HENRY GEORGE,
TRAITOR
BY
BENJ. R. TUCKER,
Editor of Liberty
New York
BENJ. R. TUCKER, Publisher
1896


HENRY GEORGE, TRAITOR.
The present oft recalls the past, and events
of the recent political campaign forcibly re-
minded me of the shame of 1887 and the
shameful part therein of one whose infamy
shall not be forgotten. To the end that it
may not, I purpose here to link the present to
the past by a simple statement of facts.
In May, 1886, occurred the now historic
tragedy of the Chicago Haymarket, when a
bomb was thrown and policemen were killed
and wounded. It is needless to review the de-
tails. As a result eight men—Spies, Parsons,
Fischer, Engel, Lingg, Fielden, Schwab, and
Neebe–were arrested, tried, and convicted of
murder. All but Neebe were condemned to
death; Neebe was sentenced to a long term of
imprisonment. The trial was a long one, and
after it months were occupied in attempts to
secure a new one and to save the lives of the
condemned. During the spring, summer, and
fall of 1887 the matter filled the public mind.
Public opinion, inflamed by a prostituted press

4. HENRY GEORGE, TRAITOR.
and cowards high in place, was at fever-pitch
against the victims. Efforts were made to
secure the intervention of influential persons in
their behalf. But few responded to the call.
Perhaps most notable among the few, because
he risked the most and because his aid was
least expected, was William Dean Howells.
However brilliant the literary fame that he
may leave behind him, his fame as a man, rest-
ing chiefly on the brave and simple appeal that
he then made for justice, will far outshine it,
and I am sure that to him this act is the most
precious of his career. But because he was
almost alone among the mighty his appeal was
vain. The supreme court of Illinois, in a long
and labored opinion, sustained the verdict of
the lower court; the supreme court of the
United States gave an adverse decision regard-
ing the points of law upon which an appeal to
that tribunal had been taken; the governor of
Illinois listened with ears of stone to all pray-
ers for clemency; and on November Eleventh,
Eighteen Hundred and Eighty-Seven, Lingg
having previously taken his own life, Spies,
Parsons, Fischer, and Engel were hanged, the
commutation of the sentences of Fielden and
Schwab to life-imprisonment being the only
crumb of comfort flung to an enlightened
minority hungering for justice.

HENRY GEORGE, TRAITOR. 5
Among the mighty in that day of trial, in
that hour of national dishonor when every in-
dividual, especially every individual of pro-
minence, had to choose between the path of
shame and the path of glory, it is not unfair to
include Mr. Henry George. A man of unques-
tioned ability; a writer of almost unparalleled
lucidity and force; a public speaker whom vast
audiences acclaimed with apparently unquencha-
ble enthusiasm; a reformer who, in completely
winning the love of the masses, had not failed
to attach himself to many men of wealth and
power among the classes; and, withal, a man
whose honesty only a few of the more clear-
sighted had then begun to doubt, to him per-
haps more than to any other single person did
lovers of liberty and friends of labor confi-
dently look for willing and effective aid and
leadership through and out of a crisis pregnant
with results beyond all human vision. Less
than a year before, he had astonished New
York and the entire nation by rolling up a vote
of 68,000 as an independent candidate for the
mayoralty of this city. With the prestige
that that event had given him, with his com-
mand of popular attention, and with his won-
derful power of advocacy, it was not impossi-
ble that he should turn the tide of opinion, and
compel authority to comply with the demand

6 HENRY GEORGE, TRAITOR.
of a people awakened by his voice to a realiza-
tion of the horror that was impending. At
the very least he could have tried. For the
hope that he would make the attempt he had
given reason—so it is said, though I cannot
vouch for the statement—by sending a message
of encouragement to the men in their cells at
Chicago. That at the time this message is said
to have been sent he believed them to be inno-
cent victims is on record in black and white
over his own signature. At that time he had
not been nominated for the office of secretary
of State for New York. This nomination
came to him some months later, in the sum-
mer or early fall of 1887. His remarkable
campaign of 1886 had inspired him with insane
hopes of speedy political victory. In January,
1887, he had started his weekly paper, the
“Standard,” and by this and other means he
was bending all his energies to the creation of
a new political issue in the Single Tax with
himself as standard-bearer of a new political
party. He claimed that he would poll 250,000
votes for secretary of State, and that with
hard work he could be elected. The month of
September, 1887, found him in the thick of
this mad campaign. It was in that month,
too, that the Illinois supreme court filed its
opinion sustaining the verdict against Spies

