Having just handed in an essay for Professor Charles Kesler's Liberalism & Conservatism, I must say that I've been thinking a lot about Russell Kirk, Barry Goldwater, and Milton Friedman as of late.
During my research I came across some rather interesting things. Here they are in the order of their discovery. Interestingly enough, all of them have Claremont connections.
1. Milton and Rose Friedman discussing Goldwater's famous line about extremity in the defense of liberty and how it came from Cicero!
In chapter twenty-two, p. 368 of Two Lucky People: Memoirs, they cite Goldwater's 1988 autobiography. The Friedmans wrote, "In a 1988 autobiography, Goldwater explained that 'The reference came from Harry Jaffa, a professor of political science at Claremont Men's College in California. As was explained to me at the time, the words were first used by Marcus Tullius Cicero in the Roman Senate.' How different the press reaction might have been if Goldwater had introduced the statement by, 'as Cicero said more than two thousand years ago.' However, given the bias of the press and the intelligentsia against Goldwater, that might have made little difference. They would probably have misconstrued some other sentence."
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2. In the chapter, "Private Victory and Public Defeat," p. 301 of Sword of Imagination: Memoirs of a Half-Century of Literary Conflict by Russell Kirk, a chance face-to-face encounter between Senator Goldwater and Russell Kirk is described. Guess who held the door open for them?
Only once, during the whole course of the Goldwater primary and presidential campaigns, did Kirk come face to face with the Senator, and that was during the final fortnight. Goldwater was passing into the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, Kirk passing out the same doorway; and Henry Salvatori, Goldwater's chief booster and backer in California, was holding open the door for the two of them. Kirk was on his way to speak on Goldwater's behalf at Claremont Men's College; Goldwater on his way to Chavez Ravine, where a very big rally of Mexican-Americans had been organized by another friend of Kirk, old Walter Knott of Knott's Berry Farm and Ghost Town.
