 Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here this evening and I get to talk about my favorite topic, Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian School of Economics. I got interested in the Austrian school. In fact, when I was in high school back in the 1960s and so much so that I decided to major in economics when I went to college and university and was very fortunate and lucky to be able to basically devote a lot of my time to doing research writing and presentations on Austrian economics at Hillsdale College as the Mises professor. But what I noticed in doing my reading and research and thinking about members of the Austrian school was that in fact there was very little that was known about or written about Mises himself, his intellectual development, his personal history, his background, the activities and events that he was involved in in the Vienna between the two World Wars. Maybe some of you are familiar with his own book, Notes and Recollections, which is his memoirs. But in fact, I found it an extremely frustrating book to read because in comparison to many well-known or prominent people who in their later years write their memoirs or their autobiographies, he wrote an extremely cryptic and skimpy memoir. There's very little about his activities in Vienna, what ideas or events he was involved in. In fact, it leaves you more frustrated about what you wanted to know than what it reveals. And as a consequence, quite a while ago, I thought what would be a useful task would be trying to begin doing some research on Mises' personal background, the events of his life, and try to incorporate that into intellectual biography, which I am hoping to be able to get done in the not too distant future. The one thing that impressed me when I read his Notes and Recollections is that certain passages in the book gave a different impression of Mises the man than is often the public image of him. Many people, including many in the economics profession who may have a passing knowledge of Austrian economics, often think that Mises was a dogmatic intransigent, that he did not suffer fools gladly, that he made enemies, that he could not persuade, argue, or interact with people of different views, and that this sort of a personality of extreme confidence yet close-mindedness made it difficult for him to win the day or influence events. And if one talks to people who know him or knew him, it is true that that was there, that element in him. But what struck me when I read Notes and Recollections is that there would seem to be aspects of him that were not reflected in that public image. For example, when in the book he talks about his private seminar, he says, my main teaching effort was focused on my private seminar, beginning in 1920, during the months to June and October, a number of young people gathered around me once every two weeks. My office in the Chamber of Commerce was spacious enough to accommodate 20 to 25 persons. We usually met at 7 in the evening and adjourned at 10.30. In these meetings, we informally discussed all important problems of economics, social philosophy, sociology, logic, and the epistemology of the sciences of human action. In this circle, the younger Austrian School of Economics lived on. In this circle, the Viennese culture continued one of its last blossoms. Here I was neither teacher nor director of the seminar. I was merely first among peers who himself benefited more than he gave. And then what struck me that gave an undigmatic sense of him. We formed neither school, congregation, nor sect. We helped each other more through contradiction than agreement. But we agreed and were united on one endeavor to further the sciences of human action. Each went his own way, guided by his own law. We never organized or undertook anything that resembled the nauseous carrying on of the German Imperial and post-war scientists. We never thought to publish a journal or a collection of essays. Each worked by himself as befits a thinker. And yet each one of us labored for the circle, seeking no compensation other than a simple recognition, not the applause of his friends. There was greatness in this unpretentious exchange of ideas. In it, we all found happiness and satisfaction. Now, that presents an image of himself and how he viewed himself and the people he interacted with, which is often different than the one that was often portrayed in certain views or concepts that people have of him in the economics profession. So that intrigued me too to try to find out about him. So this past summer, I had an opportunity to begin sort of the legwork on doing this. And I was a fortuitous, I had a fortuitous circumstance, is that when I was in Moscow in the summer of 1991, I met someone who became my wife, for whom I suppose I should thank Mikhail Gorbachev because it hadn't been for glass nose, I couldn't have gone there. Anyway, besides privatizing state property, I also had the lucky circumstance is that I've been able to use her in two double linguistic endeavors. When I have been in the former Soviet Union, I have exploited her to be my translator into Russian. And while I studied German for reading when I was in college, I must confess that my German was always bad and as years goes by becomes even worse. My wife also reads and speaks rather good German. So here was my opportunity, a built-in translator to assist me in my work. And I must confess