 So my name is Doug French. I studied under Murray from Roughly 89 to 92 or 90 to 92 Next to me is Joe Becker and you studied under Murray what years? 91 to 93 and next up is Rich Don't jump ahead Rich, please introduce yourself and say what years you studied under Murray and Hans. 89 to 94 Jake Jones, I was there from 91 to 95 I'm Jeff Warr. I was at UNLV with Hans and Murray from 89 to 95 and I took a very nice class. Thank you All right, great and you recognize this This gentleman at the board, his name is Murray Rothbard and as as you've heard we all have the had the pleasure of Being struck by lightning as I like to say This at this conference we are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the publication of America's Great Depression and I like to tell the story that I didn't have any idea who Murray Rothbard was when I came to UNLV and Just to illustrate that point Murray had You got graded on three things There was a midterm. There was a final and there was a paper of 10 pages you could write it on anything But you had to get the topic approved by Murray So I went in to talk to Murray and I said Yeah, Murray or Dr. Rothbard. I'd like to write on the Great Depression He goes, oh, that'd be great Why don't Yeah, look up Lionel Robbins and he mentioned this one and that one and he said oh Yeah, I wrote something about that Yeah, he wrote something about that it's America's Great Depression, but I had no idea But that shows you the kind of guy he was if he was if Murray Rothbard if that'd been the only thing he did He probably would have been a little myth that I didn't know about it but he he was very gracious and I Have since lost the paper somewhere between I had it in Turkey a few years ago And we did something like this and I have since lost the paper, but I but I did okay, but that is my That's my little anecdote about America's Great Depression So this is the employee and Identification card if you were thinking that and this is courtesy of the archives here at the Mises Institute You can see Murray signature President signature Robert Maxim who was eventually booted probably For no good reason other than Getting sideways with the basketball coach Jerry Tarkania So you could get sideways with pretty much anybody at UNLV, but not Jerry Tarkania But this is when Murray started. He showed up in Vegas in 1986 I moved to Vegas in 86 on top of move to Vegas in 86. He starts January 1st of 87 Now this is a grade book and the only thing that I want to illustrate with this and again, this is courtesy of the archives here at The Mises Institute, so I thank them for that It's not the fact that I got an A in the course as you could tell everybody got an A in the course almost There is a B minus and a C and I have no idea how those people ended up getting that grade but Murray was a notoriously easy grader His tests were extraordinarily hard in some ways, but And you'll see one of his tests later in the program But you can see Murray he Low-tech guy. He wasn't putting anything on a computer. This was his grade book Now when I went in to Talk about doing a thesis I mentioned that I wanted to write on early speculative bubbles And this is what Murray would hand you immediately Whether you're writing a paper or whether you were writing a thesis he would immediately give you He would give you a essentially a jump start in your research and yes, that's Murray's handwriting and No, I didn't save any similar sorts of pieces of paper from other Other instructors I may have had a UNLV, but You can see John Carswell on the South Sea bubble Anton Murphy, of course that on Richard Cantillon and the crew as Anton Murphy is now the John Law expert but this is what got me off the this got me off the side of the dock in writing a Thesis now the last time I saw Murray Rothbard Was in December? Right before he died in fact about three weeks before he died I happened to come back from To Vegas from Reno. I went up to his office in Gritt beam Hall. He wasn't there I waited patiently and waited and waited and waited and of course I was used to waiting and waiting. We all were And he didn't show up. So I took the elevator back down and I opened the door and there he was and We we went back up for a chat and he was complaining about chairman Thayer who was his new chair of there and he He handed me his Employee evaluation. So you can see here that professor Rockards performance in the area of teaching has been satisfactory No classroom materials syllabi handouts tests have been provided evaluations indicate performance above the rest of the average but You know go again, he only gets satisfactory in professional growth Rothbard's Performance was disappointing During the 81 calendar year Rothbard was published in one article in a referee journal. This work is in a lower level journal not indexed by the Journal of economic literature His performance in the area of service is disappointing. He seldom participates in the daily affairs of the department so again, this is the way Murray was was treated at at UNLB if Anybody who's under the delusion that he and Hans were somehow worshipped because they were the most Well-known Instructors at UNLB. They were not he gets an overall grade of a satisfactory However, he's demonstrated only limited professional growth Murray was as you can imagine somewhat miffed I asked him to teach or participate more in depth Departmental affairs teach more students and be available as a role model to junior faculty now. This is the his response to to that To that evaluation and it's funny it's His his response is finally it is instructive to compare or You know, I must say that I am one of the best known in in professors throughout the United States He's published two scholarly articles published two smaller books during the year but I'm He does say that he wonders why Thayer states he would like me to teach more students and yet He participated in the decision this year to abolish the MA program in theory and policy. That's what I took under my when I went through and I Protests chairman Thayer's evaluation as an outrage. This is the first evaluation where I failed to attain satisfactory to excellent in every category Rates my work at disappointing demonstrated only limited professional growth and I Do not believe any unbiased person upon examining the record during 91 could possibly conclude that in the words of chairman Thayer It is disappointing and demonstrates only limited professional growth Of course, he's attended all the department meetings. He's attended He's kept office hours. He attended department meetings. He asked what daily life am I supposed to be missing? The only clue and chairman Thayer's remarks is that I'm supposed to be available as a role model to junior faculty Part from wondering why Mr. Thayer would possibly want someone of limited professional growth to serve as a role model I must say that the best way someone including myself Can so serve as to be allowed to go about his business as a scholar and a teacher Without being subject to harassment in the first year. I taught at UNLV I was happy the two of my colleagues audited my entire history of thought course and again I'm always available to answer questions Surely no one can reasonably expect it to do more than that And he goes on to mention he's the best one of the best known professors In the United States and abroad that was teaching at UNLV Students have come from around the country a few that are sitting here to study Under him both in undergraduate and graduate levels some of the best economic students have been attracted here by virtue of Rothbard being there It's ironic that chairman Thayer states that he would like me to teach more students and yes again He got rid of the theory and policy tracks So anyway, I moved to Reno so it's not like Murray just let you go Never communicate with you ever again. I Traded letters with him because he thought I You know that I had made a contribution in To La Mania area And this was a response to some of my frustration with some of the feedback I was getting from scholarly