Our Common Cause

John Lawrence Monroe

[An address at the Henry George Congress, 10 September, 1928.
Reprinted from Land and Freedom, November-December, 1928]

We of the Registration Committee have enjoyed the opportunity that our work has given us to meet each of you and to become more intimately acquainted with the work that each of you is doing in the various parts of this country. It has inspired us to meet the leaders of this great social movement who have gathered here to tell of their work, to express their hopes of the future, and to give encouragement and help to their fellow workers.

One observation that we have made is of the great ability of all the men and women here. While each one approaches the doctrine of Henry George from his own point of view, each one works for it from the heart. And some men emphasize certain phases of the Single Tax. Henry George's proposition not only says we must take the full value of the land but that we must publicly own those natural opportunities which are in their nature monopolies. So our humorist and idealist, Carl D. Thompson, bends his invaluable efforts to the power and public utility question. Charles O'Connor Hennessy uses his great diplomatic and political capacities to further the cause of Henry George as an international movement. Otto Cullman and Emil Jorgenson concentrate their efforts on one of the most insidious opponents of the Henry George doctrine.

Regardless of why we want Single Tax, we all work for it heart, soul, and body, Sometimes when I think of all the good times I am having working with Single Taxers, those of my own age, and those older, I find it hard to call it really work. But whether we call it work or play, however, it is certain that we follow after our own thinking and our own desires. We do the work that we enjoy the most and which we believe we can do most effectively for the common cause.

There are now arising a new group of Single Taxers in a field of work I have not yet mentioned. That field is the field of education. During this conference there have been two speeches by professors who represent the new intelligent, enlightened, progressive educator, economist and philosopher of the American university: Harry Gunnison Brown and Frederick W. Roman. In regard to Prof. Roman's speech at the banquet last night I am very happy to say that the views he expressed there are current among many of the progressive students and professors at the University of Chicago.

I took out of the University library a few weeks ago, the old gilt edge, beautifully printed Doubleday, Page edition of Henry George's complete works. In the library cards were written the names of some of the finest students of the school as well as the name of P. L. Douglas, professor of economics at the University. I had heard from a friend that Prof. Douglas had devoted a week or more in his economics course to the study of Henry George and the Single Tax. This friend incidentally is a fine young fellow of about my age, a Chinese boy who was entirely familiar with and in sympathy with Henry George and the Single Tax from his knowledge of the work of Sun Yet Sen.

My Chinese friend and I became acquainted in a course in philosophy "Currents of Thought in the Nineteenth Century." In this course we studied the Idealists a name given to that group of philosophers who are so taken up with the intellectual possibilities of the human race that they forget the physical necessities of the human body. They forget that before the intellectual and cultural desires of the human being can be satisfied that his physical desires must first be satisfied. There are still a great many philosophy professors who do not realize this, but it is getting now so that the students that is the ones who have not taken too much of the philosophy course hook, line, and sinker are demanding the presentation of a philosophy that takes into account the physical desires of the human race as well as the intellectual and cultural. They are demanding a philosophy that gives to them confidence in the best that is in them. They are demanding a philosophy that gives them a self respect and that rids them of imaginary inferiority complexes. In short, they are demanding Henry George. The enlightened professor will come to know that there is such a demand and that this demand is to assume tremendous proportions at almost any moment. They had better have their courses in Henry George laid out and ready for presentation. Dr. Roman was right last night when he said:

"There are two powerful streams of thought marching on together to a common point the educational thought of John Dewey and the economic thought of Henry George."

The Congress has led us to see that the Henry George educational work is going forward through publications, distribution of literature, and practical enclavial demonstrations. It has introduced us to men who are rising in the leadership of education, religion, and politics. It has demonstrated that the Henry George Foundation is stimulating and encouraging in cooperating with all activities working for the common cause. And greatest of all, the Congress has added confidence to our belief that in our own life time we shall see the acceptance of the Henry George doctrines as a basis of a higher and nobler civilization.