My Years with Ludwig von Mises
Chapter IX. Lu’s Famous Seminar
LU’S SEMINAR at New York University began in 1948 and ended in 1969. For twenty-one years the seminar gathered at the Graduate School in lower Manhattan every Thursday from 7:25 to 9:25 P.M.
When Lu entered the room, with almost military punctuality at 7:20 P.M., a small flat briefcase under his arm, he always had a friendly smile for everyone and a quick searching glance for me. He liked me to attend the meetings. He would sit down at the center of the long side of the table and take a small sheet from the inner pocket of his jacket. This tiny piece of paper was all he needed for the evening.
Then he would start to talk. He presented his ideas clearly, in simple words, in contrast to the often difficult terminology used in his books. The composition of his lectures was always the same: he began with a statement and returned with a closing word to exactly the point from whence he had started; his thoughts completed a perfect circle.
On Lu’s eighty-ninth birthday Leonard Read presented him with a plaque: “To A Great Teacher: You, Mises, are truly a Teacher. Two generations of students have studied under you, and countless thousands of others have learned from your books. Books and students are enduring monuments of a Teacher, and these monuments are yours. This generation of students will pass away, but the ideas set in motion by your writings will be a fountain source of new students for generations to come.”
Yes, Lu was a great teacher. He had the ability to lift the minds of his students, to incite their mental curiosity, to arouse their imagination to new visions. Frank Dierson, a prominent corporation lawyer in New York City who attended Lu’s regular course at New York University from 1946 and regularly came to the seminar from the beginning in 1948 to 1955, and in later years sporadically, told me:
The seminar was the most enriching experience of my life. It opened new worlds to me. Keynes once said, “At twenty-five your ideas are fixed.” But in Dr. von Mises’ class men of forty and fifty abandoned earlier convictions to accept the truth that he taught. Every lecture was a mind-stretching experience. In the first seminar I remember Dr. Mises had finished his lecture on welfare legislation, attacking the economics of various social policies. The entire class was astonished at his critical attitude. They arranged a special meeting after the lecture and invited the professor to attend. They wanted to teach him the social facts of life. And what happened? Wonder of wonders! After all the arguments had been submitted and Dr. Mises had explained everything anew, the class came away in complete agreement with Dr. Mises and shared a new conception of economic realities and economic freedom.
Jack Holman, who for many years was director of Johnson & Johnson and has a Ph.D. in economics and is a licensed professional engineer in the state of New York, felt similarly about Lu. He attended the seminar from 1950 to 1952, and he told me:
I have never known a man as erudite as was Dr. von Mises. He was extraordinarily learned in every field of knowledge. In discussing economics he would bring in examples from knowledge to illustrate the points he was making. I remember only too well some of the sentences he said during his lectures. Some of them I noted down. On September 21, 1950, he said, “One of the indispensable prerequisites of a mastery of economics is a perfect knowledge of history, the history of ideas and of civilization, and of social, economic, and political history. To know one field well, one must also know other fields.” On December 14, 1950, he said, “An ethical standard is judging various modes of conduct from the point of view of a scale of values which derives from divine commandments, or from that which is in the soul of everyone. The realm of ethics is not something which is outside of that of economic action. You cannot deal with ethical problems apart from economic ones, and vice versa.” On December 21, 1950, he said, “The fundamental contribution of the classical economists: What is good for the individual is good for society.”
Yes, Lu was a great teacher, though his English pronunciation was never perfect. I often wondered whether others would be affected by it. I looked around, watching their expressions, but they always listened attentively, their eyes fixed on his face, occasionally making notes. I was the only one whose thoughts were diverted. Perhaps because I loved him so much and wanted so badly for him to succeed in whatever he did.
He himself was completely absorbed. Sometimes he folded his hands close to his face, his elbows resting on the desk. Sometimes he leaned back in the chair, his hands pressed against the table, his head thrown back, his eyes introspective, seeing nothing. He may have looked at people, but he did not see them. Once in a while he shot a furtive glance to my place. I felt he saw me and then back he was in his thoughts, fully concentrated on the lecture.
During the discussion he was vigorous in his arguments, but he was always polite and civil. He never offended people, but he found no excuses for socialists. He explained every subject to the point of disarming his opponent, but never, never did he persuade anyone against his will. Occasionally the discussion got too lively and excited. Then Lu, with a single remark, brought the students back to the subject and released the tension. He always knew how to guide them. His restraint and civility were unparalleled. The students may have differed in their views about a subject, but they were united in their feelings of admiration and respect for Lu.
