Presidency of Henry George

Henry George's term as the president of the United States lasted from March 4, 1889, until March 4, 1893. George, a Farmer-Laborite, took office as the 20th United States president after defeating Federal-Republican Frederick Douglass in the 1888 election. Four years later he was defeated for re-nomination at the 1892 Farmer-Labor National Convention. George was noted for being somewhat inefficient while in office, mostly due to the divided congress he was given and his numerous health problems while in office.

Election of 1888
After a contentious nominating process, George was nominated at the 1888 Farmer-Labor Convention. He faced opposition from within the party that nominated him due to his opposition to the prohibition of alcohol, causing a faction of F-Ls to bolt and nominate the prohibitionist former President John Bidwell for the Presidency. The Federal Republicans nominated former Senator and Orator Frederick Douglass for the Presidency, being the first major political party to nominate an African-American for the Presidency. Out of anger that a black man had won the nomination, a group of White Supremacists bolted from the party and created the Redshirt Party, in opposition to Douglass. At their own convention they nominated former President Edward S. Bragg for the Presidency.

Both George and Douglass engaged in a brutal campaign for the candidacy, with both sides using questionable tactics to win. Some accused George supporter of buying votes. However, after a close count in New York, George won the state, giving him the win in a narrow election.

George shocked many with his upset victory, not least of all himself. Thus arose the first scandal of his term, the “raise hell” letter to his wife, the soon-to-be First Lady, Annie George, in which he admitted “I do not want the responsibility and the work of the office of the President of the United States, but I did want to raise hell!” Leaked to the Knoxville Journal (formerly known as the Tennessee Federalist), editor William Rule castigated George as an unprepared president and a mockery to the nation.

Administration
For Secretary of State, George selected controversial and aging former House Speaker and hollow-Earth advocate Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota, a nomination barely approved by the Senate. 39 year old General Trades Union President Terence V. Powderly was selected for the Treasury post, while 41 year old Illinois Georgist John Peter Altgeld was handed the Justice Department. Tom L. Johnson, an Ohio single-tax leader in his mid-30s, was given the post of Secretary of the Navy, while similarly young Warren W. Bailey was made Postmaster General and Nebraska Georgist activist Mary E. Lease selected as Secretary of Agriculture.

Father Edward McGlynn was a chosen as a dark horse to be Secretary of the Interior, and subsequently excommunicated from the Catholic Church. 38 year old General Trades Union official Samuel Gompers was selected as Secretary of Labor, though the British-born Gompers quickly received criticism. Kentucky Catholic Bishop John Lancaster Spalding was selected to serve as Secretary of War, and, as with McGlynn, was excommunicated from the Church for it. The sole turnover in George’s cabinet arose when Powderly resigned to protest George’s free trade policies, and was replaced by a promoted Altgeld. George’s inaugural was widely heralded, with lines pleasing to most such as: ''”The primary error of the advocates of land nationalization is in their confusion of equal rights with joint rights, and in their consequent failure to realize the nature and meaning of economic rent… In truth the right to the use of land is not a joint or common right, but an equal right; the joint or common right is to rent, in the economic sense of the term. Therefore it is not necessary for the state to take land, it is only necessary for it to take rent.”''

George was a dynamic man, a speaker of grand proportions with a voice that carried a tide of inspiration across the seas of a crowd, yet the presidency and its labors stressed him.

Thus, in 1890, tragedy struck. Tom Watson would later remark that as the President took to the podium for a special address on the economic debate, the sweat upon his brow was more than usual. Yet, it proceeded as one would expect for most of it, an attempt to convince Congress and the masses who elected them to support his economic plan. Finally, he reached a crucial line on tariffs, ''”Free trade consists simply in letting people buy and sell as they want to buy and sell. It is protection that requires force, for it consists in preventing people from doing what they want to do. Protective tariffs are as much applications of force as are blockading squadrons, and their object is the same—to prevent trade.”'' He then paused for emphasis, and closed his eyes, standing erect for a moment in silence before collapsing to the floor.

