The Last Knight of Liberalism

Chapter 20. Human Action and Its Consequences

1 Milton Friedman and George Stigler, “Roofs or Ceilings?” (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1946).

2 Mises to Jitta, letter dated October 22, 1949; Grove City Archive: Jitta file.

3 Henry Hazlitt, “The Case for Capitalism,” Newsweek 34 (September 19, 1949), p. 70.

4 Mises to Armin Spitaler, letter dated December 6, 1949; Grove City College Archive: Spitaler file; Mises to Ziegler, letter dated July 16, 1949; Grove City Archive: Cluett, Peabody & Co. file.

5 The only dark cloud was that Margit had been ill in November.

6 See the flyer dated August 9, 1949 in Grove City Archive: Fertig files. The flyer mentioned that the seminar was sponsored by the Volker Fund.

7 Seymour E. Harris, “Capitalist Manifesto,” Saturday Review 32 (September 24, 1949): 31.

8 John Kenneth Galbraith, “In Defense of Laissez-Faire,” New York Times Book Review (October 30, 1949), p. 45. The New Year’s party is mentioned in Mises to Hayek, letter dated December 13, 1949; Grove City Archive: Hayek files.

9 In private correspondence, Oskar Morgenstern declared that he could not agree with Mises’s statements on game theory. He did not explain why he disagreed, but said:

that the matter is far deeper and that it actually does produce results that cannot be had without it. I can see this from certain applications which are now being made in various fields, but these are all matters of difference that are, fortunately, on a level of common understanding.

This was certainly helpful. Mises must have been somewhat bemused, however, that Morgenstern did not quite remember the title of the book that he professed to have read “to a great extent.” (In his letter he thanked Mises for having sent him a copy of “Economic Action.”) See Morgenstern to Mises, letter dated January 12, 1950; Grove City Archive: Morgenstern file.

10 Alfred Sherrard, “The Free Man’s Straightjacket,” New Republic 122 (January 9, 1950): 18–19.

11 Murray N. Rothbard, “Review of Human Action” Faith and Freedom (September 1950): 14; idem, “Praxeology,” analysis (May 1950): 4.

12 Richard Cornuelle, “A New Philosophy of Laissez Faire,” American Affairs (January 1950): 47–51.

13 Lachmann must have sent Mises a copy of this lecture. See Mises to Ballvé, letter dated December 26, 1950; Grove City Archive: Ballvé files.

14 See correspondence in Grove City Archive: Christian Freedom Foundation file. CFF was at the time located on 26 West 58th Street in Manhattan. Around 1957, its offices moved to 250 West 57th Street.

15 Margit von Mises, My Years with Ludwig von Mises (Cedar Falls, Iowa: Center for Futures Education, 1978).

16 The latter position is mentioned in a March 1959 letter from Mises to Hayek. Koether also initiated the creation in 1956 of a Mises bust by his sculptor friend, Mrs. Erickson. Thereafter his relationship with the Mises couple quickly turned into fond friendship (Grove City Archive: Koether files).

17Who’s Who in America, monthly supplement of September 1952. Greaves had left Christian Economics no later than March 1959. See Greaves to Frederick Nymeyer, letter dated March 21, 1959; Grove City Archive: Greaves files. In his job search, he then presented himself as “a leading disciple of Professor Ludwig von Mises, the world famous analyst of socialist fallacies and leading exponent of the free market society.” Greaves to Edward Duning, letter dated May 26, 1959; Grove City Archive: Greaves files. By then he had met Bettina Bien (Greaves had previously been married in 1930 and had three children).

18 These lecture notes are now in the process of being edited and published as “Mises Seminar Lectures.” The first volume has just appeared. See Mises, The Free Market and Its Enemies (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 2004).

