WEBVTT NOTE A Personal History of the Mises Institute 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.880 Since this is the 25th birthday, I thought we'd talk about the origin and the early years 2 00:00:05.880 --> 00:00:12.840 of the Mises Institute, because I've been there from almost the very start of the Institute 3 00:00:12.840 --> 00:00:22.760 in 1982. This will necessarily be an abbreviated version because of the time limitations, and 4 00:00:22.760 --> 00:00:27.240 I'm sure many people are going to be left out, but I do think it's important to know 5 00:00:27.240 --> 00:00:32.880 exactly how Lew Rockwell came to create the Institute and some of the original people 6 00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:34.300 that were involved in it. 7 00:00:34.300 --> 00:00:39.600 Of course, everyone here tonight is responsible for the great success he's had over the years, 8 00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:43.880 and I'm going to cut this off with just the origin of the Institute. 9 00:00:43.880 --> 00:00:50.440 But 15 years ago, here in New York, we were celebrating the 10th anniversary, and Lew 10 00:00:50.440 --> 00:00:56.520 gave me a plaque commemorating the fact that I was one of the founders of the Institute, 11 00:00:56.520 --> 00:01:02.280 which I've always valued and kept on my wall, but really, in fact, there's only one founder 12 00:01:02.280 --> 00:01:13.760 of the Institute and that's Lew Rockwell. 13 00:01:13.760 --> 00:01:19.020 Two of the most important and earliest people to the Institute, of course, were Margaret 14 00:01:19.020 --> 00:01:22.480 von Mises and Murray Rothbard. 15 00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:28.480 Let me recite some of the background of Lew and how he came to know the people to put it all together. 16 00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:39.480 Lew was a senior editor of Arlington House Publishers, one of the great publishers of conservative, classical, liberal and libertarian literature. 17 00:01:39.480 --> 00:01:42.480 Unfortunately, they are no longer in business. 18 00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:49.960 Business. But Luther held a position in the late 60s and one of his assignments was to 19 00:01:49.960 --> 00:01:56.240 serve as editor for the works of Ludwig von Mises and Henry Hazlitt. And in this connection 20 00:01:56.240 --> 00:02:03.960 he spent most of his time involved with the works of Ludwig von Mises. It was his emphasis 21 00:02:03.960 --> 00:02:10.280 on Mises that led him to request having a dinner in New York with Ludwig von Mises and 22 00:02:10.280 --> 00:02:17.040 Mises Mises and so they met here and discussed his work and this was in 1968. 23 00:02:17.040 --> 00:02:21.800 This meeting of course will prove to be very important later to the creation of 24 00:02:21.800 --> 00:02:29.640 the Mises Institute. Also his editorship was Henry Hazlitt and of course he met 25 00:02:29.640 --> 00:02:35.240 Hazlitt and again this proved later to be important to Mises Institute. After 26 00:02:35.240 --> 00:02:47.080 At Arlington House, Lew became connected with Hillsdale College and was in charge of their 27 00:02:47.080 --> 00:02:50.080 ideological activities and papers. 28 00:02:50.080 --> 00:02:55.160 And the college is justly famous for the fact that it did not accept any government funding. 29 00:02:55.160 --> 00:03:03.160 Following Hillsdale, Lew became Chief of Staff for Congressman Ron Paul in the late seventies. 30 00:03:06.160 --> 00:03:11.160 And again, you can see that that proved very beneficial to the Institute later. 31 00:03:11.160 --> 00:03:16.160 But for some time after the death of Ludwig von Mises in 1973, 32 00:03:16.160 --> 00:03:22.160 Lew became concerned that Mises' ideas and his works would not get the attention that they deserved 33 00:03:22.160 --> 00:03:28.040 and that some volumes might go out of print. So in 1982, Lou made an 34 00:03:28.040 --> 00:03:33.280 appointment to come to New York and meet with Margaret von Mises and she, they knew 35 00:03:33.280 --> 00:03:38.400 each other of course from the dental meeting previously. He, she gave him her 36 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:45.000 consent to start the Institute only if, and she would support it, she gave her 37 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:50.080 commitment to support it, only if he