How I Came to Embrace the Principles Embraced by Henry George

Art Scholbe

Thank you for thinking of me. It has been some time since I have had the opportunity to monitor those great [land-theory]conversations. Or, in fact, pay attention to many things outside the fact that I am going to get married on February 26th. We are presently franticaly engaged in preparing our separate houses for sale while, at the same time, seeking a home which will suit our needs and desires as much as possible (Always, of course, with the bottom line staring us in the face. All very interesting, and at times delightful, but very very time consuming. (Of course, if I owned ten thousand shares of Microsoft all would be a lot simpler.

I don't know just how much of my "recollecting" would be worth repeating. My primary memories of the movement have to do with Noah Alpers who was a fireball until the last weeks before his passing. He ran a little one man office in St. Louis for many years, and most of the active Georgists in this area owe their instruction in Georgism to the night-schools he ran for so long a time. He not only taught, but he raised the money to keep the office open, and always found time to sit down with any influential person who would listen. (Actually, he was happy to converse with anyone on the subject of LVT, but he most willing to go out of his way to meet with someone one of us thought might be of true influential stature. He never argued the subject, but he never lost an arguement on it either. (If that makes sense.) He was a master at turning the others points into his own.

After he passed away, another great man did his best to take over, Stanley Fredereksen, but Stanley lacked Noah's tact, and while he never loses an argument either, it is because he overpowers you, which doesn't work too well with those of powerful ego. Stanley is not so active anymore, but his son is one of the guiding lights of the Public Revenue Education Council of which I am sure you are aware.

Getting back to Noah, I met him as a result of a newspaper ad which had been posted on one of the bulletin boards at McDonnell Aircraft. It said something to the effect that there was a way that wages could be raised at the same time the manufacturer's profits would be increased, and that labor and management should not be fighting each other but working together for the benefit of both. I was a very active unionist in those days, and while I believed the above statements to be impossible, I was willing to go to a meeting and see what I could learn. At that meeting, Noah would not answer my "how" question, but insisted that I would learn it if I would be willing to attend three lessons. I agreed to attend those lessons, but I also stated, most rashly, that if he could prove what he said, I would guarantee that the Mechanists Union would grab it and run with it. (I was a very naive 25 yr-old.) Noah, of course, knew better, and while he certainly proved his point, I was never able to get to first base with any of the union heirarchy of any of those to which I belonged over a period of years, even though in which I held considerable office.