Remarks for the Dedication of the Lipsett Library

and the Edmund Burke Window at

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute

Dr. William F. Campbell

Professor of Economics

Louisiana State University

The purpose of this pamphlet is to pay personal tribute to Don Lipsett by weaving together memories and stories of Don which link together the main institutions of the conservative movement in which he played a major part. Although the main focus is on The Intercollegiate Studies Institute, The Philadelphia Society, and The Heritage Foundation, Don also played significant roles in The Foundation for Economic Education, National Review, and Hillsdale College.

But more important than the institutional structures were the lives he personally affected. Russell Kirk, one of Don's closest friends, always used to quote Edmund Burke's sceptical retort to the men of system, "I must see the things, I must see the men." The effect that Don had on hundreds of individual lives can only be retold by those whose lives he touched. That he did it through humor and affection can be seen in the remarks that Ken Cribb made at the Memorial Service about the nicknames, Uncle Miltie, Eddie and Colonel Cribb.

Don reached out not only to the rich, the wise, and the famous, but even more to those who can only be described as belonging to the obscure annals of the poor. Barbara von der Heydt especially noted this in her Tribute to Don at the Memorial Service in Woodburn, Indiana.

The occasion for this story is the acquisition of Don's conservative library by The Intercollegiate Studies Institute and the accompanying prints, paintings, and donations made by several Board Members to complement Don's contribution to the conservative movement.

Don Lipsett was born August 9, 1930, in Woodburn, Indiana. From the photograph below of Don in Woodburn we can see his early love of cars. On November 4, 1995, the Memorial Service for Don was celebrated in the Woodburn Missionary Church. His Hoosier roots were noted by Ed Feulner, Stan Evans, and how deep they were throughout his life was particularly noted by the Pastor Fred Jensen in his remarks about the importance of Bobby Knight to Don.

Having received a B.S. in Business and an M.B.A. from Indiana University, he joined the U.S. Coast Guard where he was a search and rescue officer in the 9th District, with the rank of Lieutenant JG. Don's love of naval history was interwoven with his American patriotism.

Don Lipsett was known for his love of the great naval hero, Commodore Stephen Decatur. Decatur was known for his defeat of the Barbary Pirates and his sturdy American patriotism. He was on the "shores of Tripoli" when he destroyed the captured frigate, Philadelphia. Don's favorite print of the Commodore was when he engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the treacherous Tripolitan captain who had killed his brother James.

In honor of Decatur, Don created the Stephen Decatur Society and the famous Decatur Shop of North Adams, Michigan. He bought and read books, acquired prints, statues, and postcards of the various metropolises of the U.S. named after his hero, such as Decatur, Illinois.

Don, of course, knew that Stephen Decatur's famous toast was more complicated than, "Our Country, right or wrong!" which he put on the letterhead; he in fact quotes the more accurate version in his compilation of facts to "facilitate the scheduling of suitable annual activities": "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right, and always successful, right or wrong." He also noted consistent with his belief in free market economics that the famous toast was delivered in the Exchange Coffee House, Norfolk, Virginia on April 4, 1816.

Don's famous stationery for the The Stephen Decatur Society, i.e. the S.D.S. (the irony did not escape him), had the eagle displayed with the arrows in both talons. This was only one example of Don's love of eagles.  

In one of Don's favorite movies, A Thousand Clowns, with Jason Robards and Barbara Harris, there is the memorable line, "You can't have too many eagles." This was certainly Don Lipsett's idea in his own home in North Adams, Michigan. Little did he know that it was also the idea of Louise Evelina du Pont who married Francis Crowninshield of Boston; when she came back to take over the du Pont House at Hagley, built originally by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont in 1802, she festooned the house with eagles.

It was a shame that Don and I did not go to Hagley and see the du Pont house when we were in the Wilmington area together; we did go to Winterthur together, but the eagles were not in as much prominence as in the du Pont house at Hagley. Perhaps Louise du Pont's love of eagles came from the fact that her grandfather came over to this country on January 1, 1800 on the ship,The American Eagle.

