored; of the possibilities of which the wondrous inventions of this century give us but a hint. With want destroyed; with greed changed to noble passions; with the fraternity that is born of equality taking the place of the jealousy and fear that now array men against each other; with mental power loosed by conditions that give to the humblest comfort and leisure; and who shall measure the heights to which our civilization may soar? Words fail the thought! It is the Golden Age! It is the glorious vision which has always haunted man with gleams of fitful splendor! It is the culmination of Christianity! It is the reign of the Prince of Peace!"

These are abridged extracts from that wonderful book, "Progress and Poverty;" a book that shows the anarchist a saner way, that teaches the materialist that the old faith is true; a book that reveals Christianity in its original truth, strength, and simplicity; a book that enlists many in the cause of humanity, that makes them realize that there is a "wrong that needs resistance," a "cause that lacks assistance," and a "future in the distance." A healthy and happy future, but so far in the distance that many who work for it may never reap any material benefit from it. Their great reward is the exultation they feel in knowing that their just cause will ultimately triumph.

A PATHWAY THROUGH THE WILDERNESS

They have an ideal and in this they are fortunate, whatever their position in life may be, for those without an ideal, even though surrounded by every luxury, are poor.

This wonderful book, Progress and Poverty, is a pathway through the wilderness of political economy, and it Is not a barren and uninteresting pathway, for the writer has called to his assistance a company of poets and has made the wayside colorful with the flowers of song.

One feels reverence for this man who, while wearing the fetters of poverty, paved the way to freedom, who, though dwelling amid the commonplace environs of the poor, visualized the City of God on earth!

A man of great sympathy and greater intelligence, a man who yet speaks, reviving dead faith, restoring lost hope, and leading toward the immeasurable heights foreseen by prophets and foresung by poets Henry George, mightiest evangelist of our day!