What is your first
political
memory?
BROWNE:
I remember the 1940 presidential campaign, Roosevelt and Wilkie. I
especially
remember the '44 campaign because my parents let me sit up at night and
keep a scorecard, listening to it on the radio--there was no
television--listening
to the returns. In '48 I was rabid for Truman, and so I remember that
even
much more so; I was still in high school at the time. And then in '52 I
was still to young to vote. '56 was the only year that I ever voted for
president before 1996, because I voted for Eisenhower. But by the time
the next one came around I was already so disenchanted with politics
that
I went into political hibernation for 30 years.
|
Describe a defining
moment
in your life. Is there something that set you on the path to where you
are today?
BROWNE:
I don't believe so. I think generally speaking things don't happen that
way. I see my life as a disorganized series of things that really do
have
a thread through them. I think that from my earliest memory I was an
individualist,
in the sense that I did not accept everything I heard. I may have
publicly
gone along with it if I was in the 5th grade or 8th grade or whatever,
but I had my doubts andwondered about it. And this just evolved. Life
is
a process of growing up; and for me growing up meant trying to be more
honest with myself and to be more honest with other people about who I
am and what I believe.
There
is one moment that really did change my life considerably, and that was
in 1992 when my wife and I were watching some politician on television
saying some series of idiotic things--and it must have been either a
presidential
candidate or President Bush himself--because I said something and my
wife
said well why don't you be president. I thought it was a ridiculous
statement;
I thought she was kidding at first, then I realized she was serious.
Then
it became apparent that she did think I ought to run for president, and
over the next two years we talked about it and finally made the
decision
in August of '94. I have to say that that has changed my life. I could
not conceive in 1991 of being where I am now, being with the people I'm
with and being involved in the things I'm in.
There is
one
moment that really did change my life considerably, and that was in
1992
when my wife and I were watching some politician on television saying
some
series of idiotic things...
|
What did it take in
those
two years, '92 to '94 to get you to move?
BROWNE:
Well it's an interesting thing. It shows what they call cognitive
dissonance,
where on one track of your mind you see this thing and on the other
track
you're seeing something entirely opposite and it never dawns on you to
notice the contradiction between the two. I was aware that things had
changed
drastically in America. I was writing a newsletter which was for
investments
but I would write about political things--I didn't support candidates
or
anything--but I was writing about what was going on in Washington, and
I was telling people that the country has changed that people are no
longer
falling over for the government and saying oh yeah you want this, we'll
give it to you whatever it is, that now people distrusted government,
that
people realized that government wasn't working, they were realizing all
these things. And yet at the same time I had dropped out politics
because
I could see no way in the world that this thing would ever be changed.
Back in the early '60s I could just see this whole thing evolving into
a giant behemoth in Washington. And it happened that way.
What
I wasn't recognizing as I was talking about the fact that the mood of
the
country was changing was that maybe there was a place for politics now
where there hadn't been thirty years ago. And during those two years of
talking about it with my wife off and on, I began to realize that,
well,
maybe I could actually make a difference if I did this. Whether or not
I actually succeeded in the election--and I think every candidate
starts
out thinking he's got some secret weapon that he's possibly going to
win--but
even if I didn't, that maybe I actually could effect some kind of
change,
have some kind of impact that would force the other parties to do
things
differently from what they were do. So all these things were discussed
and I would say that by the beginning of 1994 it became apparent to
both
of us that this is what we wanted to do. But we then had to go through
a process of finding out what's involved with it.
I actually
paid a political consultant to spend a weekend with us and explain
everything
that would be involved and so forth. I called libertarians that I knew
who were in the party to find out have they already got a candidate for
'96, all this kind of thing, I didn't know anything about that. So we
went
through this and there were certain places along the way where it just
seemed like, oh my God, this is not what I want to do. I want to go out
and tell the world that you have the chance to be free here, but I
don't
want to get involved in internal politics of the party and things like
that. And this is what I was finding out. That well you've got to make
sure you've got these bases covered, you've got to do this and that;
you
can campaign for two years, get to the convention and somebody rigs the
rules committee and you're out. Some things like this, and it was very
discouraging. But then I met somebody in the party through referral who
said yes, yes, all those things can happen, but they're not going to,
because
we'll see to it that they don't. Don't worry, we'll take care of it,
we'll
set up your committee, we'll do this and that, and you do what you do
best.