would first give her his personal 38 00:03:50.080 --> 00:03:54.640 commitment, that he would devote the rest of his life to promoting the Institute and 39 00:03:54.640 --> 00:04:05.880 Ludwig von Mises' ideas and Lew made that commitment to her. 40 00:04:05.880 --> 00:04:10.360 This was a very risky commitment on his part because at that point in time it was just 41 00:04:10.360 --> 00:04:16.420 him and he had no contributors, no one to help him and immediately he first turned to 42 00:04:16.420 --> 00:04:25.300 Murray Rothbard and got Murray's commitment to serve with the Institute and Lou got his 43 00:04:25.300 --> 00:04:30.580 commitment to be the academic advisor and then Lou became president and Murray became 44 00:04:30.580 --> 00:04:38.380 vice president. Lou began talking with various people to try to get support and there were 45 00:04:38.380 --> 00:04:42.540 a lot of people that tried to discourage him from creating the Mises Institute because 46 00:04:42.540 --> 00:04:48.220 Because they said that Ludwig von Mises was just too uncompromising. 47 00:04:48.220 --> 00:04:54.820 To me, one of the endearing commitments or parts of Ludwig von Mises was his integrity 48 00:04:54.820 --> 00:05:00.980 and his courage to stand by his principles and be uncompromising when others did compromise 49 00:05:00.980 --> 00:05:02.820 and gave up on their ideas. 50 00:05:02.820 --> 00:05:10.260 So I think that's one of the great commitments that Ludwig von Mises had was to stay true 51 00:05:10.260 --> 00:05:24.500 We recognize that he needed to establish a commitment with a connection to a major university 52 00:05:24.500 --> 00:05:29.320 and an economics department to get the thing started. 53 00:05:29.320 --> 00:05:34.780 He wanted, of course, to have an economics department that was at least sympathetic to 54 00:05:34.780 --> 00:05:39.500 free market ideas, but hopefully had some sort of connection to Austrian economics. 55 00:05:39.500 --> 00:05:45.160 As you can imagine, at that time, there were not many possibilities. 56 00:05:45.160 --> 00:05:50.720 But after considering all of the possibilities, he decided on Auburn University. 57 00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:56.100 Lew had learned that Auburn University had an outstanding faculty of free market economists 58 00:05:56.100 --> 00:06:02.460 that had been carefully put together by department head over a period of about 20 years. 59 00:06:02.460 --> 00:06:09.080 And he had actually met one member of that faculty, Roger Garrison, who was not only sympathetic 60 00:06:09.080 --> 00:06:14.080 to Austrian Economics, but very much in favor of Ludwig von Mises' ideas. 61 00:06:14.080 --> 00:06:20.960 Lew also had a commitment, one of his earliest financial commitments, from Catherine Dixon 62 00:06:20.960 --> 00:06:27.180 Rowland, whose family lived in Alabama, and they were very strong supporters of Auburn 63 00:06:27.180 --> 00:06:33.580 University, and she strongly encouraged Lew to come to Auburn University. 64 00:06:33.580 --> 00:06:40.260 Lou also learned from a person named Marsha Friedman, who I think she was invited to be. 65 00:06:40.260 --> 00:06:47.220 I don't know if she's here tonight. Is Marsha Friedman here? She had been with the Cato Institute 66 00:06:47.220 --> 00:06:57.260 and I had met her in 1980 and she recommended me to Lou that I was a trustee of Auburn University, 67 00:06:57.260 --> 00:07:03.180 that I was not only sympathetic to libertarian ideas but actually to Austrian economic ideas 68 00:07:03.180 --> 00:07:06.180 and the Ideas of Ludwig von Mises. 69 00:07:06.180 --> 00:07:15.180 So, Lew contacted me in 1982 and got a call from Lew, and I've often thought about the 70 00:07:15.180 --> 00:07:21.180 excitement I had at that time is comparable to what Henry Hazlitt used to talk about. 71 00:07:21.180 --> 00:07:25.180 He answered the phone and the voice on the other side said, this is Ludwig von Mises. 72 00:07:25.180 --> 00:07:26.180 I'm here in New York. 73 00:07:26.180 --> 00:07:27.180 I'd like to talk to you. 74 00:07:27.180 --> 00:07:50.180 and of course Henry Hazlitt had been talking about Mises and his work for some time and they had that meeting but Lew came to my house in 1982 and we had a long conversation about what his dreams were for the Institute, what he thought the Institute could do for the University and what I thought the University could do for the Institute. 