Campbell – Remarks for the Dedication of the Lipsett Library and the Edmund Burke Window
Remarks for the Dedication of the Lipsett Library
and the Edmund Burke Window at
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute
Dr. William F. Campbell
Professor of Economics
Louisiana State University
The purpose of this pamphlet is to pay personal tribute to Don Lipsett by
weaving together memories and stories of Don which link together the main
institutions of the conservative movement in which he played a major part.
Although the main focus is on The Intercollegiate Studies Institute, The
Philadelphia Society, and The Heritage Foundation, Don also played significant
roles in The Foundation for Economic Education, National Review, and
Hillsdale College.
But more important than the institutional structures were the lives he personally
affected. Russell Kirk, one of Don’s closest friends, always used to quote
Edmund Burke’s sceptical retort to the men of system, "I must see the things, I
must see the men." The effect that Don had on hundreds of individual lives can
only be retold by those whose lives he touched. That he did it through humor
and affection can be seen in the remarks that Ken Cribb made at the Memorial
Service about the nicknames, Uncle Miltie, Eddie and Colonel Cribb.
Don reached out not only to the rich, the wise, and the famous, but even more
to those who can only be described as belonging to the obscure annals of the
poor. Barbara von der Heydt especially noted this in her Tribute to Don at the
Memorial Service in Woodburn, Indiana.
The occasion for this story is the acquisition of Don’s conservative library by
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute and the accompanying prints, paintings, and
donations made by several Board Members to complement Don’s contribution
to the conservative movement.
Don Lipsett was born August 9, 1930, in Woodburn, Indiana. From the
photograph below of Don in Woodburn we can see his early love of cars. On
November 4, 1995, the Memorial Service for Don was celebrated in the
Woodburn Missionary Church. His Hoosier roots were noted by Ed Feulner,
Stan Evans, and how deep they were throughout his life was particularly noted
by the Pastor Fred Jensen in his remarks about the importance of Bobby Knight
to Don.
Having received a B.S. in Business and an M.B.A. from Indiana University, he
joined the U.S. Coast Guard where he was a search and rescue officer in the 9th
District, with the rank of Lieutenant JG. Don’s love of naval history was
interwoven with his American patriotism.
Don Lipsett was known for his love of the great naval hero, Commodore
Stephen Decatur. Decatur was known for his defeat of the Barbary Pirates and
his sturdy American patriotism. He was on the "shores of Tripoli" when he
destroyed the captured frigate, Philadelphia. Don’s favorite print of the
Commodore was when he engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the
treacherous Tripolitan captain who had killed his brother James.
In honor of Decatur, Don created the Stephen Decatur Society and the famous
Decatur Shop of North Adams, Michigan. He bought and read books, acquired
prints, statues, and postcards of the various metropolises of the U.S. named
after his hero, such as Decatur, Illinois.
Don, of course, knew that Stephen Decatur’s famous toast was more
complicated than, "Our Country, right or wrong!" which he put on the
letterhead; he in fact quotes the more accurate version in his compilation of
facts to "facilitate the scheduling of suitable annual activities": "Our country! In
her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right, and always
successful, right or wrong." He also noted consistent with his belief in free
market economics that the famous toast was delivered in the Exchange Coffee
House, Norfolk, Virginia on April 4, 1816.
Don’s famous stationery for the The Stephen Decatur Society, i.e. the S.D.S.
(the irony did not escape him), had the eagle displayed with the arrows in both
talons. This was only one example of Don’s love of eagles.
In one of Don’s favorite movies, A Thousand Clowns, with Jason Robards and
Barbara Harris, there is the memorable line, "You can’t have too many eagles."
This was certainly Don Lipsett’s idea in his own home in North Adams,
Michigan. Little did he know that it was also the idea of Louise Evelina du Pont
who married Francis Crowninshield of Boston; when she came back to take
over the du Pont House at Hagley, built originally by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont in
1802, she festooned the house with eagles.
It was a shame that Don and I did not go to Hagley and see the du Pont house
when we were in the Wilmington area together; we did go to Winterthur
together, but the eagles were not in as much prominence as in the du Pont house
at Hagley. Perhaps Louise du Pont’s love of eagles came from the fact that her
grandfather came over to this country on January 1, 1800 on the ship,The
American Eagle.
