This document summarizes a debate between Henry George and William Sumner on economic inequality during the Gilded Age. George advocated for land reform and higher taxes on landowners to reduce inequality, while Sumner defended wealthy businessmen like Andrew Carnegie and believed philanthropy was better than government intervention. The debate centered around how to address high poverty rates that existed alongside great wealth accumulation in late 19th century America.

1. The Great Debate
The late 19th century in America is known as a time of great technological
advancement. With the end of the Civil War there were new weapons. Trains and
railroads became more efficient. Cities, as they are known today, were being built.
Thousands upon thousands of people were moving west to own their own land and
to farm and be their own boss. It was a time when great wealth and vast fortunes
were being accumulated. Men like Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller were
quickly becoming the richest men in the history of the world. Word of the “American
Dream” was spreading rapidly throughout the world. Millions of people were
flocking onto American shores for a chance to partake in this grand dream. But
every story has two sides as did this American dream, one which businessmen
seemed to forget to tell people as they travelled west or across the ocean. With this
great wealth there was even greater poverty. In the very city in which Rockefeller
and JP Morgan amassed their personal fortunes, thousands more were living off of a
dollar a day. It is from this sort of inequality that history gives two completely
different people from completely different parts of society: Andrew Carnegie, steel
magnate and billionaire and Thomas O’Donnell, textile worker and impoverished
father.
Carnegie was worth 4.5 billion dollars. O’Donnell could barely feed his family.
Yet, Carnegie at one point in his life was just as poor as O’Donnell, working away in
the mills barely making a dollar a day himself. How is that one man could amass
such a fortune and another from the same humble beginnings be unable to even

2. clothe his children during the wintry months. How is this system just? Or is it just?
Two likewise vastly different characters would have two completely differing
opinions as to these very questions. Henry George and William Sumner were both
intellectuals of the Gilded Age and political and economic activists. Both, however,
completely disagreed with each other in every way possible except for the fact that
there was indeed great poverty and inequality in America
Henry George would look at O’Donnell with great pity. He would bemoan the
very idea that a man would have to search the ground for leftover clams in order to
feed his family. He would be devastated that O’Donnell could not even amass $1,500
in order to move west to start anew and own his own land. In his great work
“Poverty and Progress” O’Donnell seeks to answer these quintessential problems of
society. His greatest question is “why with the advancement of technology is there
still such poverty and inequality?” To, George, the answer is quite simple. He would
tell Carnegie that he is morally wrong for holding on to his money. George would
disagree with the idea of not perpetuating the poverty problem by just giving money
and need to those who need it. To him the answer was not in philanthropy but in the
land. He believed there was so much beautiful land in this country that everyone
should have a piece of it. He offered the idea of a land tax, which was high enough
that the only tax throughout the country would be on land. This would in turn give
landowners an incentive to actually use the land rather than hoard it and if not use it
then at least sell it to someone who would. George detested the fact that wealthy
businessman with essentially no morals saw a piece of property and thus saw only
technological advancement. According to him, with technological advancement

3. came higher rent but this higher rent did not come concurrent with higher wages.
Therein lay the problem for Henry George. He would tell Sumner and Carnegie that
this whole free market idea causes nothing but great disparity of wealth and no
chance whatsoever for the uneducated man. He would propose government
intervention and control, even partial control of the railroad. This, in his mind,
would help put a damper on the economic profits of millionaires. Henry George in
any debate would call himself the unequivocal voice of the poor man. His very book
was inspired after a trip to New York City, home of the greatest mansions adjacent
to the poorest tenement houses. He would support labor unions and minimum
wages. He would tell Sumner that a millionaire’s wealth could be put to greater use
actually aiding the cause rather than just merely building libraries. He would look at
Andrew Carnegie as arrogant and pompous and remind Carnegie of his own humble
beginnings.
It is at this point that William Sumner would step in and defend Carnegie. As
George is the defender of the poor man, Sumner is not only the knight of the rich
man but of the middle class worker, the class that according to him, feels heaviest
the strain of the impoverished. To Sumner the free market is a blessing. It creates
healthy competition, that very competition which gave Carnegie the opportunity to
become someone. While George would admonish Carnegie for philanthropy, Sumner
would defend him. He would quote the old saying, “Give a man a fish, and feed him
for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.” To these men, the greatest gift
they could give to society would be to build great institutions, which could better
man. Carnegie was an avid reader. Sumner would say that this voracious reading

4. was what helped him become a self made man and that anyone could do this with
reading and the free market system. They would rather teach a man to fish than
perpetuate the problem by just giving alms. Sumner would defend Carnegie, who
believed that by merely giving alms, a rich man was teaching the poor man to only
expect to be taken care of, thereby not fixing the problem of inequality but, in fact,
hampering it. O’Donnell and Carnegie truly are from different spectrums of society.
The question can be posed would George or Sumner blame either Carnegie or
O’Donnell, respectively, for his plot in life. Henry George would blame Carnegie for
his lack of caring. He would say that the glamorous libraries and museums are
nothing but show. He would want Carnegie to be more directly involved in
spreading his wealth, and if he does not, George would want the government to step
in and mediate. Sumner, however, would place no blame on O’Donnell for his plight.
According to Sumner the only despicable in society are the paupers, those who do
not even try to find work but literally revel in their poverty. O’Donnell, though, is a
hard-working man who provides for his family and does what he can to get by.
Carnegie and Sumner would see no wrong in that. They, in fact, would say it then is
their duty to come to the aid of this man for “Every honest citizen…owes it to
himself, to the community, and especially to those who are at once weak and
wronged, to go to their assistance and to help redress their wrongs.” Unlike George,
however, Sumner did not believe this meant hampering the wealth of the rich for
only the rich through their philanthropy could truly aid the impoverished.
The late 19th century was a time of great change. Technology advanced,
politics matured, economic theories were presented. America went from being a

5. rural country to a predominately urban one. Railroads were built throughout the
country, as were cities and ports. Skyscrapers were constructed. As things quickly
changed the very way the US worked as a country needed to progress as well, in
order to accommodate these advancements. Men like Sumner, Carnegie, and George
began to author books and essays debating what was the best way to run the
country economically and politically. One can easily imagine debates such as this
between all sorts of men over what should be done. In hindsight, modern Americans
can see that the best of both philosophies were implemented quite successfully,
creating a nation, in which truly any man can become educated and make his own
personal fortune, whether he be the son of a billionaire or of a laborer.