Welcome

0:00Well, it's so wonderful to have all of you here, and I was asked recently by a number of people, why were we doing this in New York City? Why weren't we doing it in Auburn? But, of course, New York City has a special meaning for anybody connected to the Mises Institute. First of all, of course, it was the city of Mises when he came to this country. It was the city of Murray Rothbard. For my own life, it was the city where I got to be Mises' editor when working for Arlington House Publishers. When we brought some of his books back into print, it's the city where I had the great honor of meeting Margaret von Mises and Ludwig von Mises and later asking Mrs. Mises for permission to start the Mises Institute and her cooperation in it.

0:48She gave me her blessing and she said, I ask only one thing of you, that you do it for the rest of your life, and I was very, very glad to give her that promise. When we think of Mises coming to this city in 1940, after having escaped across France, as Murray Rothbard and of course Guido Holzman in his new biography of Mises, Mises shows something like something out of a movie right before the advancing German troops. He and Margaret barely escaped. They escaped into Portugal, then were able to get one of the, what they thought might be one of the last chips over to New York. He arrived in New York City, brand new country, brand new language. He was 60 years old, all his money, of which there had never been that much, but whatever there was had been left in Europe, seized by the Nazis, has had his papers, has had his books, he had no job here, he might easily have given up, and of course he didn't give up, he went on to teach, to

1:59write, to produce Human Action and so many other great works, and today we think of the The Mises Institute teaching in that same tradition, now reaching millions by methods that would have seemed science fiction in 1940 and yet it all stems from what one man did, what one person did, shows that we all have to be reminded that no matter how bleak things can look, one person can make a difference and this room is full of a number of those one persons who have made This is for our movement, for our ideas, for the cause of liberty and so it's my great honor and pleasure to thank you and to welcome you to this conference and we're going to have a good time.