journals and But I wonder what I wanted to Mention about this It's also he gets into a little He gets into a little gossip here and He says I'm not teaching enough students Otherwise on the other hand Nassar the chairman is trying to be a fair-minded It's done a few things to offset Tom Carroll the evil Tom Carroll as we know Though he remains as a prisoner of the graduate economics as well. El Stupo John Brown That doesn't mean anything to you guys but I had John Brown for macroeconomics and other other things There was a bit of a student revolt. We were all going to walk out But Fiametta who was one of our classmates said listen, I'm getting an A. I'm not walking out You guys can walk out if you want to And anyway, we all stuck it out and we made it through but John Brown was Well, let's just say he was a guy who'd fill up the chalkboard with equations and get down to the end And he was wrong and he couldn't figure it out and Fiametta would go up and and Show the point of his the error in his ways, but And he mentions the new A new teacher Helen Neil did any of you have Helen Neil Yeah, and of course, she's a pro pro free market type choice or pre for public choice or albeit in the Dippy questionnaire experimental economics variety, I don't think I've ever heard that sort of Sort of description before but yeah, Murray was very good about trading letters and Rumor has it there is Shall we say? File cabinet after file cabinet of letters Possibly somewhere in this building. Oh He does mention pro because I asked him a politics question and of course he always enjoyed talking politics And I'd ask him about the debate But what he says here? I think that's interesting as a typical self-made billionaire Perot refuses to take advice for media media or debate consultants and so he was clobbered I think that's probably the case with all self self-made billionaires They don't take anybody's Advice, but he was he was certainly into politics. He was in politics that year Perot and Pat and you know, he was on Pat Buchanan's quick kitchen cabinet For a while and they supported Bush for a while and it was it was really Though it was really something So I want to go to the panelists and Q&A these guys all have a different Perspective that they can give you on on Murray and What it was like to study under Murray and But I want to talk to nobody Murray doesn't get around to teach if it's not Or go to the study groups that are going to be talked about except for rich rich happen to You know drive Murray around as many of you know Murray didn't drive didn't know how to drive and So what was that like rich? Toad Murray around After the we'd have the one of our classes we'd have a study group every week And I'd walk with them to my car in the parking lot Then we get in my car and drive across the street a few hundred feet to the carers restaurant for our study group and Then after that we I would drive him home very slowly so I wouldn't I didn't want to get an accident with him in the car And then have it on my conscience Yeah, one time we were in the car and I had a the club, you know back in the 90s to protect your car from getting stolen it's like a rod And he was like it's like what's that? I was like well, it's just a To prevent my car from getting stolen and he was like so what still is car? I was like, yeah, it's a 1965 Chevy Malibu classic. It's a super sport. He's like Interesting But um, but yeah, and then when I would drop him off at his house. Well, I'd have a used to have a question Preplanned while we're doing the short drive driving very slowly then he'd thank me for the ride and he'd get out And he knew it's not very tall, but he'd slam my car door every time I just prepare myself because it was just like And he's like Yeah, that was My experience driving So what was your impression of you you were in the caro Of study groups. So this is beyond the classroom Murray would go with some of these gentlemen and others And you would go through his books right you had the benefit of Murray Rothbard teaching man economy and state In caro's restaurant After class right Um Yeah, he would teach um, you know, we'd we'd go through the books with him and uh, Usually someone would set it up and and we would go over there and You you you sit there And you take classes from other professors Especially at unlv And And um, you just realize you're in prisons of brilliance. There's nothing else like it. There's there's no way That you're going to ever be able to get something like this again So you you did cherish it and there was a little fear factor involved too because you didn't want to go there and not be prepared or or say something Yeah Everything you ever said to Murray was probably stupid on your part, but um Murray Rothbard, but um, yeah, it was it was just an amazing experience I never experienced anything like it. Um I you know I went through I got my phd and I never came I never experienced anything close to being in a setting like that with Murray or Hans hoppa or Anything like that. I mean nothing close nothing that even compares So you have to understand we had we had the books ahead of time a lot of times we couldn't afford the books and the books were hard to get um, so we had another buddy who was a Copy jockey over at the local copy shop and he'd copy the books for us And so we'd read the books ahead of time to try and prepare for these These these meetings and I was terrified like James. I never said a word because I didn't want to Think I don't anybody think that I was a nut or you know, I didn't know what he was talking about But I mean it was just in the air Um, you lived and breathed Austrian economics and yes, we all took classes and the classes were fine The classes were interesting, but this is where we learned Austrian economics and and both Rothbard and hoppa had a had a sort of student seminar like this Yeah, I I went on to get my phd here and I probably learned more in a coffee shop and a dive bar Than I ever learned And paid for in a university um, it's just There's nothing to compare with with Well, thanks to some help from susie in the archives. We have a special little gift for richard tador Rothbard chauffeur What he may not have known Is that marie could drive he had a driver's license So either he just abused richard Or he just really like spending time with him where he loved that car. So that's for that's for you richard Now joe you were uh, not at caro's, but I understand you were at the stakeout with in and haun's's stakeout Was a kind of an offshoot of What murray put together or somebody put together at At caro's restaurant. Yeah, and I don't remember exactly. I remember going to one meeting Somewhere on campus where we gathered around a table It seems to me it was even in a different building Then beam hall, which is where the business and hence economics department was in this case But yeah, certainly the stakeout and when I wasn't playing video poker I really enjoyed spending time with haun's and he would stay till what midnight one in the morning As long as the beer lasted haun's was there and I yeah, this is where we're supposed to move on So Who headed up these? caro's meetings was a student that kind of took charge of these and And then either murray or haun's would sit back and And be the grand master How did that work? Well, probably a bud benamon a special thanks I think we all know but he operated a body shop and I mean in the traditional sense in in las vegas And uh, he somehow sidled his way into a student government and procured for us some sort of funding for this Economics club, which of course kept the stake out activities funded Anything else, but it was a little bit different for caro's Yeah, that that was a little bit different. Um scott kiara was involved a lot. I think jim philben early on I'm the baby of the group So I kind of got there last but I think philben was involved to philben jim philben Scott kiara and then like lee was lee lee clody was very Instrumentally, you know, you make sure we get the copies and things that we needed um But yeah, that those were kind of