Gilbert M. Tucker, Jr.
Albany's most notable Georgist: 1880-1968
H. William Batt
[14 February, 2010]
Albany New York's most notable Georgist was Gilbert Tucker, more
completely Gilbert Milligan Tucker, Jr. He deserves a significant
place in the Georgist pantheon of historic figures. He was born on
November 3, 1880, died on February 26, 1968 at the age of 88 in
Monterey, CA, where he'd lived for a short time, and was brought home
to be interred in Albany Rural Cemetery family plot. He was survived
by his wife, Mildred, of many years, but had no children.
Tucker wrote six books, four on Georgist philosophy which deserve our
attention. They are
The Path to Prosperity (1935), For the Good of All
(1944), Common Sense Economics (1957), and The Self
Supporting City, (1946, revised 1958). His last two books were
Your Money and What to Do With it (1960) and The Private
School (1965).
Writing came to him easily, as his forbears were all journalists.
Luther Tucker, the great-grandfather, was founder of early newspapers
in Rochester and publisher of a farming journal called The Genesee
Farmer, later consolidated with The Country Gentleman as a
monthly which continued until 1955. For many years it was the largest
and most widely circulated agricultural publication in America. When
the first Luther Tucker died in 1873, responsibility passed to his
son, Luther H. (1834-1897). Ownership ultimately went to the great
grandsons Luther H. and Gilbert M. Tucker, Senior (1847-1932). Tucker
Senior wrote a book on American English, Our Common Speech in
1895, that was an important source for H. L. Mencken's more widely
known book on the subject published in 1919. In 1913 he offered an
exposition of his religious ideas titled A Layman's Apology.
His brother Willis G. (1849-1922) was one of the principal founders of
Albany College of Pharmacy in 1881, taught at Albany Medical College
and was Director of the lab of the New York State Board of Health.
Gilbert Tucker, Jr. also led a long and interesting life as did his
older brother by eleven years, Luther Henry Tucker. All the male
Tuckers are identified in the records of the elite private boys'
school, Albany Academy. Gilbert Junior graduated in 1898 with a strong
record in French and Latin as well as the sciences. He was class
treasurer, wrote for the literary magazine, and was on the debating
team. The class newspaper notes that a debate result was decided in
the affirmative with Gilbert Tucker as leader. The subject: "Resolved
that services in the National Guard should be required of all
able-bodied young men for a term of years." He won a second
debate on the then timely question: "Resolved that the Charter of
Greater New York will be of benefit to the Country." This, one
must recall, concerned whether the five boroughs of New York should be
consolidated as the present New York City. Gilbert would go on to
Cornell University rather than to Williams where his father had gone,
finishing in three years. His last book pays tribute to the quality of
his Academy education by noting not only the "criticism and
correction" of his writing but the literature to which he was
introduced. (p 68) One of these authors, he notes, was Henry George.
In a letter decades later to the Headmaster of the Academy, he again
expressed gratitude for its honing his debating skills, noting therein
that presiding over a gathering of "some hundreds" of
Georgists was made easier by this training.
The next time Gilbert Tucker's name appears in history is on April
15, 1912, when he was 31, as he was one of 705 (of about 2,200) to
survive the sinking of The Titanic. His cabin was C-53, First Class,
strategically chosen to be near a woman he'd met in Europe and with
whom he was purportedly smitten. The record shows that he was
rebuffed, however, and he ultimately married at age 42 to Mildred
Penrose Stewart. In stories about the Titanic in the Albany Times
Union and as far away as the Baltimore American, Tucker
was listed as a "prominent person" worthy of note. But this
notoriety proved to be a blemish which would dog him for the rest of
his life. He was marked as a coward, whereas others, like John Jacob
Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim, went down with the ship. The story goes
that he would hear mumbled "women and children first" as he
walked through Albany, a slur given the social class of his family. It
was made more awkward by the fact that another prominent Albanian,
Benjamin Foreman, perished. His own account was that a half-full
lifeboat was being lowered, and he hopped in when no others were there
to board.
During the first World War he was involved in food administration,
and one wonders if he may have known Herbert Hoover who was director
of the relief program. This is noted in the first edition of The
Self Supporting City. From 1918 to 1933, he was Supervisor of
Exhibits in the New York State Health Department's Division of Public
Health Education. He was responsible for articles, exhibits and films
about epidemiology and health maintenance. The Department's Health
News noted upon his retirement that early on "Mr. Tucker
developed the Healthmobile [sic], probably the first automobile to be
equipped to show health motion pictures in localities where electric
current was not available." The Department of Health films were
shown even in the most remote sections of the State, frequently before
people who had never seen a motion picture. Tucker's other activities
in Albany involved editing the family's weekly magazine and work with
the Albany Institute of History and Art.
