Georgists as Guardians
of Intellectual Honesty

Frederic C. Howe

[An address delivered at a dinner honoring Charles O. Hennessy and Anna George De Mille, New York, September, 1926. Reprinted from Land and Freedom, November-December, 1926]

Introduction by Frederic Leubuscher We expected to have among the speakers tonight Mr. Amos Pinchot, but this evening I received a telephone message from Mrs. Pinchot that he came home about mid-day feeling ill and is tonight under care of a physician. He send us his sincere regrets. But we have with us Frederic C. Howe, who was the friend of Henry George and the trusted associate of Tom L. Johnson in Cleveland. He will say a few words.

I have a confession rather than a speech to make. I came here tonight because I wanted to see Anna George. I came here because I wanted to see Senator Hennessy, and I came here well, I haven't been to a Single Tax dinner since 1914. I have hardly been to a radical dinner since 1914. Most of that time, I have not wanted to go to a radical dinner or a radical meeting. But tonight I wanted to come here to meet you people again. My mind went back to last summer when The Survey printed a symposium on "What Has Become of The Pre-War Radical," and most writers said. 'O those radicals wanted to change people over. They wanted other people to be like themselves. They were unhappy beings who felt that God made human beings not in His image but in their image, and they cannot be happy because of the error He had made.'

Well, in answering that in my own mind, I said: 'Now that is strange. The radicals I lived among haven't been that kind of people. They have been as good as the Chinese; [icy?] said: 'People are good. Institutions are wrong.' and among practically all of that liberal group, it was the Single Taxers who stood out, thinking straightforwardly into defects of our institutions rather than about policy evil inside of some men and the goodness in other men. We thought scientifically and straight. We weren't carried away by the Billy Sundayism of reform, and I am rather proud of myself (although I do not understand quite how it came about) that I, a mid-Westerner, village born, ecclesiastically environed, believing in evangelical religion, should have not wanted to make other people like myself. I only wanted them to think and use> their own minds.

And the second reason I think, why I wanted to be here, was that during those intervening fourteen years I haven't been with many people who used their minds. I have been with a lot of people in high places and in low, but their minds do not work. They do not work when policy come up against self-interest. That is where the mind always stalls. But Single Taxers, whether rich or poor, have had the intellectual capacity and the intellectual courage to go through with their thoughts, and that is a rare thing. So your chairman tonight was pretty nearly right when he said something to the effect that this is the most distinguished intellectual gathering in New York City. Its quality is not to be found in University heights, or in the University Clubs. I do not find it in Bar Associations, Medical Associations, or among philosophers or scientists.

Now a word about Henry George. I remember many men talking about the prescience of Shakespeare, the perfection of his historical references his intimate knowledge of law how he never alluded to any subject without a sure and revealing touch, and with a compendious knowledge. A wondrous thing about Henry George to me was not alone the brilliancy of his style, the marvels of his political and economic insight, but the profundity of his scientific knowledge, a profundity which squares with that of the biological researcher. I have gone through the thirty years since I first read his great book and still find that it squares with every truth. I believe, then, that those here who have received something of the philosophy of liberty through Henry George have had rather more wisdom than is vouchsafed to most people. And I think, despite our lack of political achievement, that we should hold confidently to this power of truth. The honesty of purpose and integrity of mind of the Single Taxer is bringing forth many other fruits than the immediate Single Tax, and in the end it will surely bring forth the Single Tax. Our mission is to continue to see the truth and tell it to the world."