Reed: A tribute to Ralph Smeed

September 08, 2010

By Lawrence W. Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education

The cause of liberty lost a stalwart with the passing last evening (September 7, 2010) of Ralph Smeed of Caldwell, Idaho, at the age of 88. No one in the Gem State was ever more colorful and relentless in his defense of the free society.

"One of a kind" seems a trite understatement in Ralph's case. If you knew him, you probably couldn't think of anybody else quite like him. He was iconic and iconoclastic. He was gentle and grandfatherly on many occasions, cantankerous and irascible on others. He made everybody mad at one time or another but it was almost always because he wanted to make us think - and he usually succeeded unless you were an utterly incorrigible statist. He always stood out in any crowd, partly because of his bolo ties but mainly because he was often the only one beseeching everybody else to stand for principle and not be afraid to defend it. He was known for his pithy, one-line zingers. He even improved upon Lord Acton's famous remark ("Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely") by adding, "And power attracts the corruptible."

Thirty years ago, the free market movement could boast maybe four or five "think tanks" in the U.S., with all but one either located in Washington, D.C. or focused on national and international issues. The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), on whose board Ralph proudly served, was the nation's first but the earliest one founded within a state with programs focused in that state was the one that Ralph started in 1977 in Boise (later moved to Caldwell) - the Center for the Study of Market Alternatives (CSMA). That makes Ralph a think tank pioneer. I was privileged in 1984 to be called to Idaho by Ralph to run CSMA for almost three years.

Through CSMA, his newspaper columns, his conversations and his often painful prodding as Idaho's libertarian gadfly, perhaps tens of thousands of Idahoans and other Americans were swayed toward liberty by this remarkable man. Among them were former U.S. Senator Steve Symms, who says, "There never would have been a Senator Steve Symms if it weren't for Ralph Smeed. Ralph was always my biggest critic yet best supporter. When we weren't together, we talked on the phone often. I will truly miss him."

Ralph Smeed was born in Caldwell, Idaho on December 30, 1921. He was troubled by the bureaucracy he saw firsthand when he served in the Army during World War II but his intellectual blossoming really began in the late '40s when James Gipson of the venerable Caxton Printers gave him copies of Frederic Bastiat's "The Law," FEE's journal, "The Freeman," and other libertarian materials. He was a delegate for Goldwater at the 1964 Republican National Convention. In 1965, Ralph attended a FEE seminar where he came to know FEE's founder, Leonard Read, and the works of such liberty luminaries as Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard, Henry Hazlitt and Ayn Rand. In short order, he became Idaho's best known and most passionate, well-read and thoroughly principled lover of liberty.

Wayne Hoffman is one of those countless individuals whose life was changed by Ralph Smeed. A former journalist who once thought Ralph was off-base by suggesting the mainstream media possessed a statist bias, Hoffman later became a convert to free market ideas because of Ralph. He recalls Ralph's own bias, a bias for action on behalf of liberty:

"Last year Ralph invited me to come to a regular Sunday brunch with his friends. That's where we really debate the issues of the day, but Ralph always lamented that we didn't accomplish anything at those meals. 'We just meet, eat and retreat,' he'd say. 'We don't do ANYTHING.'

"I got great value out of it, because those meetings helped me formulte many of my newspaper columns. The 'meet, eat and retreat' people did come up with a pretty neat idea, however, not long ago. After Ralph was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and went on his trip to Houston for treatment, our brunch club, along with Dick Rowland and Chris Derry, came up with the idea of forming a leadership academy that will bear Ralph's name. 'Well, you finally did something besides meet, eat and retreat!' Ralph said." Hoffman is now the president of CSMA's successor organization, the Idaho Freedom Foundation - a group committed to the very ideas for which Ralph devoted his long life. IFF recently bestowed upon Ralph its first "Lifetime Achievement Award."

Dick Rowland, president emeritus of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, fondly recalled Ralph this way in an e-mail to me a few days ago: "We, our children and our children's children will be enriched and inspired by Ralph's sturdy compass of passionate wisdom and hard work that produced accomplishments too numerous to count. He taught us to work harder, faster and smarter for cherished individual liberties. He urged us to make the statists say clearly what they stand for: a bigger, more intrusive government and a less effective citizen. 'The bigger the government gets, the smaller you get,' Ralph liked to say."

Maurice Clements, one of Ralph's closest and best friends for years, counts among Ralph's lasting contributions the donation of hundreds of books and the funding of a vast libertarian library at Albertson College in Caldwell, formerly the College of Idaho. Clements notes that Ralph is even better known locally for constructing a 10 x 24-foot reader board sign at the edge of Caldwell near a freeway. For years it has "amused, tantalized and provoked the citizens of Idaho" to think about ideas and in ways they ordinarily wouldn't. Among the comments Ralph posted on the board were these: "If you don't believe in Christmas, don't take the day off" and "What have you done today to save the republic?"