One historical lagniappe is that Louise Oliver, Chairman of the Board of ISI during the establishment of the National Headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, and a longtime friend of Don's, was related to the Crowninshields. Her name, Louise, came from Louise Evelina du Pont who was Eleuthère Irénée du Pont's great grandaughter.

His dedication to the memory of the Commodore Stephen Decatur led him to take me one time to the cemetery at Bladensburg, Maryland, where Decatur was shot in a duel with the infamous James Barron. Decatur subsequently died in the Decatur House on Lafayette Square in Washington D.C. which was Don's favorite residence in Washington.

It is fitting for more reasons than one that Don Lipsett's library is accompanied by a stained and painted glass of Edmund Burke and a framed print of "A Literary Evening at Sir Joshua Reynolds." The importance of Edmund Burke for Russell Kirk, Don's close personal friend, does not need to be mentioned. The Conservative Mind goes from Burke to Santayana in the 1st edition and Burke to Eliot in the last edition. The importance of Russell and Annette Kirk in Don's life is evidenced by the number of signed personal editions in Don's library.

Don Lipsett and Edmund Burke are intertwined by their love of great naval heroes. They both had their favorite Commodores. Although Don did not realize Burke's love of the Commodore Keppel nor did Russell make much of this in his treatment of Edmund Burke's Letter to a Noble Lord, the parallels are too striking to neglect.

In this print we have the famous Literary Club founded by Samuel Johnson which included his friends, Edmund Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, James Boswell, Oliver Goldsmith, and other literary lights of the day sitting around the table engaged in civil conversation. Sir Joshua Reynolds, of course, was the famous portrait painter of 18th century England. But how exactly do all these great men intertwine with the life of Don Lipsett?

Another member of the Literary Club not shown in the engraving was Adam Smith. It is unfortunate that in the print Adam Smith, who was a member, was not included. But there is a lot of literary gossip of unpleasantries between Smith and Johnson that might explain this neglect.

The Baton Rouge office of The Philadelphia Society is fortunate to have a Painting of Adam Smtih by Norma Huron Lipsett painted especially for Bill Campbell.

To accompany this painting, we have official Reproductions of the Tassie medallions of Adam Smith and David Hume produced for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. The Adam Smith memorabilia also includes the famous Adam Smith neckties which were part of the uniform of the Reagan Administration conservatives. Less well known were the Adam Smith sweatshirts, scarves, and cummerbunds put out by the Stephen Decatur Shop.

But Don Lipsett in his attention to the naval history of Commodore Decatur overlooked Edmund Burke's favorite Commodore, Admiral Keppel. Burke paid tribute to Admiral Keppel is his extraordinary, "Letter to a Noble Lord."

There are many parallels between Don's hero and Edmund Burke's hero. Burke paid eloquent tribute to the virtues of Keppel who had descended from the Dutch aristocracy. Burke knew that Keppel "was no great clerk, but that "he could not have heard with patience, that the country of Grotius, the cradle of the Law of Nations, and one of the richest repositories of all Law, should be taught a new code by the ignorant flippancy of Thomas Paine, the presumptuous foppery of La Fayette, with his stolen rights of man in his hand, the wild profligate intrigue and turbulency of Marat, and the impious sophistry of Condorcet, in his insolent addresses to the Batavian Republick."

Burke knew that Keppel was from that "oldest and purest nobility that Europe can boast, among a people renowned above all others for love of their native land." Don was nothing if he was not an American patriot. Don's highest tribute to another human being is that "he was a great Amurrican." He also loved to mispronounce his greatest epithet; when he really disliked some liberal he would call him a "commonist."

But Don was not really a populist. He had an aristocratic side to him that would have made him responsive to Burke's description of Keppel: "Thought it was never shown in insult to any human being, Lord Keppel was somewhat high: it was a wild stock of pride, on which the tenderest of all hearts had grafted the milder virtues." Don also had a wild stock of pride verging on stubbornness, but like Keppel the milder virtues were grafted on to his tender heart and his sense of humor.

