Georgists use this expression as a shorthand for the "lightbulb moment" when they saw the magnificence of the ideas we seek to share with others. I came across a re-telling of it that is a little different, and thought it worth sharing. It appeared in The Twentieth Century Magazine, in 1912 -- well after the event. The author is Benjamin O. Flowers, quoting Hamlin Garland, quoting Judge Maguire, of San Francisco (who, if memory serves, went on to be a congressman).
To return to Hamlin Garland. He was at that time strongly under the influence of Henry George's noble economic philosophy and full of faith and enthusiasm for that broad freedom that is vital to the happiness of the individual and to the fullest unfoldment of brain and heart. He became a frequent visitor at my home, and I cherish the memory of many happy hours spent with him.
I remember that on one occasion, when he was spending an evening with us, Mrs. Flower asked what he meant by the expression, "He had seen the cat," which occurred in one of his stories. And Mr. Garland laughingly told the story of how Judge Maguire of San Francisco had come to New York to address a great gathering on the single tax, and during the course of his lecture had said:
"The other day I was walking down Broadway and saw a crowd of persons before a window in which hung a large framed landscape. Under the picture was the legend, 'Do you see the cat?' No one in the crowd seemed to be able to find anything resembling a cat. At last I stepped into the street, some distance from the picture, when the entire white outline assumed the form of a large and perfectly proportioned cat. I could no longer see anything but the cat; it filled the picture.
"And so," said the Judge, "it is with the single tax. When you once understand the philosophy, palliative and make-shift propositions fade into the background before this great and fundamentally just philosophy that squares so perfectly with the theory of democracy and the noble demands of freedom."
"From that time," said Mr. Garland, "the question, 'Have you seen the cat?' became a common expression with the single-taxers, and buttons, like the one in my coat, bearing a cat's face, are now worn by many of us."
Have you seen the cat?
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