Founders Day at Freedom, Inc.

I'm pretty sure it was Cathy Taylor's idea for Freedom Communications to mark R.C. Hoiles's birthday, Nov. 24, as Founders Day (though it might have come from somebody in corporate). I can't remember when we first did it -- 5-6 years ago? Anyway, we try to highlight some aspect of R.C.'s life and ideas, and their importance to the larger freedom movement (R.C. was never quite satisfied with the term "libertarian," though I suspect he would eventually have acquiesced to using it more often. He died in 1970, just as the modern libertarian movement was starting to define itself -- having libertarians kicked out of YAF in 1969 was a key moment, leading Don Ernsberger to found Students for Individual Liberty (SIL) and marking something of a divorce from the conservative movement.

Founders Day is whyI did the piece on R.C. for Sunday, and this editorial that ran today. The little pamphlet from which I extracted quotes (intro and transitions written by D.R. Segal, I'm pretty sure -- gee, he was a fun guy yet unquestionably sharp as an executive) said that if journalism were a person R.C. was its hair shirt.

This is a bittersweet Founders Day for us, and not just because of the sorry state of the newspaper business just now. Sometime early next year Freedom Inc., family-held for so long, will be officially owned by a consortium of banks, having emerged from Chapter 11. We don't expect they'll want to change editorial policies at the Register, but will hang onto properties that are at least modestly profitable until there's a decent market for them. But we don't know. I understand why "may you live in interesting times" is a Chinese curse. But I'll continue to interpret it as at least part blessing.

Meeting Phebe Adams

Had a marvelously fascinating day at work today. R.C. Hoiles's last secretary, who worked for him from 1966 to 1970, when he died, came in for lunch and she and Cathy and Mark and I talked extensively about the old days, giving us, I believe a more rounded picture of what R.C. was like. Phebe would be about 84 now, but she's quite spry and her mind and memories functioning well. We mentioned there was still something a little remote about R.C.'s personality or persona to those of us who had not known him (he died in 1970, I came to the Register in 1980, and had only seen him at a conference briefly before (in 1969 I think) and didn't know anything about him then.

Phebe said she thought that he was basically shy, though he was always ready to talk about freedom, and that may have given people the impression he was a little distant. But he was warm and humorous with the people he knew and felt comfortable with.

It was Cathy (Taylor's) idea to ask her in. We're writing on Founder's Day, near his birthday, when we remind people of aspects of his legacy, for Sunday. I'll link to it when it goes online.

Quote of the Day

"Life, faculties, production -- in other words, individuality, liberty, property -- this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place." -- Frederic Bastiat, "The Law"

The Foundation for Economic Education has distributed countless copies of Bastiat's works. I'm pleased to note, however, that it was R.C. Hoiles, who bought the Register in 1935 and was published until he died at 90 in 1970, who first paid to have Bastiat's works translated into English, way back in the 1940s. I do try to be mindful that we at the Register, however troubled the company, along with almost all other newspapers, may be at this point, are the keepers of a precious legacy of advocacy for liberty.

R.C. Hoiles and the prospects for liberty

Here's a link to the piece I wrote for Sunday's Register, to commemorate what we call Founders Day at Freedom Communications -- R.C. Hoiles was born on Nov. 24. I tried to put the remembrance in reasonably current terms, noting that in part because so many choose to blame the financial crisis on the "deregulated" free market, and an administration explicitly determined to have a more activist government is coming into power, the prospects might seem somewhat bleak. But by comparison to what R.C. faced in the 1930s and 1940s, when there were no libertarian think tanks and precious few academics, our resources are much greater.

Hope you enjoy it and find it informative. Leave comments, here or there.

R.C. Hoiles's principles

Since R.C. Hoiles, founder of Freedom Newspapers, which grew into Freedom Communications, which still owns the Register, was born in November, we like to do a little bit of celebrating and explaining his legacy each November. Here's a piece he wrote sometime in the 1960s, apparently in response to requests from other publishers in the chain for an explanmation of what the company stood for.

Bottom line? No individual or group has the right to use force or coerceion on any other individual or group. Everything else flows from that basic axiom.