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Formal classes in Fundamental Economics and Social Philosophy, using Henry George's Progress and Poverty, unabridged, were begun in Chicago sometime in 1934. A gentleman, whom I believe was Francis Neilson, asked Henry L. T. Tideman to conduct a class in the offices of Swift & Co., meatpackers. The students would be employees of Swift. From then until 1936, the School was a vestpocket operation. That is, it was located wherever Henry [Tideman] happened to be.

Henry told the story of his first class session: When he arrived at the conference room where the sessions were scheduled, he faced a room full of hostile faces. He surmised these were middle level executives who when asked by their superiors 'willingly volunteered' to enroll for the class -- of course, and pigs fly.

By the fourth session, hostility had turned to eagerness. By the sixth or seventh session, there were questions about what can be done to bring about the reform suggested by George.

In 1936, John Lawrence Monroe was sent back to Chicago by Frank Chodorov to head up the Chicago extension of HGSSS. John Lawrence Monroe and Robert Tideman (one of Henry's sons) had gone to New York to work, I believe, for the Schalkenbach Foundation. Both were involved in the newly formed Henry George School of Social Science. My understanding is that the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation provided the initial funding for the fledgling Henry George Schools in New York and elsewhere.

In Chicago, additional funds were raised locally from among members of the Single Tax Club, from Francis Neilson and perhaps from Gustavus Swift. In 1939, Edith (Mrs. Otto) Siebenmann organized the Henry George Women's Club, which for some years made an annual money gift to the School. The Women's Club also organized volunteer work such as addressing and stuffing envelopes. Their money raising activities included two major social events each year: A Christmas bazaar and lunch; and a picnic. These sources no longer exist.

An exemption from the income tax under section 501(c)(3) was granted HGSSS in 1943.

My association with the School began inauspiciously in the Fall of 1942. I enrolled in the class held in the Des Plaines (Illinois) Municipal Building, after a number of conversations with my brother Joe during the summer. He had attended the class at the Englewood YMCA in Chicago in the Spring term.

The school prospered for some years, achieving a high point in 1948, when some 80 or 90 volunteer teachers helped get, and service, 100 class locations in Chicago and surrounding suburbs. Francis Neilsen came to Chicago and delivered an inspirational oration at a supper attended by those volunteer teachers. He kicked-off a fund raising campaign with a promise to match donations dollar for dollar. That was my one and only meeting with Francis Neilson. This one time actor had lost none of his thespian art. In retrospect, Neilson's oration may be likened to Henry V rousing his troops on the eve of the battle at Agincour. His opening line was that he hadn't thought there were a hundred Georgists in Chicago, and was amazed to be in the same room with one hundred teachers of George's philosophy.

Imagine the English yeomen under the spell of Henry V hearing "into the breach for dear old England, St. George and Harry" and you'll, have some idea of how this one felt on hearing Neilson's "we can have victory if we will."

After that, Chicago HGS began to experience difficulty in getting and holding students; as did other HG Schools throughout the world. The expected post World War II slump had not materialized. A number of Federal and local government programs had been instituted to subsidize education, job-training, housing. These programs added fuel to the pent-up desires of the populace to resume such peacetime pursuits as getting jobs, starting families and establishing homesteads. It was an era of abundance. Who needed to learn about the causes of depressions and poverty? Anyway, who had time to read?

John Lawrence Monroe then embarked on a series of experiments in both the manner of getting students and in the method of presenting Henry George's ideas. The method of presentation placed him at odds with HGSSS-NY. Even Frank Chodorov, who by that time was no longer with the HGSSS, remarked whatever it was that John was teaching it was not Henry George.

In 1962, JLM changed the name from HGSSS to Institute for Economic Inquiry and filed a name change with the IRS for the tax exemption. He continued to maintain the Illinois not-for-profit charter for the HGSSS for some years afterward. It was said he did so in anticipation of a promised bequest.

That he may not have been as successful as hoped speaks more about the temper of the times than about the program John had devised.