Gilbert Tucker, Jr. grew up at 304 State Street, in one of the most
stately mansions in Albany, a brownstone built for his parents in
1888. On the arched entrance to this Romanesque Revival house one sees
the hand of a skilled stonecutter, likely done by one of many Italian
artisans brought to Albany to work on the Capitol Building. Most of
the carving depicts botanical subjects, but one snarling beast
decorates a boss at the left edge of the bay window. In 1913 he moved
to a 40 acre estate in the Albany suburb of Glenmont which he quaintly
named Rockhill Farm. But he returned to the City of Albany to 158 S.
Pine Avenue in the late 1950s and maintained an office at 128 State
Street just downhill from the State Capitol. He had two subsequent
offices: at 12 Pine Street, right behind the present New York State
Court of Appeals, and later at the ornate Delaware & Hudson Rail
Station, now the headquarters of the State University System, just
before moving to California for the last three years of his life.
Georgist philosophy was important to him. His first book, The
Path to Prosperity, was published in 1935 at the depth of the
depression, an experience which may have turned his fortunes as well
as his intellectual concerns. This book shows that he was already a
dedicated and knowledgeable Georgist; he begins his first chapter with
a quotation from Progress and Poverty, then lays out his views
on the plight of the nation as he saw it. His exposition of Georgist
thought begins in Chapter VIII, and his remedy follows Henry George to
the letter. He has no use for Roosevelt, and sees the intervention of
government on so massive a scale as both misguided and threatening. He
also expresses alarm at the more liberal turns in philosophy expressed
by the Supreme Court. In the Introduction, he ends (p. xii) with the
following:
"The Nation is now teetering in a dangerous
position and time alone will tell the outcome. If we profit by
experience and turn to justice and right, to obedience to laws and
principles, we may yet be saved, but if, in selfish
short-sightedness and obstinacy, we cling to fallacious ideas and
selfish expedients, if we abandon principle and wreck the ideals
upon which those who were wiser than we of today built the Republic,
there can be only ruin ahead."
He was in the fullest sense a classical nineteenth century liberal,
and his exposition of Georgist thought was grounded in natural law
every bit as much as that of George himself. At the end of Chapter VI,
he wrote, "If we would leave these matters to work out freely in
accordance with natural economic laws, keeping our fingers out of the
pie, we should all be a great deal better off." He had no regard
for social programs, believing that self-reliance, given the
opportunities which a Georgist regime would offer, would be sufficient
to relieve injustice and poverty.
His Presbyterian faith was reflected in passages such as the
following (p. 148):
"That this is an ordered universe all intelligent
persons agree. Things do not just happen but there is a regular
sequence of events, call it cause and effect, natural law, a Divine
Purpose or what you will. To some minds natural law is a sufficient
explanation of it all but, to other minds, natural law is not a
first cause but the explanation of the way in which the Primary
Cause, call it the Divine Will or God if you like, carries out His
purpose."
It followed to him that moral law and political law must then
conform. Toward the end of the chapter he quotes Coolidge: "Man
does not make laws, he discovers them."
In a pivotal chapter titled "The Land Privilege," he
buttressed his argument - twice! - with passages from Blackstone. He
then pointed out that "In recognizing the right of absolute
ownership of land and its resources, we are denying to every man his
natural right, his share in the ownership of those things which are
rightfully the heritage of all." To further make his point he
chose a quotation remaining from the New York State Constitution of
1846 and 1894 that, "The People, in their right of sovereignty,
are deemed to possess the original and ultimate property in and to all
lands without the jurisdiction of the State." This language,
deemed a vestige of feudal law culminating in New York's "rent
wars" of the 1840s was already vitiated by other provisions, and
was finally eliminated only in 1962. Its implications for a Georgist
regime of taxing land rent is a subject for another place and time.
Even though The Path to Prosperity is 75 years old as this
review is written, the book is very timely. The references to events
and issues of the time are few; rather the pages are filled largely
with exposition of general themes and arguments. If the references to
natural law and moral truth are dated to some, certainly his prose is
not, making his work easily readable. He does cite a few names
recognizable today, and his references to the spectrum, to air and
water, and to other resources yielding "rents" make clear
that he understands "land" in the broadest sense.
