Increased Recognition of Henry George
in Current Literature

Herman Ellenoff

[Reprinted from Land and Freedom, May-June 1937]

I have been browsing around book stores for many years with my attention generally gravitating to titles pertaining to economics or business. Thumbing through pages, in recent years, I have been accustomed to see chapter headings such as: money, social planning, price system, the business cycle, collective bargaining, etc.

Last fall I was pleasantly surprised in looking through a book entitled, Creative America, by Mary van Kleeck, of the Russell Sage Foundation, to see Henry George's name favorably mentioned.

Another book that is of interest to Georgeists is Ida M. Tarbell's book, published last November by The Macmillan Co., entitled, The Nationalizing of Business, 1878-1898. Miss Tarbell starts on page 118, gives a biographical sketch of Henry George with various comments and concludes on page 125 with a reproduction of a photograph of Henry George.

She quotes from the New York Herald reference Progress and Poverty, "... it has had no equal since the publication of The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith, a century ago, or, at least since Malthus formulated his theory of population and Ricardo his theory of rent."

A statement which she makes that will be encouraging to Georgeists is: "There is no place in the thinking world where he is not still read, where he has not followers. He is inextricably woven into the liberal thought of the world." She also mentions John Dewey's opinion of Henry George.

In the latest economics catalog of The Macmillan Co. is a book that caught my attention. It is: Pioneers of American Economic Thought in the Nineteenth Century," by Ernest Teilhac, Professor of Political Economy, St. Joseph's University, Beirut, Syria. It is translated by E. A. J. Johnson, Assistant Professor of Economics, Cornell University, New York, and published 1936, 187 pages.

Quoting the catalog: "Through a detailed analysis of the work of Daniel Raymond, Henry C. Carey and Henry George, Professor Teilhac has made way for a greater appreciation of what American economists have done in building an essentially American economic philosophy."

The other day I saw the following three books in each of which Henry George's ideas, on the whole, are rather favorably mentioned, or at least seriously considered.

Just published is: Facing the Tax Problem, A Survey of Taxation in the United States and A Program for the Future. It was prepared under the auspices of the Committee on Taxation of the Twentieth Century Fund, Inc., New York; Research Director being Professor Carl Shoup of Columbia University and Assistant Research Directors being Professor Roy Blough, University of Cincinnati, and Professor Mabel Newcomer of Vassar College.

The Single Tax is mentioned on pages 138, 151, 152, 272, 274, 275, 290, 291, 396, 411 and 546. The book contains 606 pages. The following are a few brief extracts from statements made:

On page 138: "If apportionment of direct taxes were not required, the experiment of a modified 'Single Tax' might be tried on a national scale."

On page 151: "The opposition to the Single Tax has been largely based on the grounds of justice and inadequacy of revenue. It has been so effective that the Single Tax in its pure sense is not an issue anywhere in the United States."

On pages 290-291: "At the moment the tax gives no indication of being an important political issue in the United States except possibly in a few states where it is linked with other measures." On page 396: "The economic possibilities of a distinction between land and improvements under the real estate tax are extremely important. Lighter taxation of improvements, in contrast with lighter taxation of land, apparently promotes production. ... If the public demands further substantial reductions in the property tax, the question will become acute. Meanwhile, we must suspend judgment because of lack of information on the relative effects."

On page 411: "From the point of view of justice alone, we can see little or no appeal in the Single Tax for the United States at the present time . . . and increment taxation is certainly worth more of a trial than it has been given, but it might be incorporated as part of an excess profit tax. In framing it, care should be given to pay due regard to innocent vested interests."

Published this year by F. S. Crofts & Co., New York, is: Getting and Earning, 274 pages, by Professor Raymond T. Bye and Ralph H. Blodgett, both of the Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.

The authors devote an entire chapter to Henry George's philosophy. This chapter is titled, "The Fruit of the Soil," and continues from pages 87 to 121. The following extract gives an indication of how they feel on the subject: "The rent of land is so obviously an unearned income, and it contributes so greatly to the problem of inequality, that some action to deal with, it is clearly called for."

American Political and Social History, 772 pages, by Harold Underwood Faulkner, Professor at Smith College, published by F. S. Crofts & Co., New York, is another new book. Henry George is mentioned on pages 468, 490 and 574. Professor Faulkner makes the following statement that should interest Georgeists: "If any date is to be picked for the start of a strong anti-monopoly movement in this country, it might be 1879, the date of the publication of Henry George's Progress and Poverty."

At the main branch of the New York City Public Library, circulation division, I noticed on a shelf under "new books," Gilbert M. Tucker's The Path to Prosperity, reviewed in LAND AND FREEDOM last year. The covers were well worn and the borrowers' card inside showed that quite a goodly number of readers had taken it out to read.

All this may be an economic straw showing the way the wind may blow in the future towards Henry George's philosophy. Behind it may be the reaping of Georgeists' efforts or it may be that those that cannot swallow the collectivist philosophy are beginning to realize that there is nothing else that will really solve, "man's inhumanity to man," except the solution as outlined by Henry George.