that all of my work this past summer as a starting endeavor would have been impossible without her. Also, she had another talent, which I must say as an armchair scholar I'd not. Her background is in intellectual history, particularly of the American studies. And she had done archive work. As an armchair theorist I hadn't. So here on top of besides someone who could read and go through the German, she was someone who knew the ins and outs how to carefully go through the archives and not miss interesting or useful things. So in fact really it's both of us who should be up here talking to you because I couldn't have done any of this without her. But anyway, what were some of the things that I discovered? At least tentatively on this first trip for three weeks, which is really not a lot of time because I found that there's a lot more that in fact I need to go back and pursue. Well first of all, most of us know almost nothing about Mises' family. And what I was able to find as one item was in fact a file in the State Archives on Mises' grandfather. And in fact it was his grandfather who was given the title fawn, the title of nobility. What for? Does anybody know? Well hardly any of us have had an inkling and Mises didn't, doesn't talk about it and note some recollections. His grandfather was the head of the Orthodox Jewish community in Lemberg. Now the city in western Ukraine called Levov. And it was as for his duties as the head of the Orthodox Jewish community that the emperor bestowed this title upon him. And as part of this, Mises' grandfather had to write in hand a history of the family. And we were able to photocopy this entire handwritten file of the family history. And interestingly enough, shortly before Ludwig was born, his grandfather prepared these documents for the bestowing of this nobility title. And one of the things was his grandfather wrote a little family tree. So here's the family tree of the Mises clan, so to speak. And down here is in fact Mises' father, Arthur. But there's no lines below it because in fact there was no Ludwig or Ricard yet. But we were able to therefore get an entire document that enables us to reconstruct the history of the Mises' family before up to and including Mises himself. Well, they'll be here for people to look at, you know, after the presentation. My wife being someone who did all this archive work in Moscow, sort of like, you know, every little document is precious and the whatnot. But we also found something also extremely interesting. The Mises' coat of arms. Yes, Lou had a coat of arms. And this was the coat of arms, which of course this is in black and white photocopy. But I had my camera and we were able to take a rather clear, colored picture of the coat of arms. Now, if you look at Mises' books written after the First World War, as was expected when Austria became a republic, he dropped the font. All of the books in the German editions just say Ludwig Mises. And he didn't therefore draw much attention to it. But he was a noble family and he did have the title passed on to him. So there is the Mises' coat of arms, which would be fascinating to actually get a more clear and blown up copy just for some type of a framing. And I hope perhaps for the book I can sort of include such photos for this. Another aspect of that was interesting that we came across, again in the state archives, was Mises' educational file. And what we found in the educational file was the bestowing of the PhD upon Mises in 1906 for having studied at the university. And then in 1913, he applied for a position to be praviadosent, an unpaid or unsalaried part-time lecturer at the university. And we found the file giving this teaching credential to him. This is from one of the rectors at the university. And he says that on June 11, 1912, Mises has been given this opportunity to teach in political economy, having completed two requirements. He had published his Book Theory of Money and Credit the year before in 1912. It says here under the supervision of Professor Filippovich and Professor Wieser, two prominent Austrian economists at the university. And that he also had given sort of like a trial lecture. And the other members of the university and the political economy department had listened and decided that this fellow was okay. He could put his thoughts together and deliver a talk. And what he had written on, the lecture, the public lecture that they had reviewed and decided that he was qualified, was a lecture on cost of living and the theory concerning cost of living. And it was on that basis, a lecture that he had given on February 27, 1913, that this was bestowed upon him. Well, then also the one of the dean's rectors at the university said, well, this is fine, but we need to have Mises' vita. We have to have an official statement. And we found the documents that Mises signed with his own signature on them. For example, well, what was Mises qualified to teach? Okay. What could Mises teach? We can't have this guy teach anything. Well, he tells people what he's qualified to teach. And he typed this up and his signature is there. He said that he was qualified to teach monetary theory and banking. He was qualified to teach commercial trade theory. He was qualified to teach a course on modern capitalism. He was qualified to teach a history of the Austrian economy in the 19th century. He was qualified to teach a course on the history of Austrian