One historical lagniappe is that Louise Oliver, Chairman of the Board of ISI
during the establishment of the National Headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware,
and a longtime friend of Don’s, was related to the Crowninshields. Her name,
Louise, came from Louise Evelina du Pont who was Eleuthère Irénée du Pont’s
great grandaughter.
His dedication to the memory of the Commodore Stephen Decatur led him to
take me one time to the cemetery at Bladensburg, Maryland, where Decatur was
shot in a duel with the infamous James Barron. Decatur subsequently died in the
Decatur House on Lafayette Square in Washington D.C. which was Don’s
favorite residence in Washington.
It is fitting for more reasons than one that Don Lipsett’s library is accompanied
by a stained and painted glass of Edmund Burke and a framed print of "A
Literary Evening at Sir Joshua Reynolds." The importance of Edmund Burke
for Russell Kirk, Don’s close personal friend, does not need to be mentioned.
The Conservative Mind goes from Burke to Santayana in the 1st edition and
Burke to Eliot in the last edition. The importance of Russell and Annette Kirk in
Don’s life is evidenced by the number of signed personal editions in Don’s
library.
Don Lipsett and Edmund Burke are intertwined by their love of great naval
heroes. They both had their favorite Commodores. Although Don did not
realize Burke’s love of the Commodore Keppel nor did Russell make much of
this in his treatment of Edmund Burke’s Letter to a Noble Lord, the parallels are
too striking to neglect.
In this print we have the famous Literary Club founded by Samuel Johnson
which included his friends, Edmund Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, James
Boswell, Oliver Goldsmith, and other literary lights of the day sitting around the
table engaged in civil conversation. Sir Joshua Reynolds, of course, was the
famous portrait painter of 18th century England. But how exactly do all these
great men intertwine with the life of Don Lipsett?
Another member of the Literary Club not shown in the engraving was Adam
Smith. It is unfortunate that in the print Adam Smith, who was a member, was
not included. But there is a lot of literary gossip of unpleasantries between
Smith and Johnson that might explain this neglect.
The Baton Rouge office of The Philadelphia Society is fortunate to have a
Painting of Adam Smtih by Norma Huron Lipsett painted especially for Bill
Campbell.
To accompany this painting, we have official Reproductions of the Tassie
medallions of Adam Smith and David Hume produced for the Scottish National
Portrait Gallery. The Adam Smith memorabilia also includes the famous Adam
Smith neckties which were part of the uniform of the Reagan Administration
conservatives. Less well known were the Adam Smith sweatshirts, scarves, and
cummerbunds put out by the Stephen Decatur Shop.
But Don Lipsett in his attention to the naval history of Commodore Decatur
overlooked Edmund Burke’s favorite Commodore, Admiral Keppel. Burke paid
tribute to Admiral Keppel is his extraordinary, "Letter to a Noble Lord."
There are many parallels between Don’s hero and Edmund Burke’s hero. Burke
paid eloquent tribute to the virtues of Keppel who had descended from the
Dutch aristocracy. Burke knew that Keppel "was no great clerk, but that "he
could not have heard with patience, that the country of Grotius, the cradle of the
Law of Nations, and one of the richest repositories of all Law, should be taught
a new code by the ignorant flippancy of Thomas Paine, the presumptuous
foppery of La Fayette, with his stolen rights of man in his hand, the wild
profligate intrigue and turbulency of Marat, and the impious sophistry of
Condorcet, in his insolent addresses to the Batavian Republick."
Burke knew that Keppel was from that "oldest and purest nobility that Europe
can boast, among a people renowned above all others for love of their native
land." Don was nothing if he was not an American patriot. Don’s highest tribute
to another human being is that "he was a great Amurrican." He also loved to
mispronounce his greatest epithet; when he really disliked some liberal he would
call him a "commonist."
But Don was not really a populist. He had an aristocratic side to him that would
have made him responsive to Burke’s description of Keppel: "Thought it was
never shown in insult to any human being, Lord Keppel was somewhat high: it
was a wild stock of pride, on which the tenderest of all hearts had grafted the
milder virtues." Don also had a wild stock of pride verging on stubbornness,
but like Keppel the milder virtues were grafted on to his tender heart and his
sense of humor.
