This Day in History: American journalist and author Rose Wilder Lane, died on this day in 1968. Rose’s mother was Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the beloved series of Little House on the Prairie books. We now know that Rose had much more to do with the success of those books than has previously been thought. After World War I she traveled the world only to be met by starvation everywhere, so she was initially attracted to Communisn. In short time she realized that this ideology only made things worse. She embraced individualism as she found that people who were left alone and freed from government restraints fared better.
"Rose’s opposition to government intervention strengthened as the years rolled by. She became a strenuous opponent of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Before Pearl Harbor she opposed our entry into the war. During the war, she refused to apply for a ration card, relying on honey for sweetening and canning her own garden fruits and vegetables. She even refused to accept a Social Security number. When a radio commentator asked his listeners for their views on Social Security, she scribbled on a postcard: 'If [American] school teachers say to German [Nazi] children, ‘We believe in Social Security,’ the children will ask, ‘Then why did you fight Germany?’ All these ‘Social Security’ laws are German, instituted by Bismarck and expanded by Hitler. Americans believe in freedom, in not being taxed for their own good and bossed by bureaucrats.'” The local postmaster, reading the message, considered it subversive and notified the FBI which sent a state trooper to investigate. Rose’s response was a newspaper article: 'What Is This—the Gestapo?'" ~Bettina Bien Greaves
Her philosophy on life was detailed in her 1943 book The Discovery Of Freedom which you can download here.
See also: The Encyclopedia Of Libertarianism
No comments:
Post a Comment