This tribute, by Phil Francis, appeared in the 1897-11-12 issue of the Sacramento Bee, about 2 weeks after Henry George's death in NYC, and was reprinted from the Stockton Mail. Some of seems a bit overwrought today, perhaps, particularly to those who haven't read George, but what caught me were these sentences:
He did for political economy what Bacon did for philosophy, what Bentham did for jurisprudence. He found it a gibberish and left it a science.
Now that Henry George is dead the bigness of the man will begin to fill the world’s eye. It is a curious eye, seeing nothing of proportion in those who move across the stage of events. While he lived, Henry George was the mark of many men's curiosity, the target of many fools’ abuse, the object of a few men's profound esteem. Time will prove the few to be right. Time always does that. Nine times in ten the minority is right. Nine times in ten the majority lacks nothing of the ass's qualities, except his good looks. The world crucifies its Christs and stones its prophets while they are in the flesh. Dead, the world builds temples and monuments to them. So it was yesterday, and is today and will be forever, perhaps. So it was with Henry George. His was the most lucid mind living. That superb thinking machine of his worked so easily in the making of great ideas that its force and power were not apparent to the casual glance. He did for political economy what Bacon did for philosophy, what Bentham did for jurisprudence. He found it a gibberish and left it a science. Because little minds could not follow along the paths his far-sighted and sure-footed intellect blazed, the vacant heads in which these same little minds slosh about were wagged in derision at the profoundest thinker of modern times. He himself looked down from far hights on these gibbering mimes and chattering apes with a kingly forbearance. But to those who knew his lofty character and his superb powers, it was hard to rein in the angry contempt which these mowing and moping fools excited.
Henry George is not dead. His eye sees no longer the beauty of things. His ear is stopped with dust. The brain that wrought so greatly for human good is inert. Whither the soul of him is gone we can but guess; or that it lives and knows, or that it is not, or that it sleeps—these be questions that the generations have asked of death and never yet have heard an answer from the silence. But if so be that all which here was so strong, so admirable, so full of beauty of much use, is but as the dust blown by the winds’ breath, still, the man lives, still he works, still he lays the spell of his genius on the hearts and minds of living men. Wherever a single human soul struggles to make brighter this dark earth; wherever the heart of such an one is as water and his eyes fall with watching for the dawn and ache for the dark house and the sleep that ends not; wherever two or three are banded together to fight the good fight for justice, for liberty, for truth—there, there is the spirit of the dead man, encouraging, soothing, sustaining, cheering on to hope and struggle and the victory that some day shall surely come. This is the purpose of his life. This the message that comes back along the strait and dreadful path he has gone—let us hope into a pleasanter and more beautiful country than this.
In early October, this had appeared on the Sacramento Bee's editorial page:
Henry George is a candidate for Mayor of New York. Henry George is one of the brainiest men of this or any other Nation. He is a deep thinker and a brilliant writer. Whether he is too much of a student and theorist to make a good executive head of a great city cannot be verified, for he has never been tried; we do not think he will be this time. He will receive a very complimentary vote, but he is not likely to be elected Mayor of Greater New York. The London Globe, however, which knows as much about New York politics as a Milpitas Justice of the Peace does about law, avers that he will. Hear that journal of the world’s metropolis:
Judging from the Times dispatch, Henry George will be the next Mayor. The Americans do not exceed a quarter of the whole population, and the European Anarchists, Socialists, Italians, Poles, Hungarians and Russians, all the very lowest of their race, will support the man whose childish economics and wild theories are detested in every capital in Europe. These being the people who sway public opinion, it is the hight of absurdity to rave about blood being thicker than water.
The Globe has been misnamed. It should call itself the Molecule, for assuredly it does not see beyond itself.
Henry George will not be supported by the worst elements of New York, but by some of the very best.
His theories and economics may be hated by the money-lenders in every capital in Europe, but we venture to say that the common people all over the world—those who toil and produce— have the heartiest admiration for one of the leading politico-economic writers of this or any other age—a man who has always written for The People and never for syndicated Capital.
Henry George may never be Mayor of the American metropolis, but he is a greater man than any one who ever has been, or than probably anyone who ever will be.
(I've not seen that spelling of height elsewhere.)
Comments