the main students I the way that the whole thing worked was it was kind of a hierarchy Especially at the at the stake out Dr. Hoppa would sit at kind of the head of the table and then joe and jim philben and A couple of the other students scott kiara graduate students would be kind of closest to him And then it would kind of go back and so I was always at this other end of the table and You know just trying to hear but uh, you'd move up You kind of get to move up a little bit you talk to someone and he'd say oh read this this and this So you go and you read that you come back the next week you talk about it And then you know, maybe move up a little bit further on the table. Okay, read this this and this You know, oh, did you read this? No, I never read that. Oh, you got to read this You can't you can't and then you kind of moved your way up as you got, you know more experience been there longer and and There was a I think it was an informal system To at all. I mean you you walk in. I mean everybody, you know, it's seen You know Hans hoppa and met him, you know, he can be kind of You know scary at the beginning, but yeah, he really was and he's probably one of the sweetest men I've ever met And we're Dr. Robert But um, you know, you just kind of get your little confidence up a little bit and then you move up a little bit down the table And uh, Richard here was was very instrumental to me and Joseph here Um, I was you know, I was the puppy So I got to kind of learn from them and they would give me things to read and You know things like that and by the way, there was no grades given out for this no, this is something you did all voluntarily just to to uh You know Absorb the knowledge of these guys by the way, jim philburn if you're out there Fiametta if you're out there We want to hear from you because these people have vanished And the first time I saw jim philman was carrion murray stool the first night of class That uh, that I had that I had murray. So I knew the guy carrion is stool must be kind of important He was he was in my class. So Um, so anyway, these people vanished off face the earth. They're known around the the mesas institute and uh, we would love to uh, we would love to hear from you bill curl Bill curl is very helpful. Okay. All right Jeff, did you have anything in this? So, uh, I wanted to go to uh, joe on Use you wrote a thesis under murray as did I But uh, let's hear uh Your your experience Well, I did a uh, I did a law and economics thesis I'd used the austrian school to analyze a US supreme court regulatory taking case I regret a little bit that I hadn't gone to losco first, but Um, I guess I would describe murray as insightful into almost everything Including, you know, law and economics more so than just pure economics in my case Um, he was directive Uh, but not overly so Uh, like most graduate students as we see in our graduate program Uh, people start out trying to explain the world. So he, you know, properly narrowed my focus on things that Um, it should have been narrowed to. Um, I never felt like Um, I mean we went through a number of iterations as is usually the case. I think Maybe more in my case. I'm not sure, but I never found him to be impatient or unwilling to take a look at um Take a look at subsequent iterations of what I've done as I discovered my way through the process of analyzing this regulatory taking case out of south carolina So I I wanted to mention, uh, we all had the experience of waiting for murray or haunts at beam mall At unlv fourth floor. They were both on the east end Correct. You get off the elevator. You take a right and a quick left You look down there. You see if someone Is sitting on the floor waiting for murray And eventually a chair would appear And you would see if somebody was in the chair That would give you an indication of how long you were going to have to wait And murray wasn't going to Rush anybody off. I think haunts had his office hours in the morning murray in the evening And uh But uh, there's no reason to go to beam hall anymore They have scrubbed any uh remnants of the existence of Rothbard Or of hapa at unlv The only beam hall Is right here And I might make the suggestion that maybe something might be a Might be renamed beam hall in this wonderful building, but you know, that's just a Maybe a silly notion of mine, but uh, I think we all had that experience of waiting to talk to murray and as you say He uh, at least with me. He asked as many questions as he answered Uh, but the condition of his office Uh, all obviously as someone who is somewhat disorganized in my affair Uh murray was of the same caliber caliber. So anybody Spent enough time in murray's office to uh describe it Well, I don't know that it was all together unlike, you know, what you sort of imagine is a typical Uh professor's office a little cluttered stacks of books and papers Works in progress, but I I always had the impression that However much that was the case in his office and I never visited his home. I never drove him there But I still had the suspicion that most of the work that he did was not out of the university office That was just for the stuff that he needed for students at the university but rather most of his work was done at home and Uh, story has it that that would sometimes be from I mean his classes at unlv were always in the evening I mean, I think the earliest you would ever get to the university is maybe 334 o'clock in the afternoon. Uh, so my understanding is most of his work was done until You know, three four five in the morning You know get a few hours sleep before he came Yeah, you know in at the Crack of three or four in the afternoon Cracker three or four So we're gonna you'll get an idea about lectures and so on but just And I open this up to anybody Was it difficult to take notes? in a murray Rothbard lecture Since I have the mic. I know I'll be passing it down, but You know to describe what murray's classes were like I I'd say Um, they were entertaining Because it was kind of like a stand-up You know comedy routine oftentimes But the problem was you were required to memorize or you're gonna have to you know Get the material down so you could memorize it for the exams. I don't remember the exams ever being open book So While it was entertaining it was also a little bit stressful. I think you already mentioned Doug that there were no There were there were books that typically The books typically assigned were probably required at the university For the for the program, but that's not what he taught he taught from us sort of a stack of loosely organized yellow legal pages and so Very entertaining, but it was sometimes difficult to you know, make sure you got everything down that needed to be gotten down Yeah Like when I took first took his took his first class my first class with murray I realized that there was no way I could take notes Without a tape recorder because he would go on tangent after tangent and just It was just too much information for a human to assume With a pen and paper Yes, I would transcribe the the tapes then I would have notes. Otherwise it would be impossible Yeah, I never worked so hard in the class of my life. I mean, I just wanted to write down everywhere. He said It was it was I some people have commented on his lecturing style, which I really loved He he would lecture on something like you might be starting and you might be talking about some Chinese philosopher And then he would go off on his tangent and get all the way to Hillary Clinton But he'd go right back to where he left off. So I liked it and and I I I You know, I miss miss loved sit there and listen to him lecturing in today But I liked his lectures a lot of people didn't but I thought I always thought if you kind of realize that You know that he's going to get to some point and he's going to go off on a tangent But the tangent would all follow I took him for history of thought and he was he was writing You know his treatise on it and He followed the whole class Usually there was one main thread that was involved in it when when I would take it and then when