currency since 1848. And he could teach an introductory course on the principles of economics to beginners. That's like econ 101. And he could also teach an introductory course on beginners the principles of economic policy. And then his actual curriculum vita, which has the official state stamps on it, again, two pages with his signature at the bottom, is very much like the vita that he had prepared in 1909 when he applied for a job to work with the Chamber of Commerce in Austria, and which Margaret von Mises translated and includes in an appendix in her own book. But whereas the Chamber of Commerce vita was prepared in 1909, this is in 1913 when he has been working at the Chamber for a while. And he explains that his duties at the Chamber have included problems of economic policy, evaluation of tax legislation, and dealing with evaluations and critical proposals on various commercial policy theories concerning the legislation. But what's interesting is how he tries to assure himself for them to approve it. And that is, he says that at the University, he has studied with all of these famous and important and significant professors who have influenced his thinking profoundly. And now having learned so much from them, he now wishes to share all the knowledge he's gotten from them by standing beside them and teaching with them at the University. In other words, he's buttering them up. So on that basis, he was able to get his status to teach at the University. Then we found there the actual document, which was dated May 7, 1918. And this document was saying that Mises was no longer just this unsalaried professor, but he was promoted. He's still unsalaried, but promoted. He's now an associate professor, and this was May 7, 1918. But what was interesting about this document is a stamp that's on it. Now, this is a 1918 stamp, but it has a swastika on it. What had clearly happened is that after the Anschloss in March 1938, Mises, who was not one of the favorites of the German National Socialist Party, and as some of you may know, Mises' personal papers and library were carted off by the Gestapo and disappeared. Obviously, some Gestapo agent had been given the instructions to go through the educational files on everyone who was considered on their not-to-be-desired list to check if there was any information that can be used against them. So this 1918 file had been perused by a Gestapo agent, and he had stamped it. Yes, it has been looked at for information to be used. Now, Mises began working at the Chamber of Commerce in 1909, but there was a period when he had a break from that. And that break was World War I. Mises served in the Austrian Army in an artillery regiment on the Eastern Front. And having known that from information that he mentions briefly in his book and that Bettina Graves and her bibliographies have mentioned, I then hunted down in the State Archives his military jacket. And we found it. And this was actually the cover of the military jacket saying that this is for Ludwig von Mises, lieutenant in the reserves, regiment number 30, artillery regiment number 30. And here is his little generalized front page information, his name, his birth of date, his religion. And he listed Jewish. And then in the rest of the files are when he served in the reserves, he did a year in the reserves. He then, like being in the reserves, had his period when he served a certain number of days for a month following that. And when he was given good reviews and that he had done his duty. And then, of course, came the war. And what we found in the archives, which was new information to me, maybe people like Leonard Ligio or Ralph who had opportunities to meet Mises and such as Ralph, who studied with Hayek. Perhaps they knew this, but I did not know that Mises had in fact been decorated for bravery under fire during World War I. And he in fact was decorated or sighted three times. And one of these, which I've brought here, was in, let me get my notes here, was for action on July 31, 1917. Let me give you the background. The war had not gone very good for the Russian army through most of the campaigns of the First World War. In fact, the Germans had occupied a large part of what then was Russian Poland and parts of what today we call Latvia and Lithuania. Though the Russians had pushed into parts of Eastern Austria, the province of Galatia, where in fact Mises had been born. On July 1, 1917, the Provisional Government of Russia attempted to regain the offensive on the Eastern Front, particularly to bolster the Provisional Government. And what was begun, what became known as the Kerensky Offensive. And Mises participated in resisting this Russian attempt on the Austrian Front. And the handwriting was unbelievably difficult to decipher. The commendation was written by obviously his senior officer, my wife Anna, but to study this with a magnifying glass to read the words, I mean the handwriting is terrible, has told me that not only was his grammar bad, but his spelling was bad. So Mises worked under an officer who obviously had not gone to the best of schools. We both of us are saying now, now wait a second what those letters are. Anyway, but what this says here is the form mentioned, Ludwig von Mises, was engaged on July 31, 1917 in the Battle of Zadova as commander of a large caliber cannon unit. In the further course of action, both of his advanced guard batteries were directed