Tucker's second Georgist work, For the Good of All, is half
the size of his first Georgist piece and was completed at the height
of the Second World War. Much of what he says earlier, is repeated, as
Georgist thought certainly didn't change. The first chapter is titled
"A Universe of Law," again reflecting his view that there
are laws that govern not only the natural realm but the moral and
political realm as well. But he spends much more effort in laying out
what he sees as the ideals and proper role of government before then
describing "The Great Injustice" (i.e., the usurpation of
land rights), followed then by "The Doctrine of Henry George"
and "Practical Benefits" (i.e., The Remedy). Almost as much
attention is later given to advocacy of free trade before finally
turning to a concern about world peace. Again, like the first, this
book has a timelessness that warrants its being part of a Georgist
compendium.
Mr. Tucker would write The Self-Supporting City at the end of
WWII, but revise it a decade later. A few copies remain available
today from its publisher, the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation but it's
largely forgotten. It touches on urban blight and explains how land
value taxation can revitalize cities in flagging circumstances. Both
editions cover the ground in about 100 pages, exploring in
non-mathematical language what has since come to be known as the Henry
George Theorem: that the totality of taxable rent generated in any
urban locality is commensurate with the community requirements for its
services. In hindsight, this is Tucker's most significant
contribution: he unearthed an insight from Progress and Poverty
that others had overlooked until recently. Both contain chapters on
matters such as "the poor widow," delinquency and
forfeiture, zoning, corruption, and slum clearance. In line with the
thesis of its title, Tucker argues that taxing land value could
supplant other taxes, and indeed that all the ground rent should be
collected (p 24-25, 88,98). The first edition contains a forward by
Lawson Purdy, a leading figure in both the Georgist movement as well
as Director of Taxation and Assessment for New York City for decades.
Probably because the reviews in various journals were positive, this
book is easily accessible in libraries.
He addresses the question whether to call such revenue "ground
rent" or taxes, concluding that it's really a technical point
with no practical difference (p 72-73). He further argues, however,
that governments too should pay ground rents on the sites they occupy,
simply as a matter of cleaner bookkeeping (p 93). By inference this
would include non-profit organizations as well, but he doesn't explain
that doing so would ensure land use efficiencies now lacking in urban
areas. To phase in a shift to taxing land values, he first proposes
that land assessments should be raised to their true market price. He
also proposes public acquisition of land sites instead of forfeiture
for unpaid taxes or delinquency (p 99), thereby leaving over-extended
people their houses. Parts of it are superseded today by empirical
work of the Center or the Study of Economics now based in
Philadelphia. But no exposition of the arguments is more complete and
better written than what The Self-Supporting City lays out.
Common-Sense Economics was Tucker's last Georgist work, a
textbook issued by the Stackpole Publishing Company in Harrisburg, one
of a series in what was presumptuously called the Stackpole Library.
Two others in the series had more than one printing, used at the
college level in classes of business and economics. In twenty-eight
chapters and just under 300 pages, Tucker's book covers the ground. I
was fortunate in obtaining what is likely the last new copy. The dust
jacket lists questions reflecting subject matter: "Should Homes
be Taxed?, Foolish Spending, Inflation and Prices, Public Revenue and
Borrowing, The American Way or Communism, What is Wealth?, Is the
Income Tax Fair?, Does Capital Aid Labor?, The Maligned Profit Motive,
What is a Monopoly?, Figures, Fallacies, and Frauds, and Are We Losing
Our Liberty?" This listing is more provocative than the actual
chapter titles inside. As befits a textbook, each chapter ends with
questions that invite review and understanding.
Common-Sense Economics is by modern standards distinctive in
that it is all prose text. There is not a graphic illustration or a
mathematical formula in it. But the language is clear, and is helpful
particularly in the detail and number of examples and illustrations
given. Each chapter is a narrative of considerable organization and
style, and is sufficiently commonplace in its wording that it is
easily comprehensible. Though the sentences are often long and the
structure is complex, there is no reason to think that this book could
not be easily translated into other languages and be clearly
understood. It is characteristically Georgist in arguing that ground
rent should support all public goods and services. Repeating his
earlier argument, he writes, "Were the entire ground rent taken
in lieu of taxes, it would reduce the sale price of land, possibly
almost wipe it out, but it would increase tremendously the use-value
of land, the benefit which results from ownership, tenure, occupation
and use. Therefore, the landowner, if a land-user, would gain far more
than he would lose." (p. 210) In Georgist parlance, he is very
much a protector of property rights, the right of people to keep all
of what they earn or buy. Today's property rights advocates, more
interested in capturing speculative gains, would find it hard to
understand the distinction that Tucker makes.
