If you've been reading about Henry George's ideas for a while, particularly in older writings, you might have come across references to "seeing the cat." It might be "have you seen the cat?" or "how I saw the cat" or more commonly, "do you see the cat?" It is a shorthand for "have you seen the big picture?" "do you get how all this fits together to solve what otherwise seems to be unsolvable?"
It started with a speaker at an Anti-Poverty Society meeting in Manhattan on a Sunday night in November 1887. The speaker was Judge James Maguire of California, later to be a congressman. The Anti-Poverty Society had held its first public meeting in May, 1887, on a Sunday night, and thereafter met nearly every Sunday night in one or more large halls in Manhattan, filling all the seats and the standing room. The speeches given there, week after week, were extraordinary, and should be collected. (That will happen.) These were not short speeches -- some ran 2 hours, interrupted by enthusiastic audiences. But they come alive on paper and on screen, 130 years later. For now, I'll share an excerpt from Judge Maguire's speech as it appeared in The Standard, Issue #045, 1887-11-12.
“Judge Maguire, who followed Dr. McGlynn, was greeted by round after round of applause when he came forward. When it had ceased he said:
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen — The way that people rise up to defend this cause when they fully understand it reminds me of Mr. George’s story about the cat. There are men who have listened to an address on this question or that have read something about it who declare to you that they don't see anything in it at all, and though they look at it again and again some of them still don’t see it, and you point to different principles that are involved in it and still they fail to see it. You have seen little pictures in store windows with trees, animals, birds and some grass and some plants for a background. At first glance you don't think there is much of anything to one of these, but when you see a fellow standing and staring at a show window, the strongest impulse in the world comes upon you to find out what he is looking at, and you go up and look too. When you inquire what he is looking at he answers: “I am looking at that picture. Don't you see that question down at the bottom, ‘Where is the cat?'” You look, but don’t see any cat. By and by somebody comes along who has seen the picture before or who has had the cat pointed out to him. He asks: “Don't you see that twig?” “Yes.”
“Don’t you see that white strip between the twig and the trunk of the tree?” “Yes.”
“Well, that is one leg of the cat.” Still, you don't see any cat, and you may be ready to swear that there is no cat there. Then he shows you the little dovetailed arrangement of grass and weeds down near the bottom, and tells you that is the claws of the cat; still you don't see any cat. He next shows you a little branch which represents the eyes of the cat; but still you can’t see the cat. Finally he points out another branch that represents the ear. Instantly you see the whole cat. If you should not see that picture again for twenty years, the very minute you glance at it the first thing you see is the cat, the most prominent thing of all.
So it is with a simple natural truth; so it is with the great truths that are involved in this proposed reform. They may look at the proposition, see nothing in it, and have parts and details explained to them, and still see nothing in it. But the very minute that they grasp and realize and take in the whole situation, then they become enthusiasts, and start out and point it out to everybody else. After awhile they forget how hard it was for them to see the cat, and they actually think that a man who can’t see it in an instant must be a fool, because it is so clear to them.
Forty years later, Louis F. Post’s 1930 book, The Prophet of San Francisco, provided the back story:
In the forenoon of the day following his speech, while Judge Maguire was conversing with Henry George, William T. Croasdale and myself, in the editorial office of Henry George's The Standard at the corner of New York's Nassau Street and Ann, Croasdale diverted the conversation with a complimentary remark about the "cat" picture which Maguire had described so significantly the night before. Maguire was about to make acknowledgment of the compliment when Henry George broke in with: "Yes, Maguire, that was a forceful illustration. Was it an invention or an actual experience?"
"Both," Maguire replied. "The picture incident was an actual experience; for its application I was indebted to your Progress and Poverty."
Manifestly astonished by the latter part of Maguire's reply, George declared that he had never used the "cat" illustration in any form. He thought Maguire must be mistaken. But my memory came to Maguire's support, and after a brief search through the second chapter of the fifth book of Progress and Poverty, I found what I was looking for in the last paragraph of that chapter. . . .
“So simple and clear is this truth that to fully see it once is always to recognize it. There are pictures which, though looked at again and again, present only a confused labyrinth of lines or scroll-work – a landscape, trees, or something of the kind – until once attention is called to the fact that these things make up a face or a figure. This relation once recognized is always afterward clear. It is so in this case. In the light of this truth all social facts, group themselves in an orderly relation, and the most diverse phenomena are seen to spring from one great principle.” Progress and Poverty, Book V (The Problem Solved), Chapter 2 (The Persistence of Poverty Amid Advancing Wealth) and in the Drake abridgment.
Louis F. Post was later the editor of The Standard, and then published The Public for many years, before becoming Assistant Secretary of Labor in Woodrow Wilson’s administration. He was one of the original 21 directors of Robert Schalkenbach Foundation.
