 The ideas of freedom, as they relate to the meaning and the welfare of the individual, have been clearly expressed throughout time, from the ancient Greeks to our founding fathers, and now many voices among us today. But not so long ago, in the years just after World War II, the voices expressing the freedom philosophy were few and isolated. It was a low point for the philosophy of limited government, free markets, and the private property order. The array of forces proposing various forms of socialism and the welfare state were being heard everywhere. The case for individual freedom was virtually unknown. One man in particular saw the need to gather the voices of freedom to provide a broad-based institutional framework. And so, in 1946, the late Leonard E. Reed and a few of his friends organized the Foundation for Economic Education to bring coherence, structure, and life to the ideas of liberty before it was too late. As Leonard Reed and his friends so clearly perceived, socialism was on the increase, not because it was right, but because no alternative was being heard. Voices for the free society had no platform to offer a positive alternative that was consistent, easily understood, morally correct, and intellectually exciting. The Foundation has been a significant force in changing that situation. Over the last 40 years, more than any other organization, the Foundation, or fee as it is known to its friends, has acted as a first source, an introduction to the philosophy of freedom. While others have concentrated on policy studies, fee has maintained a commitment to basic principles, the ideal concept, always making the connection between economic education, moral and spiritual development, self-improvement, and the philosophy of freedom. There has been a profound and telling change in the public awareness of freedom, both in the United States and around the world. Now the ideas of individual freedom of choice, limited government, a free market economy, and private property rights are again claiming our attention. Much of this success can be attributed to fee and to its effective efforts over the years in advancing the causes of liberty. Sound ideas are the most effective counter to the seemingly compassionate arguments of socialism. Part of fee's mission is to discover and draw attention to the sound ideas and economic principles that underlie the free market through a large and expanding publishing program. Since January of 1956, the magazine The Freeman has been published by the Foundation on a monthly basis. This study journal has gone to thousands of individuals for the asking. The Freeman, originating under the supervision of Paul Perot, is the oldest of the journals written from a free market perspective. As a matter of fact, when virtually no one else was interested in advancing free market ideas, the Freeman was quietly presenting its case to students, teachers, clergymen, and business people. And fee presents that case through longer, more in-depth publications like The Law by Frederick Bastiat, The Main Spring of Human Progress by Henry Grady Weaver, Economics in One Lesson by Henry Haslett, Anything That's Peaceful by Leonard Reed, Human Action by Ludwig von Mises, and Hundreds of Others. Over the years, fee has sold or given away millions of copies of various publications.