capitalism

62 Chodorov, Frank (1887–1966)
Rand’s Objectivist philosophy, he was a founding member
of Rothbard’s Radical Libertarian Alliance, and he was
the Buffalo representative of the Society of Rational
Individualists before its merger with the former Libertarian
Caucus of Young Americans for Freedom to form the
Society for Individual Liberty (SIL). In 1970, he left college
to run SIL’s book service.
Childs early on had the opportunity to speak and debate
throughout the United States. One of his speeches so
impressed Charles Koch that in early 1977 he bought a
book review tabloid called The Libertarian Review from
Robert Kephart and turned it into a magazine, with Roy as
its editor; the magazine was originally located in New York,
then moved to San Francisco, and finally to Washington,
DC. While in San Francisco, Childs also became active in
the Libertarian Party and became a research fellow at the
Cato Institute. After The Libertarian Review was closed in
1981, Childs remained in Washington as a Cato policy analyst
until 1984, when Andrea Rich invited him to New York
to become a writer for Laissez Faire Books. During his last
years, he struggled with obesity, which made it increasingly
difficult for him to leave his apartment. He died in a hospital
in Miami, Florida, where he had gone for a weight-loss
program, on May 22, 1992.
Since then, the Cato Institute has established a Roy
Childs Library in its Washington headquarters, and his personal
papers are archived in the Hoover Institution for War
and Peace Studies at Stanford University.
See also Anarcho-Capitalism; LeFevre, Robert; Rand, Ayn;
Rothbard, Murray
Further Readings
JKT
Childs, Roy A. Anarchism and Justice. WTM Enterprises, 2004.
Hosted at http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/childs_aj_toc.htm.
Taylor, Joan Kennedy, ed. Liberty against Power: Essays by Roy A.
Childs, Jr. San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes, 1994.
CHODOROV, FRANK (1887–1966)
Frank Chodorov, author and editor, was a lifelong individualist.
Chodorov did not gain a position of prominence in
the classical liberal movement until 1937, when he was
appointed director of the Henry George School of Social
Science at the age of 50. Prior to that time, he held a variety
of jobs, including that of manager of a clothing factory
and as an advertising agent.
Among Chodorov’s intellectual heroes was Albert Jay
Nock, who had been editor in the 1920s of a periodical titled
The Freeman. Chodorov launched his own publication
under the same title while at the Henry George School, and
in its pages, he extolled the virtues of the free market and
attacked President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Soon
after, however, much of Chodorov’s attention turned from
domestic to foreign affairs as he steadfastly opposed
America’s entry into World War II. Chodorov’s writings
caused consternation among some of the school’s board
members and forced his dismissal shortly following the
bombing of Pearl Harbor. (The Henry George School continued
to publish The Freeman for a short time before
renaming it The Henry George News. Since the early 1950s,
the Foundation for Economic Education has published its
own magazine titled The Freeman.)
In 1944, Chodorov began publishing a four-page broadsheet
called analysis, in which in nearly every issue he was
the sole writer. He greatly valued his editorial independence,
calling analysis the “most gratifying venture of my life.” The
publication’s mission was straightforward: “analysis,” he
wrote, “looks at the current scene through the eyeglasses of
historic liberalism, unashamedly accepting the doctrine of
natural rights, proclaims the dignity of the individual and
denounces all forms of Statism as human slavery.” Although
analysis had a small circulation, it exerted great influence
over many young conservatives and libertarians, including
William F. Buckley, who later founded National Review, and
Murray N. Rothbard, a leading economist of the Austrian
School. “I shall never forget the profound thrill—a thrill of
intellectual liberation—that ran through me when I first
encountered the name of Frank Chodorov, months before we
were to meet in person,” Rothbard later wrote, adding,
As a young graduate student in economics, I had always
believed in the free market, and had become increasingly
libertarian over the years, but this sentiment was as nothing
to the headline that burst forth in the title of a pamphlet
that I chanced upon at the university bookstore: Taxation Is
Robbery, by Frank Chodorov.
In the end, however, such devoted readers were unable to
save analysis, and, as a result, Chodorov was forced to
merge his publication with the Washington-based Human
Events in 1951.
Two years later, Chodorov and Buckley founded the
Intercollegiate Society of Individualists (ISI), whose goal
was to influence college students through a comprehensive
series of publications, speaking engagements, and discussion
clubs. (ISI was later renamed the Intercollegiate
Studies Institute and is still in operation.) Such an approach
was consistent with Chodorov’s strategic vision that the
current generation of policymakers might be difficult to
influence, but young people—the policymakers of the
future—could be reached with the message of classical liberalism.
“What the socialists have done can be undone, if
there is a will for it. But, the undoing will not be accomplished
by trying to destroy established institutions. It can