The Single Tax Movement
and Dr. Edward McGlynn

Henry George

[Reprinted from The Standard, Vol.6, 5 October, 1889]

The action of the Manhattan single tax club in rescinding the invitation to speak which had been addressed in the name of one of its committees to Dr. McGlynn may seem to some of our friends at a distance as showing a disposition to needlessly keep up a quarrel that had better be forgotten. Many single tax men outside of New York, where alone the United labor party cut any figure in the presidential canvass, have evidently got to thinking that the difference that separated us from Dr. McGlynn was a mere difference as to policy, intensified, perhaps, by the personal feelings that were aroused.

If this were so, no one would be quicker than THE STANDARD and the New York single tax men in welcoming Dr. McGlynn back again, and in endeavoring to heal up all past differences. But unfortunately a good deal more than this is true.

The attitude of Dr. McGlynn and his immediate associates in the last campaign was not that of men who, mistakenly though it might be, were really running a candidate for the sake of upholding principle. It was the attitude of men who were running one candidate for the purpose of electing another. The effect and meaning of the proposition for nominating a separate candidate, which was first made privately to some of us in December, 1887, was that of "Butlerizing" the land movement and using it for Blaine, or whoever might be the republican nominee, as was clearly stated in THE STANDARD when the open breech came. All that afterwards occurred showed with greater and greater clearness that this was the real purpose. Every effort was made to get some showing of strength. Advances were made, first to the union labor men on the one side and then to the socialists on the other, to whom the notion of getting up a strike against house rent in this city was thrown out. Everything was concentrated in the state of New York, where the decisive battle between the two great parties was to be fought. Despite the fact that the contest turned on the tariff question, despite the fact that the single tax principle called all who fully understood it to the side of free trade, despite the fact that Dr. McGlynn had long avowed himself a thorough free trader, and had in the last presidential election voted and spoken for Cleveland, his influence and that of what was called the united labor party were cast for the protectionist candidate. Before the election came, the thin disguise of running a candidate was thrown off, and Dr. McGlynn advised his followers to vote for Harrison. As a matter of fact Harrison electoral tickets were run out of the united labor party boxes. The local operations of this "party of principle," its shameless dickers with all sorts of candidates, its nomination of a man for mayor who had no qualifications but his professed readiness to spend $100,000, and the recriminations amid which the grave closed over it, were all of a piece.

These things are not yet forgotten in New York, nor, indeed, has Dr. McGlynn made any sign which would show that he regrets them, or that the men who had his confidence in all this do not have it yet . For the Manhattan club therefore to have invited him to speak before it as if nothing had happened to destroy confidence would have been evidence, not of an amiable desire to heal unnecessary differences, but of a carelessness as to principle and conduct which would deprive it of just respect .