I Chose Liberty - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Richard W. Wilcke 377
Because of this mindset, I absorbed every word and every nuance of every speaker—
Read, Hans Sennholz, and Ed Opitz—as if I were a desert plant desperate for moisture.
That weekend for me was not a discussion of economic ideas as much as it was a life-changing
experience. It seemed to me that I had been preparing all my life to hear these ideas and
almost everything that was said seemed to filter deep into my consciousness. In a flash of
insight, like Paul on the road to Damascus, I understood principles that would explain
Goldwater and Vietnam and free enterprise and McFarland and everything else I had been
unclear about. I became a loyal disciple of Leonard Read and began devouring every book
and magazine that FEE had available, and every book in the Topeka Public Library by
anyone whose name I came across in these books and other publications.
A year or so later, I attended a second FEE seminar in Salina, Kansas (at my own
expense this time), where I recorded every word. Involved in agriculture, I met some young
farmers from Nebraska. They were the first to speak to me about FEE’s “foolish” beliefs in
a limited government, and recommended that I read such authors as Robert LeFevre and
Murray Rothbard.
Also on that weekend, I met George Pearson, a Grove City College student of Sennholz
who was working in Wichita for Koch Industries and fundraising for the Institute for
Humane Studies. We became friends and I absorbed a great deal from him about the history
and personalities of the movement. In those years, he and Charles Koch were much
enamored of Murray Rothbard’s strategic vision, and George gave me a number of books
and booklets from Murray and from IHS. About that time, he and Charles started a
Libertarian Supper Club in Wichita. It was about 120 miles from Topeka but I always tried
to go. There, I met and heard LeFevre for the first time. I had my wife, Janny, with me that
night, and he converted her to anarchy in about 30 minutes. Others I heard and met for
the first time at that club included Ben Rogge and Lew Rockwell, both of whom later
became good friends. All of these experiences, in combination with my continual study—I
even began taking more economics courses at Washburn University to make up for the
things I had ignored as an undergraduate—developed and firmed up my philosophy.
By 1976, I had conceived a novel organization that would analyze food, farm, and
development policy from a distinctly market perspective; an area that I felt the USDA-Land
Grant system would never explore sufficiently. After all, most agricultural economists were
sequestered in special departments in the agricultural schools and working for the USDA.
My dream was an independent institution. Naturally, I was hoping that Charles Koch, who
was by then launching the Cato Institute, would see fit to fund my project as well. In 1977,
I left my job in Kansas and Janny and I took our three kids and moved near our parents
in upstate New York to work full time on this project, called the Institute for the Study of
Market Agriculture. I was privileged to be invited to Cato’s first summer seminar at Wake
Forest where I met many who have remained my friends. My favorite lecturers, without
question, were Murray Rothbard, Leonard Liggio, and Walter Grinder. In the meantime,
I began graduate study at the State University of New York under Arthur Ekirch, libertarian
intellectual historian, taking every graduate class that he taught.
In 1979, several businessmen including Koch asked me to set aside my agricultural
institute and go to Washington to serve as the president and spokesmen for a new business