Note: The following letter by Sharon Harris, President, Advocates for Self Government was included in the recent LIberator Online and is reprinted here with her kind permission.
Dear friend,
In 1972, I was a registered voter in the state of Georgia. Just two candidates were listed on my ballot for president of the United States: Richard Nixon (R) and George McGovern (D).
Hmmmm, I thought… let me see, which one most represents my views — or, more accurately, which one disagrees with me the least?
But wait! There was, I knew, another candidate — one from a brand-new political party, who actually DID represent my point of view! His name wasn't on the ballot, but I proudly wrote in his name: John Hospers (L).
Much later, I had the honor and privilege of actually meeting him, and he had a profound effect on my thinking and on my life.
Dr. John Hospers, one of our great champions of liberty, died June 12 at the age of 93, after a lengthy illness.
He was an extraordinary man who served the liberty movement in many ways. He was the first Libertarian Party candidate for President. He was a great scholar, writer and editor, the author of over 150 scholarly and popular articles and several significant books. He served for years as chairman of the philosophy department at the University of Southern California. And he was a kind and thoughtful man.
Like so many others, Hospers first became interested in libertarian ideas through reading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. He met Ayn Rand in 1960, and for a while met regularly with her to discuss politics and philosophy. Although they later broke apart because of various philosophical differences, she had an immense influence on his thinking.
In 1971 Hospers wrote his great and widely acclaimed introduction to libertarian thought, Libertarianism: A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow. In part because of this, Hospers was asked to run as the first presidential candidate of the newly-formed Libertarian Party. His running mate was journalist Tonie Nathan.
Although they received, according to the Washington Post, just 3,671 votes and were on the ballot in only two states, this campaign made history in several important ways. First, they established the fledgling Libertarian Party as a legitimate party. Second, the ticket caught the eye of the nation as it received an Electoral College vote from a maverick Republican delegate, Roger MacBride. That, incidentally, made Hospers the first openly gay candidate to receive an Electoral College vote, and made his running mate Tonie Nathan the first woman in American history to receive an Electoral College vote.
Finally, as the Cato Institute’s Tom Palmer notes: "[T]he Hospers campaign helped to launch a long-term political alignment that is very much with us today, as people increasingly see issues in terms of personal liberty and responsibility, rather than as a battle between two different flavors of statism.”
Hospers wrote a fun and fascinating article about his presidential run for Liberty magazine, and you can read it here [pdf].
In the mid-1990s, I enjoyed telling him about my write-in vote when I called to ask him if we could do a limited-edition reprint of his book, Libertarianism: A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow. He chuckled at my story, and graciously gave us permission for the reprint.
He was also pleased when I told him the story of how Libertarianism: A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow was directly responsible for turning Liberator Online editor James W. Harris from a statist of some stripe or another into a hard-core libertarian.
In 1978 James was reading a magazine article on tax revolts. In that article he came across a brief description of libertarianism. James says the libertarian philosophy, as described in the article, sounded so crazy to him that he wanted to read more about it, just for laughs. So he asked a friend to get him a book on libertarianism from the library. His friend brought back Hospers' book.
After reading Libertarianism: A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow, James was startled to find that libertarianism made more sense than any other political philosophy he had ever encountered. He adopted the philosophy he had initially laughed at, and became a libertarian.
Hospers is one of the modern liberty movement’s Founding Fathers. His was a life grandly lived. I am proud to be active in the movement he played so large a role in creating.
