Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

and influential men. Hardly had Franklin launched his business when he was
able to snag several highly profitable plums of government privilege. The first
and most important was his securing of the vital public printing business—
won away not simply by the above device, but primarily by the influence of
the venerable lawyer Andrew Hamilton, an extremely powerful member of
the Assembly whose son was soon to be governor of the colony. Hamilton had
taken a liking to young Franklin and continued to lavish patronage upon him
until his death.
The second coup centered on paper money. In 1729, the question arose
whether or not Pennsylvania should print another large issue of paper money.
Franklin, spurred by the lucrative prize of the contract for printing the new
money, wrote an anonymous pamphlet (A Modest Inquiry into the Nature
and Necessity of a Paper Currency) that trumpeted the cause of paper money,
and played an important role in driving the scheme through the Assembly.
Let Franklin tell the happy ending to the story: "My friends there [in the
Assembly] who conceived I had been of some service, thought fit to reward
me by employing me in printing the money; a very profitable job and a great
help to me." Some service indeed received its due reward; but whether this
service was virtue is another matter. Hamilton followed this handsome subsidy
by securing to his protege the public printing work in Delaware and its
printing of paper money.
With this enormous advantage, Franklin could soon expand his business.
And more privilege was soon to come his way. In 1736 he was chosen clerk of
the Pennsylvania Assembly, a highly important post that Franklin could use
as a springboard to secure the privileges of his other governmental business.
As Franklin later candidly admitted: "Besides the pay for the immediate service
as Clerk, the place gave me a better opportunity of keeping up an interest
among the members, which secured to me the business of printing the votes,
laws, paper money, and other occasional jobs for the public, that on the whole
were very profitable."
Franklin lets us in on some of the ways in which he was able to attract
patronage. When opposed as clerk by one of the members of the Assembly,
Franklin took the trouble to borrow a rare book of the assemblyman's and
quickly to write him a note of profuse thanks. He proudly paints the copybook
lesson in his autobiography that this incident "shows how much more
profitable it is prudently to remove than to resent, return and continue inimicable
proceedings," and notes how this confirms the old maxim, "He that has
once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom
you yourself have obliged."
The following year young Franklin was further rewarded with the important
job of postmaster of Philadelphia, again taken away from Bradford. Here
again Franklin notes the post to be of "great advantage; for, though the
salary was small, it facilitated the correspondence and improved my news-
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