The parallels between the two commodores are even more uncanny when we
read in a short biography of Keppel, "In the year 1748, the piratical attacks of
the barbarous states on the African coast had become so daring, and were so
dangerous to the Mediterranean trade, that it was found necessary, for the
honour of the British flag, to curb their power. Mr. Keppel sailed as
Commodore of a small squadron, to demand satisfaction for some past injuries
which had been committed by the Algerine cruisers, and to prevent the
recurrence of similar offences. He was employed on this service, which was
rendered somewhat difficult by the countenance afforded by the French
government to the enemy, for rather more than three years; and terminated it at
length by receiving the unqualified submission of the DE of Algiers and the
states of Tripoli and Tunis, with whom he entered into treaties of peace and
commerce." Lodge’s Portraits, p. 2.
Edmund Burke in his eulogium to Keppel made particular notice of the
wonderful painting of Keppel done by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Burke described Reynolds as "an artist worthy of the subject, the excellent
friend of that excellent man from their earliest youth, and a common friend of us
both, with whom we lived for many years without a moment of coldness. of
peevishness, of jealousy, or of jar, to the day of our final separation."
When Edmund Burke received the portrait of Keppel done by Sir Joshua
Reynolds, he wrote a letter of thanks, "The town and my house there, will be
the more pleasant to me for a piece of furniture I have had since I saw you, and
which I owe to your goodness. I shall leave to my son, who is of a frame of
mind to which that kind of honour appeals, the satisfaction of knowing that his
father was distinguished by the partiality of one of those who are the marked
men of all story, by bearing the glory and reproach of the time they live in, and
whose services and merits, by being above recompense, are delivered over to
ingratitude. Whenever he sees the picture, he will remember what Englishmen,
and what English seamen were, in the days when name of nation, and when
eminence and superiority in that profession were one and the same thing."
Quoted in Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower, Sir Joshua Reynolds: His Life and
Art (London: George Bell and Sons, 1902, p. 88.)
But most important for understanding what Don has created is Burke’s tribute to
Keppel where he points out that a country needs a natural nobility, a body of
some kind or other, which "forms the chain that connects the ages of a nation."
To protect against the "levity of courts, and the greater levity of the multitude"
this natural nobility would "afford a rational hope of securing unity, coherence,
consistency, and stability to the state."
Don worked on creating this natural nobility from his earliest days as
Midwestern Director of the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists to his
crowning achievement as the creator of The Philadelphia Society. It is fitting
that the Lipsett library and the visage of Edmund Burke be side by side.
Both the Philadelphia Society and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute have
protected themselves against the "levity of courts" by being located outside the
corridors of power in Washington, D.C. The Philadelphia Society has been
located since its inception in North Adams, Michigan, a small crossroads town
so unlikely to be the National Headquarters of anything; as to the "levity of the
multitude" none of the citizens of North Adams have ever been able to give a
coherent account of either Don Lipsett or The Philadelphia Society located
there.
Don’s interest in conservative politics started with his duties as an advance man
for Bill Jenner’s campaign for the United States Senate. Again this highlights his
American patriotism against communism. Don always preferred to deliberately
mispronounce the word so it sounded like "commonism." This was closer to
the heartland’s commonsense reaction against Marxism.
It is ironic that one of the last organizations which Don founded was the William
E. Jenner Society and Research Institute, which meets annually in Indianapolis
to commemorate the achievements of the late Senator. Its characteristic motto
was pure Don Lipsett, "Loyalty to Friends!–Never Forget an Enemy!"
Moving east to further the conservative cause, Don settled in New York where
he worked for the Foundation for Economic Education and The Freeman in the
early 1950s. He then worked closely with the newly founded National Review
and its dynamic young editor, Bill Buckley. Bill Buckley’s obituary in the
National Review is appended to this tribute. Presumably at this time he
developed his love for the aristocratic individualist writings of Albert Jay Nock
and the caustic, if cheerful, libertarian writings of H.L. Mencken represented so
well in his personal library.
After several years, Don returned to Indianapolis and worked for the Indiana
Manufacturer’s Association. Don was a "night person" addicted to late night
telephone conversations with such persons as Frank Meyer. In fact, one of his
many organizations which he created was The Nicodemus Society was named
after Nicodemus because he came to Jesus in the dead of night. I was informed
of this fact by Jameson Campaigne who has carried on the great tradition.
It was fitting that the first meeting of The Philadelphia Society after the death of
Don Lipsett should be in Indianapolis. It was in Naptown that Don did some of
his best work for ISI, the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists as it was then
known. He was the Midwestern Director of ISI at that time and devoted tireless
hours to visiting campuses and cultivating student clubs.
I first got to know Don through my Father, Al Campbell, who was Pierre
Goodrich’s law partner in the firm of Goodrich, Campbell and Warren.
