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

Germany at the time of the installation of the foreign exchange
control in 1931." "It occurred to me," M.adden wrote,
that it might be desirable to have for publication sometime an article
from you on the general topic of about, say, five thousand words. As I
conceive it, it would perhaps deal briefly with the social and economic
development after the war, leading up to the crisis of 1931
with some references to the political conditions at the time. And from
that point lead on to the establishment of foreign exchange control
and the economic factors which gave rise to the increasing degree of
governmental control over business and imports and exports and
how that led then into the continually increasing encroachment of
the government upon economic life in Germany.... I have been
canvassing in the early week to see what possibilities there may be
here with us and I hope that we may be able to come to some prompt
conclusion.
I wonder whether this letter and the preceding conversation may
not have planted the seeds for Lu's book Omnipotent Government.
Coming to the United States did not mean for Lu immediate
Americanization. He watched, observed, read, and learned. He followed
every phase of American politics, domestic and foreign,
with deepest interest. He met new people every day and widened
his outlook. We both had applied immediately for citizenship. But
we never considered ourselves Americans until we got our papers.
It was in January, 1946, that Lu received his citizenship, almost six
months before I got mine. The importance of this was not the
paper, it was the change in Lu's mind, his heart. Deep inside he
knew he "belonged" now; he was at .home again, for the first time
in many years. And in a land of freedom. His joy in his new citizenship
was s~ intense that even if I had not known how he had
suffered before, I could have deduced it from his happiness.
Lu was a very modest man, almost frugal in his habits. He slept
in his studio, on a narrow daybed with a firm mattress. I used to
compare him to the former Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, who
slept all through his life on a simple iron bedstead. Once I asked
him whether he had ever met the emperor. "Yes," he said, "and he
even spoke to me." "What was the occasion?" I inquired. And he
went on: "It was at a military exercise after I had finished my year
of training. I must have been nineteen years old then. The emperor
came for inspection and he passed me sitting on my black horse.
He stopped and said: 'Beautiful horse ... very beautiful horse.'
And then-after he had uttered these profound and pregnant
words-he rode on."
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