19 See the “Statement to the Directors of Freeman Magazine, Inc. by its active editors,” attachment to a letter to the Freeman’s Board of Directors dated October 2, 1952, p. 4; Grove City Archive: Freeman files. The Pew family had a solid track record of opposition to interventionism. It sold virtually all of its (highly profitable) European business when confronted with the alternative of joining government-sponsored cartels. See Pew to Mises, letter dated November 5, 1954; Grove City Archive: Pew files.

20 Vada Horsch to Mises, memorandum dated March 23, 1945; Grove City Archive: NAM files.

21 Mises to Pew, letter dated November 27, 1948; Grove City Archive: Pew files.

22 Mises later explained in private correspondence with a reader of Human Action who wondered why the libertarian message did not make it into the press:

The newspapers and magazines published in this country are either operated on a commercial basis or are newspapers and magazines of opinion.... The publishers and editors of the first group are anxious not to antagonize the feelings of the majority or a considerable part of their readers. If they cannot refuse printing an article or a letter to the editor which attacks the popular errors concerning the “Fair-Deal” and similar policies, they “edit” it. They cut down the arguments of the author in such a way that they become clumsy nonsense. The effect upon the reader is just the contrary of what the author intended. They get the impression that the market economy is advocated exclusively by bunglers and halfwits.... The second group consists almost exclusively of outright communists, half-communists and other “pink” publications.... There are a few exceptions. One is the Wall Street Journal, another one is Plain Talk. But the Wall Street Journal is solely read by bankers and businessmen, Plain Talk does not get sufficient backing and may be forced to go out of business.” (Mises to Walter Harrison, letter dated November 5, 1949; Grove City Archive: “H” files)

Mises had had personal experiences with this type of journalism. In 1944, for example, the New York Times had published a smear-job review of Omnipotent Government by a notorious Stalinist, who had obviously never read the book.

23 Pew to Mises, letter dated December 7, 1948; Grove City Archive: Pew files.

24 Pew to Mises, letter dated December 3, 1951. Apparently, the two men had started socializing around October of 1949, when Pew was a lunch guest in the Mises’s apartment.

25 See William M. Curtiss (Executive Secretary of FEE) to Rothbard, letter dated November 25, 1946; Rothbard Papers.

26 Leonard Read to Rothbard, letter dated June 24, 1948; Rothbard Papers (also in Grove City Archive: Read files). This was an invitation to attend a meeting on July 8, when Ludwig von Mises would be speaking.

27 Rothbard to William F. Campbell, letter dated April 1951; Rothbard Papers.

28 Walter Block and Walter Grinder, “Rothbard Tells All: Interview with Murray Rothbard,” December 1972, p. 6, in Rothbard Papers.

29 Herbert Cornuelle to Mises, letter dated June 17, 1949; Grove City Archive: FEE files.

30 See Rothbard’s letter to Herbert C. Cornuelle, November 28, 1949, Rothbard Papers. This sample chapter is later referred to as “the money chapter.”

31 Rothbard to Mises, letter dated May 18, 1950; Grove City Archive: Rothbard files.

32 Mises to Cornuelle, letter dated February 10, 1951; Rothbard Papers.

33 Memo to Volker Fund: Progress Report, January 1 to October 1, 1952, 13 pp., Rothbard Papers.

34 Raico and Reisman to Mises, letter dated February 24, 1953; Grove City Archive: Raico file. That first meeting took place on February 23. Bierly’s letter of February 13 is in the same file.

35Epistemological Problems of Economics, trans. George Reisman (Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand, 1960); The Free and Prosperous Commonwealth, trans. Ralph Raico (Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand, 1962). The title of the latter book was changed in subsequent editions to Liberalism: A Socio-Economic Exposition (Kansas City, Kansas: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, 1978). The Volker Fund sponsored Raico’s translation, which he began in the summer of 1956.

36 The talk was a huge success. See the correspondence between Mises and Shelby Cullom Davis in Grove City Archive: “D” files.

37 Mises to P.C. Armstrong, letter dated March 1, 1950; Grove City Archive: Armstrong file.

38 See the proceedings in Aaron Director, ed., Defense, Controls, and Inflation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952).