After one of Ralph's recent hospitalizations, friends posted this on the reader board: "Ralph is back home from the hospital. Pray for him." Then when his health deteriorated, they posted this: "Ralph is back in the hospital. Pray for the staff." Even Ralph laughed at that one. (Thanks to Smeed friend Laird Maxwell for information on the reader board.)

After a contentious and expensive ballot drive, voters in 1986 made Idaho the 21st right-to-work state. For the past 24 years, no worker in that state has been compelled to join or pay dues to a labor organization as a condition of employment. Many people worked to make that happen and significant credit goes to Ralph for planting the intellectual seeds that sprouted with that successful effort. It's no small coincidence that since 1986, Idaho has been among the most economically healthy of the 50 states.

At FEE, we will always be grateful for Ralph's work, his fealty to liberty and to our organization as a supporter and trustee. Most recently, in 2008, he teamed up with friend and fellow former FEE trustee Dave Keyston of California to fund the printing of a 50th anniversary edition of Leonard Read's classic essay, "I, Pencil." Ralph was passing it out by the hundreds right up until his health took a turn for the worse. He was pushing liberty 24/7 and never let up until his health forced him to.

I last spoke to Ralph on September 3, the Friday before he died. I called his hospital room. He answered, "Larry, how the Hell are you?" We quickly turned to a discussion of the health of "the cause." One thing seemed to be uppermost in his mind at that moment: giving encouragement and credit to those who work for liberty. We don't do enough of that, he explained. He never hinted at any need for recognition for himself, but he urged me to implore others in the movement to be constant encouragers of our kindred spirits. I assured him I would do that. It's a sentiment I share, and I am proud to convey it here.

Kris Mauren of the Acton Institute (and a current FEE trustee) shares this sentiment with Ralph's many friends and fans: "When I look back and think of Ralph's single minded focus on liberty, I am embarrassed by how relatively little is my commitment, despite a professional life dedicated to promoting it. What a model of dedication, perseverance and energy he has been! The fight for liberty demands no less from each of us."

Ralph Smeed, 1921-2010: A life devoted to the right things and never hesitant to say so. He is irreplaceable and will be sorely missed for a very long time.

Libertarian icon Ralph Smeed dies

By Brad Iverson-Long
September 7th, 2010

Ralph Smeed, the self-styled curmudgeon who promoted libertarian ideas in billboard messages in Caldwell and through newspaper columns, passed away on Tuesday in Boise due to complications from pancreatic cancer. Smeed mentored and advised many Republican leaders in the state, including Gov. Butch Otter, former Sen. Steve Symms, and the late U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth Hage.

"Ralph was a good friend impatient of political expediency or excess,” Otter said in prepared statement. “He was an unyielding and loyal critic, especially to those of us he called friends. With Ralph, you couldn't just vote his way, you had to understand the vote and do so for the right reasons. I shall miss him."

"He was one of our states greatest defenders of freedom and he left a tremendous mark on public policy in the state of Idaho," said Wayne Hoffman, the executive director of the Idaho Freedom Foundation. Hoffman presented Smeed with the Friend of Freedom Lifetime Achievement Award earlier this year.

Smeed made friends of various political leanings. "I don't always agree with Ralph, but he's a delightful human being," Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick told IdahoReporter.com earlier this year. "He's contributed a lot to political discourse in Idaho, and he's someone I'm proud to call a friend."

Smeed, who was 88 years old, served in the Army during World War II, and then returned to his hometown of Caldwell. He became active in Republican politics before starting his newspaper column in the Lewiston Morning Tribune in 1974. He also started a think-tank called the Center for the Study of Market Alternatives in 1976, which published some of his writing.

Rick Coffman, a newspaper editor who became friends with Smeed in the early 1970s, carried Smeed's columns in the Idaho Press-Tribune each Sunday on the editorial page. "Ralph was all about ideas and principles, that those would sustain the country through good times and bad," Coffman said. "Ralph fought all his life for what he believed - the value of a limited government, individuals having the freedom to choose what is best for them, that when government does something 'for' someone it does something else 'to' another someone."

Coffman added, "Ralph is the only person I have ever known who I am convinced did exactly what he wanted to do every day of his life. We should all be so lucky."

Many people learned of Smeed's views from his reader board that included both policy opinions and partisan jokes, including "I would rather go hunting with Dick Cheney than riding in a car with Ted Kennedy." Smeed received notoriety in the past few years for messages questioning President Barack Obama's birth certificate.