I sat in on other people's class another class later Mine it was utility and he went through the history of mankind and everything anybody You know could have thought about utility and would just bring it all the way to Hillary Clinton or somebody like that And then just go back and get next guy and bring it off into some other thing You know here's here's how what this guy said relates to adam smith or something like that and Work his way back and just keep going on the straight line The only thing I'll say about lectures is and I'll talk more about this in my remarks, but There were people that would take the class once And then there will be people that would take the class again and again and again They would just sit in the class. It's sort of like a river It's never the same river twice you've heard that old proverb Rothbard's classes were never the same class twice Yeah, anybody who's read a history of economic thought or his his history of economic thought um were essentially follow They essentially follow his his notes in class and you say it was utility for me The year I took it was financial financial history And you know and and so it's no wonder that I write a thesis on Early speculative bubbles You know that makes sense, but as as jeff said every every class was different And depending on what he was going to focus on and remember of course that's a two volume work And uh, we kind of raced through that letter that he had written me Very quickly, but he said in that letter. I've already I've already written the third volume It's just still in my head so um And and that's uh You know, that's the way it That's the way it was, but uh so um So we talked about You know joe, uh and and murray's help with uh uh his thesis, um Rich you started a thesis with him or how did that you know, I finished it. Yeah, I started and finished it Oh, okay. I I didn't catch that finish part. Good. And now you got the license. So yeah, now I got yeah This is better than the diploma. Yeah More valuable to Maybe we can make a deal for that later Yeah, I know I I finished the thesis and then I um Is in december of 94 December 94 and then I brought him a big bottle of liquor. I can't remember what it was It was his favorite And he was he's like, what are you doing? I'm gonna go to south america for a few months. He's like don't get killed Don't get don't get killed be careful I said, don't worry. I'm going in the civilized part, you know in this anyway um But yeah, and then the then january that that was like his His last year, but yeah So, uh, joe you'd said something that you thought he did most of his work at home Did were any of you at his house on weatherford? Okay, so I would be the only one who who was there. I um And for whatever reason again, I'm I'm the guy that showed up who had no idea who he was but he uh Uh invited me to a faculty dinner that he and joey put on and uh, so joey's in the You know kitchen cooking and uh, we had various professors there and You know, they're asking me questions that I don't know the answer to and of course I'm you know, I was there by myself so it was uh It was somewhat uncomfortable, but again, it just shows you how Magnanimous that uh murray was uh that to to include a student You know in a faculty dinner The letters we traded over Uh over a couple years span He, uh, he's never I don't think he ever forgot any of us Um, you know, that's the that's the sense I get. I don't know about you guys, but uh, I think that He was always He was always there. If uh, if you were working on something he was encouraging and Just uh beyond any instructor That I can think of ever Ever having and again, um You know, I think the word brilliant gets thrown around Probably way too much uh, but I think uh The five of us have seen brilliant and uh You know, it's it's extraordinary when you get to live it over and over so, um anything else from the classroom the the before we get to Kind of the main event we're working up to something here folks. So You know, don't anybody go anywhere because uh, you're going to get a kick out of what What we're going to do, but we're uh, we're running way uh way ahead Because we're all anxious and we're all talking fast and uh, so James yeah, just a couple things one of the things we're talking about how supportive he was You know, I I didn't deserve to You know, I didn't deserve to wash his feet. So I was just blessed to be able to to to be around him But he was always very encouraging. I mean if you're writing a paper or if you were I had us a newspaper column for the local for the college paper And he would read it, you know, I'm like it was murray rock my reading my little article And he would always come in and say Get him get him. You do this Because I I I guess I was a muck raker But he was always very encouraging very friendly. You knew what you're doing and uh, when I met Joey Rothbard As it was after you know, Mary had passed I walked up and I you know, I didn't think you'd even mention me everywhere anywhere I walked up and I said hi, you know, miss Rothbard. I was a student of your your your husbands and she said oh, you're James Yeah, and it was like she kind of knew me And I'm sitting there. I I why would murray Rothbard be telling His wife about me And then the last thing I wanted to do is talk about just kind of the overall atmosphere We left out we're leaving out a big part of unlv and being at austrian at unlv and that's that's um having uh, dr. Hopper around Um, the two of them together there was nothing to compare to nothing nothing um Dr. Hopper was Everybody says what they think of him, but he was actually probably the most considerate And just he'd do anything for you. He did anything for us. He met with us once a week He we would have we all were part of something called political economy club And to justify our $500 in drinking money we had to We did more than drink with it We made well, Lee got us the free photocopies But we would put on events and we would have speakers and I remember at one time we had a speaker drop out And we went to dr. Hopper and he had a speech He was preparing again if he says oh, yeah, yeah, and he pulls a speech out of the drawer and he gives it for us You know not not that's something he had can something that you know was brand new um But they I never I never even heard of anyone spending that much time away From class, you know out of sight of class with a professor. I never heard of it I Maybe maybe some older professors have done it or maybe maybe I just didn't know the right places but Not only did I have never heard of it. I never even Let me make some people mad. I never even met A professor that I wanted to spend that much time around You know and we were just all blessed to do it Um in case you can't tell We're all kind of close knit um, I haven't seen Richard since He abandoned me here Of 20 Was 120 years ago tim. I was here with tim too Um, I was kicked out. No, that was their fault but You know, we all keep in touch. We all you know, we'd love to hear from jim philbin and those guys we just mentioned but um It was we just we had fun We I mean we learned more than we would have ever learned anywhere else when I originally I would I'm from Las Vegas And I was when I got out of high school I went and I talked to the econ department guys because I knew I wanted to be an economist before Rockbar didn't hop over there And I thought they were they were silly. I thought that they were They they weren't serious people. They just didn't seem like serious people to me I'm trying to be nice And I said there's no way on god's green earth. I'm gonna go there And I left I joined the navy and I Was a nuclear power plant operator and I got out And I wasn't I want to go to UCLA And I was like I was getting out but I wasn't sure if I was going to get out on time So I said I'll go to unlv for a semester just And then go to UCLA. