Morris – A Toast to The Philadelphia Society

Joseph A. Morris
A Toast to The Philadelphia Society

Gala 40th! Annual National Meeting
The Philadelphia Society
Chicago, Illinois, May 1, 2004

The hallmark of The Philadelphia Society is controversy, and the annual
national meeting of the Society for 2004 is no exception to that rule.

The annals of our body record that it was in early 1964 that Don Lipsett
organized the first regional meetings of what would become The Philadelphia
Society. Small groups of lovers of liberty gathered in Indianapolis,
Philadelphia, and San Francisco. There they explored the establishment
of a forum for the cultivation of ideas about freedom and the social order.
That happened 40 years ago. This is the 40th anniversary of those
meetings.

It was a year later, in 1965 in Chicago, that an annual national meeting
of the Society was convened for the first time. That session, of course,
followed the celebrated conference held in New York, in the immediate
aftermath of Barry Goldwater’s defeat in the Presidential election of 1964,
where, in the presence of Don Lipsett, Frank Meyer, and Ed Feulner, Milton
Friedman and William F. Buckley, Jr., were introduced. The Society took
on its name, its mission, and its corporate form. That 1965 conference
was the first annual meeting of the Society; the 40th anniversary of
that milestone will occur next year, in 2005, when, God willing, the Society
holds its 41st annual meeting; this is the 40th annual national meeting.

So, what are we celebrating today? The 40th anniversary or the
40th annual meeting?

The libertarian position is that the formation of the Society was an act
of free will, objectively accomplished in 1965. This is the 40th annual
meeting.

The traditionalist position is that nothing exists in a vacuum, and due
account must be given to the conception of the idea and the gestation of the
institution. This is the 40th anniversary.

The fusionist position is reflected on the printed covers of our
conference packets: This is the"40th Gala! National Anniversary
Meeting". You will note, by the way, the mysterious
exclamation point which appears after the word "Gala". It was
inserted by the Invisible Hand.

The roster of those who spoke at the Society’s first annual meeting was
stunning. One panel, for example, consisted of George Stigler of The
University of Chicago, Eliseo Vivas of The University of Chicago, and Russell
Kirk of the cosmos. That’s the intellectual equivalent of a batting
order consisting of Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, and Willie Mays on steroids ó
that is to say, of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa.

The very first panel at the very first meeting of The Philadelphia
Society truly made history.

Milton Friedman of The University of Chicago opened the conference,
addressing "The Problem of Philosophy". He referred to himself
as a "classical liberal", and he praised modern man’s ability to
break with authoritarian traditions of the past. The gist of his
argument was that the central problem of social thought and practice is the
achievement of individual liberty.

Fr. Stanley Parry of the University of Notre Dame followed. (There
were moments, in those days at least, when it seemed that the Society ran on a
University of Chicago / Notre Dame axis.) He spoke in defense of the
traditions of the West, and he argued in favor of an organic vision of society
rooted in morals and metaphysics. The gist of his argument was that the
central problem of social thought is the careful cultivation and transmission
of the gifts of Western Civilization.

Then Frank Meyer of National Review rose to speak. The gist of his
argument was: You’re both right.

Nothing has ever been the same since.

The modern conservative movement had begun to take shape in America.
It was to be an alliance of libertarians and traditionalists, of economists
and philosophers, of orthos, neos, paleos, and Sandoz. It would embrace
Friedrich von Hayek and Gerhart Niemeyer, Ben Rogge and Russell Kirk, Yale
Brozen and Melvin E. Bradford. Importantly, however, it would be more
than a coalition of personalities, parties, or interests. Its essence
was ideas.

If The Philadelphia Society has had a motto, it has been the title of
Richard Weaver’s famous book, first published in 1948, Ideas Have
Consequences.

Because the conservative movement has been about ideas, and emphatically
because those ideas involve freedom as a goal and reason as a method, it has
been a noisy affair, and nowhere more so than at The Philadelphia Society’s
annual and regional meetings. But debate helps to crystalize and
clarify, and ideas that are tested in debate grow in strength.

Ideas also have the ability to transcend party, section, nationality,
race, ethnicity, language, time, and space. Although such leaders of
this Society as Glenn Campbell, Henry Regnery, John Ryan, and Ernest van den
Haag could not have been more different in character, background, profession,
and interests, they recognized that it was through ideas that politics,
economics, and ultimately history would be shaped. E. Victor Milione, of
the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and Leonard Read, of the
Foundation for Economic Education, were among the early voices urging the rest
of us to see education as the single most important tool in the reformation
and renewal of societies, cultures, and civilizations. Personality and
party take on importance in proportion to the extent to which they embody, and
give life, to ideas.

