My Years with Ludwig von Mises.pdf - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

that he was no longer the same. He became very quiet, and I often
wished he would tell me once again some of his war stories, which
in former years he had told me so often. He once said, "T}:1e.worst
is that I still have so much to give to the people, to the world, and I
can't put it together anymore. It is tormenting."
A few weeks after we returned to New York, Lu had his ninetieth
birthday. Larry Fertig had arranged a small intimate party for
about twenty good friends at the New York University Club. As a
special present Lu received a two-volume Festschrift from the Institute
for Humane Studies in California. The Festschriftincluded
seventy-one essays from scholars in eighteen countries, former students
and friends of Lu's from all over the world. The idea for the
book, Towards Liberty, was conceived by Gustavo Velasco and
enthusiastically embraced by the president of the institute, our
good friend, Dr. Floyd A. Harper, and beautifully produced by
Kenneth Templeton.
I knew about this plan from the very beginning and had promised
Dr. Harper not to tell Lu about it. But I could not really keep
my promise, for Larry Fertig and Gustavo Velasco had sent their
contributions in advance to Lu in Manchester. I would say it was
wise of them to do so, for at that time he could still enjoy what he
read.
What Lawrence Fertig wrote in Towards Liberty seems to me
almost prophetic:
Economic historians of the 21st Century will undoubtedly bepuzzled
by the reception accorded to economic theorists of the 20th
Century. They will be particularly puzzled by what occurred in the
span of years between World War I and 1970....
Great honors were showered on economists whose major accomplishments
had been to promote a major inflation which, by the end
of the 20th Century, was acknowledged to be the source of tremendous
social unrest and economic crises. These were the fashionable
economists who were sponsored by wealthy Foundations and indeed
by most of the intellectuals of Academe.
But when economic historians of the future came to evaluate precisely
who had made the most significant contributions to economic
theory-to those broad and fundamental principles which explain
human actions in the practical world people must live in-their puzzlement
increased. For they could find only a meager record of academic
honors or monetary prizes by leading ivy-league universities
accorded to the one economist who had discovered and formulated
some of the most brilliant economic theories of that century. His
name was Ludwig von Mises.
In the coming weeks, when Lu read all the articles that were
published about him in magazines and papers all over the world,
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