39 At the same time he must have finished at least the first draft of another important work. By June 1951, he had written a manuscript on Dialectical Materialism, a later version of which was probably incorporated as a chapter in Theory and History (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957). See Cornuelle to Mises, letter dated June 6, 1951; Grove City Archive: Herbert Cornuelle file.

40 Nymeyer to Mises, letter dated May 28, 1951; Mises to Nymeyer, letter dated June 21, 1951; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files.

41 Mises to Friedrich Hoenig, letter dated December 6, 1951; Grove City Archive: “H” files. Similarly, he wrote a few years later to Rougier:

An interventionist government can virtually annul all the expected advantages of the disappearance of customs barriers by domestic intervention. Under the conditions of interventionism a really common market can be achieved only by a common government that has the power to delimit strictly the jurisdiction of the various national governments. (March 18, 1959; Grove City Archive: Rougier files)

42 Mises to Ernest Anthony, letter dated June 19, 1953; Grove City Archive: Anthony file.

43 George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America (New York: Basic Books, 1976), pp. 28f.

44 Charles H. Hamilton, “The Freeman: The Early Years,” R. Lora and W.H. Longton, eds., The Conservative Press in Twentieth-Century America (London: Greenwood, 1999).

45 See “Battle for the Freeman,” Time, January 26, 1953. In a note dated October 3, 1952, John Chamberlain called Hoover the “principal founder of the Freeman.” Later Leo Wolman successfully set up an advertisement program, which was then followed through by Kurt Lassen. See Hazlitt to Chamberlain, letter dated October 24, 1952; Grove City Archive: Freeman files.

46 See the “Statement to the Directors of Freeman Magazine, Inc. by its active editors,” attachment to a letter to the Freeman’s Board of Directors dated October 2, 1952, p. 5; Grove City Archive: Freeman files. Shortly after the establishment of The Freeman, Frederick Nymeyer had written to business friends that See also Nymeyer to Dalton, letter dated April 6, 1953; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files. Crane was at the time a director of DuPont and member of its executive committee.

Dr. von Mises has been the prime mover on the program to put out a truly liberal (meaning by that laissez-faire capitalism) periodical to counter-influence the flood of Leftist publications. The man who finally organized the financial matters for such a publication is Mr. Jasper Crane. (Nymeyer to Choate and others, letter dated February 13, 1951)

47The Freeman had two predecessors by the same name. The first Freeman was published for a couple of years in the 1920s; the editor was Albert Jay Nock. In the 1930s, then, a former assistant to Nock, Suzanne LaFollette, published a successor for about fourteen months. LaFollette also joined the editorial team of Chamberlain’s and Hazlitt’s Freeman in 1950. See Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, p. 27; Hamilton, “The Freeman: The Early Years.”

48 Raymond Moley’s column in Newsweek (November 13, 1950).

49 Mises to V. Casimir-Lambert, letter dated May 15, 1951; Grove City Archive: Casimir Lambert files. Casimir Lambert, who left the United States in 1946, had just returned. Mises wrote to him that meanwhile “many things have changed” for the better.

50 Mises was not in New York during the first three weeks of June, and left New York City again on July 10 (probably for the Mont Pèlerin Society meeting in Beauvallon). See Mises to Richard von Mises, letter dated May 7, 1951; Grove City Archive: Richard von Mises files.

51 Herbert Cornuelle to Mises, letter dated October 30, 1950 and subsequent correspondence; Grove City Archive: Freeman files. Yeager to Mises, letter dated June 26, 1955; Grove City Archive: Buck Hill Falls file.

52 Yeager to Mises, letter dated July 7, 1951; Grove City Archive: Freeman files. Bettina Bien took lecture notes of this seminar. In the 1980s, Yeager held the Ludwig von Mises Chair in political economy at Auburn University in Alabama. He is the author of a famous textbook on international monetary relations.

53 There was also another 1951 meeting in White Sulphur Springs, which Mises did not like at all because of the presence of too many statists. See Nymeyer to Brown, letter dated October 2, 1952; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files.