In the last five or six years of the seminar, it was a great relief for him when I brought the car to NYU to take him home. When I was not there and he was brought home by others, he was forced to talk or to further discuss some problems, and he was too polite to tell his friends how tired he was. With me there was no need to talk; he could relax. But regularly he asked me: “Did you like the lecture? Were you satisfied?” To ask me that question—it touched my heart.
I was never as attentive in his seminar as I should have been. I took too much interest in the students who attended. I watched them; I studied their faces. I saw many come and go whose names I did not even know. But others I saw grow and develop, acquiring stature and insight.
Lu met every new student encouraged, hopeful that one of them might develop into a second Hayek. If he saw a tiny spark, he hoped for a flame. Never did he show any sign of impatience, and he encouraged everyone to speak out and give his opinion.
Again and again he advised his students to read and to learn foreign languages. “It is a great pity,” he often said, “that American scholars do not know foreign languages and are unable to read foreign literature. Every economist should study Marx and Engels in the original language. Only if they know their subject from every angle will they be able to discuss it successfully.” He pointed to the example of Keynes, who knew hardly any German or French and was therefore unaware of solutions for economic policy which had already been advanced by French and German authors.
One evening at the seminar Lu cited authorities in French and in German. A student objected: “Why are you giving these citations, Professor?” he asked. “I can’t read French and German.” “Learn it,” was Lu’s answer. “You are engaged in scholarly activities.”
Among the students I knew best was Hans Sennholz, who was born and raised in Germany. He was a pilot in the German air force during the Second World War. He was shot down, captured, and became a prisoner of war in the U.S. During his captivity he became acquainted with Lu’s books. He had studied law and political science in Germany, and in 1949 he started studying economics at NYU. He attended Lu’s seminar for years and wrote his doctoral thesis with him. Today he is head of the Economics Department at Grove City College, lectures constantly all over the U.S., and is known as one of the staunchest defenders of the free market. He married Mary Homan, who attended the seminar while she was working with the Foundation for Economic Education.
I always had—and still have—a special interest in this marriage. One day, shortly after Hans and Mary had met, I invited them to our house and told each of them—separately and in private—how much I thought of the other one. It was a very simple way of bringing them together. They married, and in due time their son Robert became my godchild and is still today a special favorite of mine. Mary Sennholz later edited the “Festschrift” On Freedom and Free Enterprise, essays of nineteen scholars in honor of Lu presented on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his doctorate, February 20, 1956.
The best known of all of Lu’s American students today may be Professor Murray Rothbard. He came to the seminar in 1949 and became one of the most devoted and able advocates of Lu’s teaching. Lu may not have agreed with all of Rothbard’s views, but he always considered Rothbard to be one of his most gifted students. Those who have read Rothbard’s pamphlet, The Essential Von Mises, know his deep insight and warm understanding of my husband’s work. Today Murray Rothbard is professor of economics at the New York Polytechnic Institute in Brooklyn and a famous scholar, historian, and writer in his own right.
Another man in whom Lu put great hope was Israel Kirzner. In later years Lu chose Kirzner to be his assistant for the seminar, to help him with student problems and relieve the burden of the office hours. Now Dr. Kirzner is professor of economics at NYU, fulfilling all the hopes Lu cherished for him. Lu considered Kirzner’s The Economic Point of View an important and valuable work and wrote a foreword to it.
Louis Spadaro, a quiet, positive, earnest scholar, attended Lu’s seminar for many years and wrote his doctoral thesis with Lu. He is now dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration at Fordham University. Most of the seminar students became, over the years, good friends of ours.
Percy Greaves first came to the seminar in 1950 and attended almost all the meetings until Lu stopped teaching. Lu thought very highly of Percy’s knowledge and understanding of economic theory. “It is a great pity,” Lu often told me, “that he did not make his Ph.D.” Lu’s work was like scripture to Percy. He Was the chairman of the dinner meetings which the students arranged from time to time. He and his future wife, Bettina Bien, became very dear friends of ours; they even spent their honeymoon with us in Vermont.
Ronald S. Hertz, now a prominent certified accountant with a large firm on Park Avenue, attended Lu’s seminar for many years beginning in 1949. “No matter how verbose, inane, inept or belligerent the question or the questioner,” Ronald Hertz wrote me once, “he was heard through and then received a patient, meticulous response. It must have been the respect which Professor Mises showed to students which kept even those who began with great antagonism coming back.”
There was a whole group of high school students that Lu allowed to visit his seminar. They were bright young boys, eager to learn and deeply interested in today’s problems. They had discovered that Lu was their “man of the future” and not a “reactionary” as “friendly” economists would call him before they shelved his uncomfortable words of truth.
