The Time I Met Ayn Rand

Originally, I had said,

> We can discuss Ms. Rand another time ...

Liss Hancock responded:

We should. She has a heck of a lot of good ideas, but she, like > other famous political/social commentators/writers, forget about > somecritical aspec ts of human nature that will prevent their > theories from working. This applies to both liberals and > conservatives. (The "Kennedy wing" of the Democrats is just as > clueless as the "DeLay wing" of the Republicans).

Since I was only a freshman in high school I had no idea what things were about either.

The year was 1957; I was the captain of the Debating Team in our high school. Our coach also doubled as our "Social Studies" teacher; Arthur Erickson was also responsible for planning all the school-wide assemblies, the usually weekly convocations where everyone would gather in the auditorium for special programs of one kind or another. He was also the teacher in high school who encouraged, and occasionally required students to read the Christian Science Monitor from time to time. In those days, CSM was _not_ the tabloid size paper with lots of colorful pictures it is today; it was printed on larger sheets of paper like New York Times, with _very few_ pictures and graphics, normally fifty or sixty pages each day. He paid for my first subscription and I have read the paper almost daily since that time.

Our debating class one day was discussing who would be good for an assembly program, and the name of Ayn Rand came up, primarily because she was at that time in the process of getting her latest book 'Atlas Shrugged' into print. Well, we decided to send her a letter inviting her to come, since her earlier book 'The Fountainhead' had been an interesting movie. We had seen the movie in an assembly program the year before. She was on the book store 'tour' hawking her new book and signing copies, etc. I had an original copy of 'Atlas Shrugged' autographed by her in cloth or hard copy for many years. At one point it got stolen (or borrowed and never returned, I do not know which.) Now I just have a couple paperback copies of it and Fountainhead.

Well, she wrote back and agreed to come! For free mind you, since she was promoting her new book. But we had to agree to get her back to Ohare Airport afterward, since she had still another stop that night and another one the next day. Of course we agreed and waited eagerly for her arrival. She came, brought a box full of her books already autographed, and gave a very interesting speech. As the President of the Debate Team I even got to introduce her.

Afterward, we had to get her back to Ohare, but with a bit of time to kill, so Arthur asked her to join the two of us for dinner, at a place on 95th Street in Chicago. We get there, Arthur orders cocktails for the two of them (martinis I think) and a Coke or Pepsi for me, and puts in our dinner order. I had brought with me a copy of the book review which had appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, and she was quite eager to read it all. The book reviews the Monitor used to print in the old days were frequently more like essays in terms of their length and editorial content.

So there she sits in our booth, martini in one hand, her well known cigarette holder in the other hand, dragging on her cigarette and sipping her cocktail reading quietly what that days' Monitor had to say about her work. Now and again she would stop reading and stare sort of intently at me. Her real name was Mrs. Frank Connor (I think), by virtue of her marriage to that guy. But she preferred to write and be known by her original name, Ayn Rand. She said, "I will trade you a signed copy of my book for this newspaper to take with me." I said okay, and then, as she stared at me intently, she said, "Your name is Patrick? Such a smart Young Man! Too smart to believe in Gott! Why do you believe in Gott, Patrick?"

I had no good answer for that, nor would Arthur help me out with it. He preferred to sit there, face hidden behind the newspaper he was reading while he smirked and tried to avoid laughing, not at her so much as at her question addressed to me. We finished our dinners, and got her to Ohare and on to her next destination.

That was my entire aquaintence with her. Later that year, in the summer of 1957, Arthur had a mission in New York City, at Columbia University for two or three days, and he asked my mother and dad if they would allow me to go along mainly to see the city, since at that point I never had been there before. They said I could go, and when we got to NYC and established at Columbia U. where he was in some seminar program, I got the bright idea that I would go find Ms. Rand and visit with her. I found her in the Manhattan phone book and set out, but she was not around, still on her book store tour I guess. When I got back later that day, Arthur had been looking for me and gave me hell for my bright idea, but he did not tell my parents anything about it. That's all I know about the lady other than reading her books, and feeling as you noted, that her ideas were excellent but very unrealistic in real life.

> In 1963-67, Dr. King frequently came around Chicago. I recall his >> visits _always_ included meetings with Civil Rights activists in the >> town and he would always speak to civic and religious groups. > Chicago turned out to be a very tough nut crack. The problems and > challenges were different than the South and not as easily dealt with.

Tell me about it! King Daley the First kept a very tight finger on everything. Daley the Second is only a wee bit better.

> Prior to that, they only had white people employed there >> (librarians, clerks, custodians, etc). > In northern cities, African Americans usually got service jobs, such > as janitors, housekeepers, cooks, laborers, etc., though there were > black teachers, police officers and firemen, at least in Phila. In WW > II, in response to a labor shortage, the Philadelphia Transportation > Company wanted to promote blacks from cleaners to streetcar motormen. > The rest of the motormen vehemently objected and went out on strike > shutting down the city and vital war production plants, causing a big > mess that required Federal troops to clean up.

Not before the Second War, they didn't. But help was so hard to come by in WW-2 'they' had to use them.

In the 1950s blacks very slowly were permitted into better jobs, such > as a judge, school principal, TV newscaster, etc. This accelerated in > the 1960s.

There were no black kids in the high school I went to. There was a "gentlemen's agreement" against it. Ditto with the movies; there was a section where black people sat. That's just how it was done.

It did accelerate in the 1960's but not that much around Chicago until after the riots in 1968. In the hotel I lived in on 56th Street in Hyde Park (yes, a liberal bastion and all that) in 1970 they had a WHITE manager, WHITE desk clerks, WHITE telephone operators, a WHITE Building Engineer, a WHITE housekeeper (maid supervisor), but nine BLACK maids to clean the rooms and a BLACK janitor, supervised by the WHITE Building Engineer. The manager said to me "but the guests would be offended if a 'colored person' was working the front desk". Even all of her maids were white ladies through about 1942 or so, until the owner of the building at that point in time told her she could get black ladies 'if absolutely necessary' due to the trouble of finding 'white cleaning ladies' during the war. (Mrs. Brown managed the building [high rise, 15 stories, hundred plus apartments] from about

1939 or so until she passed away in 1980.)

The first anniversary of King's assassination, in 1969, all her maids 'called in sick' in protest. When I saw her later that day she told me about it, and said, "but of course, all the guests expected to have their beds made and their bathtubs cleaned out ... who do you suppose had to do it all today?" (with a sarcastic look on her face.) Why, Mrs. Brown, I guess you did ... PAT]