That was the title of my tribute, which went undelivered, for the “Service of Thanksgiving for the Life of Murray N. Rothbard” on March 24, 1995, at his widow JoAnn‘s church, Madison Avenue Presbyterian (at 73rd Street), three weeks after what would have been his 69th birthday. (I still have her handwritten invitation to Gloria and me.) Next March 2nd will mark the centenary of his birth, so the text of my inadequate salute to Murray must serve as a belated notice of his 99th birthday. I hope you’ll consider marking the occasion by having a look nine Rothbard-related posts appended to this one.—A.G.F.
“What did I do to deserve a friend like Murray?”
What friend of Murray’s has not asked that question? I asked it regularly over the last twelve years. After all, unlike many of Murray’s other friends, I had no accomplishments, literary or otherwise, that he could associate me with when I introduced myself. It took some doing for me one night a dozen years ago, after having recently read his The Ethics of Liberty [I am mentioned on the copyright page of the second edition.—A.G.F.], to look up his phone number and call him. I was ready to apologize for the intrusion, keep my questions brief and few, resist the urge to prolong the conversation, and then, after about twenty minutes, thank him for his time.
Ninety minutes into our talk, however, I noticed that he was enjoying the exchange as much as I was! His showing as much curiosity about my interests as I did about his ideas surprised me utterly. As I was being drawn into the vortex of his ideas for the first time, I wondered for a moment if there was something else I should have been doing. But only for a moment.
After each class of his 1984 seminar “The History of Economic Thought” [held at, but not sponsored by, New York University], I would walk him to his [uptown] bus [on Sixth Avenue], often taking it with him a good part of the way. Our friendship took root during those conversations on the run about natural rights, natural theology, and just about everything else. I would call him regularly from then on, even after he took his professorship at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Whenever he was in New York, however, he would always make time for us to have lunch [or dinner].
Never did Murray make me feel that his friendship was something I had to grow into or “qualify” for. Therefore, the answer to “What did I do to deserve a friend like Murray?” is . . . nothing. My amazement at this stems from admiration, not false humility. I’m not such a poor specimen of humanity; rather, Murray was a great one. Since great men are rare, the non-great do not often find themselves in their company. When they do, amazement is a natural response.
Thus Joe Sobran got it exactly right when he wrote that “Murray’s disciples were also his friends, and he unaffectedly treated them as equals, though there was no such thing as Murray Rothbard’s equal.” I would only add that this treatment was always a source of surprise, especially for those who have been treated less warmly by scholars with a fraction of Murray’s talent.
Those who did not know Murray might find such talk hyperbole more becoming of “groupies” than disciples. But we know that Murray’s greatness is a matter of documented fact, nay, a cornucopia of such facts that we shall now pour out upon the world of economic, political, and cultural thought.
Let us also never forget—Murray would not want us to—that he was who he was largely because Joey Rothbard is who she is: an equally warm, gracious, and funny woman who shared her husband and best friend with us all those years. I thank her for giving us today the chance to show how much we loved him too.
Related posts, ordered chronologically
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- “Murray Rothbard: on my late friend’s lamentable error,” January 27, 2019.
- “Murray Newton Rothbard: Notes toward a Biography,” May 31, 2019.
- “Murray Rothbard: Notes on His Philosophical Starting Point,” June 3, 2019.
- “The quadrancentennial of Murray Rothbard’s passing,” January 8, 2020.
- “’Conspiracy theorist!,’ our era’s ‘Red-baiter!’ Complementary warnings from Diana West and Murray Rothbard,” August 17, 2020.
- “1949: What were my influencers doing?,” November 17, 2020.
- “Rothbard on Aptheker on Slavery,” August 22, 2023.
- “Rothbard’s anti-statist theory of revolution, 60 years on,” September 23, 2023.
- “’The Annotated Napkin’: a memento of Murray,” June 1, 2024.