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Lubwic vON MISES
777 WEST END AVENUE
NEW YORK 235, N.Y.

January 23, 1958

Mrs. Ayn Rand
36 Fast 36 Street
New York, N. Y.

Dear Mrs. Rand:

I am not a professional critic and T feel no call
to judge the merits of a novel. So I do not want to
detain you with the information that I enjoyed very
much reading Atlas Shrugged and that I am full of admira-
tion for your masterful construction of the plot.

, But "Atlas Shrugged" is not merely a novel. It is
also -— or may I say: first of all -— a cogent anzlysis
of the evils that plague our society, a substantiated
rejection of the ideology of our self-styled "intellectuals"
and a pitiless unmasking of the insincerity of the policies
adopted by governments and political parties. It is a
devastating exposure of the "moral cannibals," the "gigolos
of science" and of the "academic prattle" of the makers
of the "anti-industrial revolution." You have the courage
to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are
inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which
you simply take for granted you owe to the effort of men
who are better than you.

If this be arrogance, as some of your critics observed,
it still is the truth that had to be said in this age of
the Welfare Stata.

I warmly congratulate you and I am looking forward
with great expectations to your future work.

Sincerely,

LM/ms Hoth) one