In his later years, Tucker became vehement in his denunciation of
socialism, and was alarmist in his view that the US was drifting
toward a socialist political economy. He picks several illustrations,
the TVA for example, to support this. Toward the end of the book he
writes "The trend of socialism is always toward communism, taking
from some to give to others in accordance with the principles of Marx,
and we see this among the states in our own Union just as we see it
among individuals." (p. 261) He is just as alarmed about the
growth of the national government at the expense of state sovereignty,
and is fixated on socialism and communism-which he regarded as
essentially the same. Looking at all his work together one sees the
growth of this paranoia in The Self-Supporting City.
The list of suggested readings at the end of Common-Sense
Economics is just as timebound, focusing as it does on the
spectres of socialism and communism. Most of the suggestions reflect
the conservative orientation that captured Georgist thought during
this period, for example the accolades heaped upon Albert J. Nock's
Our Enemy the State, and Herbert Spencer's Man Versus the
State. At that time both were available from the Schalkenbach
Foundation. In this regard, the book is not at all reflective of
contemporary Georgism - the reading list begins, for example, with a
recommendation for one book he deems "Excellent: shows how
communism has penetrated our educational institutions and how
insincere are the 'leftists' in pleading for freedom of speech,
academic freedom, and similar high-sounding aspirations, by which they
mean freedom for their side and for no one else." He also praises
William F Buckley, Jr. whom he may not have known was also very much a
Georgist. The book is dedicated to the leader of the Henry George
School in Seattle, George Dana Linn, "in gratitude for his
generous support, encouragement and friendship." Linn is
sometimes mentioned in passing in Georgist accounts, but was a
distinctly minor figure; his notability may be best remembered as a
friend of Gilbert Tucker. Wylie Young's book, Antidote For Madness,
published first in 1976 and again in 1999, is dedicated to Gilbert
Tucker.
Two long-time residents of the Albany community remain alive today to
recall for me their close remembrances of Gilbert and Mildred Tucker
after the 1950s. As a person he was small in stature, somewhat
reserved, and yet a skirt-chaser of sorts at least in his dotage -
something his wife tolerated with bemusement or ignored. His wife
enrolled them in weekly dance classes which appears to have been his
main social outlet. Known to his friends as "Bert," he
associated with a small elite circle of Albanians. Although he had
money he was very tight-fisted. Approached once for a contribution, he
responded, "Well, which of my other charitable organizations
would you have me give up in order that I can support yours?"
As Tucker aged, he became more disillusioned with the capacities of
government to address matters of social concern as he saw them. His
fifth book, Your Money and What to Do With it (1960), was just
that, a simple advisory on personal finance, and it ventured political
commentary only in one spot. He castigated Roosevelt for taking the US
currency off the gold standard. He also noted (p 55-56) "Senator
Harry Byrd [of Virginia] ... as saying that the present national debt
exceeds the value of all property in the United States of every kind
and nature - land, buildings, machinery, railroads, personal
possessions, and everything - regardless of who owns it. In other
words, our nation is insolvent, our liabilities exceeding our assets.
The carrying cost of this debt - the interest which must be paid
sooner or later if our national credit is to be preserved - is
terrific and is constantly increasing. State spending and state debts
are getting constantly bigger, and the federal government seems
determined to spend, waste, squander, and give away the money wrung
from its taxpayers regardless of the size of the debt. Taxes are
growing apace and the business of the country is operated for four
months out of each year not for the profit of the owners or the
workers but to support the government, for taxes take a third of our
earnings." The rest of the chapter continues in the same vein.
His last book, The Private School: Its Advantages, Its Problems,
Its Financing is a 127 page treatise less about the value of
private education than his expressions of alarm about the political
and economic directions of the nation - for which he held the schools
and colleges accountable. Published in 1965, three years before he
died, it reflects his increasingly conservative political and economic
thinking, if this is possible. Since he relied on Vantage Press, he
likely paid for it himself. With his vituperative harping on America's
drift to socialism and communism, it is no wonder that the book found
little audience. He was just as disturbed by usurpation of state and
local government powers by Washington. Quoting Woodrow Wilson, he
wrote, "The history of liberty is the history of the limitation
of government powers ..., the concentration of power is what always
precedes the destruction of human liberties."
