Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/661

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GEORGE
GERALDINI
627

extensive scholastic advantages became able and highly effective preachers of the gospel, and also attained proficiency in biblical and theological learning. He was especially distinguished for the fervor and pathos of his pulpit discourses. Dur- ing the years of his episcopacy he travelled, chiefly by private conveyance, through all parts of the country, not excepting the frontier settlements of the west and southwest, usually preaching nearly every day, at prearranged appointments, at which were often witnessed remarkable manifestations of the influence that attended his preaching. He would never allow his portrait to be taken, and therefore his personal appearance is known only by tradition. He was of fair size and well propor- tioned, with dark hair and sallow complexion.


GEORGE, Henry, political economist, b. in Philadelphia, 2 Sept., 1889 ; d. in New York city, 29 Oct., 1897. He went to sea at an early age, and reaching California in 1858, remained there as a compositor, becoming finally a journalist. In 1879 he published " Progress and Poverty," which was issued in the fol- lowing year in New York and London, and soon acquired a world-wide reputa- tion. This book is "an inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions and of in- ci'ease of want with increase of wealth," in which the previ- ously held doctrines as to the distribution of wealth and the tendency of wages to a minimum are ex- amined and recon-

structed. In the fact

that rent tends to increase not only with increase of population but with all improvements that increase productive power, Mr. George finds the cause of the well-known tend- ency to the increase of land values, and to the de- crease of the proportion of the produce of wealth that goes to labor and capital, while in the specu- lative holding of land thus engendered he traces the tendency to force wages to a minimum and the primary cause of paroxysms of industrial de- pression. The remedy for these he declares to be the appropriation of rent by the community, thus making land virtually common property, while giving to the user secure possession and leaving to the producer the full advantage of his exertion and investment. In 1880 Mr. Geoi-ge removed to New York. In 1881 he published " The Irish Land Question," and in the same year visited Ireland and England. In 1883-'4 he again visited Eng- land and Scotland, at the invitation of the Eng- glish land reform union, making speeches on the land question, and in 1884-'5 he made another trip at the invitation of the Scottish land restoration league, producing on both tours a marked effect. In 1886 he was the candidate of the United labor party for mayor of New York, and received 68,110 votes against 90,.552 for Abram S. Hewitt, the Democratic candidate, and 60,435 for Theodore Roosevelt, the Republican candidate. Soon after this, Mr. George founded the " Standard," a weekly newspaper, which was soon discontinued. He also published " Social Problems " (1884), and " Protec- tion or Free-Trade " (1886). The latter is a radical examination of the tariff question. In 1897 he was nominated for mayor of New York, and died sud- denly three days before the election. He received a largely attended public funei'al.


GEORGE, James Zachariah, senator, b. in Monroe county, Ga., 20 Oct., 1826 : d. in Missis- sippi City, 14 Aug., 1897. He lost his father, and his mother removed to Noxubee county, Miss., where he was educated in the common schools. He served as a private in the 1st Mississippi volun- teers, commanded by Jefferson Davis, during the Mexican war, and was at the battle of Monterey. On his return he studied law, was admitted to the bar, and in 1854 elected reporter of the high court of errors and appeals. He was re-elected in 1 860. He served as a member of the state convention that passed the ordinance of secession, which he voted for and signed. He was a captain in the 20th Mississippi volunteers in the Confederate army, and subsequently colonel of the 5th Mississippi cavalry. He was also appointed a brigadier-gen- eral of militia. He was chairman of the Demo- cratic state executive committee, 1875-'6. was ap- pointed a judge of the supreme court of the state in 1879, and afterward elected chief justice. The latter office he resigned in February, 1881, to take his seat in the U. S. senate. His term expired 3 March, 1887. Judge George prepared and pub- lished ten volumes of the decisions of the court of which he was the official reporter, and subsequent- ly issued a digest of all the decisions from the ad- mission of Mississippi into the Union to and in- cluding the year 1870.


GEORGE, Samuel Carr, missionary, b. in Al- leghany county, Pa., 8 July. 1832. He was gradu- ated at the Western univei'sity of Pennsylvania in 1858, and at the Western theological seminary in April, 1861. In the following October he was or- dained as a foreign missionary, and sailed the same month for Siam. He remained there until the spring of 1873, when he returned to the L^nited States. In May, 1875, he was installed pastor of the Rocky Spring and St. Thomas Presbyterian churches in Franklin county. Pa., where he still remains. In May, 1886, he was elected professor of the Sanskrit and cognate tongues in Wilson female college at Chambersburg, Pa. Mr. George founded in Wilson college a scholarship in memory of his wife, and has presented to the college his oriental library, comprising works written in Sans- krit, Zend, Pali Siamese, and Burmese. At the solicitation of a London publishing firm he has prepared a " Grammar of the Siamese Language," which is still (1887) in manuscript.


GERALDINI, Alejandro, R. C. bishop of Santo Domingo, b. in Amelia, Italy, in 1455; d. in Santo Domingo in 1525. He became a soldier in early life and went with his brother to Spain, where he served against the Portuguese in 1475-'6. He afterward entered the church, and was intrusted with the education of the princesses of the royal family. While at court he rendered an important service to Columbus, who had come to present to the sovereigns of Castile and Aragon his plan for discovering a new world. Geraldini says: "They were discussing this project in a council composed of men of the most eminent rank. Opinions were divided, because several Spanish prelates treated the view of Columbus as manifest heresy; they cited the authority of Nicolas de Lyra, who represents the terrestrial globe as not containing any lands on the sides, neither beneath nor beyond the Canaries : and that of St. Augustine, who affirms that there are no antipodes. I chanced to be standing then behind Cardinal de Mendoza, a man equally remarkable for his accomplishments and