A Tribute to William H. Peterson, 1921-2012

0:00I want to thank Lew Rockwell and the Mises Institute for doing this tribute to my friend Bill Peterson, who was truly a great man. There's a little book down in the library if you want to pick it up, Mises in America, which Lew helped Bill put together, gives you some of Bill's philosophy, and I think you'll enjoy it. Dr. Peterson was probably one of the best friends I've had in my lifetime, and I think I think anybody that was a friend with Bill for a period of time probably had a similar experience. He was a friend for life. He was a man of good humor. Every time he called me, which was probably three times a week, he began with a couple of jokes and he would laugh at his own jokes along with me.

0:47It always started things off in the right direction. And he had a very powerful intellect, but it was always grounded in reality, which I think is a very Austrian tradition. I first met Bill in 1989 at Campbell University when I was giving a talk on entrepreneurism to his students. And we quickly became friends. I enjoy the great benefits of his knowledge and expertise in Austrian economics and learn much from his writings as Tom DiLorenzo just referred to. One of the things he said about writing is writing is rewriting and he meant that we're constantly refining that message and Bill was powerfully good at doing that.

1:39In 1949 at New York University, Bill Peterson went to an evening class, not knowing Mises at all, never having heard of him, and there was Ludwig von Mises. And very quickly Mises began to ground him in free market economics. Prior to that time, Bill had no grounding whatsoever in free market economics. So we would say that Mises converted him to a great Austrian. Later on, they became colleagues, and Mises chose Bill to come to the seminars over the years, which was a very important part of the development of any of those individuals that attended the seminars, and now the Mises Institute has all that information available to share with everybody. Bill considered meeting Mises and having an opportunity to be a colleague as probably the most important and luckiest thing that happened to him in his lifetime, and by extension, the Mises Institute.

2:42He was very, very proud of the Mises Institute because it carried on the work of Mises, his great friend and economist. He was also very proud as a young man to work in the mailroom at IBM, and he had an opportunity wants to deliver mail to T.J. Watson Sr., one of the really great entrepreneurs of the 20th century. And one thing he observed and remembered for the rest of his life was the fact that T.J. posted these think signs all over IBM at that time. And if you Google IBM think signs, you'll get a more detailed explanation on it. But it had a very profound impact on Bill.

3:28He later became the chief economist for US Steel and then speechwriter for then former Vice President Nixon in the early 60s. Of course he later lamented his disappointment in Nixon because of numerous violations, wage and price controls, violations of free market, and then of course Nixon calling himself a Keynesian, took him right over the top. In spite of that, Bill maintained his optimism throughout his entire life. He witnessed all these inept politicians, but he was still optimistic. When Ben Bernanke was appointed, I called him and I said, Bill, is there any reason for optimism here?

4:14His reply was succinct and profound, more of the same. And did he call it right? We got a lot more of the same from Bernanke. He was not engaged in any formal religion, but knowing that I was Catholic, he had a great respect for Catholic philosophy and truth. He was very well grounded in the truth, which is, I think, what made him such a great man. Our relationship was based on a mutual friendship, but what an ideal situation to have an Austrian economist and an entrepreneur. They worked together hand in glove. One of the things that I was going to suggest to you, Austrian economists, is to invite entrepreneurs into your inner circle, to your talks, because those entrepreneurs can help spread that message, and they also have the resources to help the Austrian School of Economics.

5:12I think Dr. Bill's greatest contribution was his follow-up on Mises' idea of America's Other Democracy. Now we know what that is. It's the free market. And Bill always pointed out that it was a plebiscite that went on every second of every single day. And with the dollars, the consumer decides what entrepreneurs and what products will be successful, unlike our political democracy where we get to vote every two years or every four years. And of And of course, as we know, the choices aren't very good. Some of you may remember seeing Bill at the Mises Conference at Jekyllow, which is on the Federal Reserve. If there's one thing that Bill disliked, it was the Federal Reserve system.

6:00He knew a chapter and verse because he realized how much destruction it caused. Bill, knowing that I had started a number of public charter and private schools, dubbed of these schools, the Luddy Schools. And one of the things he did is said, you need to get these IBM think signs and get them all over the place because the purpose of education is to learn how to think and it's not working too well in our public system. So he brought that theme back rather robustly to our schools and it was very helpful. Touching on a couple of his favorite sayings, no free lunch. and I saw him drive this theme home to our employees and they still remember when I say Bill Peterson they can recite almost chapter and verse what he said because if Bill had something on his mind and he wanted to teach it to you, you are going to learn it, whether you are interested in it or not.

6:59He was not going to give up. Money Rots was another favorite one. On the more optimistic side, always he came back with, we shall overcome, was a constant refrain from Bill Peterson. And of course he loved opportunity cost, almost the essence of Austrian economics. Another statement he made to me is conventional wisdom is wrong, or it's going to be wrong. So he realized the dynamic nature of our society. And of course he loved America's other democracy, and some of you may know that some economists had said, well I've got all the economic theories on one page outlined. Bill said I can top that in one word, price. Price action tells us almost everything about economics. Bill retired in 1993 to the Watergate in the city that he dubbed Sin City, which as we know and he spent the remainder of his life with his wife Mary and daughter Laura lived downstairs and she sends her greetings today and there'll be some comments from Lew Rockwell from her.

8:12When he retired his one intention was to write a book about America's other democracy but somehow that book never got written or never got finished so I would like to challenge I encourage you, Austrian economists, to consider maybe picking that up because most people in this country today do not understand what makes America great. You understand it, you can recite it chapter and verse, but the average American has no remote idea. So in closing, I want to offer my thanks to all of you Austrian economists for the enormous contribution that you're making to our civil society. And I want to salute Bill Peterson and all of you Austrians for making a huge difference in our society and giving us the long-term hope and the optimism from Bill Peterson.

9:05And I ask God to shower his blessings on each and every one of you. Thank you.