54 Mises to James Fifield, handwritten manuscript of a letter, undated response to Fifield’s letter dated July 8, 1952; Grove City Archive: Churches files. Mises left Manhattan for San Francisco some days after June 18. After the seminar, he spent a vacation in California and returned to Manhattan after Labor Day. The fall term started on September 22. See Mises to Cobrin, letter dated June 18, 1952; Grove City Archive: “C” files. The vacation is mentioned in Mises to Hamilius, letter dated June 3, 1952; Grove City Archive: Hamilius files. The place (San Francisco) and length of the seminar is mentioned in Mises to Julier, letter dated September 22, 1953; Grove City Archive: “J” files.

55 Fertig to Read, letter dated March 15, 1951; Grove City Archive: Fertig file.

56 Read to Fertig, letter dated March 19, 1951; Grove City Archive: Fertig file.

57 Mises, to Fisher, letter dated December 10, 1956; Grove City Archive: Fisher file.

58 Mises, Liberalism, pp. 153f.

59 He expressed this opinion in a letter to Louis Rougier, dated May 9, 1950; Grove City Archive: Rougier files.

60 Mises to Jasper Crane, letter dated April 27, 1954; Grove City Archive: Crane file.

61 See the “Statement to the Directors of Freeman Magazine, Inc. by its active editors,” attachment to a letter to The Freeman’s Board of Directors dated October 2, 1952, pp. 4–5; Grove City Archive: Freeman files.

62 Hazlitt to Chamberlain, letter dated October 24, 1952; Grove City Archive: Freeman files. This seems to have been a widely shared perception. One company executive explained why he would advertise in The Freeman in 1953, but not in 1952 (when the old editorial team was still in place):

We did consider The Freeman last year, but at that time it was too inflammatory and not objective enough. But now, since they have been reorganized, this magazine is very liberal in the conservative sense of the word. (Dalton to Nymeyer, letter dated April 8, 1953; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files)

63 Quoted from “Battle for the Freeman.”

64 Hazlitt to Chamberlain, letter dated October 24, 1952; Grove City Archive: Freeman files.

65 Hazlitt to Chamberlain, letter dated October 24, 1952; Grove City Archive: Freeman files.

66 See the “Statement to the Directors of Freeman Magazine, Inc. by its active editors,” attachment to a letter to The Freeman’s Board of Directors dated October 2, 1952; Grove City Archive: Freeman files.

67 Chamberlain to Mises, letter dated October 27, 1952; Grove City Archive: Freeman files. On October 31, 1952 a vote of confidence in favor of the present editors brought to light the composition of the two factions. A “yes” vote came from the three editors themselves and from Hillman, Peters, and Kohlberg. A vote of no confidence came from Read, Fertig, Mises, and the Robinsons. See the handwritten note in Grove City Archive: Freeman files.

68 Chamberlain eventually became an editor of National Review as well as of the Princeton Panel and a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal.

69 Henry Regnery’s response to Crane was symptomatic: “I think this is a lost cause.” Regnery to Nymeyer, letter dated April 6, 1953; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files.

70 Nymeyer to Delafield, letter dated April 4, 1951; Smith to Nymeyer, letter dated June 11, 1951; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files. Following instructions from Mises, Nymeyer published the piece under the title “Middle-of-the-Road Policy Leads to Socialism.” See Mises to Nymeyer, letter dated October 28, 1950; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files. Mises received a 10 percent royalty on the sales. See for example Nymeyer to Mises, letter dated June 6, 1951; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files. The total number of copies Nymeyer printed was 10,000. Shortly after the end of 1961, when a stock of 1,380 copies was left, there was a reprint, and another reprint of 30,000 (!) copies in 1965. See Nymeyer to Lipsett, letter dated October 9, 1961; Nymeyer to Mises, letter dated July 15, 1965; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files.

