Foreword

8 Foreword
means to stabilize the economy.
Professor Milton Friedman, the leading spokesman for
the monetarist school of thought, was asked to comment on
the monetary policy which he considers necessary to accomplish
economic stabilization, and Professor Walter W. Heller,
the nation's foremost advocate of the neo-Keynesian
economics, was called upon to discuss the importance of
fiscal policy as an approach to this problem.
Since each man could easily be identified with one or
the other of the presidential candidates, we hoped that
their confrontation would give some indication of the economic
philosophy likely to affect, at least to some degree,
the monetary and fiscal policies. In addition, the choice of
these two outstanding economists to appear for the first time
anywhere in a public debate would—we were confident—
attract nationwide attention in the world of business and
finance.
The response exceeded our expectations. Not only was the
lecture hall filled to capacity, but an overflow audience had
to be served by closed-circuit television installed in several
classrooms. Virtually all media gave the lecture extensive
coverage and the response by the press, TV, and radio surpassed
any that we had received at previous lectures in the
series.
Space does not permit us to enumerate at length the activities,
honors, and accomplishments of the two men who
shared our platform. Each is an authority on economics and
related disciplines. Each is active in research agencies and
in learned societies. Dr. Milton Friedman is the Paul Snowden
Russell Distinguished Service Professor of Economics
at the University of Chicago. Dr. Walter W. Heller is Regents'
Professor of Economics at the University of Minnesota.