Here's a rendering, from the website of the Henry George Institute, henrygeorge.org. I am guessing it is of fairly recent vintage (compared to everything else on this post), perhaps Bob Clancy's work.
See also
- http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/The_Cat.html
- http://www.henrygeorge.org/links.htm
- http://www.wealthandwant.com/docs/Post_STC.html
- http://www.wealthandwant.com/docs/Foldvary_StC.html
- http://lvtfan.typepad.com/lvtfans_blog/2010/01/index.html
Elsewhere in that same November 12, 1887, issue of The Standard appears this:
The Tramp “Saw the Cat!”
“My friend,” said a citizen to an able bodied occupant of a park bench, “why don’t you go to work instead of lounging here all day?”
“Harder to find work to do than to do it,” was the reply.
“Nonsense; I don’t believe you would work if you got the chance.”
“Try me, captain, and see!”
“All right, are you willing to dig?”
“Yes, sir; if you’ll pay me decent wages.”
“What is your idea of decent wages?”
“Well,” said the tramp, reflecting a moment, “two dollars a day.”
“Two dollars a day!” exclaimed the citizen. “Isn’t that a little steep for digging?”
“Not when I can make a dollar a day by begging. You know I can live cheaper as a beggar; one doesn’t have to keep up appearances.”
“All right,” said the citizen, “come with me.”
The tramp left his bench with a briskness that would have astonished those dainty people who wonder why park loungers are so averse to work. After a ride in the street car the citizen pointed to a vacant lot and said:
“There; I want to build a cottage on that lot, and I will give you two dollars a day to dig the cellar. Clear off the loose stones and then call at my office and I will pay you for what you have done and rig you up with shovel and pick for the rest of the work.”
The citizen told the tramp where his office was, and left him.
“Say!” shouted the tramp, with a few emphatic terms intended to be descriptive, as he broke into the citizen’s office later in the day, “you are a nice specimen of a fraud, ain’t you! That lot up there don’t belong to you, and the man it does belong to drove me off. I want my day’s wages!”
The wages were paid, and the tramp fell into a better humor.
“Now, my friend,” the citizen remarked, “that lot does not belong to me; but it has never been used, the owner does not intend to use it, it is a good place for a house, I can afford to build a house, and I want you to do as much of the work as you can”
“That’s all right, but why don’t you buy the lot?” asked the tramp.
“I can’t afford to buy the lot and build the cottage too, without giving a mortgage, and I won’t put a mortgage on my house.”
“Then you’ll have to go without the cottage,” said the tramp.
“If so,” replied the citizen, “You will have to go without the job of work; and I reckon that is what it comes to. I must rent a home instead of owning one, and you must be a beggar instead of an honest working man, unless you are willing to take somebody’s work from him by doing it for less.”
“Begging is easier and more humane, and pays better.”
“Do you see the cat?” the citizen inquired.
“No,” replied the tramp, looking around the room; “I don’t see any cat. But I’ll tell you what I do see. I see that if you could build on that lot I would be earning a respectable living. And I’ll tell you what I don’t see. I don’t see what right any one who doesn’t want to use that lot has to prevent you from using it.”
“But,” observed the citizen, gravely, “the other man owns the lot.”
“What right has he to own it,” asked the tramp; “he didn’t make it?”
“I guess you see the cat.”
“Is that the cat?”
“That is the cat.”
“Good day.”
And here is a shorter version of that, from The Single Tax (Glasgow, Scotland), March, 1895:
Over the years, there have been some wonderful drawings:
From The Standard, August 3, 1889, reprinted in the Leavenworth Labor News. The Standard identifies it as coming originally from Toronto Grip, which confirms that it is the work of J. W. Bengough. You'll see more of his work below.
Here's are ads from several "single tax cigar" manufacturers; this was in The Standard, in November 2, 1889. It long predates the cigar boxes we see, whose motto was "I am for men!" a quote from a speech Henry George gave the night before he died, in October 1897.
This, from 1901, in Single Tax Review (with no cat):
and one from 1915:
Back to the cat: Here's an ad from the Fairhope Courier of 1903-11-01, for both The Landlord's Game and another game I've not otherwise heard of, The Cat:
Here are some drawings by J. W. Bengough, whose cartoon from The Grip, his Toronto paper, appears above.
That's the final lesson from Bengough's Primer. The Up-to-Date Primer: A First Book of Lessons For Little Political Economists In Words of One Syllable. But the Cat shows up on the cover and in Lesson II:
Here's Lesson II
You can view the whole thing, with notes, here. Check out Lesson I, where Bengough sees the cat a little differently -- pursuing the rat.
Enjoy!
See also: Post-script to Seeing the Cat
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