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be like david gordon Which I had no chance of being like but um And I just happened to take hoppa's class Just random just that's the time and once I I heard the first two days of lectures where he He talked about what economics was how it was done I was hooked And I had never met rock bar, but I read him first because hoppa had Dr. Hoppa had made us read it and I thought he's just a giant man I thought he was like tom di Lorenzo on steroids And I thought that he could just crush you mentally physically You know intellectually And I was scared to death of him and then I meet him You know short nice little jewish guy comes waddling in and he was he was he was super friendly and supportive and It was just the whole environment was kind of um I don't think it'll ever be duplicated One of the things you asked us to think about When inviting us on this panel dug is whether rothfarr Rothbard was successful at unlv And how esteemed rothbard was at unlv. So let me talk about those things briefly as far as successful I mean great. I think with respect to the students And and then you know bringing hoppa in who were drawn to him there. I mean the He was great for that he was Arguably less successful in winning over the fellow econ Profs in the department is I mean one only need look at that evaluation that you read from to see You know whether they regarded him as a success this this Experience served me well. I had a graduate assistantship in the center for business and economic research with Dr. Schwerer who's the late dr. Schwerer he died of throat cancer shortly shortly after 9 11 because he was in the towers across the street And managed to walk his way out of there and we think that probably had something to do with it But the advantage for me was they didn't talk to one another so and I I apologize if you've heard this story before but Because they didn't talk to one another. I became the conduit through which They exchanged ideas which served me especially well. So, you know We would learn something from murrier hans and then I would confront The traditional economists with that principle and of course they would say no, that's wrong because of this So I would of course go immediately back to Murray and say but they said this and he of course always had a good response for them So, I mean this all served me very very well as far as Whether he was successful I mean one only need look at the members of the panel We have successful libertarian minded attorney. We have a professor of economics. We have a successful entrepreneur You were the former president of the mesis Institute. I mean that's success the way I would certainly measure it for the students as far as esteem I think he was held in high esteem Especially outside of the department, right? And the university for that matter my outside committee member We had to have one for the thesis was someone from the ethics and policy studies department I took a Because I was doing law and economic stuff. I took some sort of a Course with them and he wanted being my outside member Some of you probably most of you know, uh, frances beckwith who was in the philosophy department at the time that we were all at UNLV He had nothing but esteem for uh, dr Dr. Rothbard as well So outside of the department certainly yes, and then outside of the university setting I'm going to get you to hold the mic for me for a second Outside of the university setting. I mean I was only there for a couple years, but You know, this is the newspapers, right? Quiet revolution. We could have been the running rebels of economics. There's Murray This stuff will be up here for you to look at after if you want We have This was during the milken days Uh, there's a nice caricature of uh milken and worry wrote the milken was a free market genius Well, especially like about this Is you know, you know how they don't get it all on the same page So mil milken was far from a solo act milken a free market genius But you know how they shorten the headlines so you can find it on the next page greed Genius milken was genius. No three bad so I mean that's that's really good stuff and then uh, I actually found an article about this article on uh, on on Lisa's website Government is self therapy. This is when clinton came out and said there's a Murray said he didn't he loved the article, but he didn't particularly like the caricature of him But uh, this was when clinton came out and said It doesn't matter if it works or not government has to do something and so he said ah, it's like hot and so Anyway, um, I I mean, it's it's hard to say that he wasn't esteemed and successful even if not amongst his own Midwits, you know his the midwits in the department. So that's I guess what I would say Yeah, the point points well taken I would say that tom carroll who was chairman when I was there and then they are immediately after Did did murray and haunts no favors And I remember I had taken a couple classes and Was deciding what to take next and I saw History of economic thoughts 742 rothbard and I didn't know who rothbard was so I asked a fellow classmate joel vulpe is his name And uh, he said oh, don't take don't take rothbard. He's a kook Go ahead and take karstensen You know independent study and you can you can get that out of the way But you don't want to take you don't want to take rothbard tom carroll did all he could to destroy the theory and policy track along with there Did you get through on theorist and theory policy or So you and I are the last two I believe That got through on on theory policy. Yeah Yeah, I was an undergrad and I wanted to get the ba in economics And I would go for advisement to the advisor They told me there wasn't one And the ba in economics had all the economics classes that would be the ones that You know that that murray rothbard taught And I was told there wasn't one I kept saying I know there is one. It's in the catalog. I looked at it. It's right here No, no, no, no, and I didn't so I was on the bs track which was aptly named and I found out from from these guys through being in the political economy club. No, no There is one just do it don't go to them for advising They were trying to they would literally try to steer people away both at the graduate level and undergraduate level away from him So they could study under people who had written Seminal articles on pet health insurance and the economics of suntan lotion Those are important works that's not funny One of the reasons that was there's by the way claimed to think uh was the suntan lotion, uh, but uh One of the reasons you guys met was, uh, uh, the university was not going to give haunt's hop of Of tenure tenure and Dr. Yoie Made it his case to pursue that cause and lead a student revolt which Put him together with uh, mr. Barre and uh, lea glody who's not here and so on I didn't know any of these guys at the time. I was a little bit in front and uh, so we were all kind of in a way ships passing in the night, but Now we're uh, as as the point was made, uh, we're very close because uh, You know, we were in the same, uh, I guess the same we were in the same foxhole together isn't probably appropriate, but uh, you know, we have an experience that Uh, not many people have had so speaking of that experience. I'd like to bring up uh, jeffrey bar And uh, he has got the uh, the clothes and uh, a little surprise Thank you again to the to the mesis institute for all of this Um, I want to say that I am in a very very exclusive club in the entire world. There are about 10 of us. I took the very last class that murray rock bar had ever taught in his life Um, it was the history of thought class and I want you to imagine Sitting in a classroom imagine you're a 20-something grad student 20-something year old grad student Sitting in a classroom in the fall of 1994 The berlin wall had just fallen five years previously the soviet union had dissolved without a shot Mises had been vindicated Bill clinton was president newt gingrich had just taken over the congress um And you've studied austrian economics with hams hoppa and murray rothbard for years You've attended their classes and their study groups And I signed up for rothbard's history of thought. This was my first official time taking it