Dad met Don in the very early years of Don’s work at ISI in Indianapolis.
Don put his business education to some use by becoming a stockbroker with
Paine, Webber, Jackson, and Curtis in Indianapolis. It is hard to picture Don as
a stockbroker supposed to hold regular hours. Imagine the manager of the
Paine, Webber office trying to figure out a broker who might amble into the
office when the market was about ready to close.
Sadly, I must also report that my Father, Albert M. Campbell, was a casualty in
the war dedicated to making Don Lipsett a respectable middle class person. I
think he knew in his heart of hearts that the cause was a hopeless one. Don
always used to sign his letters to my Dad as Your Obedient Servant. Servant,
yes; Obedient, no. Dad usually referred to Don as the Commodore, but on one
occasion he signed his letter to Don, Your Disobedient Servant.
If Don, in turn, was a disobedient servant to Paine, Webber, he was a loyal
servant to ISI. Don once admitted to my Dad, that instead of doing his
"overdue Paine, Webber homework" one Saturday night, he was working on a
"list for the ISI seminar."
But what kind of a man was Don? Is there anything about being a Hoosier
which could draw together such disparate men as Don and Pierre Goodrich?
Peter Viereck states in the opening of his 1956 book, The Unadjusted Man: A
New Hero for Americans: "The fight is for the private life; abstract ideologies
are Saharas. The Overadjusted Man knows only the public life." Neither Don
nor Pierre could be accused of being Overadjusted men. They were unadjusted
men devoted to the cause of liberty.
They fought this battle often together even where their strategies differed. In
fact, the famous 1959 or 1960 Brown County meeting of the Indiana
Conservative Club had for its speakers, Milton Friedman, Frank Meyer, and
Richard Weaver. Stan Evans opened up the meeting, according to the schedule,
at 9:30 with, "What We hope to accomplish." It is doubtful that the meeting
actually started at 9:30. It is legendary that Pierre Goodrich was very upset with
Don because the meetings did not start on time.
Don once even went so far as to opine to my Father that, "I think Pierre should
hire me to help him with the Liberty Fund and his other foundations, but haven’t
heard anything from him." This was in 1967. What if Pierre had hired Don
Lipsett? About all we can say in true Smithian fashion, is that there would have
been an end which was no part of their intention. As it was both went their
separate ways, creating unique institutions which have stood the test of time and
have never wavered from the original intent of their founders.
It is hard to remember that Don was once a stockbroker supposed to hold
regular hours. Imagine the manager of the Paine, Webber office trying to figure
out a broker who might amble in when the market was about ready to close.
Don once admitted to my Dad, that instead of doing his "overdue Paine,
Webber homework" one Saturday night, he was working on a "list for the ISI
seminar."
It was through Don’s influence that my Father got to know Russell Kirk. Russell
Kirk continued to play a role in my family beyond the reading of his books. ISI,
then as well as now, was adept at balancing the demands of the traditionalists
and libertarian impulses that comprise the effective conservative movement. A
tribute to Don’s skill is the fact that he could have a close personal relationship
with both a Russell Kirk and a Milton Friedman.
At this time in the 1950s my father met Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver, and
Henry Regnery. After my father died, I came across a couple of undated index
cards which he used to introduce a talk by Russell Kirk at a conservative forum
in Indianapolis organized by Don Lipsett when he was the Midwestern Director
of ISI. As my father worked into the introduction of Russell, he told a story of
his attempt to verify the rumor that Archduke Otto von Hapsburg considered
Russell the world’s greatest living scholar. He wrote a cable to his and my dear
friend, Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn. The cable read, "Otto Von Hapsburg
has stated that Russell Kirk is the greatest living scholar in this country. Is this
true?" The response came back, "The answer is ‘NO’. You people have an
adopted son from Austria who is in 1st place. Modesty prevents me from
naming him. But my friend Russell Kirk is in 2nd place–this is good because he
will try harder. Herr Erik." The story may be apocryphal, but it reveals my
father’s wonderful sense of humor; it could be true of Herr Erik. Whether Herr
Erik or Russell Kirk get the laurel for scholarship, I will leave in the lap of the
Gods.
Don Lipsett was Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn’s most important American
supporter. Erik has many American friends and supporters–we could almost
form a fan-club that would fit into every nook and cranny of these United
States. Not only did we visit him in Austria, but he also visited us all here in the
United States. In fact, in loyalty to Erik, on one European trip, Don and Norma,
Ed and Linda Feulner, Helen and I went to visit the residence of the Archduke
Otto von Habsburg!
