How I Came to Embrace the Principles
Embraced by Henry George

Grady Fowler

[Reprinted from the International Union Newsletter, August, 1969]

About forty years ago, in the little town which now is a shrine to the late Franklin D. Roosevelt called Warm Springs, Georgia, and very soon after the books of Henry George had began to be distributed by a Foundation in New York City, I came across a copy of Progress and Poverty in the local library. I read it at intervals until finished. Lacking maturity, I could not comprehend its message. However, there were certain things that made an indelible impression on me and I never forgot it.

Through the years after reading Progress and Poverty, I continued to be a freelance student of social affairs. I have always yearned, for understanding of what is real and what is error in the realm of mankind. To learn how to tap reality in the midst of confusion is all but an obsession with me even until this day.

In the latter part of October 1968 I cane across a copy of Progress and Poverty in the LaGrange Memorial Library of which I am a Trustee, and suddenly had a burning zeal to read it at my present age 62. When I opened the cover of the book there appeared a list of all the works of Henry George available from the Foundation in New York. I ordered them all but was sorely disappointed when my letter was returned from 11 Park Place marked, "moved, no forwarding address."

I have a son in a suburb of San Francisco, California. Having learned that Henry George lived in San Francisco, I determined to see what I could find. During the Christmas season of 1968, on our annual visit to our son, I found at 833 Market Street an institution known as the Henry George School of Social Science, I could make no contact during the holidays, so upon returning home I sent an airmail letter for information. A prompt reply was received, resulting in the good and glorious news that I could obtain the books I wanted through them. When I learned that these schools are being organized all over the world, and that the Foundation is continuing to function from 69th Street in New York, it was as if I had experienced a new birth of hope for understanding. Since then, I have given a thoughtful reading to all of George's books. It appears to me that Henry George possessed the most profound understanding of reality I have ever encountered from any citizen of our country in all of its history. He has in many places in his writings, expressed the deepest secrets of my inner desires to comprehend what, prior to now, I could sense but could not express for lack of understanding. Even though my study of his books up to now cannot be thorough, I was by nature so much in agreement with his understanding, it seems that I have always known the things I have learned from his writings. I now want to be sure that I am not under a delusion. It is for this reason that I now want to read everything I can find that opposes his views.