Now rothbard walks in he's a very diminutive man as you can tell by the cutout downstairs in the lobby not very tall at all He wore this shirt the shirt always with the short sleeves and he had these khaki slacks on always and he kind of shuffled in and he'd sit on a stool in the in the middle of the classroom with a um With a raised desk in the middle of the seminar room And you're presented with this syllabus Now i'm going to show you this no more detail. This is the actual syllabus from the fall of 1994 Now let's start with a couple things First note the time of the class 5 30 to 6 45 as we stated earlier rothbard was a notorious night out Which was terrible for people like me who are of larks, but rothbard was absolutely a notorious night out Next I want you to pay attention to the font Can you say jeff what's so crazy about the font? Rothbard used a typewriter Until the day he died there were word processors. There were word beta word processing programs, but this is typewritten Next I want you to note the room beh 2 19 Now that's beam hall with dougram mentioned Now the room was a fairly standard seminar room with stadium seating That probably accommodated 25 30 students and only five or ten of us were actually Registered for the class people would just kind of come and go It was that kind of popular Now let's take a look at the outline of topics Look how broad this is you're going to go in one semester from the from the wig history appare Or from the scholastic tradition all the way to canes Note how broad this is this was going to be quite the survey Now I want you to note the textbook he says and we've talked about this right note the phrase There is no fully satisfactory textbook in the history of economic thought There was no satisfactory economic thought textbook. So what did he do? He wrote his own Right and we and I know now I didn't know it at the time Um that rothbard was lecturing from his notes for what would be published posthumously as the history of economic thought and he'd walk in with this little manila folder And he'd set it down on the desk and he'd flip through the notes and read And his tests as we've discussed Were comprehensive that's that's what I would say His tests were comprehensive There was a term paper Two exams and two exams Let's take a look at one of these tests Here's some of the questions and you had to pick Five of the 10 questions. So I just put up a couple here to to To give you some flavor for the And you had to hand write there was days of hand writing you didn't have a You didn't have a word processor. So what was Irving? This is my favorite What was he didn't have any what was Irving Fisher's theory of money in the business cycles and his policy Prescriptions based upon them rothbard had nothing good to say about Irving Fisher absolutely nothing So it was so it was phenomenal Again that he would include such things Now I want to take you back to the lectures. There's been a lot of discussion about the lectures Because Murray said that the class lectures are central To the material for the course The readings serve merely as a background material for the lectures and he meant that the readings were just background Attendance was not required, but it was strongly recommended Um, it is my contention and I think that hoppa shares this that rothbard was a terrible lecturer awful lecturer in the normal sense of the word in other words If you expected a professor to digest material and then regurgitated back to you that was not rothbard Rothbard's lectures were something magnificent They they they Were loosely based on a topic And then they would wander as I said magnificently The margins of my notes would be filled with the illusions to or citations that he would he would cite too And then also be filled with oops. Let's go back on that anecdotes and musings And as I say in a word they were wonderful Um, and we have a sample for you As rich said many students used to tape record him on these tiny little micro cassettes And what you're going to hear is from the fall of 1994 november 21st 1994 hasn't been heard since I was in this class You're going to hear an excerpt from that Now unfortunately, you know the those of you that remember tiny micro cassettes. They're not that great sound quality So we've digitized it. We've tried to bring up the levels a little bit so you can hear it Um, but to aid in your listening. I've got a transcription up here on the board. So let's take a listen You're in murray rothbard's class fall of 1994 november 21st And we're going to start talking about The scottish enlightenment adam smith and the scottish enlightenment in a rating system power structure Churches stop Well, mostly more around seven whole generation Scottish I want to stop there. We are starting with smith In the scottish enlightenment. I want you to keep track Of how many thinkers how many philosophers economists just keep track account Of how many philosophers economists thinkers historians that kind of thing that rothbard mentions in the next five to 10 minutes. Whoops Are scottish thought a guarantee of Terminally why the saints With my St. worship service, you know, I'm pretty mad. I wonder who people are so these are That's the worship and economics and uh Some of the stuff that's out of the year is a great human canon. It will be a great guy and Professor one of student economics being market hard money type Uh many years that he uh Most of the free market people and anyone were being the canon My my own woman And our own plan is photographic That's going around a big generation of canonized and he is the He didn't write much in his life. He wrote a little book on money and uh Some journal articles and then he wrote a definitive edition of the nation That's plus he wrote a history of history of classical economics or something like that uh dealing with And With he and great penetrating unfortunately a great clinical smith The problem is that when they look at history of theory, I think it's called history of production and I wouldn't say it's unbelievable. It's common. He wants everybody to get it's not the sort of spot I like a lot of drawing the floor of that way I would still do that but they know that period. They jump everything together. They include Why are there something similar? They might have had a comic badger period or not right there and he clearly got zipped in the same And he has to instead of having okay, this is smith camera smith camera. They didn't do it that way. Don't pull everything So bring them up figure out what's going on. Okay. You got a clear position. I think one of these guys They're very critical of But we're sort of very low as a decision on the style and the fact that In addition to And then this book I recommend already by Clark and others great So it pulls out of the great mysterious Uh, and then Schumheider and as it's still we have a dominant smith Ricardo Schumheider's book To the foreman who basically he didn't get to fly before he could finish basically The whole of us was from a zero pack of smith and Ricardo and uh Being wrong. So if you look out smith on a problem index be the pathism. I'm gonna get a full picture Especially if there's an ice pack Shuttered pretty well. Yeah, nothing original. But if the original thought was bad Shuttered Bad path Took a hundred years because I really haven't learned about it slowly But and then powder out of the left hand that's the I think we're getting doing pretty well on this power of razor And and I think that's the profession Visionism that's called really is something taking your back line bringing the facts there and It's really pretty well. So a bit 70 for the name of cent my centennial came out Smith by the time as well one of the subsidized smith made the argument blood crap A wonderful smith was by operating letters as well a classical edition water That's back Many years I'm gonna hate all our anniversary There's no anniversary mania and American culture They keep finding funny anniversary man. I reckon people have heard of a it's the 38 anniversary of blah blah blah TV has a