trucks from which the shifting speakers addressed the crowd.  The speakers were volunteers, including representatives of the liberal professions, lawyers, physicians, teachers, ministers, and labor leaders.  At such mass meetings George did most of his campaigning, making several speeches a night, once as many as eleven.  The single tax and the prevailing political corruption were favorite topics.  Against George and his adherents were pitted the powerful press of the city of New York, all the political power of the old parties, and all the influence of the business class.  George’s opponents were Abram S. Hewitt, an anti-Tammany Democrat whom Tammany had picked for its candidate in this emergency, and Theodore Roosevelt, then as yet known only as a courageous young politician.

The vote cast was 90,000 for Hewitt, 68,000 for George, and 60,000 for Roosevelt.  There is possible ground for the belief that George was counted out of thousands of votes.  The nature of the George vote can be sufficiently gathered from an analysis of the pledges to vote for him.  An apparently trustworthy investigation was made by a representative of the New York Sun.  He drew the conclusion that the vast majority were not simply wage earners, but also naturalized immigrants, mainly Irish, Germans, and Bohemians, the native element being in the minority.  While the Irish were divided between George and Hewitt, the majority of the German element had gone over to Henry George.  The outcome was hailed as a victory by George and his supporters and this view was also taken by the general press.

In spite of this propitious beginning the political labor movement soon suffered the fate of all reform political movements.  The strength of the new party was frittered away in doctrinaire factional strife between the single taxers and the socialists.  The trade union element became discouraged and lost interest.  So that at the next State election, in which George ran for Secretary of State, presumably because that office came nearest to meeting the requirement for a single taxer seeking a practical scope of action, the vote in the city fell to 37,000 and in the whole State amounted only to 72,000.  This ended the political labor movement in New York.

Outside of New York the political labor movement was not associated either with the single tax or any other “ism.”  As in New York it was a spontaneous expression of dissatisfaction brought on by failure in strikes.  The movement scored a victory in Milwaukee, where it elected a mayor, and in Chicago where it polled 25,000 out of a total of 92,000.  But, as in New York, it fell to pieces without leaving a permanent trace.

FOOTNOTES: 

[18] See the next chapter for the scheme of organization followed by the Order.

[19] See above, 79-80.

CHAPTER 5

THE VICTORY OF CRAFT UNIONISM AND THE FINAL FAILURE OF PRODUCERS’ COOPERATION