against superior guard fire of the enemy, the Russians. From this exposed position, he held back the enemy and made them retreat. Yes, he pushed back the Russian hordes. In a following battle on August 2, 1917, he took part in the outstanding job of knocking out one of the enemy batteries in which he brought back three of the enemy's cannons and one cargo wagon into our hands. Mises says war hero. Whoever said these classical liberals aren't willing to go into battle and fight for their country. Okay, Mises, no pacifist tea. Okay. It didn't show up in the records, but it's clear that due to some of the action he saw on the front, he had some physical problem, particularly a hip injury, which required him to apply for rest and recreation on the home front. And part of the military file was his medical file as well. And it was very interesting. Mises was a very determined fellow. He applied for six weeks leave to go to this resort in the Austrian Alps. And they gave him four weeks. But being persistent, while he was away for four weeks, he kept writing he won an extra two weeks. I have a feeling he just liked it there. And he just wanted to rest and recuperate a bit longer. But he was called back because what we then found out was that he received orders. This was in 1918. In the summer of 1918, he had had this rest and recuperation. But as soon as this was over, he had orders to report back now into what was occupied Ukraine, if you remember a little bit of your history. In March 1918, now the Bolsheviks revolution has occurred. Lenin is concerned with saving the revolution. And saving the revolution means making a separate piece with the Germans to have the Germans off their backs to be able to resist what he sees as the emerging counter-revolutionary forces. And a separate piece was signed. And part of the separate piece resulted in all of the Baltic republics and today what we call Belarus and Ukraine coming under central power occupation. And this meant that large parts of the Ukraine were under Austrian occupation. And as part of this, Mises was ordered in the fall of 1918 to immediately take first class transportation. We found the telegram ordering him there. First class transportation to Odessa. And at Dozessa, he was to become the commander in charge of currency and financial supervision for the occupied territories in the Ukraine. So Mises already is trying to, you know, maintain sound money in Eastern Europe. What was not in the military file was any of the information concerning what he did during his period in charge of currency and financial matters in occupied Ukraine. I have a feeling that what this will require is to dig into not the state archives but the imperial military archives and to get the information for the division and regiment and command that he was in connected with. And in that archive should be the records of his reports, memorandums of what he did and the outcomes of his period there. And then we also found the documents when he was mustered out of the army, which was in early 1919. After the war, he went back to his job at the Chamber of Commerce. But he also had another position for two years at the end of the war. And that is he was the Austrian commissioner for the League of Nations for Austrian reparations. And I did not have an opportunity to go through those archives in Vienna. I'm hoping to make a trip to Geneva where the League of Nations archives are because it would be very interesting to see because some of you who may know some of the history after the First World War, there was a large controversy and dispute among the governments of Europe and the United States and among economics economists in the interwar period concerning problems of reparations. Could the defeated country in its condition of economic devastation and reconstruction afford to pay reparations? And it would be interesting to see, and I hope to be able to see getting these archives, how Mises managed and worked and put into place the Austrian payment of reparations and how he saw financially this was to be done. I didn't have a chance to go through this, I'm hoping to. I must say that one of the most difficult nuts to crack in Vienna when I was there was the Chamber of Commerce. I met with a few times people who presently work at the Chamber of Commerce and I am beginning to get from them items from the Chamber archives, specifically internal speeches and memorandums and policies analyses that Mises did for the Chamber, analyzing both international and Austrian financial and monetary and trading policy. And these seem very interesting and I'm hoping to be able to get more to reconstruct his experiences as economic policy evaluator, policy proposer on fiscal and monetary and currency policy from a period from before the First World War until 1934. Because we often think of Mises as sort of the a priori theorist, always emphasizing economics is just a theoretical science and no empirical aspect but in fact Mises as policy analyst had to deal with quantitative statistical data all the time for his policy evaluations for the Chamber and I hope getting more of these I'll be able to reconstruct Mises as concrete empirical policy analyst. One aspect of this policy portion of Mises' work is then as some of you may know he helped found in 1926-1927 the Austrian Institute for Business Cycle Research of which Friedrich Hayek was the first director and we were able