HENRY GEORGE, TRAITOR. 7
and his comrades. The time for action had
arrived. Appeals to Henry George began to
pour in upon him from friends of the con-
demned men and from readers of the “Stand-
ard.” He was in a dilemma;-one of those
embarrassing dilemmas which men afflicted
with the political itch have so often to con-
front. What should he do? Should he
spring to the side of these innocent victims,
upon whose fate turned the question of free
speech in America, and thereby absolutely ruin
his prospect of immediate political advance-
ment, or should he continue in his mad struggle
to attain the goal of his ambition, and leave
the innocent to die? For some weeks he dog-
gedly maintained a policy of silence. But the
demand that he should take a stand became too
loud to be ignored. And it was under this
pressure that at last, in the “Standard” of Oc-
tober 8, 1887, appeared on its first page, over
the signature of the editor himself, the article
that at once damned Henry George forever
in the eyes of every decent and unbiassed man.
In substance Mr. George declared that,
although he formerly looked upon the con-
demned men as innocent, he now believed
them guilty of murder, because the supreme
court of Illinois had so pronounced them, and
that settled it. So well-nigh incredible is it

8 HENRY GEORGE, TRAITOR.
that a man of Henry George's intelligence and
boasted mental independence should ever have
given utterance to a conclusion so foolish and
so slavish that to-day, nine years after the fact,
if you venture to attribute it to him in talking
with one of his admirers, the chances are ten to
one that you will be vehemently told that Mr.
George never could have taken, and never did
take, such a position, and that you ought to be
ashamed of yourself for so misrepresenting a
noble man. That there may be no mistake
about the matter, then, let me quote his exact
words:
There is no ground for asking executive clemency
in behalf of the Chicago Anarchists as a matter of
right. An unlawful and murderous deed was com-
mitted in Chicago the penalty of which, by the laws
of the State of Illinois, is death. Seven men were
tried on the charge of being accessory to the crime,
and, after a long trial, were convicted. The case was
appealed to the supreme court of the State of Illinois,
and that body, composed of seven judges, removed,
both in time and place, from the excitement which
may have been supposed to have affected public
opinion in Chicago during the first trial, have, after
an elaborate examination of the evidence and the law,
unanimously confirmed the sentence.
That seven judges of the highest court of Illinois, men
accustomed to weigh evidence and to pass upon judicial
rulings, should, after a full examination of the testº-
mony and the record, and with the responsibility of life

HENRY GEORGE, TRAITOR. 9
and death resting upon them, unanimously sustain the
verdict and the sentence, is inconsistent with the idea that
the Chicago Anarchists were condemned on insufficient
evidence.
Unmistakable, is it not ? No room for mis-
representation here. So clear is the meaning
that every person who read the sentence which
I have italicised, and who was capable of judg-
ing its author impartially, in his inmost heart
put Henry George down as a liar and a coward.
Some went farther, I among them, and put him
down in print as such. The lamented William
Morris, for instance, who was then editing the
“Commonweal,” found nothing less than capi-
talletters adequate to the branding of George
as TRAITOR, in a pithy paragraph of four or
five lines, signed, if my memory serves, by the
poet himself.
Nine years have passed since then, during
which the man thus branded has made no
acknowledgment of error, uttered no expression
of regret, given no sign of repentance. But
meantime significant things have happened.
Let us move down a little from the remoter
past toward the present.
In the fall of 1892, John P. Altgeld was
elected governor of Illinois. In January of
1893 he was inaugurated, and before he had
been in office many months he granted what

10 HENRY GEORGE, TRAITOR.
the law calls a pardon to Fielden, Schwab,
and Neebe. Governor Altgeld is himself a
lawyer. He once held the office of prosecuting
attorney, and later was a judge of the supe-
rior court of Illinois for a term of five years.
Nevertheless, before deciding on this pardon,
he called to his side, as trusted friend and
counsellor, another judge of one of the high
courts of the State. I suppose that I reveal
no secret in naming him, Judge Samuel P.
McConnell, of Chicago. Together they went
over the record of the famous case. At a
certain stage in their examination, or at its
end,-I am not sure which,-Judge McConnell
said to the governor:
“Though I think that these men should be
pardoned, and though I ask you to pardon
them, I desire to express to you, as your friend,
my conviction that, if you pardon them, you
will thereby seriously injure your political
future.” -
“Damn it, Sam!” replied Altgeld, “if these
men were unjustly convicted, I’ll set 'em free,
though it should prove my political death.”
And so the pardon issued. It was a long,
convincing, bold, and scathing document, prob-
ably the most merciless message of mercy ever
penned. With unanswerable evidence and
argument Governor Altgeld assailed the guilty

HENRY GEORGE, TRAITOR. 11
conspirators against free speech, and, far from
bowing to the decree of the Illinois supreme
court, he ripped it completely up the back.
As a result he has ever since been a target for
the abuse and ridicule of the entire capitalistic
press. Nearly four years have elapsed since
the document was promulgated, during which
its author has been careful to improve every
opportunity to intensify the hatred of which he
is the object among the privileged classes.
And now we come down to the present time.
On Saturday evening, October 17, 1896,
Governor Altgeld made a notable speech at
Cooper Union in this city. The chief objects
of this speech were condemnation of govern-
ment by injunction and demonstration of the
fallibility of courts of justice. One minute
before the opening of the meeting and the en-
trance of Governor Altgeld, Henry George
crossed the platform and took a conspicuous
seat. The Single Taxers present rose to their
opportunity, and made the hall ring with their
applause. Any other man than Henry George,
in a meeting in no sense his, would have ac-
knowledged the greeting with a bow and then
steadfastly kept his seat. But not he. Rising
and crossing the platform with that pompous
strut with which every one who has ever seen
him parade before an admiring audience is