It was a great sigh of relief, and after a week of that, of looking
into
that that closely, then we talked about it and said alright let's do
it.
I've never regretted it.
|
Are there one or two
people
who have really influenced the way you think about politics?
BROWNE:
Not really. The thing is that there are people who definitely I have
admired
and who have opened my eyes about certain things. But the process of
the
overall, just seems to be that natural thread, that through all the
chaos
and disorganization in my life I just kept moving in one direction, and
never changed. I mean I went to government schools so I came out of it
thinking the UN's a great place, and I'm a good Democrat and so forth.
And the next thing I know I'm a Republican, the next thing I know I'm a
conservative Republican, the next thing I know I'm no Republican. And
it's
all just sort of going in a straight line towards absolute
freedom.
But
along the way I remember reading Henry Haslett's (sp) book What You
Should Know About Inflation, around 1960, and he convinced me that
inflation did not come from unions raising wages, something that I,
like
most people, had believed for many years. I remember reading Robert
LeFave's
(sp) editorials in the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph about
government. He took a full no-government-was-needed position, and I
learned
many things in reading that that helped my development. But there's
been
no one person that suddenly gave me a blinding flash of inspiration.
|
You became
interested in
investing when you were about 34?
BROWNE:
Yes, at 34, in 1967. A very strange thing; I would never have expected
to ever in my life be involved in that. I never went to college; I have
no kind of background in that whatsoever. I just had an interest in
economics
but not in investments. I had worked up an economics course that I had
given for two years, in the free market, just giving presentations.
People
would come for free; if they liked it then they would sign up for an
eight-week
course for $65. I mean it was dirt cheap. And a fellow took the course
and liked it very, very much and in 1967 he got in touch with me and
said
I am involved in this investment thing, and my partner and I just split
and I need somebody who can speak like you can and understands
economics
to give the presentation on this. Would you do so? And I said yes, and
I got involved in it, and got very involved in it, and the next thing
you
know I was completely involved in it.
And
it was only two years after that, less than two years, that I sat down
and wrote a book on the whole business as I saw it in 1969. The book
came
out in 1970. I never expected the book to even get a publisher; I
figured
it was so out of the way. But I found a publisher who was very
enthusiastic
about it and the book got on the best seller list and sold something
like
125,000 copies of it in hardcover--maybe 3 or 4 percent of the books
that
are ever published ever have something like that. And the whole thing
just
absolutely amazed me; I couldn't believe it. And so then I started
writing
more books.
And
then in 1974 started writing a newsletter. I never did get into stock
selection
and that sort of thing. It was more a case of the philosophy of how you
should approach this. If you want to be absolutely safe, this is what
you
have to do; if you're willing to take risks, this is what you can do.
This
sort of thing. Because I never made predictions, I never made forecasts
or anything like that, it was always an uphill battle. I had a fairly
loyal
audience, but it began to diminish in the 1980s. It became more and
more
work for less and less return, and so finally in 1997, last year in
July,
I finally closed it down. I actually kept it going during the campaign,
but fortunately it was not a monthly schedule; people paid for so many
issues as they came out, but they were few and far between during the
campaign.
What did you do
from high
school to when you were 34?
BROWNE:
I was involved various things, mostly revolving around either writing
or
selling. I worked for advertising agencies, I was in sales and in 1962,
just by another happenstance, I suddenly became the manager and part
owner
of a very small newspaper feature service that sold columns and
cartoons
and editorials to small newspapers around the country. That's when I
really
began writing in earnest, on a regular basis turning out columns every
week and things like that. And it was all political, again not choosing
candidates or parties, but just railing against the government.
|
The 1996 campaign,
what
were for you a couple of highlights…?