to get into the archives of the Austrian Institute of what is now called economic research and this was very interesting because no one had been in these archives clearly since the Second World War. One of the directors who we got an opportunity to meet and get to know a little bit ended up giving us carte blanche to go into the archives so we went into the basement of this building and everything was in total disarray there was no order the oldest ones were on the bottom shelves which is you know great to preserve documents we we were there for a week this this Institute archives took us a week to go through out of the three weeks we came out with our hands black each day we had to arrange and organize the archives and put them into plastic folders to preserve them and we also had opportunities a to do two things one to photocopy everything and I'm now in the fortunate position that I in fact perhaps not for Mises's biography but as a separate monograph or perhaps journal article I I now am able to reconstruct and write I should say we my German linguist here to write what in fact will be a history of the first 10 years of the Austrian Institute of Business Cycle Research when Mises was serving as vice president Hayek was the first director and then replaced as director by Oscar Morgan Stern to the period of the enchiladas and we not only were able to photocopy certain things but the director who was a very nice fellow and was interested but had a rather nonchalant attitude said that if we wanted to have some of the original documents it was okay as long as we left photocopies so there was a complete file there so we were able to get some originals such as this is the speech very brief it's a page and a little bit more that Mises gave at a at a conference at the Austrian Chamber of Commerce in November 1926 making the case for the establishment of this Austrian Business Cycle Institute now what is Mises's arguments I found this fascinating basically the gist of it to give the brief version is he says there are many institutes that have formed around the world concerned with the problem of looking at economic and business cycle phenomena with the use of statistics we cannot deal with either theory or policy without a careful and detailed background of the statistical phenomena what is missing in Austria is an independent objective such institute too often the statistical studies are influenced by the biased subjective interests of the institute or the party that has organized work in this and therefore he is proposing in making a strong case that there be financial support for this institute that there be an endorsement of this institute precisely because it will be the supplier and the evaluator of the hard statistical facts to do better policy judgments without being influenced by the biases of party politics and he says and also pointing out obviously as bureaucrats tend to be bureaucrats he says and you need not worry that the people of this institute will fall back and I don't believe he uses the word laziness but that's basically says don't worry these aren't going to be lazy bureaucrats you'll get your money's worth out of them and in fact he did set up the institute and what the records also showed in the archives is that Mises was a great fundraiser yes yes Mises as fundraiser now most of it seemed to go through personal connections because the the institute had connections participants and supporters with all of the branches of the Austrian chamber of commerce in the various cities of Austria Graz Salzburg Innsbruck as well as Vienna and it's clear that Mises as the vice president was working with these people so you don't really find a lot of documents specifically saying you know give money or this is what you should give but one of the interesting things we things in Vienna is we met an elderly couple both of which are now in their advanced 80s his name is Ernst Jan he was hired at the Austrian Institute for Business Cycle Research in the early 30s he attended Mises' private seminar he worked for Hayek and Morgenstern at the institute and he told us two things and that is that Mises in fact was the money man he was the one who went around to all of the business organizations and branches of the chamber of commerce and kept the money flowing he also pointed out is that for the first years that when Hayek was the director was it was a period of bureaucratic chaos at the institute yes Mises Hayek showed that even institute central planning leads to plan chaos records were not kept documents were in sign paperwork that should have been done was always behind only order and rationality came in with Oscar Morgenstern but clearly this was Mises' role also what we found there were the all the minutes of all the meetings of the board of directors Mises often served as secretary or as the chairman of the meetings and in these in these board of directed meetings are all the minutes where they're debating what should be the direction of the institute what have their publications been what what's the general situation in which the institute has to function who are they bringing in and hiring for example there is a well-known Austrian scholar of this period and historian of economic thought called named Carl Prebrem who posthumously they published a huge history of economic thought book by him in the minutes it shows that Mises brought Carl Prebrem on as one of the