Review of the Book:

Farewell to Reform
by John Chamberlain

Benjamin W. Burger

[Reprinted from Land and Freedom, March-April, 1933]

A young man of 28, after wading through a few hundred books, most of which have been published since 1900, reaches the conclusion that our twentieth century reforms made little or no impression on civilization. Although our author has been most diligent in setting forth the activities of the past thirty years, his book is as noticeable for what it omits, as for what it contains.

If Robert Ingersoll was referred to, why was Dr. Felix Adler, the vastly more important head of the Ethical Movement, omitted? Certainly the latter's constructive work in the same field will live long after the former's destructive work is forgotten. Likewise, why was there no mention of the Christian Science Movement which, no matter how one may feel about it, has had a profound influence on large numbers of our fellow citizens.

The active Progressive Education Movement which, under the notable leadership of Dr. John Dewey, Dr. William H. Kilpatrick and numerous others, will slowly but surely revolutionize our educational system, is mentioned only "en passant."

The great improvement in modern journalism typified by such newspapers as The New York Times, Boston Transcript and Christian Science Monitor, is ignored.

But most glaring of all omissions is the failure to refer to the great Health Movement which, during the present generation, has spread like wild fire through the United States.

Our author, it is true, refers to Upton Sinclair's "Jungle" which hastened the Pure Food and Drug Act of June 30, 1906. But, nowhere is there any reference to Dr. John H. Tilden of Denver, Col., who is recognized by the cognoscenti as in the very front rank of Health Reform. The amazing extent of this reform would strike our author if he would compare an 1883 Bill of Fare with one of 1933, or contrast the universal use of medicine in the former age with the natural methods of cure in use today.

Throughout the book, the author betrays his ignorance of fundamental economics. On the very first page, for example, in discussing the farmer he repeats the Socialist jargon of producing "for use, not for profit." Evidently our author feels that Capital is not entitled to wages for its hire.

Jumping now to Chapter X, this reviewer offers a prize of a wooden nickel to anyone who will explain the meaning of sentences such as these picked at random on pages 318, 319 and 320 respectively.

"The Chase-Soule group gets around the immediate necessity of considering politics by positing the 'organizing man.' This man, they say, following the lead thrown out by Veblen, may save society because the industrial set-up demands that he be given a free rein lest we all perish. But what is the 'organizing man' but our old friend, man, the 'political animal?'"

"Prosperity, it must not be forgotten, is a function of a rising market."

"A Board with the power to control investment could, by easy alliance through politics with the top economic planning board, also control obsolescence."

The references to the Single Tax will prove of interest to readers of LAND AND FREEDOM.

On Page 48 our author writes:

"However intelligent and desirable it may be, the Single Tax offers little for marching men in the modern world to take hold of."

"Henry George appealed to these men because the State, in 'Progress and Poverty', was reduced to a gang of tax collectors who were, periodically, to raid the landlords." (Page 57).

"The Single Tax is deceptively simple, deceptively perfect. On paper it hasn't a flaw; all its implications flow directly from George's own splendid definitions. But its definitions are just definitions; one is not compelled to use George's geometry, for there are other axioms in an Einsteinian world. George, for example, failed to explore the whole question of the ownership of surplus value and whether or not creative brains are as much a 'natural' resource as a gold mine or a prairie." (Page 66).