A Reply to the Question of Accepting a Labor Nomination for the Mayoralty
of New York City

Henry George

[A letter to James P. Archibald, Esq., Secretary, Conference Labor Association.
Written from New York, 26 August, 1886]

Dear Sir: --

You ask me whether, if the labor Associations of New York were to nominate me for Mayor, I would accept.

"My personal inclinations are to say 'No.' I have no wish to hold office, and my hopes of usefulness have run in another line. But there are considerations which, under certain conditions, would compel me to say 'Yes.'

"I have long believed that the labor movement could accomplish little until carried into politics, and that workingmen must make their ballots felt before they can expect any real attention to their needs, or any real respect for their rights -- before we can hope to alter those general conditions which, despite the fact that labor is the producer of all wealth, make the term 'working-man' synonymous with poor man.

"Since the question of chattel slavery was finally settled I have acted with the Democratic party in the hope that, dead issues being buried, the living issue of industrial slavery might come to the front. The time has now arrived when the old party lines have lost their meaning, and old party cries their power, and when men are ready to turn from quarrels of the past to grapple with the questions of the present. The party that shall do for the question of industrial slavery what the Republican party did for the question of chattel slavery must, by whatever name it shall be known, be a working-man's party -- a party that shall reassert the principles of Thomas Jefferson in their application to the questions of the present day, and be Democratic in aim as well as in name.

"I have seen the promise of the coming of such a party in the growing discontent of labor with unjust social conditions, and in the increasing disposition to pass beyond the field of trades-associations into the larger sphere of political action. With this disposition I am in full sympathy. I see in political action the only way of abolishing that injustice which robs labor of its natural reward and makes the very 'leave to toil' a boon -- that monstrous injustice which crowds families into tenement-rooms of our cities and fills even our new States with tramps; that turns human beings into machines, robs childhood of joy, manhood of dignity, and old age of repose; that slaughters infants more ruthlessly than did Herod's swordsmen; that fosters greed, begets corruption, breeds vice and crime, and condemns children yet unborn to the brothel and the penitentiary. Seeing this, I welcome any movement to carry the vital questions of our day into politics, and will do whatever I can to help it on.

"It seems to me, moreover, that a fitting and hopeful place for such a movement to begin is in our municipalities, where we may address ourselves to what lies nearest at hand, and avoid dissensions that, until the process of economic education has gone further, might divide us on national issues. The foundation of our system is in our local governments.

"Nor is there any part of our country in which there is greater need of an earnest effort to make politics mean more than a struggle for office than in the City of New York. In this great city, the metropolis of the Western Hemisphere, municipal government has reached a pitch of corruption that, the world over, throws a slur and a doubt upon free institutions. Politics has become a trade, and the management of elections a business. The organizations that call themselves political parties are little better than joint-stock companies for assessing candidates and dividing public plunder, and even judicial positions are virtually bought and sold.

"With unsurpassed natural advantages -- the gateway of a continental commerce -- New York is behind in all else that the citizen might justly be proud of. In spite of the immense sums constantly expended, her highways, her docks, her sanitary arrangements, are far inferior to those of first-class European cities; the great mass of her people must live in tenement houses, and human beings are here packed together more closely than anywhere else in the world; and though the immense values created by the growth of population might, without imposing any burden upon production, be drawn upon to make New York the most beautiful and healthful of cities, she is dependent upon individual benevolence for such institutions as the Astor Library and the Cooper Institute, and private charity must be called upon for "fresh-air funds" to somewhat lessen the horrible infant mortality of the tenement district. Such parts as we have are beyond the reach of the great mass of the population who, living in contracted rooms, have no other place than the drinking-saloon for the gratification of social instincts, while hundreds of thousands of children find their only playground in crowded streets.

"Hitherto all movements for municipal reform in New York have sprung from political 'halls,' or have originated with wealthy citizens, whose sole and futile remedy for civic corruption has been the election of respectabilities to office. They have aimed at effects rather than at causes, at outgrowths rather than at the root, and they have accomplished nothing radical or lasting.

"It is time for the great body of the citizens of New York to take some step to show that they have a deeper interest in the government of this great city than whether this or that set of politicians shall divide the spoils, and to demonstrate their power in a way to make their influence felt in every branch of administration. And in the American city where monstrous wealth and monstrous want make their most shocking contrast is a fitting place to begin a movement which shall aim at the final assertion of the natural and unalienable rights of man.

"A movement begun by the Labor Associations in this spirit, and with these aims, would not be a class movement. It would in reality be a movement of the 'masses against the rule of the classes.' It would draw strength from that great body of citizens who, though not working-men in the narrow sense of the term, feel the bitterness of the struggle for existence as much as does the manual laborer, and are as deeply conscious of the corruptions of our politics and the wrongs of our social system. In its broad political sense the term 'workingman' does not refer to particular occupations, but divides those who have to work that others may enjoy from those who can appropriate the produce of others' work. There is and there can be an idle class only where there is a disinherited class. Where all men stood on an equality with regard to the use of the earth and the enjoyment of the bounty of their Creator, all men would belong to the working class. 'He who will not work, neither shall he eat' is not merely the injunction of the Apostle, it is the mandate of Nature which yields wealth to Labor, and to Labor alone.

"Feeling on these matters as I have said, my sense of duty would not permit me to refuse any part assigned me by the common consent of earnest men really bent upon carrying into politics the principles I hold dear. Yet before I can accept the nomination of which you speak I wish to have it clearly shown that the workingmen of New York want me to be a candidate and will support me with their votes. I have no dread of finding myself in the minority; but enough so-called labor movements have proved failures. Another failure would hurt the very cause we wish to help.

"Such a movement as is now proposed ought not to be lightly entered into. The workingmen of New York have it in their power to elect whom they please, and to open a new era in American politics; but to do this they must be united, must be earnest, and must have faith in themselves. Outside of the ranks of organized labor there are thousands and thousands heartily sick of the corruptions of machine politics who would join in a movement for principle that gave fair promise of success. But without this promise of success an independent movement could not command even the votes of those who wished it well. For the majority of men, though they may applaud his nomination, will not vote for a third candidate whose election seems hopeless. Therefore it is that any. political movement such as you propose must manifest strength at the outset if it is to prove formidable at the polls.

"It is both the right and duty of workingmen to turn to political action for the redress of grievances. Whatever excuse there may be for violence in countries where aristocratic political institutions yet exist, and standing armies prevent expression of the popular will, here, where manhood suffrage prevails and the people are the source of political power, the ballot is the proper means of protest, and the only instrument of reform. And it is only by its intelligent use that social disaster can be avoided.

"For this reason it seems to me that the only condition on which it would be wise in a Labor Convention to nominate me, or on which I should be justified in accepting such a nomination, would be that at least thirty thousand citizens should, over their signatures, express the wish that I should become a candidate, and pledge themselves in such case to go to the polls and vote for me. This would be a guaranty that there should be no ignominious failure, and a mandate that I could not refuse. On this condition I would accept the nomination if tendered to me.

"Such a condition, I know, is an unusual one; but something unusual is needed to change the habitual distrust and contempt with which workingmen's nominations have come to be regarded, into the confidence that is necessary to success. It may be harder to get thirty thousand signatures in advance than, with the confidence thus inspired, to bring several times that number of votes to the polls ; but unless there is in the movement earnestness enough to do hard things, it is idle to enter upon the work.

"With this frank statement of my views and feelings, I put the matter, .through you, in the hands of the Conference and of the Labor Organizations.

Fraternally yours,