75 00:07:50.180 --> 00:07:55.620 so following that I met with the president of Auburn University and got 76 00:07:55.620 --> 00:08:01.780 his commitment to enter into a contract with the Ludwig von Mises Institute to 77 00:08:01.780 --> 00:08:10.060 give them space and then I took that matter to the Board of Trustees and in 78 00:08:10.060 --> 00:08:13.380 presenting this to the Board of Trustees they wanted to know what this 79 00:08:13.380 --> 00:08:18.700 Institute was and I told them it was for free market economics and I remember 80 00:08:18.700 --> 00:08:28.700 Well, one member of the board said, well, I'm fully in support of free market economics as long as you don't impose it on the field of agriculture where I have some investment. 81 00:08:28.700 --> 00:08:38.700 He said, I'm fully satisfied with the subsidies from the federal government. I said, we'll leave you alone. 82 00:08:38.700 --> 00:08:48.460 So, very briefly, I'll tell you a little bit about my background at that point. 83 00:08:48.460 --> 00:08:51.140 I was a refugee from the political system. 84 00:08:51.140 --> 00:08:54.260 I had been very active in the Republican Party. 85 00:08:54.260 --> 00:09:00.300 I had been an alternate delegate to the Republican Convention in 1968 and a delegate to the National 86 00:09:00.300 --> 00:09:03.380 Republican Convention in 1972. 87 00:09:03.380 --> 00:09:07.980 And I gave up on the Republicans with Richard Nixon at that point, tried the Libertarian 88 00:09:07.980 --> 00:09:15.020 Party. I was a delegate to the 76th convention and the 1980 convention, which occurred really in 1979. 89 00:09:15.980 --> 00:09:22.300 And a friend, a close friend of mine, he'd been elected governor of Alabama in 1978, and I told 90 00:09:22.300 --> 00:09:30.140 him that I was through with politics, that I thought the way to promote the ideas of freedom 91 00:09:30.140 --> 00:09:35.740 and the free market economic system was through education, and that that's what I wanted to do. 92 00:09:35.740 --> 00:09:40.980 so he appointed me to the Board of Trustees in 1980 and it was in that 93 00:09:40.980 --> 00:09:46.900 year also that I went to a conference in at Dartmouth College that Cato had put 94 00:09:46.900 --> 00:09:52.660 on and I was interested in that because I thought that that was the right way to 95 00:09:52.660 --> 00:09:59.580 go to have some Institute that would promote education and ideas and one 96 00:09:59.580 --> 00:10:03.300 thing that attracted me about that at that time Murray Rothbard was connected 97 00:10:03.300 --> 00:10:11.420 with Cato and he had actually I think suggested the name of Cato to them and that was part 98 00:10:11.420 --> 00:10:16.980 of what I had been reading was the correspondence of John Adams to Jefferson and others to the 99 00:10:16.980 --> 00:10:24.220 effect that the American Revolution did not begin in 1775, it began many years before 100 00:10:24.220 --> 00:10:28.380 in the hearts and minds of the American people due to what they had read in the pamphlets 101 00:10:28.380 --> 00:10:34.460 and the newspapers from Cato's letters by Trenchett and Gordon and the ideas of John Locke. 102 00:10:34.460 --> 00:10:40.380 So that was what I thought the way to go was. And so when I went to the Cato Conference, 103 00:10:41.980 --> 00:10:47.420 I wanted to see how they ran things. And also I wanted to go hear Ralph Rico speak on World War I. 104 00:10:50.300 --> 00:10:54.780 Tell you a little bit about the facilities at Auburn. Some of you may have visited, but I don't 105 00:10:54.780 --> 00:10:57.460 I think many of you came to the first facility. 106 00:10:57.460 --> 00:11:02.460 Auburn immediately gave Lew a place to have, 107 00:11:02.460 --> 00:11:07.820 and it was in the basement of a thatch hall, a classroom building. 108 00:11:07.820 --> 00:11:12.580 Lew only had two employees, but he was in a very, very small room in the basement, 109 00:11:12.580 --> 00:11:17.140 and not too attractive and not very impressive. 110 00:11:17.140 --> 00:11:23.980 But after a time, we got a new president, and he provided a small building 111 00:11:23.980 --> 00:11:29.180 that was actually literally in the shadows of the football stadium and it was very small but I think 112 00:11:29.180 --> 00:11:36.700 Lou had about four employees at that time. But after some time that same president gave me a 113 00:11:36.700 --> 00:11:42.460 commitment that the Institute would have the best facilities possible. So they built a new business 114 00:11:42.460 --> 00:11:48.940 school and I met with the architect and told him what all the Institute needed and when they built 115 00:11:48.940 --> 00:11:56.140 This beautiful building, the Mises Institute had the prime spot just as you go in to the right. 