Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 09: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers — John Shaqi
Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 09: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great ReformersHubbard, Elbert
History
Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 09: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers
Hubbard, Elbert
Reformers
The Appletons, however, gradually awoke to the fact that they had a
prize, and they made efforts to get the work into right reviewing
hands. Better still, they began to inquire about what manner of man
Henry George was.
Next they wrote to the author suggesting that, if he would come to New
York and personally present his views, it would help in the sale of
the books.
Fortunately Henry George was not hampered by the ownership of real
estate, nor an excess of personal property, so he hastily packed up,
transportation having been secured by John Russell Young, a capitalist
who had faith in his genius from the first.
Henry George arrived in New York penniless, but Professor Swinton, E.
L. Youmans (that excellent blind man of great insight), John Russell
Young and the Appletons gave him a rich reception.
The tide had turned.
* * * * *
Henry George received all the recognition that any thinker and writer
could desire, from August, Eighteen Hundred Eighty, to the day of his
death, October Twenty-eighth, Eighteen Hundred Ninety-seven. Men might
not agree with him in his conclusions, but few indeed dare meet him in
a duel of argument, either by pen or upon the public platform.
He spoke in churches, halls and private parlors. His newspaper and
magazine articles commanded a price. He met the greatest minds of
America and of Europe on an equal footing.
In England his book was having a sale far beyond what it had met with
at home.
And when he spoke in London and the chief cities of Great Britain, the
halls were packed to suffocation. He appealed to the Messianic
instinct of English workingmen, and they hailed him as the coming man
--their deliverer. They stripped doors from their hinges and carried
him aloft upon the improvised platform. They unhitched the horses from
his carriage and drew him through the streets in triumphal state. This
all meant little--it was only campaign exuberance--the glare and flare
of smoky kerosene-torches, and the blare of brass.
Henry George was right in the same class with Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall
and John Stuart Mills, none of whom, happily, was a college man, and
therefore all were free from the handicap of dead learning and
ossified opinion, and saw things as if they were new. Ignorance is a
very necessary equipment in doing a great and sublime work that is to
eclipse anything heretofore performed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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