The three word slogan at the top of the reader board, "Making Statism Unpopular," may been the message he was most interested in promoting.

"He hated statism," said Ashley Lyman, a professor emeritus in economics at the University of Idaho and friend of Smeed. "He interpreted statism to be something in which the government took responsibility away from the individual and ran your life."

Lyman said that beyond Smeed's political views, he will be remembered for his warmth and friendliness that crossed party lines. "As a longtime Idaho resident, Ralph must have his place in history because of his strength, his character, his individualism," he said.

NOTE: IdahoReporter.com is a product of the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF). Wayne Hoffman is the executive director of IFF and Rick Coffman is an editor of IdahoReporter.com.

Influential Idaho libertarian Ralph Smeed in Texas for cancer treatment Submitted by Dan Popkey on Wed, 07/14/2010 - 9:38am.

Ralph Smeed, a mentor to Gov. Butch Otter and other conservatives and one of the great political characters of his generation, has pancreatic cancer and is being treated in Houston.
Smeed, 88, co-founded the Center for the Study of Market Alternatives in Caldwell in the 1970s. He's spent decades proselytizing about thinkers including 18th-century Scottish economist Adam Smith and 19th-century French economist Frederic Bastiat.
He's most famous for his electronic readerboard in Caldwell, near his FarmCity Agri-Business Park, which features pungent commentary on current events under the heading, "Making Statism Unpopular."
In addition to Otter, Smeed played a leading role in the careers of former U.S. Sen. Steve Symms, R-Idaho, and U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth Hage, R-Idaho.
Smeed is being treated at the Burzynski Clinic, which offers alternatives to chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. Smeed was first referred to the MD Andersen Cancer Center by his longtime friend, Ron Paul, the Texas physician, Republican congressman and former Libertarian presidential nominee.
A former columnist at the Idaho Press-Tribune, Smeed's well-known crusty wit was engaged when he spoke with the Statesman on Wednesday: "It's too early to say here at the clinic, but not all the idiots are in the news media -- some of 'em are in medicine."
Smeed reported that Burzynski now prefers to call its treatments "integrative" rather than "alternative."
"Whenever the liberals get in trouble, they change the vocabulary," he said. "By golly, I don't know who invented 'alternative,' but now they're calling it 'integrative.' But we're going to bring alternative back -- we're looking for an alternative to Obama."
Smeed was diagnosed in Idaho after complaining of stomach pain, but choose Texas after consulting with Paul, said Maurice Clements, who co-founded the Center for Market Alternatives with Smeed. Clements and former state Rep. Elizabeth Allan Hodge traveled to Texas with Smeed about 10 days ago, said Clements, who has since returned. Hodge remains with Smeed.
Dr. Stanislaw R. Burzynski discovered peptides and amino acid derivatives in the human body that control cancer, not by destroying cancer cells but by "correcting" them, according to the Cancer Cure Foundation. Smeed is being treated with the substances, called antineoplastons. The treatment has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
"They've had success with pancreatic cancer," Clements said. "Not 100 percent, but pretty good. We're hopeful that this will turn out to be a positive experience."
Allan Hodge is collecting prayers and good wishes for Smeed at elizabethallanhodge@gmail.com.
Read more: http://voices.idahostatesman.com/2010/07/14/idahopolitics/influential_daho_libertarian_ralph_smeed_texas_cancer_treatment#ixzz0vz1TjoTu

It [the State] has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its powers until they penetrate to every act of the citizen, however secret; it has begun to throw around its operations the high dignity and impeccability of a State religion; its agents become a separate and superior caste, with authority to bind and loose, and their thumbs in every pot. But it still remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men. � Henry L. Mencken, 1926.

In the United States at the present time, the principal ...increase of State power ... point to ... the centralization of State authority.... Practically all the sovereign rights and powers of the smaller political units ... have been absorbed by the federal unit.... State power has not only been thus concentrated at Washington, but it has been so far concentrated into the hands of the Executive that the existing regime is a regime of personal government ....

The pressure of centralization has tended powerfully to convert every official and every political aspirant in the smaller units into a[n] ... agent of the federal bureaucracy. This presents an interesting parallel with the state of things prevailing in the Roman Empire in the last days of the Flavian dynasty, and afterwards. The rights and practices of local self-government, which were formerly very considerable in the provinces and much more so in the municipalities, were lost by surrender rather than by suppression. The imperial bureaucracy, which up to the second century was comparatively a modest affair, grew rapidly to great size, and local politicians were quick to see the advantage of being on terms with it. They came to Rome with their hats in their hands, as governors, Congressional aspirants and such-like now go to Washington. � Albert J. Nock , 1935