whole week on it And who cares that's that's part of it I finally include about an accent so really part of the finance that change America simple and They think a great guy something like that Yeah Yeah Yeah Now I have wrote this sir. Well, I mean I guess I originally per se be used to Yeah For certain things I can't I can push forward in the brain of books Anyway, it's after Even his policy written out of a prep for acting Later Those are some With the brain of a figure first big market book for anti-socialist books United States 30 weeks and the whole culture of the social World War two. This was a big thing Uh, we read it in college one of college during World War two We read it the other side of The point where everybody else was social as a communist didn't work out against the whole thing and those days it's an academia It felt important that that whole side of the picture Part of objective scholarship, you know, not the high-year-old user, but that's the other guys And so we all read eyes of the surface, uh, I was brave to stop and commit a lot and convert a lot Uh, I converted a lot of social as a communist my old friend Frank Meyer at that time I was a top member of the communist party in the United States What a top, really top member. I had a worker in school Chicago's the second biggest Chinese in the country Uh, Mr. Percetti get rid of by me. I don't think rid of me rather wasn't certain. We're a positive review of it a little mask Communist party warrior Got away with it. They shortly thereafter left the party was kicked out or whatever. So that's him The most favorable one was favorable views of the book I was So, uh compared to a number of people on my culture I was thinking very much pushed by a big hour appeal and The opinion of a senior mayor might linger. I'm feeling for a kind of intellectual type So anyway, we just I just excerpted all that running right because come on out and it'll be an average additional streamer I think you have to pull it Speaking, of course, the big guy in the chicagra. All right, why speak about books, books I was pushing it by having somebody with a sky that's below coming out about half out of the public, you know, what the nature of the gas I remember that So, uh, one is pretty outrageous, too Uh, I actually pushed his own loss of his own loss in uh, plans for negative income Yeah, how dangerous my act was against the negative Yeah I mean, what I mean I got to take that back by the way to me push by Charlie Murray and Hirston about her book. I mean, I've spoken that And uh, I think you've certainly been great. I think you're just Not married about that too. I think I think how that It's kind of like a voucher plan and a voucher plan What's the limit a government control of government Well, the government public school bureaucracy by allowing people Allowing people freedom to join your out and allow the power to be joined to a private school The NEA, of course, because I wouldn't be mine But that's not the key thing if you're taking people's eye off the floor The real point is it increases the welfare of the state, increases tax savings And increases it creates government control with private school And the government school of public school is forgiven anyway The voucher plan with me and the government then will totally run the private school because that's why because if you uh If you get if you accept the federal voucher The government voucher Private school accepts it means after everything on that the uh, except the money at the end control Yeah, okay. Yeah, you can't see this happening that At the honor of Martin Luther King, whatever happens to be you're gonna have a government totally dictation over Private schools are probably expense thankful about the taxpayer So this is a voucher plan This is the uh And it's supposed to be he's looked under it's look eliminated. Well, I'm the public school bureaucracy Well, it's not to cut it down But the other end you have another bureaucracy wanting to buy the school The old shell game and uh The white one one of the plans Well, I forget the negative So remember that big broad outline of Topics now remember this is november 21st. It's the probably three weeks left in the semester the scottish enlightenment. It's like right in the middle So you can see why we didn't get through Decanes by the end because these this was nine minutes. How many thinkers did you count? I count about a dozen 22 yeah Yeah, um, that's what these lectures were like um Rothbard died about 60 days after this lecture I consider it one of the great privileges of my life to have attended this class And i'm very happy to have shared this small snippet of that with you Thank you Yeah, I mentioned taking notes With that And I remember the first night and uh Again, I didn't know who he was and people just furiously writing notes And I gave up again immediately, but Again, my life changed forever The first night that uh, he walked in the room And he changed all of our lives And probably a few lives in this room too We got about 15 minutes for questions if you have any And uh, yeah, go ahead I remember you were saying at one time that that that first class was in He began his lecture outside in the hallway. Yeah So thank you for bringing that up So you got nine minutes of what would be an hour and 15 minutes because he would immediately be talking He would be talking when he hit the door And when the you know time ran out You know, he might stop. He might not Um, there somebody got a question in there edgewise, I guess during that nine minutes But but for the most part he talked we listened So, um, but there was no You know him coming in him getting sad old him, you know, uh, the first day I had of class it was The gold first gulf war was on and he was talking about the politicians how stupid they were Uh, about, uh, you know rationing gas or whatever it was And it just started immediately when he hit the door. So yeah, it's uh, it was an hour and 15 of of Of what you just heard mark Yeah, so most of you probably mark shells Most of you know, I commissioned Murray to write his history of five That was in Around 1980 initially I said listen what I want is an alternative to outrunters wealthy Okay, we're only for the last first 12 chapters. Yes Start with Adam Smith the end with the The 80s bring it up today two canes and marks and so forth and he readily agreed. I paid 20 000 dollars advance That was a lot of money that got his attention. Oh, this is what I want to do 15 years later We got through after big joke was always have you reached marks yet? Or even have have you reached out to smith? That was the initial one Turned out his first chapter is not on smith. It was agreeable awesome for losing Aristotle and stuff like that So this would turn out to be a Schumpeterian at home and and I must say that I was pretty shocked at his views on Adam Smith and I have my own story about that that I won't get into but Tomorrow my lecture is on the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith's birth So, uh, I know he didn't like anniversaries, but that's my topic There's going to be on Adam Smith a a libertarian view Which is very different as you were here from from Murray's view He's created I was talking to amen amen butler at the bottom of the institute And they're pretty upset with Murray But I think it's important to hear Hear different views, you know, I mean that's that's what that's what it's all about, right? Well, that's right. And I had heard that story for Murray himself and uh, it will Probably not to surprise you that he said poor scousen He's a guy that couldn't help himself Hey Doug, so so Rothbard used to joke the he actually used that you heard about you read Heard about he talked about Schumpeter and Schumpeter finished didn't finish his volumes Rothbard used to joke about the three volume curse In other words, these people would get through two volumes of something and then they would die and they wouldn't And they wouldn't let their third volume get published. And so of course, I mean ironic, right that he Finished two volumes of