The parallels between the two commodores are even more uncanny when we read in a short biography of Keppel, "In the year 1748, the piratical attacks of the barbarous states on the African coast had become so daring, and were so dangerous to the Mediterranean trade, that it was found necessary, for the honour of the British flag, to curb their power. Mr. Keppel sailed as Commodore of a small squadron, to demand satisfaction for some past injuries which had been committed by the Algerine cruisers, and to prevent the recurrence of similar offences. He was employed on this service, which was rendered somewhat difficult by the countenance afforded by the French government to the enemy, for rather more than three years; and terminated it at length by receiving the unqualified submission of the DE of Algiers and the states of Tripoli and Tunis, with whom he entered into treaties of peace and commerce." Lodge's Portraits, p. 2.

Edmund Burke in his eulogium to Keppel made particular notice of the wonderful painting of Keppel done by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Burke described Reynolds as "an artist worthy of the subject, the excellent friend of that excellent man from their earliest youth, and a common friend of us both, with whom we lived for many years without a moment of coldness. of peevishness, of jealousy, or of jar, to the day of our final separation."

When Edmund Burke received the portrait of Keppel done by Sir Joshua Reynolds, he wrote a letter of thanks, "The town and my house there, will be the more pleasant to me for a piece of furniture I have had since I saw you, and which I owe to your goodness. I shall leave to my son, who is of a frame of mind to which that kind of honour appeals, the satisfaction of knowing that his father was distinguished by the partiality of one of those who are the marked men of all story, by bearing the glory and reproach of the time they live in, and whose services and merits, by being above recompense, are delivered over to ingratitude. Whenever he sees the picture, he will remember what Englishmen, and what English seamen were, in the days when name of nation, and when eminence and superiority in that profession were one and the same thing." Quoted in Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower, Sir Joshua Reynolds: His Life and Art (London: George Bell and Sons, 1902, p. 88.)

But most important for understanding what Don has created is Burke's tribute to Keppel where he points out that a country needs a natural nobility, a body of some kind or other, which "forms the chain that connects the ages of a nation." To protect against the "levity of courts, and the greater levity of the multitude" this natural nobility would "afford a rational hope of securing unity, coherence, consistency, and stability to the state."

Don worked on creating this natural nobility from his earliest days as Midwestern Director of the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists to his crowning achievement as the creator of The Philadelphia Society. It is fitting that the Lipsett library and the visage of Edmund Burke be side by side.

Both the Philadelphia Society and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute have protected themselves against the "levity of courts" by being located outside the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. The Philadelphia Society has been located since its inception in North Adams, Michigan, a small crossroads town so unlikely to be the National Headquarters of anything; as to the "levity of the multitude" none of the citizens of North Adams have ever been able to give a coherent account of either Don Lipsett or The Philadelphia Society located there.

Don's interest in conservative politics started with his duties as an advance man for Bill Jenner's campaign for the United States Senate. Again this highlights his American patriotism against communism. Don always preferred to deliberately mispronounce the word so it sounded like "commonism." This was closer to the heartland's commonsense reaction against Marxism.

It is ironic that one of the last organizations which Don founded was the William E. Jenner Society and Research Institute, which meets annually in Indianapolis to commemorate the achievements of the late Senator. Its characteristic motto was pure Don Lipsett, "Loyalty to Friends!--Never Forget an Enemy!"

Moving east to further the conservative cause, Don settled in New York where he worked for the Foundation for Economic Education and The Freeman in the early 1950s. He then worked closely with the newly founded National Review and its dynamic young editor, Bill Buckley. Bill Buckley's obituary in the National Review is appended to this tribute. Presumably at this time he developed his love for the aristocratic individualist writings of Albert Jay Nock and the caustic, if cheerful, libertarian writings of H.L. Mencken represented so well in his personal library.

After several years, Don returned to Indianapolis and worked for the Indiana Manufacturer's Association. Don was a "night person" addicted to late night telephone conversations with such persons as Frank Meyer. In fact, one of his many organizations which he created was The Nicodemus Society was named after Nicodemus because he came to Jesus in the dead of night. I was informed of this fact by Jameson Campaigne who has carried on the great tradition.

