October 23, 1954 Mr. John Belding Wirt 2122 Yale Station New Haven, Connecticut Dear Mr. Wirt: when you visited me on May Us, 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 fallacios and by substituting better ideas for the bad ones. This, of course, cannot be achieved without "abstract speculation." One cannot fight socialism morely on account of its being "now." One must expose its errors and 11- lusions and one must expand the operation of the market economy. To conserve what exists is in present-day America tantamount to preserving those lgws and insti- tutions that the Now Deal and the Fair Deal have bequea- thed 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 enancipation of the Catholics and the substitution