the history of economic thought and then unfortunately died before finishing the third. So Again, a member of the curse of the three volume set. Absolutely. Yeah, it was all in his head and never got to paper. So Anybody else anybody want to know? Did he finish part of the course and you say he never got the canes? What actually happened? Oh, I remember because he used to call the canes Maynard all the time That's how he used to he used to refer to canes is oh Maynard this and Maynard that So yeah, he got to at least in the financial Um, you know telling of the story. Yeah, he did get the canes, but But he didn't get to the Chicago No, no, so um, but uh, we got plenty and uh, so How do you get it in a tangent though, you know a lot of things we might not have covered in that's in a tangent. Yeah Yeah You know Doug one of the things you asked us to Research a little bit if we could find out and there's probably people who know this a lot better than I But well, I didn't worry wind up at UNLV. Do you know the I mean I I found a few things, but Well, I don't you know, he he he took the SJ whole chair We talked a little bit about it last night And again, this is 86 87 I think it was a increase in pay and so on but I don't does anybody Yeah, really. No, I mean he loved New York. Yeah, that's crazy about love of Manhattan The backdrop I saw was you know for 20 years He had that part-time Instructor position at brooklyn polytechnic. Yeah This is going to sound a little bit like a plug for our own graduate school And it probably is but you know he and mises always envisioned that there would be a graduate school of austrian economics And there wasn't even an economics department at brooklyn polytechnic. There was no major no department And uh, my understanding is he thought that even the social science department there was Like decidedly marxist. So it's not surprising, you know, when he got the opportunity for the SJ holly departed Manhattan although he was there Summers and christmas and things. Yeah, and he didn't get fired. Richard For leaving your Christmas. He took the the red eye the the night of His last final, but it you know, it definitely was a it definitely was a step up It was an opportunity to have something like that and then you know, I was Thinking about that and I saw this, you know, this article which we can read I'm not going to read it now, but it's here. It said It was an article that said we could have been the running rebels of economics and for those of you who aren't basketball fans that was the You know, that was the the mascot of the national championship team and I was there for tarks last year and Massaminos First year. So it was a very successful basketball program. So that was a compliment to say we could have been I think what he might have thought when he went there and then bring hoppy out that he might have thought Hey, this is You know, this is the this is the an opportunity to do something that they had talked about for years and years about creating In one of their problems and getting the thing started elsewhere was You could find a Donor to create the program, but the university has always wanted to control Who took the place after after right and so I thought well, I wonder who's got this sj haul Physician now and you may know because you live in vegas, but I found it sort of telling when I looked it up It's it's some character who Figured out This is this is profound get ready folks that Residential demand for water Went up during the lockdown period in las vegas Yeah, it's stunning insight But And in the letter that he had sent me He and I had talked and he mentioned it in the letter. He wanted to even he and hawns wanted to break away From the business school and go to the liberal arts college and try to set this up and so he called it the jailbreak and So he was very intent on doing it, but he You know, there was this provost and that provost that was always getting in the way of these sorts of things Murray was by the way as far as Uh Just being friendly and other faculty members liking them. They liked him um, you know, he he was he was well liked, but Just as far as the Senior management, not so much, David One point on why he left through I think I never told you He thought he the working on text Really appreciate His work and said their attitude was that he was a very famous professor He should have brought Research money to them. He said their attitude was if you're so smart, why aren't we rich? Yeah, yeah Yeah, we're yeah, I could we can see uh students and research money flowing into brooklyn polytech, but Um Yeah, exactly um anybody else Yes, sir Was there any implications before that Well, listen, um Murray was uh Can we say he was anti-exercise Uh, can we say that every calorie says ah to life? Yes, he said that I blame the wonder bread Yeah, he liked to learn uh wonder bread and uh Stolich Naya vodka and uh But uh again, uh as today's standards go, certainly what he died at 66. I believe Right, it's 65 66 68 Oh, okay, well Okay, well All right. Well fair enough. Um, you know as a couple of us on the panel are nearing that age and uh So, uh, that's another reason why frankly, we're out doing this um because A lot of people in this building have Read Murray's work. They've Heard of Murray's work But very few have heard the story of him as a as a professor and uh as uh, I hope It has come across is that it uh, he was a profound one And an extraordinary one Anybody else? Yes, sir This is a question for Richard. Um, what was the content of driving with Murray and driving home like and Just for some context, I want to say I had the privilege to drive Professor David Gordon home at the time I was just laughing all the time the jokes Yeah, I would just ask him a just a question. It would just be a short question and Um, I was just mostly focused on not running into any and running into anything Um Because I was it's a little nerve-wracking when you're like, you have him sitting next to you and you're like If he dies in my car You know, I will have to leave this the state or something Um, but yeah, it was it just mostly asked I would ask him a question about economics or something Um, maybe you might make a joke or something and then slam the door on the way out Say thank you Yeah, that's him by the way Murray had plenty to say about riding coast to coast with David Gordon And uh, uh, maybe a few jokes were told during that During that coast to coast trip. So that's what I remember most of hearing from Murray About those trips and David keeping him entertained David Gordon stayed in my apartment once maybe you and I need to get together and compare notes One more comment Murray died in January 7 1995 I was doing a tour of the new kato institute building The ed grain had commissioned and we were going through it And that's when we were told that Murray had died Let me tell you something Ed Crane turned white. I have never in my life seen somebody who reacts in such shock They had huge differences in opinion, but Murray Rothbard The kato institute may not have gotten started without Murray Rothbard and they had their falling out stuff But you could tell from his reaction How icon the giant had died Yeah, I I I don't doubt it and I as as we close I'm going to take the chairman's prerogative and say that We hear a lot about Murray's breaks With kato with lots of fair books with liberty fund with this one with that one That is not the Murray I know Murray was the nicest guy And it is hard I can imagine they You know whether it be war or something like that But the idea that Murray Rothbard you Some people will get the idea that he had so many breaks that he was a guy Running around trying to pick a fight And he was not He was just the sweetest gentleman I ever knew And if you guys disagree Say you now or forever Hold your peace with that. It is Three o'clock in the ever It is four o'clock. We have exhausted the time Hopefully we didn't exhaust your attention Thanks so much as you can tell it It was a time that meant a lot To us and hopefully that was conveyed to you. Thank you