BROWNE:
Well there were different kinds of highlights. One very emotional one
was
speaking in Faneuil Hall in Boston [in September or October 1996],
which
is an old Revolutionary War auditorium. Gene Burns [talk show host]
preceded
me and gave a very inspiring speech and then I gave a speech to a full
house there; it was really very exciting. Of course another huge
highlight
was giving the acceptance speech here at the convention. That really
was
an exciting experience.
It
was just one thing after another for two years. It started slowly; we'd
have a speaking engagement here and one there and then maybe
occasionally
a radio broadcast, and then they got more and more frequent through
1995,
and then by the beginning of 1996 we were just on the road almost
constantly.
Then once the convention was over, and the party joined in in booking
me
in places, in addition to what we were doing on our own, it got to be
eight
or ten radio shows in a day on the telephone and then a speech some
place
in the evening. Moving to a different city it seemed like almost every
day. It sounds horrendous, but it's such a exciting experience… It's
work,
but it's good work, it's good, honest sweat.
|
In the 1996 campaign
was
there a major disappointment or low point?
BROWNE:
I don't think there was any such thing. I think overall you have to
adjust
to reality as you go along, so that there's a certain amount of
disappointment…
I mean I didn't expect to get into the debates although it was a
wonderful
issue for us to pound on. So when I didn't get into the debates I
wasn't
crestfallen.
|
Five hundred
broadcast interviews
in the course of that effort. Was there one question that was asked too
much or that was not asked?
BROWNE:
Well there probably were… But one of the interesting things that we
both
noticed in interviews--of course when I was on the phone in a hotel
room
she knew what the subject was by what I was saying at my end, and then
of course when I was in the studio she was with me--but we both seemed
to get the same impression, that at the beginning of the campaign, when
the war on drugs came up, somebody would be hysterical, I mean even the
host might be hysterical about it, about what I was suggesting, that we
re-legalize drugs. Or somebody would call in, and just say my God,
there
are going to be heroin machines in the restrooms and kids'll be
shooting
up in school, going on on this. But by the end of the campaign people
would
say, well, I understand what you're saying. I don't agree with you, but
I do understand what you're saying. And nobody's voice would move up to
a higher level except once in a great while. I think partly that may be
due to my learning how to present it in a better, less threatening way.
But I really think that it has much more to do with the mood of the
country
changing.
That's
backed up now by the fact that in the last three months I have seen so
much of the drug warriors focusing their attention on us, instead of on
the Clinton administration being too soft on drugs or something like
that.
And I've heard the word "legalizers," we've got to watch out for the
legalizers,
these people are trying to get their nose in the tent and they want to
legal all drugs…I've heard this more times in the last three months
than
I heard it in the last thirty years.
And
so what I think is happening is this shift that's been going on over
the
years, and I saw it during the two years of the campaign, and it's
continued
on in the two years since then, and it's going to continue on the two
years
since this. Who knows? In the 2000 campaign, the legalization of drugs
may be a major issue, one that Democrats and Republicans will have to
talk
about it even if we don't get to the point where we can force their
hand
on it.
|
Touching on your
current
activities, you're writing one more financial book; how's that coming?
BROWNE:
I may be. I've started on it; I'm just having trouble getting to it.
But
I'm definitely writing a political book that'll come out late next year.
How will that
differ from
Why
Government Doesn't Work?
It
will be more a question of how we're going to get from here to there
and
what we need to do to sell liberty.
I'm
helping to build the party as fast as we can. I have an exploratory
committee
to see if it's feasible to run again and whether the support is
sufficient
that we could run a major party campaign. I'm doing a little bit of
investment
work, but not very much. I'm a senior editor at Liberty
magazine,
where I write a lot of editorials, and I've got an article coming up in
the next issue.
|
Could you outline
briefly
your formula for thinking about the role of the federal government?
BROWNE:
Well
I think the first important step is to limit it, so that people know it
will not step over a certain bound. And the obvious limitation is the
Constitution;
that's what it was set up to do. And when we do achieve that then
people
can decide whether that's too much power for government or too little
power
for government and amend it accordingly.
|
Copyright
1998 Eric
M. Appleman/Democracy in Action |