He was rushed to a bed, were he would rest for a number of weeks, recovering from what was quickly ascertained to be a stroke. A deist himself, he nonetheless quickly gave in to the requests of the devoutly Catholic First Lady to have the two priests-turned-cabinet members pray at his bedside. George would not die, but he would never truly live as he once had, his voice just as impassioned yet weaker, his eyes carrying an unmistakable hint of a shadow. His capability to manage the nation quickly declined, and Vice President Simpson and the cabinet would play much large roles throughout the rest of his term.



Judicial appointments
After 29 years on the Court, Justice Joseph E. McDonald died in 1891. 44 year old former Attorney General John Peter Altgeld of Illinois was appointed as his replacement, with George heralding him as the greatest Judge in the nation. The fight to confirm Altgeld was fierce, but he was eventually nominated in a narrow Senate vote.

Cuba
The campaign in Cuba continued throughout 1889, with altercations between American troops commanded by Nelson A. Miles, including a war hero named Leonard Wood who distinguished himself as the sole survivor of one ambushed American platoon, against Maximo Gomez’s rebels. After over a decade of conflict, Gomez agreed to negotiations in the winter of 1889, knowing that one of the rebels’ leading figures, Jose Martí, had been a follower of George.

Bartolomé Masó, formally President of the Republic of Cuba, though Gomez was acknowledged by both as holding true power as Supreme Commander, led the Cuban delegation along with young Alfredo Zayas, while Cuban Governor Tomás Estrada Palma and a young Ohioan names William Howard Taft led the American delegation.

Masó stood aside President George and Governor Palma, only weeks prior to George’s stroke, to declare peace on the island. Declaring that the fight for Cuban independence continued in a spirit of peace, but that he was satisfied with Trumbull and George’s liberal guarantees of rights to former independence activists, he formally surrendered the declared Republic of Cuba to the United States, a surrender formally refused to ensure the illegality of secession was maintained. Nonetheless, Gomez’s surrender of forces was accepted, with his troops permitted to leave freely and peacefully to begin life anew.

Nationalization of railroads
George rejected the idea of government ownership of railroads and other large businesses, stating in his inaugural address: ”To prevent government from becoming corrupt and tyrannous, its organization and methods should be as simple as possible, its functions be restricted to those necessary to the common welfare, and in all its parts it should be kept as close to the people and as directly within their control as may be.” Outgoing President Lyman Trumbull, sitting beside George, was claimed to have shaken his head at the words, with Trumbull’s protege William Jennings Bryan publicly denouncing George’s inaugural several days later.

Single Tax debate
George made his primary goal, above all, the passage of a land value tax. Secondly, was the abolition, or at least lowering, of tariffs, and in a distant third came the abolition of monetary currency. The protectionists and anti-Georgists made the first move with the Goff Tariff of Senator Nathan Goff (FR-VA), raising rates to a 39% average and lowering the income tax.

After a series of meetings with the President culminating in the resignation of Terence V. Powderly as Secretary of the Treasury in protest of George’s anti-tariff views, Representative Henry Churchill de Mille (FL-NC) introduced the de Mille Revenue Act, implementing a federal land value and natural resource tax of 100% while abolishing all other taxes, as well as adding a $2.50 a month “citizen’s dividend” to all American adults. Expectedly, the de Mille bill failed by a significant margin, while the Goff bill was never put to a formal vote. Nonetheless, both clearly presented the goals of the respective sides in the nation’s economic debate.

Negotiations between the White House and Congress fell apart following George’s stroke, and remained in limbo until the midterms of 1890. The resulting Federal Republican landslide prevented any major economic bills from passing, with the Federal Republican congress passing the Goff Tariff and similar bills only to die at hands of President George’s veto pen.

Civil Rights
George made a speech denouncing efforts by politicians such as South Carolina’s Ben Tillman to suppress black voters, and appeared with anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells to denounce lynching in response to Tillman referring to George as a false Farmer-Laborite. Despite this, George opposed the passage of a Civil Rights Act, with some Congressional Federal Republicans joining with a number of Laborites to put forth the Civil Rights Act of 1890, nicknamed the Reed-Featherstone Bill after sponsoring Senator Thomas B. Reed (FR-ME) and Lewis P. Featherstone (FL-AR), which failed in the Senate.