116 00:11:56.140 --> 00:12:01.660 He had about eight employees at that time, had access to conference rooms, the classrooms, 117 00:12:01.660 --> 00:12:11.820 and it was a really great facility. From the beginning, Lew and I agreed that the Institute 118 00:12:11.820 --> 00:12:17.420 would make donations to the economics department, not to the university generally, but just to the 119 00:12:17.420 --> 00:12:19.020 to the Economics Department. 120 00:12:19.020 --> 00:12:21.980 And Lew did that in lieu of any rent. 121 00:12:21.980 --> 00:12:24.820 And even though today there's no official connection 122 00:12:24.820 --> 00:12:27.880 with the University, the Mises Institute 123 00:12:27.880 --> 00:12:30.780 still makes donations to the Economics Department. 124 00:12:32.060 --> 00:12:33.900 Near the end of my last term 125 00:12:33.900 --> 00:12:36.860 on the Board of Trustees in 1999, 126 00:12:36.860 --> 00:12:40.500 I advised Lew that I thought that he should investigate 127 00:12:40.500 --> 00:12:43.860 the possibility of becoming independent from the university 128 00:12:43.860 --> 00:12:45.700 and get his own facilities. 129 00:12:45.700 --> 00:12:55.500 and so he began to look and he found a piece of property just across the street from the university about a block away from the business school 130 00:12:55.500 --> 00:13:05.060 and I don't know how many of you have been to the facility recently but it's a state-of-the-art facility built with contributions from many of you that are here. 131 00:13:05.060 --> 00:13:34.560 It is the, it's world famous, people are all over, I don't know if any of you have read the article in the Wall Street Journal about the Mises Institute, but it's an impressive facility and Lew now has the apartments back of there that are available for the students and visiting professors, so it's almost a whole block now, so it's a long way from that little bitty basement classroom up to what is there today. 132 00:13:35.060 --> 00:13:43.060 I think it would be interesting to you to hear who the first board of directors or board of advisors were. 133 00:13:43.060 --> 00:13:49.060 Mrs. Mises, of course, was the chairman. I was vice-chairman. 134 00:13:49.060 --> 00:13:59.060 But one of the other four very prominent people and the first, Frederic Hayek, who had been a student of Mises, 135 00:13:59.060 --> 00:14:05.060 It was a Nobel Prize winner in economics in 1974, the year after Mises died. 136 00:14:05.060 --> 00:14:21.060 As you know, he was the author of A Road to Serfdom, which was condensed in Reeder's Digest and became really popularized the free market ideas in one of the first books I read about Austrian economics and libertarian ideas. 137 00:14:21.060 --> 00:14:37.060 Secondly, there was a member of Congress by the name of Ron Paul, who is obviously the most qualified person to be President of the United States that's running this year. 138 00:14:37.060 --> 00:14:44.060 If this was a world of perfect justice, he would be elected. 139 00:14:44.060 --> 00:15:08.060 Ron assumed the position also at the very beginning to be called the Distinguished Counselor which is a position he still maintains. Ron has been very active in fundraising for the Institute. He's been a wonderful advisor. He comes to the meetings in Auburn often and of course he was a featured speaker here today. 140 00:15:08.060 --> 00:15:18.060 I want to insert one little footnote here that I think is extremely important that you probably will not see anywhere else in any of the media about Ron Paul. 141 00:15:18.060 --> 00:15:26.060 And he won't see it in the minutes of the Congressional Committee by the name of the International Relations Committee. 142 00:15:26.060 --> 00:15:35.060 But this event occurred at a meeting of his committee in October 2002, a full five months before the invasion of Iraq. 143 00:15:35.060 --> 00:15:50.060 Republican Congressman and Committee Chairman Henry Hyde of Illinois had a discussion with Congressman Ron Paul to the effect that Ron stated he knew that the administration was moving towards initiating military action against Iraq. 144 00:15:50.060 --> 00:15:59.060 And Ron announced he was planning to make a motion that Congress declare war against Iraq and then he would immediately vote against it. 145 00:15:59.060 --> 00:16:07.060 He said he was opposed to going to war without a declaration of war, which the Constitution clearly required. 