board of directors even though Carl Prebrem in fact was sort of like a modern socialist or modern liberal or moderate socialist Mises was concerned with a broad umbrella support and then working with these people in sort of a sort of collaborative fashion to get what he wanted and in fact one of the curiosities we found in the files here was in fact this is one of the advertisements that they sent out to people for the books they had available and what books this was in the early 30s Hayek's monetary theory in the trade cycle Fritz Mocklip on credit the trade cycle and capital formation prices and production a book by Eric shift and interestingly enough to how did these books get financed how did salaries get paid well we found all the pay records we found all the pay records yes white water Austrian white in fact matter of fact I'm a little concerned there's one here there's one here that Hayek has paid 400 shillings on September 30th 1932 with Aska Morgan Stern signature right the smoking gun this is after Hayek is already at the London School of Economics we'll hide that one we'll shred it anyway but these are the some of the type of documents that we're able to find also interesting enough whenever the board of directors meetings occurred all of the attendees signed them and so here are signatures we have Mises's signature is distinctive there and it's very interesting we have the signatures of many of the other leading Austrians of the time very well known in the German language Austrian capital and monetary theorist Richard Striegel is here we have one in which Mises's name is right above Hans Meyer who is the Austrian professor of economics at the university and the black sheep of the Austrian movement a Nazi collaborator and in fact we even found in the files this a postcard written by Hans Meyer to the institute saying I can't attend your meeting because I'm off on vacation and in fact we have interestingly found such a postcards from for example this fellow Karl Priebrem saying I'm off on holiday and this is where I am in the Alps leave me alone but if you need me here's my address and from an Austrian newspaper in the mid 30s we actually found this sheet here which was an article about Oscar Morgenstern in which there was a a drawing of him and also in the archives was a letter that Mises wrote in his capacity with the Austrian Chamber of Commerce to the Austrian Institute for Business and Psycho Research saying that one of the chamber's members of the institute had passed away and this is the formal notice of him being replaced by someone else so this is just sort of if you sort of a document freak and you know interested curiosities here's a document by Mises on chamber stationery writing to the institute of which he's the vice president but this is sort of a curiosity and actually I'm planning to frame this and hang on the wall this young man and it's dated October 18th 1928 also we found that in 1936 in July 1936 the Business Cycle Institute had hosted an international conference of the Business Cycle Institutes of Europe and people interested in business cycle theory from the United States as well and we found in the archives that everyone attending this conference had had their picture taken by a professional photographer for the institute so we found some early photographs I took I had I borrowed them and made copies is a strange thing I couldn't like tend to take them to the local Kodak guy they were copyrighted so I had to track down the original photography studio in Vienna which luckily was only across the street from the opera house but they're still in existence they made me pay an arm and a leg which meant I couldn't really afford to make copies of all of them but there was a very famous Polish free market economist in Austrian who worked with Mises in Geneva named Michael Halpern and we found an early picture of Michael Halpern he was a monetary theorist and an early godfried hobbler who was a student of Mises is a picture of this famous Austrian capital monetary theorist I'd never seen a picture of him Richard Striegel Richard Striegel and it was very interesting I had heard a rumor that Striegel had been killed by the Nazis during the war in fact he had a lung cancer and he died from lung cancer in 1942 Hayek in fact in in London wrote a obituary about him during the war saying that one of the great hopes of a revival of true liberalism in Austria was now lost because besides being an Austrian theorist he was a leading classical liberal and he was seen as the hope after the war of a revival of these ideas and he passed away we also found an early picture of Hayek which I don't think has had much circulation in these files as well and then being somewhat of an Austrian I never leave without another now photograph of Mises my little Porta Mises picture my little more Porta Mises which I also found in the archives and I don't think this picture had been seen before either this was the picture taken of Mises at this international conference which I also had to pay an arm and leg for a copy of also and we almost choked is that oh yes and then one other thing is what I found there was a group photo from this conference and in this picture in the middle of it is Mises and he is being politically incorrect in the group of non smokers he's holding a cigarette my kind of guy yes I do smoke with great pleasure but there he is holding a little