October 23, 1954 Mr. John Belding Wirt 2122 Yale Station New Haven, Connecticut Dear Mr. Wirt: When you visited me on May 14, I set forth for you the reasons why I consider the term "conservative" as not appropriate to signify those ideas and principles for which I stand: the market economy and its political and constitutional corollary, representative government. To conserve means to preserve what exists. It is an empty program, it is merely negative, rejecting any change. It was the makeshift of those European politicians who disliked the reforms suggested by the radicals, but did not know how to refute their ideas. For mere refer- ence to the wisdom of the ancestors is not a sufficient argument against any project of innovation. What is needed is to refute faulty projects of innovation by unmasking their fallacies and by substituting better ideas for the bad ones. This, of course, cannot be achieved without "abstract speculation." One cannot fight socialism merely on account of its being "new." One must expose its errors and il- lusions and one must expand the operation of the market economy. To conserve what exists is in present-day America tantamount to preserving those laws and institu- tions that the New Deal and the Fair Deal have bequeathed to the nation. You certainly do not mean this. In this country there has never been a party that called itself conservative. In Europe the term conservative signified parties anxious to preserve insti- tutions that were the very opposite of all the political ideals of the United States. The British Tories, when they had been defeated in their endeavors to prevent the political emancipation of the Catholics and the substitution