146 00:16:07.060 --> 00:16:15.060 Ron's position was that it was a violation of the separation of powers for Congress simply to delegate that power to the President. 147 00:16:15.060 --> 00:16:22.060 And he said that there needed to be a debate, there needed to be a resolution, and he intended to vote against it. 148 00:16:22.060 --> 00:16:27.580 Henry Hyde, the chairman responded by stating the following and it's important 149 00:16:27.580 --> 00:16:32.860 to listen to this and what this means. Here are the words of 150 00:16:32.860 --> 00:16:38.620 Henry Hyde. Quote, there are things in the Constitution that had been overtaken by 151 00:16:38.620 --> 00:16:45.300 events, by time. The declaration of war is one of those. There are things that are 152 00:16:45.300 --> 00:16:49.980 no longer relevant to a modern society. We're just telling the president use 153 00:16:49.980 --> 00:16:55.880 Use Your Own Discretion and Judgment About the War." 154 00:16:55.880 --> 00:16:56.880 Think what that means. 155 00:16:56.880 --> 00:17:01.860 That's a congressman who swore to uphold the Constitution and just say it without an amendment. 156 00:17:01.860 --> 00:17:02.860 We ignore him. 157 00:17:02.860 --> 00:17:05.460 That part of the Constitution. 158 00:17:05.460 --> 00:17:12.220 He asked Ron not to offer the resolution because, quote, it would be inappropriate. 159 00:17:12.220 --> 00:17:14.180 It would be anachronistic. 160 00:17:14.180 --> 00:17:17.540 It just isn't done anymore, end quote. 161 00:17:17.540 --> 00:17:30.540 It's my understanding that Congressman Hayek had all that removed from the minutes of that committee meeting so that the public would not be able to see the flagrant violation of the Constitution that was taking place. 162 00:17:30.540 --> 00:17:35.540 And as you know, Congress has not declared war since December 1941. 163 00:17:35.540 --> 00:17:48.540 And since 1945, over 400,000 American servicemen and women have been casualties, that is, dead and wounded in undeclared, unconstitutional wars since that time. 164 00:17:48.540 --> 00:17:58.540 Think what it would be like if Ron Paul was president. Almost daily you'd have vetoes coming out of the Oval Office. 165 00:17:58.540 --> 00:18:11.540 You'd have radio and TV coverage every day of his speeches to the American people on the benefits of a free market economy, 166 00:18:11.540 --> 00:18:22.540 honest money backed by gold, a non-interventionist foreign policy and the need for Congress and the President and the Supreme Court to follow the Constitution in the future. 167 00:18:22.540 --> 00:18:26.540 Ron Paul could truly make a difference as President. 168 00:18:26.540 --> 00:18:37.400 Now continuing with the remaining two advisors to the Mises Institute, the other was Henry 169 00:18:37.400 --> 00:18:43.500 Hazlitt, and of course, as I mentioned earlier, Ludwig come in contact with Henry Hazlitt 170 00:18:43.500 --> 00:18:46.100 through being in Arlington House. 171 00:18:46.100 --> 00:18:52.740 It was Hazlitt's book entitled Economics and One Lesson that I read in 1961, which started 172 00:18:52.740 --> 00:18:57.380 by me on the road to the ideas of Mises and the Austrian economics in general. 173 00:18:57.380 --> 00:19:02.000 He had been one of the most outstanding promoters of the ideas of Mises from the beginning through 174 00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:08.400 his editorials in the New York Times and his articles in Newsweek magazine. 175 00:19:08.400 --> 00:19:12.900 He wrote so well that people like me that were not trained in economics could understand 176 00:19:12.900 --> 00:19:19.480 what he was talking about and that was true for so many other people. 177 00:19:19.480 --> 00:19:24.560 He continued to be an outstanding supporter of the Institute, and several years ago the 178 00:19:24.560 --> 00:19:28.240 Institute gave him a birthday party here in New York. 179 00:19:28.240 --> 00:19:33.800 Finally, at his death, he left a sizable portion of his estate for the support of the Mises 180 00:19:33.800 --> 00:19:34.800 Institute. 