The American Spectator

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p> PROFESSOR FRIEDMAN br> Re: Doug Bandow's Losing a Giant of Liberty : /p>

Thank you, Doug Bandow, for your exceptional tribute to the late Dr. Milton Friedman. I have read a number outstanding tributes to the Professor at various sites on the Internet, but yours has been the best.

While I affirmed my thinking as a political conservative in high school, I paid scant attention to economics, political or otherwise. In college, the only time I stepped foot in the business department was to take a course in statistics. I and a fellow biology major took the only A's in the course, while the business majors were gaining C's and worse, which led me to question what kind of business people we were turning out. I became rather apolitical until the late '70s, when I renewed my interest in the few conservative publications out there like National Review, and came across and got hooked on the newspaper version of The American Spectator. My feeble interest in economics grew a bit, but it received a major stimulus when I happened across Professor and Mrs. Friedman's PBS specials, Free To Choose, and the accompanying book (which topped my Christmas list in 1980 and to which my wife complied). That was followed by Friedman's excellent Capitalism and Freedom, and frankly, I had found a guide to liberty and freedom in economic thought. I even delved into the Professor's magnum opus, Monetary History of the United States, 1867 to 1960 (with Anna Schwartz) and managed to make some sense of the matter. His Essays in Positive Economics still remains a bit daunting, but I have managed to pick up useful tidbits from time to time. His weekly columns in Newsweek were mandatory reading for me as have been other writings over the years. Professor Friedman's work has established for me a foundation from which to pursue the works of other notable free market and liberty-loving economists, such as Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek, Henry Hazlett, J.B. Say and Murray Rothbard.

p>Yes, we have lost, as Mr. Bandow states, "a Giant of Liberty." But we have also lost an outstanding gentleman, teacher and scholar. It has been our distinct fortune to have had him for 94 years, and his works will continue to live on to influence other economists and individuals like myself who enjoy and defend the great liberties which we have. br> -- James J. Bjaloncik br> Stow, Ohio /p> p> Thank you, Mr. Bandow, for your article on a true giant of our age. No one, in my opinion, can truly encapsulate the life and times and importance of this great man. I first read and studied Mr. Friedman during the second half of the 1960s when his book Capitalism and Freedom

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