![]() Like her compatriots, Rose Wilder Lane surprised people. They don’t fumble and fiddle around-every shot goes straight to the centre.” And none of them was a Ph.D.” Albert Jay Nock declared that, “They make all of us male writers look like Confederate money. The women, recalled journalist John Chamberlain, “with scornful side glances at the male business community, had decided to rekindle a faith in an older American philosophy. These women who had such humble beginnings-Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Ayn Rand-published major books during the same year, 1943: The Discovery of Freedom, The God of the Machine, and The Fountainhead, respectively. They endured heartaches with men-one stayed in a marriage which became sterile, and two became divorced and never remarried. They struggled to earn money as writers in commercial markets dominated by ideological adversaries. One was born in frontier territory not yet part of the United States. They expressed a buoyant optimism which was to inspire millions.Īll were outsiders who transcended difficult beginnings. They envisioned a future when people could again be free. They celebrated old-fashioned rugged individualism. They stood up for natural rights, the only philosophy which provided a moral basis for opposing tyranny everywhere. They dared to declare that collectivism was evil. Mencken had turned away from bitter politics to write his memoirs, while others like Albert Jay Nock and Garet Garrett were mired in pessimism.Īmidst the worst of times, three bold women banished fear. The United States, seemingly the last hope for liberty, was drawn into it.Įstablished American authors who defended liberty were a dying breed. Fifty million people were killed in the war that raged in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Western intellectuals whitewashed mass murderers like Joseph Stalin, and Western governments expanded their power with Soviet-style central planning. Tyrants oppressed or threatened people on every continent. Liberty was in full retreat in the early 1940s. He has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, American Heritage, and more than three dozen other publications. Powell is editor of Laissez-Faire Books and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute.
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