Henry George
Newton D. Baker
[Reprinted from Land and Freedom, May-June
1941]
In an exchange of correspondence with the late Hon. Newton D. Baker
some ten years ago, our good friend, John C. Rose of Pittsburgh,
received the following from Mr. Baker:
"Henry George was a strange and significant
phenomenon in the midst of an age of acquisitiveness and
materialism. He sought and found fundamental moralities as the basis
of an economic philosophy, and nobody who has read Progress and
Poverty is ever the same in his thinking as he was before he saw
those eloquent and impressive pages. Much that Mr. George taught has
now become a part of the every day philosophy of our political life
and much more will become a part of it. I do not, however, believe
that there will ever be any sudden application of Mr. George's
principles. Sound political development is a matter of growth and
not a matter of revolution, and even a fundamentally right economic
doctrine, if it involves a radical departure from accepted
practices, has to be absorbed little by little to avoid consequences
too severe to endure which would follow a nation wide attempt to go
back to the beginnings of things to correct an ancient error."
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