His central argument for private schools is lost in the sweep of his
other diatribes, where he argues that "Unlike the public schools
they can implant a background of spiritual and moral values; and if
desired by their patrons, they can teach a definite creed or sectarian
theology. This is not desirable to some but to others it is, and there
should be complete freedom of choice, but all schools should
endeavor to promote a sense of spiritual and moral values in the minds
of youth. [italics original]
The private school can also
teach very definite political science and economics without being
submitted to political pressure and control or threats of denial of
funds. In questions of political philosophy and of economics, there is
room for difference of opinion, and the honest and conscientious
teacher will teach the philosophy which he believes to be sound. Call
this 'indoctrination' if you like, but it is honest and to be
encouraged; and there is no more reason why our youths should not be
'indoctrinated' with a sound philosophy on such questions as our form
of government and its preservation, the problem of inflation, the
justification of interest, the management of the public debt, and
similar questions of prime importance, than that they should be
'indoctrinated' with the multiplication tables or the laws of motion."
(p 42)
A few pages later, he continues: "We note that former President
Conant of Harvard is opposed to private schools. Just why it is hard
to see, considering the vital part which private schools have played
in the history of Harvard; but there they have their own way of doing
things, as we can see from the present setup of their Department of
Economics, apparently completely won over to the Marxist philosophy."
(p 47) After commenting on the enormity of that university's bequests,
he writes, "We wonder what the stockholders think of the way in
which some of this money is used. Would they approve the teaching of
economics in Harvard by the advisors of Kennedy, described
as
essentially Fabian Socialists?
We find too that many favor
teaching and textbooks written from the Marxist angle, and it is
curious that so many who talk about broadmindedness, which it comes to
a showdown, favor the teachings of Marx and oppose teaching anything
in rebuttal. We find textbook publishers who report that the only
textbooks that show a profit are those defending communism, socialism
and a 'planned economy.'" (p 57-58)
Yet many might accept the validity of his criticism of "some of
the social sciences, and we do not mean the rubbish often included in
'progressive' education but refer particularly to studies necessary if
we are to be worthy of citizenship. Elementary economics, the ability
to define such words as 'wealth,' 'rent,' 'wages,' 'interest,' and the
knowledge of what determines price and fixes wages, also the basic
relations of capital and labor, and the meaning of inflation, all are
things to which every student should be introduced. There is a
feeling, perhaps due to Carlyle's unfortunate comment on economics as
'the dismal science,' that it is dull, boring and difficult. Generally
presented as a mass of artificial phraseology, questionable
statistics, algebraic equations and tiresome charts, it is pretty
heavy; but, if properly taught, it can be made fascinating even to
immature minds, for it is concerned with human desires and how to
gratify them. That it can be taught to mere children has been
demonstrated by using simplified and abridged versions of Robinson
Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson, (p 70-71) The next
section is a short summary of basic Georgist thought, but in the midst
of a 127 page verbal onslaught, its value is lost. Tucker would have
been better to stop writing after his book on how to manage money; in
fact some sections of the earlier book are repeated at the end of this
one - which make no sense here and are totally out of place. His views
about paying taxes was unwavering, and his last will, composed in
1966, a year after completing The Private School and two years
before he died, leaves the bulk of his fortune to Albany Academy.
Yet there are other legacies than his books that Gilbert Tucker
leaves to us. He was, for a time, a Director on the Boards of the
Henry George and Schalkenbach Foundations. He attended Georgist
conferences, and took an active part. Clearly he had hopes that
Georgist economic thought would reach a broader audience at some
point, but opposed a project to abridge Progress and Poverty.
In 1952, he chartered a non-profit corporation in Albany called the
Economic Education League, Inc., which numbered among its trustees
other well-known Georgists Edward Harwood and Wylie Young. Under this
mark, he also wrote a pamphlet on "Housing and Slum Clearance at
No Cost," and published under contract a Lehigh University study
in 1958 on the feasibility of land value taxation in Pennsylvania. The
ownership of his Common-Sense Economics text arguably reverts
to this organization, since Stackpole Press no longer cares to hold
title to it. He also wrote reviews of others' books for the Georgist
publication Land and Freedom, and his "The Value of Land
and Its Assessment" appeared in a 1953 issue of American
Journal of Economics and Sociology. Several other short pieces on
either George or his philosophy were published elsewhere, one in Scientific
Monthly. There is evidence that WGY, the General Electric flagship
radio station in Schenectady, carried a scheduled program hosted by
Gilbert Tucker in the 1920s and 1930s. It was likely first in his
capacity as representative of the State Health Department. But it
occasionally focused on the philosophy of Henry George.
I would like to see Tucker be better recognized among past Georgists,
as he wrote clearly and helped maintain visibility of Georgist ideas.
The Path to Prosperity is in the public domain as is Common-Sense
Economics. The Baker Publishing Group, which bought the original
publisher, Revell, in 1971, will allow us to reprint For the Good
of All essentially at cost, and the Schalkenbach Foundation is the
publisher of The Self-Supporting City.
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