181 00:19:34.800 --> 00:19:39.640 Finally, the sixth member of the Board of Advisors was Professor Hans Schinholz, who 182 00:19:39.640 --> 00:19:42.000 died in June of this year. 183 00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:47.200 He was the first student of Mises in the United States to write a dissertation and receive 184 00:19:47.200 --> 00:20:00.200 He received a Ph.D. under the guidance of Ludwig von Mises. He was a long-time professor at Grove City College and was primarily responsible for that college requiring Mises papers, where they now are guarded treasure. 185 00:20:00.200 --> 00:20:14.200 Dr. Schinholtz was the 2004 recipient of the Gary Schlarbon Prize for lifetime defense of liberty, which is the highest honor that the Mises Institute bestows on anyone. 186 00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:19.200 I can't leave without making just one brief comment about the cost of war. 187 00:20:19.200 --> 00:20:27.200 During the first 15 years of the Institute, Lew and I probably had lunch together at least twice a week, 188 00:20:27.200 --> 00:20:33.200 talking about what was going on, what the problems were, and what the plans were. 189 00:20:33.200 --> 00:20:39.200 And when the Soviet Union fell in one of those conversations, probably in about 1999, 190 00:20:39.200 --> 00:20:47.840 and I told them that this would be a window of opportunity to talk about war so that there 191 00:20:47.840 --> 00:20:53.120 was a time of peace when people might listen to some criticism about war. 192 00:20:53.120 --> 00:20:57.880 And I suggested that a book be written by the institute called The Cost of War, America's 193 00:20:57.880 --> 00:21:06.160 Period Victories, which would show that Americans had primarily lost their freedom in winning 194 00:21:06.160 --> 00:21:15.160 Wars, and that it was only one time that there had been massive transfer of power to the 195 00:21:15.160 --> 00:21:19.560 federal government in the absence of war, and that was during the time of the Great Depression 196 00:21:19.560 --> 00:21:21.880 and the New Deal of Roosevelt. 197 00:21:21.880 --> 00:21:26.560 Lew liked the idea generally, but he said he thought we ought to have a conference first, 198 00:21:26.560 --> 00:21:33.360 and then I would be editor and invite people to submit articles to the book. 199 00:21:33.360 --> 00:21:38.320 So we had that conference in Atlanta, Georgia in 1994. 200 00:21:38.320 --> 00:21:44.880 One of my main memories of that is the excitement and joy of Murray Rothbard. 201 00:21:44.880 --> 00:21:49.320 He's known as a joyous libertarian, but I can see him now, he's just almost bouncing 202 00:21:49.320 --> 00:21:52.440 into his chair, he was so happy during that conference. 203 00:21:52.440 --> 00:21:58.440 And he participated in that and submitted two papers to that book. 204 00:21:58.440 --> 00:22:04.820 That book is frequently cited today even in books, one good book today, The Empire Has 205 00:22:04.820 --> 00:22:11.960 No Close, U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed by Ivan Elin, I noticed, cites the book fourteen times 206 00:22:11.960 --> 00:22:16.480 in the footnotes. 207 00:22:16.480 --> 00:22:22.120 I want to commend Lew for the courage he showed in taking the stand, the anti-war stand that 208 00:22:22.120 --> 00:22:26.600 it took at that time because there are a lot of people that consider any opposition to 209 00:22:26.600 --> 00:22:32.680 Award will be unpatriotic and a lot of contributors and supporters of the Mises Institute may 210 00:22:32.680 --> 00:22:37.360 have felt that way so it was a bold stand for him to take but I think it's one that 211 00:22:37.360 --> 00:22:40.840 Ludwig von Mises would have taken. 212 00:22:40.840 --> 00:22:47.120 In this short time I've tried to cover just a brief sketch of the early part of the Institute 213 00:22:47.120 --> 00:22:51.040 and I've had to leave out a lot of people and there were a lot of people also in the 214 00:22:51.040 --> 00:23:00.840 from the beginning, Burt Blument being one, is very important from the beginning. 215 00:23:00.840 --> 00:23:05.760 So in conclusion, I want to take this opportunity and I hope you'll join with me in thanking 216 00:23:05.760 --> 00:23:12.320 Lew Rockwell for his courage, his integrity, his entrepreneurship, his commitment to Mrs. 217 00:23:12.320 --> 00:23:15.040 Mises and for creating the Mises Institute. 218 00:23:21.040 --> 00:23:23.040 Thank you very much.