71 Nymeyer wrote: “Mr. Fisher’s request may be a ‘racket,’ but my assumption is that he is an advocate of free and competitive markets and that the use he makes of this pamphlet will promote a good cause.” Nymeyer to Mises, letter dated April 23, 1951; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files. In Latin America, the Federation of the Mexican Chambers of Commerce planned to translate the piece (Mises to Nymeyer, letter dated June 21, 1951).

72 Jujiro Iwai to Nymeyer, letter dated January 23, 1952; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files.

73 Nymeyer to Pew, letter dated April 22, 1959; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files. The statement that Mises is the “the greatest living champion of the innermost rampart of Christianity” is in Nymeyer to Pew, letter dated February 10, 1959; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files. See also Nymeyer to Pew, letter dated September 17, 1956; Grove City Archive: Pew files.

74 Nymeyer was also in touch with Hayek, who recommended Böhm-Bawerk’s “Macht oder ökonomisches Gesetz” [Control or Economic Law] for translation. Nymeyer then made inquiries about the copyrights for a 1931 translation by John Richard Metz. See Nymeyer to Sennholz and Huncke, letter dated June 5, 1951; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files.

75 Mises to Nymeyer, letter dated January 16, 1951; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files.

76 He went on: “He probably changed his opinion about me when he learned that I was a German doctor with a degree from Cologne University, which I had earned at the age of 27 after nearly seven years in the armed services (November 15, 1939—September 14, 1946).” Hans F. Sennholz, “Finding My Way,” a speech delivered at the Schlarbaum award ceremony (San Mateo, California, October 16, 2004). Edward Facey also received his Ph.D. under Mises.

77 Mises’s proposal is in his letter to Nymeyer dated January 27, 1951; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files. By December 1952, conflicts had arisen between the two translators. See Nymeyer to Mises, letter dated December 11, 1952; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files.

78 About a year later, Nymeyer had another idea, suggesting that Human Action be made more accessible by the creation of a glossary. Nymeyer to Mises, letter dated November 25, 1953; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files. Later on, Percy Greaves put this idea into practice.

79 Mises to Nymeyer, letter dated March 24, 1955; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files.

80 Nymeyer files, around 1950.

81 He may have sent Mises’s paper “About Things to Come” along with the flyer. See Nymeyer to Mises, letter dated October 22, 1953; Grove City Archive: Nymeyer files.

82 Mises to Hagemann, letter dated January 6, 1955; Grove City Archive: Hagemann file.

83 He observes:

This political argument is only rarely resorted to in books, articles, and political speeches. It does not lend itself to such public treatment. But the underlying idea plays an important role in the thinking of statesmen and historians. (Mises, Theory of Money and Credit , p. 500)

84 Mises, “Die geldtheoretische Seite des Stabilisierungsproblems,” Schriften des Vereins für Sozialpolitik 164, no. 2 (Munich: Duncker & Humblot, 1923): 32. See also our discussion in chap. 12.

85 Mises, Theory of Money and Credit, p. 468.

86 Ibid., p. 493. Similarly, he wrote in private correspondence: “There is only one effective method of avoiding inflation: All government expenditure must be covered by taxes and by borrowing from the public, not by borrowing from the commercial banks.” Mises to Howard Pew, letter dated November 6, 1951; Grove City Archive: Pew files.

87 Mises, Theory of Money and Credit, p. 494.

88 Ibid., p. 500. He had little doubt that these warnings would go unheeded. See his letter to Rougier, dated January 3, 1952; Grove City Archive: Rougier files.

89 Ettinger to Hayek, letter dated January 5, 1954; Grove City Archive: Ettinger file. Ettinger refers to Raymond B. Fosdick, The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation (New York: Harper, 1952). The political explosiveness of these observations stemmed from the tax-exempt status that the big foundations enjoyed. See on this Harry D. Gideonse, “Changing Issues in Academic Freedom in the United States Today,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 94, no. 2 (1950); Mises’s letter dated May 24, 1954; Grove City Archive: U.S. Congress files. Mises had known Ettinger at least since 1946. Ettinger coordinated research on consumers’ cooperatives on behalf of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation. See Grove City Archive: Petroleum Industry Research Foundation file.

