It isn't right to rail against fortune when death comes to a
friend, or a hero -- in this case, both -- at the high age of 94.
Still, we are free to choose, and there was grief when word came
to us of the death of Milton Friedman. We were on board a large
ship, where a week of seminars at sea was being guided by a dozen
celebrants of conservative doctrine. One was to have been
Friedman himself, but when the boat pulled away from San Diego,
bound for Mexico, Friedman was in a hospital in San
Francisco.
What struck the band of brothers who came together last Friday
afternoon to devise an impromptu tribute to our missing
seminarist was in fact exactly that -- grief, never mind that he
had lived 94 years. Although Professor Friedman engaged himself
to the end, in tandem with his brilliant wife, Rose, in academic
and philosophical work, it was not the discontinuation of this
that caused the pang aboard the S.S. Oosterdam. If the word had
come that Friedman would never again write an academic paper, or
a book or column, we'd have tightened our belts, and perhaps
reminded ourselves of the million words that are there in print,
and will always be there, to reread and to ponder. But what we
felt was not so much the discontinuation of that great wellspring
of liberal and penetrating thought. It was grief for the loss of
a person.
It is inevitably so that the end of life of a central
intellectual or political or indeed theatrical figure can be felt
personally only by a comparative few, because only a few can have
known any historical figure. The legion of admirers at a remove
-- those who felt for him, without ever having met him,
admiration, devotion, even love -- is something different, more
detached. But there was also the impact of his person on
individual students and friends and coadjutors, and on Thursday,
Nov. 16, we felt a wholly personal loss.
The next day we put together an afternoon seminar at the hands
of confederates on board. John O'Sullivan, the British-American
editor, author and lecturer, spoke of the international impact
Friedman had had during five decades, from the '60s until the
end. Robert Conquest, the scholar of Russia, poet, and, along
with Friedman, fellow at the Hoover Institution, remarked the
cultural impact of the great economist. Richard Lowry, the young
editor of National Review, and his colleague Ramesh Ponnuru spoke
of Friedman's influence on undergraduates.