"The year 1886 was blotched by depression, mass unemployment, strikes, and
lockouts. Among other labor disorders, New York's streetcar employees
struck for shorter hours. While city aldermen took bribes in exchange for
franchises paying enormous profits to rapid transit owners, the workers
themselves were paid a pittance for slaving up to 16 hours a day. Most
aldermen were indicted for bribery, New Yorkers turned in anger on their
public servants, and labor leaders decided to channel the mood to their own
ends. The Central Labor Union (C.L.U.), organized in 1882, now banded
together 207 separate unions, representing 50,000 workers in New York,
Brooklyn, and Jersey City. Then, deciding to plunge into politics, the
C.L.U. pledged support to Henry George in the forthcoming mayoralty race.
The Democrats nominated Abram S. Hewitt. The Republicans picked Theodore
Roosevelt.
"Thus began the most stirring campaign in the city's history," according to
historian Allan Nevins, "for never before or since have men of such ability
contended for the prize." Labor leader Samuel Gompers, who supported Henry
George, said in his autobiography that "the campaign was notable in that it
united people of unusual abilities from all walks of life." With labor
trying to seize control of America's largest city and with amateurs warring
on the nation's most powerful political machine - Tammany - the eyes of all
Americans turned toward the New York battleground.
Henry George was already famous. His classic, _Progress and Poverty_, had
been translated into German, French, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Spanish,
Russian, Magyar (Hungarian), Hebrew, and Chinese and had sold millions of
copies. In this book George argued that rent is robbery; that wealth is the
product of labor applied to natural resources; that interest is the part of
the result of labor that is paid to capital; and that capital is the fruit
of labor, not its master. His theories influenced tax legislation around
the world and colored the thinking of people as different as Leo Tolstoy and
Sun Yat-sen. In the fall of 1886 Henry George was forty-seven years old.
Short, quivering with nervous energy, his reddish hair fringing the bald
spot on his head and his strong jaw encased in a sandy beard, George was
sometimes called the little red rooster.
Abram Hewitt felt ancient and weary that election season. He was sixty-four
years old and had a white beard. The eminent son-in-law of Peter Cooper and
himself a millionaire and philanthropist, Hewitt had served for many years
in Congress and did not care to return to Washington. Ironically, six years
earlier he had employed Henry George as a ghostwriter. Now he scorned his
former hired hand, declaring that only Abram Hewitt could save New York from
socialism, communism, anarchism, nihilism, and revolution.
Theodore Roosevelt was a mere twenty-eight years of age and only six years
out of Harvard. However, he had written three books and served three years
in the New York state legislature. An aristocrat, Roosevelt was regarded as
a maverick by his peers, who considered a political career beneath the
dignity of a gentleman. But the thin-waisted scion, even then sporting the
mustache that later delighted caricaturists, threw himself into the campaign
with cyclonic fervor.
When 34,000 laborers signed pledges to work and vote for Henry George; when
the United Labor party was organized in behalf of George; when a priest,
named Edward McGlynn, declared George to be inspired "by the same love of
justice as was taught by Christ"; when the brilliant agnostic, attorney, and
orator Robert Ingersoll called on fellow Republicans "to show that their
sympathies are not given to bankers, corporations and millionaires," Tammany
became frightened.
Richard Croker, the new boss of Tammany, sent an emissary to George,
offering a deal: If George would stay out of the mayoralty race, Tammany
would guarantee his election to Congress. George rejected the offer and
then charged that Hewitt was a captive of Tammany. Hewitt, in turn, charged
that George was a captive of radicals. The campaign developed into a duel
between George and Hewitt, with Roosevelt largely ignored. Young Teddy
tried to attract attention by shouting about "the countless evils and abuses
already existing," but some Republicans joined Ingersoll in crossing party
lines and voting for George.
Hewitt won the election, and Roosevelt came in a poor third. Second-place
Henry George complained that he had been cheated out of the mayor's office
by Tammany trickery. Certainly there were illegal registrations, bribery,
and manipulation of the ballot count, but historians disagree on whether
this fraud was sufficiently widespread to throw the election to Hewitt. In
any event, he gave the city an able administration."