cigarette looking like a happy guy and none of the non smokers are looking cranky at him ah the old days anyway we have Oscar Morgenstern here we have Godfrey Hobbler we have Alvin Hansen who was a famous later became a famous Keynesian economist and a number of other prominent economists are all in this little robes picture in this picture to my knowledge has never been seen before and this was sort of a I considered a very very nice and fine then what we almost choked at and what they were going to throw away because they said that they had no use for it you see the institute is very peculiar they have no living memory of the origin of the institute they know that Mises was a founder they know that Hayek was the first director but they really aren't very much interested in the Austrian school of the history of the institute this is the institute guest book from the 1930s now most of you perhaps not too familiar with the history of economic thought will know who some of these names are but some of you who do know a little bit about economics in this century will recognize the name Dennis Robertson Trinity College September 1st 1930 John R. Hicks London School of Economics September 1930 Jacob Weiner University of Chicago Inberto Ricci from Italy some guy who was a member of the Italian Cooperativist Association several times we have the signature of a famous Swedish economist Bertel Olin another Swedish economist Gustav Okerman Purge Purge Jacobsen Young Tinbergen who was a central planner Nobel laureate and all of these are the signatures from the early 1930s excuse me and Varga who is who was the head of the Hungarian Institute and that was a somewhat of a prominent socialist so this was I consider this just in his historical curiosity with autographs a fascinating find I'm hoping to make oh yes and one other here from one of the board meetings is this picture of the board members of the Austrian Institute and half seen here is Hayek and a very young also Oscar Morgan Stern in this photo which we got we're hoping to make another trip to Vienna there are a number of archives as I've suggested that I have not gone through that I believe will bring forth a number of interesting aspects such as the archives of the Austrian Economic Society which was the equivalent of in America to the American Economic Association in which Mises was the vice president and we have been told that in somewhere in an archive are the minutes of all of the meetings of this Austrian Economic Society possibly with copies of all the papers delivered this would be fascinating for the following reason in the late 20s and early 30s it would be Austrian economists at these professional economics meetings analyzing and arguing over the causes consequences and cures of the great depression Austrians arguing among themselves in dealing with these problems this could be an interesting thing in the intellectual history of the school also Mises taught for eight years at the graduate institute for international studies in Geneva Switzerland he also through the institute was doing a lot of work for the League of Nations one of the unpublished memorandums that he had done I in fact found on my last trip to Geneva several years ago and included in a volume of Mises's essays that I edited which was published by Clure Academic Press under the sponsorship of the Mises Institute and I'm convinced that with a bit more time at the League of Nations archives I may find a lot more because what we found at the Institute in Vienna was in fact that the Business Cycle Institute was working closely with the League of Nations they were participating in conferences and memorandum preparations for them on economic policy concerning the depression and international trade and tariffs and agricultural policy Oscar Morgenstern had had a lot of contacts with the Rockefeller Foundation it'll be very interesting to try to get into the archives of the Rockefeller Foundation because what we found here and I have photocopies here beginning in 1935 and 1936 Morgenstern is commissioning people to do working papers in English why because he's trying to use them as fundraising devices to get money from the Rockefeller Foundation on the problems of economic policy in Central European and Balkan countries in conjunction with the other business cycle institutes that existed in Eastern Europe and in a sense it's very frustrating because you realize that if there had not been World War II if Austria had not been annexed by Germany Morgenstern was a very successful coordinator and organizer and fundraiser and the Institute under him would have been a focal point for organizing all of these other organizations to analyze problems of economic policy and economic reform from a more or less Austrian perspective and the war preempted that completely so those are the types of things I've been doing it's only a start I consider this only touching the surface to be honest I was fortunate enough last summer to get a a nice research grant from Hillsdale College which enabled me to make this trip not as long as I wanted or needed to and certainly needed to but I'm hoping to make at least one more extended trip there to go through the other archives in Vienna and in Geneva and through that to be able to create a picture of both Mises's life Mises's work and the atmosphere and issues and problems that the Austrian school faced in general thank you very much