90 The first recipient was Hans Sennholz (1955–56). Israel Kirzner was the laureate in 1956–57 and Toshio Murata in 1959–1960 (upon his return to Japan, he began to spread Mises’s theories and also translated The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science and Human Action into Japanese). Only two students received the fellowship for three consecutive years. One of these students was Robert Guarnieri, from 1963 to 1966. See the correspondence in Grove City Archive: Guarnieri file. Guarnieri had been a student of Hans Sennholz’s in Grove City. He later set out for a business career.

91 These payments started after December 1958. See Bierly to Taggart, letter dated March 17, 1960; Grove City Archive.

92 In the fall of 1958, historian of economic thought Emil Kauder advised Raymond de Roover, who was looking for funding of a research project, not to write directly to the Volker Fund, but to get first in touch with Mises or Hayek. See the correspondence in Grove City Archive: Roover files.

93 Fertig to Paul McGhee, letter dated April 3, 1952; Grove City Archive: Fertig files.

94 Mises to Ballvé, letters dated February 13, 1956 and May 13, 1957; Grove City Archive: Ballvé files.

95 King to Mises, letter dated June 4, 1953; Grove City Archive: King file.

96 Cobrin to Mises, letter dated June 10, 1952; Grove City Archive: “C” files. Cobrin had written his master’s thesis under the supervision of a Dr. Dorau.

97 Notable but less important were Louis Spadaro and Edward Foley.

98 He was still the only student Mises had recommended until March 1955. By then Mises hoped that “also other members of my Seminar will soon comply with the requirements.” Mises to Loren B. Miller, letter dated March 21, 1955; Grove City Archive: Earhart Foundation file.

99 Mises to Chellevold, letter dated March 1, 1956; Grove City Archive: Sennholz files.

100 Kirzner was a Volker fellow in 1956–1957 and in early 1957 obtained a research grant from the Earhart Foundation. At that point, he had already defended his dissertation and was about to submit the final version. See Mises to Ware, letter dated January 28, 1957; Grove City Archive: Kirzner files. Mises praised Kirzner as “a young man who promises to become a highly competent teacher and author.” Mises to Ware, letter dated February 7, 1957; Grove City Archive: Kirzner files.

101 In 1954, Rothbard began to socialize with Ayn Rand’s group and then backed away, having decided that she was not really a libertarian. After Atlas Shrugged came out, however, there was a temporary rapprochement and the Circle Bastiat was introduced to Rand. This eventually led to the breakup of the Circle Bastiat. See Rothbard to Mises, letter dated July 17, 1958; Grove City Archive: Rothbard files. See also Justin Raimondo, An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2000), p. 109ff.

102 Reisman to Ware, letter dated July 14, 1963; Grove City Archive: Reisman files. See also the preface to Reisman’s Capitalism (Ottawa, Ill.: Jameson books, 1996).

103 Frank Dierson to Mises, letter dated June 10, 1952; Grove City Archive: “D” files.

104 Rothbard, Report to R. Cornuelle, July 19, 1955, 6 pp., Rothbard Papers (at least one page is missing). Rothbard had written a precursor to this paper in 1954 and submitted it (unsuccessfully) to Economica. See Rothbard to Mises, letter dated September 22, 1954; Grove City Archive: Rothbard files.

105 As quoted from Ralph Raico’s recollections of Rothbard in Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., ed. Murray N. Rothbard: In Memoriam (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1995), p. 3.

106 Abrahamson to Mises, letter dated September 7, 1955; Grove City Archive: Abrahamson file. Mises replied he hoped soon to find the leisure to study it carefully.