Following the 1890 Federal Republican landslide, the Reed-Featherstone Bill was resubmitted, and would pass both houses of Congress in the spring of 1891. George thus was forced to personally veto the bill, though he explicitly stated in his veto message that: ''“the physical differences between races are hardly greater than between black and white horses. If this is true of our physical structure, it must be reflected even more in our mental constitution.”''

Native American policy
George took a strong stance in opposition to the Coke Act, which would forcefully remove the traditional tribal land structure from Native tribes and allot land to individuals, which leading Congressional opponent Henry Teller claims would lead to vast acres of Native land being lost. Seeing the act as contrary to his philosophy, George vetoed it in 1890, a veto that Congress failed to overturn.

Currency
One of the most volatile questions of the 1880s was whether the currency should be backed by gold and silver, or by gold alone. Owing to worldwide deflation in the late 19th century, a strict gold standard had resulted in reduction of incomes without the equivalent reduction in debts, pushing debtors and the poor to call for silver coinage as an inflationary measure. Because silver was worth less than its legal equivalent in gold, taxpayers paid their government bills in silver, while international creditors demanded payment in gold, resulting in a depletion of the nation's gold supply.

The issue was solidly between party lines, with Federal Republicans strongly supporting the Gold Standard and Farmer-Laborites strongly supporting Free Silver. President Lyman Trumbull had supported Free Silver, and eventually abolished the Gold Standard in favor of Free Silver. However, many supported Fiat Currency. The Chase Act of 1890 was introduced, which would remove all monetary basis from American currency and establish a fiat currency. The bill failed in the Senate despite passing the House, with the Western silver supporting Senators who had pushed for the Free Coinage Act opposing it.

Prohibition
George refused to sign any government funding bill appropriating funds for the enforcement of prohibition at the federal level, temporarily freezing the government for several months in 1890 prior to a Congressional acceptance of George’s opposition to prohibition due to the exigency of funding the government. This effectively rendered the prohibition amendment void in all areas where local governments did not enforce the law. George then was subsequently denounced by multiple Pro-Prohibition groups.

George called for prohibitions upon child labor, none of which were seriously considered by congress.

Chinese Exclusion
The first major legislation to be signed by George was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1889, prohibiting the entry of immigrants from China for twenty years and prohibiting any Chinese immigrants currently in the nation from returning if they ever left. The Act caused a condemnation by the Chinese Government.

Ireland
A longtime proponent of Irish Home Rule, George bypassed Secretary of State Donnelly, who was more interested in attempting to prove the Irish were descendants of Atlantis, to personally denounce British control over the island, causing an international incident and effectively alienating the United States from the United Kingdom. George proceeded to appoint Irish-American Georgist journalist Patrick Ford, as Ambassador to the U.K. in 1891. Ford had played a crucial role in strengthening George’s campaign in New England and in spreading word of his support of Irish Home Rule to Irish immigrants who proved a key voting bloc.

Britain refused to accept Ford, yet George would not back down, and thus refused to recognize the British Ambassador to the U.S., who left in the late summer of 1891 in response. Thus, Great Britain and the United States had de facto cut all diplomatic ties. Opposition Liberal Party leader William Ewart Gladstone harshly criticized Tory Prime Minister Cecil Gascoyne over the diplomatic failure.

Hollow Earth
At the urging of Ignatius Donnelly, George permitted the Secretary of State to open negotiations with other nations to begin an international investigation whether the Earth is hollow. The ensuing committee, formally titled the Joint Commission on the Soundness of the Earth, featured representatives from 19 nations across the world and began organization on a second voyage to the Arctic.

Hawaii
George refused to use the military in Hawaii after Japan established a naval base on Oahu, but was well received by Queen Liliuokalani. New York politician Theodore Roosevelt gained notoriety for his leadership in the movement to annex Hawaii.