Upton Sinclair's Distance From
the Principles of Henry George

Edwin J. Jones

[Reprinted from Land and Freedom, September-October, 1934]

Notwithstanding his endorsement of the Single Tax philosophy as expressed on several occasions in public addresses, Upton Sinclair's advent on the political scene, is, in my judgment, by no means reassuring or helpful to the cause so dear to out-and-out Single Tax followers of Henry George. I have heard Sinclair but once on this theme and once was enough.

Sinclair is an opportunist, a self-seeker and a man with no distinct convictions, save that he is a thoroughgoing Socialist, but so completely befuddled with respect to what is sound economic doctrine as to be discredited by every George man who has heard him, or studied his numerous isms and bewildering theories, some of them contradictory. The occasion on which I formed an adverse judgment of this so-called reformer was the dinner given at Town Hall, New York City, last winter, when the plan was undertaken to bring Socialists and Single Taxers together to determine if there was not some common ground on which they might go forward in efforts to reform the present injustices in our social order.

At that meeting Sinclair demonstrated that he knows but little about the imperishable doctrines of Henry George. While he was saying a good word for the Single Tax in passing, it was plain that his mind was filled with the Socialist's error in declaring that capital is the guilty party and must be punished and rendered helpless by huge taxes on wealth as we Single Taxers define it. If this man shall be able, by his sophistries, to convince a majority of the voters of California that he is the right man for Governor of that Commonwealth, then I venture to predict that the cause of sound social reform will be set back at least a decade, since his attempt to put into effect the various nostrums he is now preaching will very quickly demonstrate their futility, and the electorate of the State will quickly return to a conservative course in politics. In such an eventuality we would suffer since the conservatives would class us as guilty with Sinclair and if we sought to disclaim association with him or sympathize with his ideas, they would simply point to his so-called endorsement of the Single Tax. I repeat that Sinclair is no real Single Taxer and never has been.