One of the youngest members of this group was George Reisman. One evening in the autumn of 1953 he rang the doorbell at our apartment. I opened the door and saw a young, blonde, shy boy of about fifteen years, who asked to see Dr. von Mises. I asked why, and he told me that he was in high school, had read all of Lu’s books he could get hold of, and was wondering whether the professor would allow him to attend his course and the seminar. Lu talked to him, and helpful as always, admitted him. From then on, George Reisman came regularly for years. He wrote his doctoral dissertation with Lu and often came to the house to converse with him.
Reisman was hard working, thorough, and inquisitive. In later years he translated one of Lu’s books from the German. It was published in 1960 by Van Nostrand under the title Epistemological Problems of Economics. Today George is professor of economics at St. John’s University in Brooklyn.
Ralph Raico was another one of the high school students that Lu watched with “great expectations.” Raico later went to Chicago to continue his studies, and he is now teaching history at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He recently wrote (in The Alternative, February, 1975): “To know the great Mises tends to create in one’s mind life-long standards of what an ideal intellectual should be. These are standards to which other scholars whom one encounters will almost never be equal, and judged by which the ordinary run of university professor—at Chicago, Princeton, or Harvard—is simply a joke (but it would be unfair to judge them by such a measure; here we are talking about two entirely different sorts of human beings).”
Another one of these young men whom Lu admitted to the seminar was Lawrence Moss, who at the time was a junior at Queens College. Moss had heard Lu speak when Lu sat on a platform with Senator Barry Goldwater. He was so impressed by Lu’s ideas that he tried his very best to meet Lu and get into the seminar. Rothbard helped him and arranged it for him. From then on Moss was a “regular” in the seminar.
Having been indoctrinated in his college with rather “liberal” ideas, Moss and a friend, who also joined the seminar, started to ask Lu many questions, which Lu answered with never-ending patience. One of the older students was annoyed by the steady questioning of the newcomers. The older student only wanted to listen to “the Professor,” he was not interested in the mental gymnastics of these youngsters. So he called the dean of students at Queens College and reported these two young boys, saying that they were on the grounds of New York University without permission of Queens College, without paying admission fees, and disturbing other students. The dean called the two students and asked for an explanation. They told their story and asked the dean to call Lu, to hear from him whether they had behaved improperly. But the dean believed them and said, “If you are reported a second time, I will make a note on your record.” It did not happen again. Today, Lawrence Moss, thirty years old, is assistant professor at the James Wilson Department of Economics of the University of Virginia, where he is working on a study of the Austrian school of economics. For Moss, Lu is the greatest man of the century.
Henry Hazlitt often came to the seminar. He always sat next to Lu and participated in the general discussion. Lu was especially pleased with his presence. Once, in the academic year 1957–58, Ayn Rand, the famous author of Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, also attended.
The seminar was frequented by people of various nationalities and professions. For five years, two Jesuit professors attended, Father William McInnes, a professor of economics and management at Weston College, and Father Michael Mansfield, a former professor of economics at Hong Kong University. Lu always took special delight in leading these and other clergymen into philosophical and theological questions with respect to social and economic problems. I also remember Captain Richard L. Fruin, a medical doctor from the Naval Station at Lakehurst, New Jersey. He was working with the Air Force on problems specific to flying. He traveled five or six hours every Thursday to attend Lu’s seminar, even when the roads were icy and dangerous. He never missed an evening.
A good friend of mine is Phebes Tan, a very gifted, beautiful young Philippine woman, who wrote her doctoral dissertation with Lu and later married Edward Facey, another student of Lu’s. Now they are both teaching at Hillsdale College in Michigan.
Another participant in the seminar was William Peterson, who for some time was professor of economics at NYU and is now teaching at the American Graduate School of International Management in Glendale, Arizona. His wife, Mary, a very gifted, charming woman, also attended frequently. She later became well-known through her book reviews in the Wall Street Journal.
Once, in June, 1955, the Petersons brought their children to a seminar arranged by the Foundation for Economic Education and conducted by Lu at Buckhill Falls Inn in the Poconos. The seminar was held in a special building on the beautiful grounds of the hotel. The conference room was large, with a long oval table. I took my place, as usual, somewhere in the back. The first day of the meeting Lu spoke about the gold standard. Mary also sat in the back with her two children. According to the lecture notes of Bettina Bien-Greaves, during his speech Lu said:
There will be one day a period of history in which the government will leave the butter price as it is and people will be in a position to eat butter at the lowest possible price. This little girl, sitting so quietly in the back of the room, who is listening without too much interest to what we are saying, will perhaps live in a world where the butter price will be left to the free market. But this will certainly not happen if we don’t study these problems and if we don’t tell the result of our thinking about these problems to the people.
This clearly shows that Lu had noticed the children.