My wife, Kathy, our friend David Forte, and I were reminded of this
phenomenon last night after dinner, when we spoke with Roman Joch from the
Civic Institute of Prague in the Czech Republic, who is attending this meeting
as the guest of Annette Kirk. Roman told us that he was 18 years old
when communism fell. He spent his entire childhood in the maw of a
totalitarian state and its educational system. Yet, he told us, from his
earliest days he held a dream of freedom. The channels of his awakening,
and of his hope, were Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. They were the
heroes of his boyhood, because they spoke of ideas, and he listened, he
understood, and he made those ideas his own.

As the historians of the conservative intellectual movement will attest,
the ideas to which Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher gave voice were ideas
revived, advanced, refined, and broadcast over these last four decades by
members of The Philadelphia Society, their work often taking place in the very
halls where the Society met and debated.

Now, how shall we celebrate this remarkable story?

A venerable rule that conservatives often follow is to search out the
practices of their forebears. The Founder of this Society, and for more
than three decades the benign dictator of its domestic affairs, was Don
Lipsett.

Don Lipsett was known as "The Commodore" for a number of
reasons, but certainly among them was his lifelong interest in the life and
times of Stephen Decatur, a great figure from the early days of America’s
naval history.

Born in Maryland and reared in Philadelphia, Decatur was commissioned a
midshipman in 1798, and rose quickly through the ranks of the young United
States Navy. At various times in the early years of the 19th century he
had command of such storied vessels as the Constitution and the Congress.
He would manage the Norfolk Navy Yard and command all American naval forces on
the Southeast coast. He successfully defended New York harbor during the
War of 1812.

It was, of course, his service in the Tripolitan Wars that have earned
him a lasting place in American memory.

In 1815 Decatur commanded a nine-ship squadron dispatched to the
Mediterranean to settle conflicts, persisting since 1812, with the criminal
regimes of the Barbary Coast. These were rogue Arab states whose major
enterprises were one form or another of piracy, often in secret league with
the French. Sound familiar?

Between military actions and diplomatic maneuvers, Decatur succeeded
with remarkable speed in ending forever the rapacious behaviors of the Barbary
powers.

In due course the fleet returned to American shores and Decatur returned
to Norfolk where, on April 4, 1816, a great testimonial dinner was given
in his honor. Among the entertainments of the evening was the singing by
guests of a song, written for the occasion by a local worthy and set to the
tune, "To Anacreon in Heaven," the melody known to us as the
musical setting of "The Star Spangled Banner."

The second verse paid particular tribute to Decatur:

Algiers’ haughty Dey, in the height of his pride,
From American freemen a tribute demanded;
Columbia’s brave freemen the tribute denied,
And his Corsairs to seize our bold tars was commanded.
Their streamers wave high,
For Decatur draws nigh,
His name strikes like lightning ó in terror they fly ó
Thrice welcome our hero, returned from afar.
Where the proud crescent falls to the American Star.

At the conclusion of the dinner, following many toasts in his honor,
Decatur rose in reply.

A common, but very wrong, legend has it that Decatur’s toast consisted
of the words, "Our Country: Right or wrong!"

In fact, according to the two contemporary Norfolk newspaper accounts of
the event that have survived, Decatur lifted his glass and said: "Our
country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the
right, and always successful, right or wrong."

Conservatives will appreciate the nuances. The toast was decidedly
patriotic, but far from jingoistic. Decatur had a well-deserved
reputation as a champion of civilian control of the military and of the rule
of law. His toast reflected those fundamental American precepts.

So, with Commodore Lipsett, let us take Commodore Decatur as our guide.

I ask you, please, to rise, lift your glasses, and join with me in this
toast:

The Philadelphia Society! In her intercourse with ideas, may she
always be in the right, and always interesting, right or wrong.

And now, before we enjoy our lunch together, let us pray:

Our Father in heaven, we thank you for all the blessings that you have
bestowed upon us: Family and friends; life and love; reason
and grace; citizenship in free lands; and the bounty before
us.

We are grateful for The Philadelphia Society, and for all the minds and
hands that have made it, that make it still, and that will make it in years to
come.

And finally, Lord, we are mindful of those men and women who, in places
far and near, willingly put themselves between us and those who would destroy
our lives and our liberties. With them especially in mind, we pray, in
the words of the Fourth Verse of the American national anthem:

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Amen.