12 HENRY GEORGE, TRAITOR.
familiar, he stood at the desk the incarnation
of egotism, and with characteristic impudence
began a speech. Before he could utter a half-
dozen sentences he was cut short in the middle
of one of them by the playing of the band in
greeting to Altgeld. I confess that I do not
like the looks of the Illinois governor. He is
distinctly a disappointment to the eye. Yet I
could not help contrasting, and greatly to his
advantage, this slight figure of a modest, retir-
ing man, free from any trace of vanity and
plainly bored by the long-kept-up applause,
with the swelling turkey-cock whose strut had
just been so ingloriously cut short.
After some introductory speeches, the hero
of the evening rose to address the audience.
And then was witnessed the astounding specta-
cle of the man who, nine years before, had
given his specific sanction to the legal murder
of innocent men, that he might not damage a
political future which, though in reality the
baseless fabric of a dream, was in his eyes a
shining certainty, rising with both hands lifted
in honor of the man who, four years before,
without the slightest hesitation and as if the
most ordinary decency commanded it, had cast
into the balance a political prospect which only
the most ambitious of statesmen could have de-
spised, in order to do all that lay within the

HENRY GEORGE, TRAITOR. 13
bounds of human power to right the wrongs of
persecuted innocence. An astounding specta-
cle, I say. Yet it would have been an inspir-
ing one, had those who saw it been able to look
upon it as an honest effort at atonement. But
such it emphatically was not. It was only too
evident that the man who had once endeavored
to conceal his infamy behind the extraordinary
and pusillanimous plea that a unanimous court
can do no wrong was applauding the man who
holds no court sacred, not to repudiate his past,
but to make the people forget it, that he had
come to Cooper Union not to confess that he
had been a coward, but to exploit in his own
behalf the bravery of another. In vain did I
try to imagine what went on in Henry George's
mind as he sat listening to these rebuking
words as they fell from the lips of a former
occupant of the bench:
I say to my countrymen that there cannot be in a
republic any institution exempt from criticism, and
that, when any institution is permitted to assume that
attitude, it will destroy republican government. The
judicial branch of the government is just as much
subject to the criticism of the American people as are
the legislative and executive branches . . . . The
judges of our federal courts are as honest as other
men and no more so. They have the same passions
and prejudices that other men have, and are just as
liable to make mistakes and to move in the wrong di-

14 HENRY GEORGE, TRAITOR.
rection as other men are, and the safety of the republic
not only permits, but actually requires, that the action
of the courts should be honestly and thoroughly
scanned and freely criticised . . . . The mere fact
that the supreme court has all through its career re-
peatedly reversed its own decisions shows its fallibil-
ity . . . . The decision of the supreme court does
not in any case become a rule of political action the
correctness of which the the voter dare not question.
As Henry George listened to this simple
truth, which the most ordinary mind must
accept and which every honest mind openly
acknowledges, did he reflect that he had once
declared the supreme court incapable of error
and its decision beyond question ? Probably.
It is my belief that he regrets his course in
1887 most bitterly. Not that he is in the least
ashamed of it; not that he would not repeat it,
if he felt as sure as he did then of a political
gain in prospect; but simply that he realizes
that he made a fool of himself, not gaining
what he hoped to gain, and losing what he now
would like to have, the honor which might
have been his, but which another has bravely
won.
I have no use for repentance. I regard it a
deplorable waste of precious time and valuable
material that any man, no matter who, should
don sackcloth and ashes. But none the less am
I certain that no frank and sincere man, real-
HENRY GEORGE, TRAITOR. 15
izing with shame that he has been guilty of an
enormous folly in a matter of vital public inter-
est, will neglect for a moment to expose his
heart to public view. And the fact that dur-
ing the last nine years Henry George has
sought no opportunity to lay his heart bare
assures me that the liar and coward and traitor
of 1887 is, in his heart, a liar and coward and
traitor still. So that which he refuses to lay
bare I strip. The corruption thus made visible
is not a pleasant sight, but it is a useful one,
and I am determined that it shall never vanish
by concealment. My hope, rather, is to fan
the flame of a purifying indignation that shall
dissipate the pestilence forever.
BEN.J. R. Tucker.
November, 1896.


LIBERTY
A MONTHLY ORGAN OF ANARCHISM,
BEN.J. R. TUCKER, Editor.
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