The next day, Mary sat down at the table between her two children, directly opposite Lu. I was flabbergasted. I could not imagine these small children staying quiet for two hours. I was afraid they would disturb Lu. But Mary knew what she was doing. She had given them books and drawings, and the children behaved as if they were glued to their chairs, turning the pages of their books, glancing at pictures, drawing, never looking up. Only towards the end of the lecture did they get restless, fidgeting about on their chairs, pulling at their mother’s sleeves, whispering into her ears. Lu had hardly spoken the last word when Mary jumped up and rushed out of the room, holding a child at each hand, looking neither right nor left!
Today, one of these children, Mark Peterson, whom I remember so well through this amusing incident and through later meetings, is working for his Ph.D. at the University of Virginia and is an enthusiastic defender of the free market and of freedom for the individual.
I wrote about our friend George Koether in my acknowledgments at the beginning of this book. He and his wife, Ilo, were very close to us. He was a journalist and economist who started attending Lu’s seminar in 1949. Active, enthusiastic, always full of new ideas, he had one feeling, one conviction, that never changed after he started studying Lu’s ideas. Lu was to him, and “ought to be to all the world,” he said, “the light burning in the darkness.”
Then there was Bettina Bien, now Bettina Bien-Greaves. She first came to the seminar in 1951 and attended it to the last session, not missing a single meeting. She is one of those rare individuals who combine intelligence and mental curiosity with warmth and understanding of human nature. With the passing of the years, she became a household word with Lu and me. If there was any information Lu needed, any refreshing of his memory, he would say, “Call Bettina,” and surely enough she had the answer.
After four or five years in the seminar, Bettina took her seat next to Lu, taking notes in shorthand—and no one would have dared to contest for that seat. I spoke first to Bettina in 1952 during a seminar in California. At that time she was still rather quiet, hardly asking any questions. But later, working with tremendous zeal, studying Lu’s books from beginning to end, reading them again and again, her inner security grew in relation to her knowledge. She wrote an excellent bibliography of Lu’s work, and for his ninetieth birthday she catalogued—with my permission and without Lu’s knowledge—his whole library of about 6000 volumes, to Lu’s greatest surprise and delight.
The location of the seminar changed three times in twenty-one years. Lu and I loved the second location best. It was Gallatin House, the former British embassy on Washington Square, a beautiful brownstone building. Two stone lions at the entrance of the tiny garden bore witness of the past. Looking out of the windows of his office overlooking Washington Square, Lu often said that this might have been the view that inspired Henry James for his great novels. We all loved this place, in spite of the parking problems we all had!
When the seminar was held in the old NYU building where it had started, so many students attended that the room was often overcrowded and not a single chair could be added. Some of the students may have come out of curiosity to hear the famous professor. But most of them had a goal and were studying hard. In later years, when the seminar was held at the new NYU building, the number of students was smaller, but what they lacked in numbers, they made up in enthusiasm.
Lu never missed a single seminar. His various lectures and out-of-town obligations were arranged in such a way that they never conflicted with the seminar. Once, in December, 1961, Lu had to go to the Presbyterian Hospital for a hernia operation. He checked in two days before, on a Sunday morning. With permission of the surgeon, Dr. David Habif, I picked him up Monday evening and took him to NYU, where he gave his course. Then I took him back to the hospital, and he was operated on the next morning.
Lu was a great defender of women, and never doubted their mental capacities or potentials. His seminar in Vienna was well known for the many highly gifted women who attended and later became leading figures in economics and education. I would not be astonished if one day “Women’s Lib” discovered Lu—once the activists have overcome their anxiety problems concerning equality of sex and consider politics and economics their most important tasks. If they do, they may well declare Lu one of their heroes.
Lu explained in Socialism: “All mankind would suffer if woman should fail to develop her ego and be unable to unite with man as equal, freeborn companions and comrades. . . . To preserve the freedom of inner life for the woman, is the real problem of women: it is part of the cultural problem of humanity.”1
In closing this chapter I want to tell a little episode that is absolutely true, though I cannot give the names of the persons concerned. Some years ago a graduate student at NYU was revising his program of studies and wanted to include Lu’s seminar in his official curriculum.
His faculty adviser told him that he could take the seminar course on his own, but not as a part of his official program. “Mises theory,” said the professor, “is a religion, not economics.”
Eight years later that same professor, reminiscing over the great social experiments of the last generation, was greatly disturbed at the fact that the experiments were a dismal and known failure. “I had always tended to be liberal over the years and I favored all these new programs,” he said. “But one by one I have seen them all fail and have to be discarded. You know, perhaps Mises was right after all.”
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2Ludwig von Mises, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (London: Jonathan Cape, 1969), pp. 103-5.
