The contest was a very lively one, and each man who thus offered his services to his city had to endure a severe course of the abuse which it is the fashion nowadays to heap on any man who puts himself before the public gaze.
Accusations have been brought by each party against the others, until, to the unprejudiced outsider, it has seemed as if none of the candidates selected was fit to hold office at all.
Judge Van Wyck and General Tracy have been accused of being so much under the rule of their party leaders that they could not possibly give New York honest government. Mr. Seth Low has been declared to be such an autocrat that he would rule the city according to his own ideas, were they good or bad. Mr. George was called a visionary person, who would turn the world upside down if ever he came into power. These were, of course, the opinions of the candidates' enemies. To their friends each of them was felt to be the one man for whom the city had been waiting, and whose election would insure the best possible government at the lowest possible cost to the people.
You may judge for yourselves that all these opinions could not possibly be true; and that therefore the candidates, as well as their parties, must have had their good sides and their bad sides. We can only hope that Judge Van Wyck, who was elected to the position by a very large majority, may prove to be the best man for the place.
A very sad and painful turn was given to the election by the sudden death of Mr. Henry George, one of the candidates.
Mr. George was a man who had made a world-wide reputation for himself as the originator of the Single-Tax system.
The Single Tax is rather a hard matter for you to understand.
In brief, it was Mr. George's belief that poverty could be done away with, and every man placed in a position where he could earn a comfortable income, by abolishing all taxes upon industry and the products of industry, and substituting one single tax on land. The land-owners would then be the only persons taxed, and, according to Mr. George's theory, the land tax would be so heavy that it would prevent the men who do not want to use the land from keeping it out of the hands of the many who would like to have it for homes or raising crops. There being no longer any other taxes, the cost of living would be greatly lessened, and every man would be able to earn enough to support his family in comfort—and poverty would be at an end.
It is claimed for Mr. George's theory that no one has been able to find an argument which disproves it; but at the same time it has not yet been proved by practical use, and to many people it seems only a wonderful idea which can never be brought into working order.
Be that as it may, Henry George was one of the really great men of our century; and while the troubles between labor and capital exist, he can never be forgotten.