 Thank you. It's a great honor to be asked to deliver the commencement speech. I'm also I think I'm also very glad that I wasn't required to put on a dress. I'm sure I'm sure I would have tripped over it. I want to in talking today I want to talk about two virtues that scholarly virtues that were exemplified by the two great thinkers and scholars that the Mises Institute promotes Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. And I hope that the graduates of the program will bear these virtues in mind in their future academic work. The two virtues I have in mind are absolute adherence to principle and the highest standards of scholarly accuracy in research. Neither Rothbard nor Mises would have agreed with Matthew Arnold were when he spoke of that huge Mississippi of falsehood called history. In we can see in the career of Ludwig von Mises first he at the time he was came into academic promise in height of his career. Almost everyone all the major parties were in favor of some sort of anti-capitalist views whether outright Marxism or some form of fascism or some sort of interventionist programs in the market. But Mises never went along with these these compromises he always he believed in the free market unconditionally and he would never deviate from that. Even his friend the great sociologist Max Weber made fun a little thought very highly of Mises made fun of him a little bit for his what Weber considered his rigid adherence to complete laissez-faire. But Mises never faltered and in thinking about the dominant collectivism and socialism of his time he was not content merely to oppose it or just to say that he didn't like it. He devised an argument that showed that in a developed economy socialist calculation economic calculation was impossible so that socialist economy couldn't function at all. In his famous article of 1920 economic production the socialist Commonwealth and developed further in his book in 1922 socialism. And we can see when I spoke not only of adherence to principle but the highest standards of scholarship we can see me in how Mises dealt with critics he tried to answer all of the major critics of his argument in each case trying to show what was wrong with their criticism. And this continued not only in the 1920s and 30s but even after he came to the United States in the 1940s he continued to keep up with the literature criticizing the socialist calculation argument. And in human action he has a very important section on the replies to the what's wrong with the views of the mathematical economists who would criticize the socialist calculation argument. They claim that they could show that the equilibrium equations were the same for socialism and capitalism so that his argument was theoretically refuted and he responds to that. We can also see in his work in his command of a historical information he was a tremendously erudite scholar we can see this for example in his book omnipotent government in 1944 where he has a command of German history in the 19th century. And we see he also has throughout his work he had a very thorough knowledge of philosophy he's able say in human action to quote not only to quote Nietzsche but to quote poems by Nietzsche which are not very well known. And he has he kept up with the work of all the major historians of his time. For example he has a very penetrating criticism of the great German historian Ernst Cantorovitz in his work on the Middle Ages and we can see also when Mises came to the U.S. He continued his policy of adherence to principle at whatever whatever the consequences although he was one of the most famous economists in the world. And in the 1930s he'd been in 1920s and 1930s he'd had quite a bit of influence on policies of the Austrian government at least in some occasions and a great many of the major economists in the world who were world famous had been students of his and had attended his seminar. When he came to the U.S. because of his adherence to the free market he was unable to get a regular academic position. And he did get a position at New York University but his salary was paid by the William Volcker Fund. He wasn't paid by the university and one might think that the university would be very happy to have one of the greatest scholars and economists of the 20th century on their faculty. But in fact they weren't and he was marginalized but he always adhered to what he believed. He would agree with the hero of the main character of Ibsen's play Brand that the devil is compromised. And we can see in the career of Murray Rothbard the same two scholarly virtues that Rothbard was someone I knew quite well for many years. He had quite amazing scholarly abilities. He knew a tremendous amount about history. He could just go into a library and he would read all the books and articles on whatever topic he was interested in. In this he followed the practice of his PhD mentor, the great historian Joseph Dorfman that Rothbard in his work would try to read absolutely everything on a particular subject. If you look for example at his history of economic thought to volume work which is actually my favorite of his books. He doesn't simply describe the main characters, the main economists, the ones you'll get in the textbook. But he goes into all the very minor figures he believed in presenting the full extent of all the thinkers at a particular time. And he was, I would say of the various scholars I've met in my life, he was the one who really was the most learned. He was the one who really knew the most about many different fields. And he of course made very important theoretical contributions as well. For example in his showing that there is on a complete free market the notion of a monopoly price doesn't have a meaning. That was a major extension and modification of Mises' system and he developed the whole, worked out the whole microeconomic basis that of Austrian theory that Mises had only hinted at in human action. He also made very important contributions to ethics in showing how an Aristotelian natural law theory could be modified following John Locke into an individualist theory which people would have libertarian rights and he showed that the free market could supply defense and justice that a state wasn't required to provide these things. And we can see in his career someone with Rothbard's manifestabilities would have had he been willing to modify his beliefs could have easily gotten a position at one of the major universities. We can see the contrast between Murray Rothbard's pursuit of integrity and the path followed by Alan Greenspan who at one time he was a member of Einrand's inner circle and wrote essays, he wrote an essay in favor of the gold standard but once he had the chance to advance in government he put aside his free market beliefs and maintained that he was still in favor of the gold standard, this didn't prevent him from becoming the head of the Federal Reserve system. So we see that someone who was willing to compromise went much further in his career than Rothbard but Rothbard never compromised. And we can see even within the world of Austrian economics Rothbard always insisted on what he thought believed to be the correct theoretical views even at the expense of getting into disagreements and criticizing other people who held views of Austrian economics that didn't fully follow the correct doctrines as he had established them. So I hope that the graduates of this program and their work in Austrian economics will remember these virtues of absolute integrity and adherence to principle and also scholarly accuracy.