II

Circa 1964-1965, Bob Clancy, then Executive Director of HGSSS-NY came to Chicago to talk with a number of active Georgists about reestablishing an extension of HGS. I was present at the initial meeting. In the phrase made famous by Frederic March in Casablanca, "the usual suspects were rounded up": Mina Olson, Claire Menninger. Edith Seibenmen, Til Forte, Harry Tideman, and I.

Bob Clancy appointed Mina Olson as Executive Secretary of the Chicago Extension in January 1966. With the appointment came a grant of $150 per month for expenses.

At about this time, JLM moved himself and the Institute for Economic Inquiry to San Francisco. He allowed the Illinois not-for-profit charter for HGSSS to lapse. On December 19, 1968, the Illinois Secretary of State formally dissolved the Henry George School of Social Science and its successor, the Institute for Economic Inquiry.

Mina Olson then organized a new HGSSS, adding "Chicago, Illinois" to the name to distinguish it from the former HGSSS. She applied for a Not-For-Profit Charter, which was issued January 1970. George Tideman, brother of Henry L. T., was the first president of the new HGSSS. (Henry had succumbed to a fatal illness in the mid-sixties.) Jenelle Kochin was Secretary, and Edith Siebenmann was treasurer.

Later in 1970, I was invited to become a member of the Board of Henry George School of Social Science, Chicago, Illinois. My brother Joe also joined the Board at that time. He served as vice-president for a time, until his death in 1975. I served as Treasurer, then Secretary, until elected president in 1979. In the meantime, I was a volunteer teacher until hospitalized for cardio-vascular problems in January 1973. Classes were held in various public library branches.

In February 1986, I retired from the Chicago Department of Economic Development. In May 1986, HGSSS-Chicago received the first installment of a bequest from the estate of Samuel Leonard. This enabled us to rent a storefront and establish a school headquarters.

Stanley Rubenstein, then Director, appointed me State Coordinator for HGSSS/NY in February 1986. With the post came a grant of $250 per month for ten months, September thru June, for expenses.

After Chicago had established a School headquarters later in the year, my designation was changed from State Coordinator to School Director. The monthly expense checks were replaced by a grant of $3000 per year to the HGSSS/Chicago payable in quarterly installments.

Beginning with October 1987 HGS/Chicago opted to provide me a stipend of $500 per month for my capacity as School Director. This was increased to $550 per month as of January 1990. The stipend increased in July 1991 to $600 a month after an increase to $937.50 in New York's quarterly checks.

III

It is correct to say that there was a hiatus in the operation of the Henry George School in Chicago from 1950 to 1988. This despite the efforts of George and Claire Menninger who continued to teach Progress and Poverty for some years after 1950; and the efforts of Mina Olson from 1966 until she moved to Wisconsin in 1984.

What records of graduates John Lawrence Monroe had not taken with him to San Francisco were lost when the building that had housed the Henry George School/Institute for Economic Inquiry was razed. Mina Olson had available to her only the list of the Henry George Women's Club from which to attempt to reconstruct a viable organization. The average age of Georgists in Chicago kept rising while the number of Georgists kept dwindling.

In the three plus years since the official opening of a School headquarters in Chicago, January 1988, the task of rebuilding has begun. The average age of the governing Board has been lowered by some 20 years; volunteers have been cultivated; and, the number of contributors has increased. Contributions in 1990 were $1,536, compared to an average of $450 for the preceding six years. But it is only a beginning.

IV

In August, 1990, we added Scott Walton on a part-time basis. We had hoped to accelerate our growth by adding a full time assistant. This is possible only if we increase the School's income.

During the summer, we found an vacant store in an area in which I had for some time been interested in locating the School. We negotiated a five-year lease, with rent beginning at $525 per month for the first year, and escalating in increments of $25 per month for the next four years. We had been paying $700 per month on month to month lease at our Ravenswood location.

On September 24th, we moved into our new quarters. In the brief time we have been here (now mid-October) walk-in in inquires have exceeded the highest number in any one year at the former location.

We have contracted a 10,000 piece cooperative mailing to go out in November. It is expected the number of inquiries will more than triple our other mailings and display ads.