107 Hayek and Machlup had thought about undertaking a festschrift for Mises’s seventieth birthday in 1951. However, none of them was willing to make the effort and thus they turned to Hazlitt “to do all the technical work connected with the editing of such a volume.” See Machlup to Hazlitt, letter dated November 28, 1950; Hoover Institution: Machlup-Mises correspondence file. Hazlitt was too busy to become a part-time assistant to Hayek and Machlup, but the decisive obstacle was financial: no publisher could be found. See Machlup to Mary Sennholz, letter dated November 1, 1954; Hoover Institution: Machlup-Mises correspondence file.

108 Faustino Ballvé had received the request to make a contribution by March 1955. See Ballvé to Mises, letter dated March 18, 1955; Grove City Archive: Ballvé files. Louis Rougier withdrew his contribution because he thought it was poorly translated into English, and Alfred Müller-Armack declined, saying he had no time; see Grove City Archive: Mary Sennholz files.

109 This does not mean that critical voices were banished. William Rappard contributed an important critique of Mises’s theory of interventionism. Rappard here published thoughts he had long since expressed in private correspondence. See for example on the occasion of the publication of Nationalökonomie. Rappard to Mises, letter dated May 31, 1940; Grove City Archive: Rand file.

110 Rothbard to H. Cornuelle, letter dated March 14, 1951; Rothbard Papers. “What McCulloch did for Ricardo” refers to John Ramsay McCulloch, Principles of Political Economy (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, [1864] 1965).

111 See Rothbard’s memorandum to the Volker Fund: “Progress Report, January 1 to October 1, 1952;” Rothbard Papers.

112 Rothbard to Richard Cornuelle, letter dated January 3, 1953; Rothbard Papers.

113 There were indirect contacts between Rothbard and Rand ever since November 1947. By May 7, 1953 Rothbard was asked to introduce Reisman and Raico to Ayn Rand, which suggests that at that point he was a regular member of her group.

114 Rothbard, Progress Report (Rothbard Papers: Memo to Volker Fund, April 1, 1953).

115 Rothbard to R. Cornuelle, Memo (“Textbook or Treatise?”) dated February 1954; Rothbard Papers.

116 Rothbard to R. Cornuelle, letter dated November 5, 1954; Rothbard Papers.

117 Rothbard to R. Cornuelle, Memo dated August 9, 1954; Rothbard Papers.

118 Rothbard to R. Cornuelle, letter dated July 19, 1955; Rothbard Papers.

119 For a partial list of Rothbard’s main contributions to economics, see Joseph Stromberg’s introduction to the fourth edition of Man, Economy, and State (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2003).

120 Rothbard to Mises, letter dated April 2, 1956; Rothbard to R. Cornuelle, letter dated May 30, 1956; Rothbard to H.W. Luhnow, letter dated July 29, 1956; all in Rothbard Papers. The Earhart Foundation grant, which Rothbard duly received, made up for the ending of the Volker Fund grant, which had supported his writing of the treatise.

121 Mises to Kennedy, letter dated April 5, 1956; Grove City Archive: Rothbard files.

122 Mises commented on the September 1957 version of the book at the request of FEE. See correspondence in Grove City Archive: Rothbard files.

123 Rothbard to Mises, letter dated May 5, 1959; Grove City Archive: Rothbard files.

124 Frank Meyer, Memo: On Murray Rothbard’s Manuscript, late 1959 or January 1960; Rothbard Papers.

125 Grove City Archive: American School of Economics files.

126 Vada Horsch tried to place him at Yale. See Ryan to Mises, letter dated July 9, 1956; Grove City Archive: NAM files.

127 He went on to urge the establishment of a new graduate school for the education of future professors, a school squarely built on the tradition of classical liberalism. See Sennholz to Mises, letter dated November 7, 1956; Grove City Archive: American School of Economics files. During the next few years, Sennholz would spend much time and energy on this project; but it did not materialize, mainly due to financial reasons. In another letter, he mentions that the plans for establishing a graduate school of economics had been longstanding with FEE. See Sennholz to Mises, letter dated January 10, 1959; Grove City Archive: American School of Economics files.