He moved to North Adams, Michigan, and served as the Director of
Foundation Relations and Director of the Center for Constructive Alternatives at
Hillsdale College. George Roche, the President of Hillsdale College had been
associated with the Foundation for Economic Education and had know Don for
many years. He was, alas, another victim in the effort to make Don a "regular
fella," to use one of Erik Kuehnelt-Leddihn’s favorite expressions. I remember,
when interviewing Hillsdale College, that George’s desk (and for that matter
Rusty Nicholls’ desk) were absolutely meticulous; in fact, there wasn’t a thing
on them. The irregularity of Don’s filing system (?) and the state of his office
and house in North Adams were legendary, although let it be said, that Don
knew where everything was.
He was elected to membership in the Mont Pelerin Society in 1971. From his
base in North Adams, he edited its newsletter for four years.
But my relationship with Don deepened as the years went on. My wife, Helen,
another Hoosier from Shortridge High School, had known Norma Huron and
introduced her to Don.
Our memories of Don and Norma cover many wonderful trips and visits.
Charlottesville, Europe, and yes, we even got Don to go to the beach in Florida
with us after I had moved to Louisiana. He would amble down with his pipe,
National Review, Time Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal about 3:00 in
the afternoon, cavort in the water for about 5 minutes and go back up. But he
had done the beach and could not be faulted.
Characteristic enough, Don’s closest friend there, the Pastor of the First Baptist
Church, Fred Jensen, who looked after Don in his own quiet way for the last
several years, knew Don mainly through their mutual love of Bobby Knight and
Indiana basketball which came out of their mutual Hoosier roots. The Pastor, as
Don referred to him, admitted to me that he never realized Don’s "fame" until
the Tributes were paid to Don at the service which Fred celebrated in the
Woodburn Missionary Church, on November 4, 1995.
Not only his fame was revealed at the Memorial Service, but the older friends of
the Lipsett family learned that Don had indulged in the evil habit of pipe
smoking which he had carefully, almost miraculously, kept from his family
because they would have disapproved. The pipe was such an important part of
Don’s life that it is hard to imagine how he kept up this deception on his visits to
his family.
The marvelous portrait of Don by Tom Curtis not only captures Don’s love of
his pipe, but also successfully preserves the twinkle in Don’s eye whenever Don
was able to initiate an ongoing conversation between those whom he loved.
Don did not try to compete with a Milton Friedman, Friederich von Hayek, or
Russell Kirk. But he did not hear with patience that his country was being
rewritten by the radical left. When he took arms by founding The Philadelphia
Society, the purpose could easily have been adopted by The Literary Club of
Samuel Johnson: "To sponsor the interchange of ideas through discussion and
writing, in the interest of deepening the intellectual foundations of a free and
ordered society, and of broadening the understanding of its basic principles and
traditions. In pursuit of this end we shall examine a wide range of issues:
economic, political, social, cultural, religious an philosophic. We shall seek
understanding, not conformity."
If you seek a monument to the man, look around you.
The death of Commodore Lipsett has not been easy for anyone. Just as the
Jews leave a place at the table for the Prophet Elijah to return, so too shall we
leave a place for Don at the meetings of The Philadelphia Society, the rooms of
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and the corridors of The Heritage
Foundation. If not physically present, he is with us in spirit.
When the Prophet Elisha asked Elijah to bestow on him a double portion of
grace, we can understand in that both a blessing and a duty. The duty is to be
able to carry on the original purposes and vision of the founder; we need a
double portion of grace to bring about what the sociologists call, "the
institutionalization of charisma." Particularly is that grace needed when the
institutions have become successful in worldly terms.
We can take spiritual consolation for Don’s death in the beautiful description of
friendship which Samuel Johnson gives us: "Esteem of great powers or
amicable qualities newly discovered, may embroider a day or a week, but a
friendship of twenty years is interwoven with the texture of life. A friend may be
often found and lost, but an old friend can never be found, and nature has
provided that he cannot easily be lost." The blessing is that for many of us who
have inherited the mantle, our friendships with Don extended to almost
two-score years.
As Don would have put it, the only persons interested in living constitutions and
vague penumbras were probably Commonists. He would have wanted to be
remembered as a loyal Hoosier, the founder of the Philadelphia Society, and a
good Amurrican.