It was fitting that the first meeting of The Philadelphia Society after the death of Don Lipsett should be in Indianapolis. It was in Naptown that Don did some of his best work for ISI, the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists as it was then known. He was the Midwestern Director of ISI at that time and devoted tireless hours to visiting campuses and cultivating student clubs.

I first got to know Don through my Father, Al Campbell, who was Pierre Goodrich's law partner in the firm of Goodrich, Campbell and Warren.

Dad met Don in the very early years of Don's work at ISI in Indianapolis.

Don put his business education to some use by becoming a stockbroker with Paine, Webber, Jackson, and Curtis in Indianapolis. It is hard to picture Don as a stockbroker supposed to hold regular hours. Imagine the manager of the Paine, Webber office trying to figure out a broker who might amble into the office when the market was about ready to close.

Sadly, I must also report that my Father, Albert M. Campbell, was a casualty in the war dedicated to making Don Lipsett a respectable middle class person. I think he knew in his heart of hearts that the cause was a hopeless one. Don always used to sign his letters to my Dad as Your Obedient Servant. Servant, yes; Obedient, no. Dad usually referred to Don as the Commodore, but on one occasion he signed his letter to Don, Your Disobedient Servant.

If Don, in turn, was a disobedient servant to Paine, Webber, he was a loyal servant to ISI. Don once admitted to my Dad, that instead of doing his "overdue Paine, Webber homework" one Saturday night, he was working on a "list for the ISI seminar."

But what kind of a man was Don? Is there anything about being a Hoosier which could draw together such disparate men as Don and Pierre Goodrich?

Peter Viereck states in the opening of his 1956 book, The Unadjusted Man: A New Hero for Americans: "The fight is for the private life; abstract ideologies are Saharas. The Overadjusted Man knows only the public life." Neither Don nor Pierre could be accused of being Overadjusted men. They were unadjusted men devoted to the cause of liberty.

They fought this battle often together even where their strategies differed. In fact, the famous 1959 or 1960 Brown County meeting of the Indiana Conservative Club had for its speakers, Milton Friedman, Frank Meyer, and Richard Weaver. Stan Evans opened up the meeting, according to the schedule, at 9:30 with, "What We hope to accomplish." It is doubtful that the meeting actually started at 9:30. It is legendary that Pierre Goodrich was very upset with Don because the meetings did not start on time.

Don once even went so far as to opine to my Father that, "I think Pierre should hire me to help him with the Liberty Fund and his other foundations, but haven't heard anything from him." This was in 1967. What if Pierre had hired Don Lipsett? About all we can say in true Smithian fashion, is that there would have been an end which was no part of their intention. As it was both went their separate ways, creating unique institutions which have stood the test of time and have never wavered from the original intent of their founders.

It is hard to remember that Don was once a stockbroker supposed to hold regular hours. Imagine the manager of the Paine, Webber office trying to figure out a broker who might amble in when the market was about ready to close. Don once admitted to my Dad, that instead of doing his "overdue Paine, Webber homework" one Saturday night, he was working on a "list for the ISI seminar."

It was through Don's influence that my Father got to know Russell Kirk. Russell Kirk continued to play a role in my family beyond the reading of his books. ISI, then as well as now, was adept at balancing the demands of the traditionalists and libertarian impulses that comprise the effective conservative movement. A tribute to Don's skill is the fact that he could have a close personal relationship with both a Russell Kirk and a Milton Friedman.

At this time in the 1950s my father met Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver, and Henry Regnery. After my father died, I came across a couple of undated index cards which he used to introduce a talk by Russell Kirk at a conservative forum in Indianapolis organized by Don Lipsett when he was the Midwestern Director of ISI. As my father worked into the introduction of Russell, he told a story of his attempt to verify the rumor that Archduke Otto von Hapsburg considered Russell the world's greatest living scholar. He wrote a cable to his and my dear friend, Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn. The cable read, "Otto Von Hapsburg has stated that Russell Kirk is the greatest living scholar in this country. Is this true?" The response came back, "The answer is 'NO'. You people have an adopted son from Austria who is in 1st place. Modesty prevents me from naming him. But my friend Russell Kirk is in 2nd place--this is good because he will try harder. Herr Erik." The story may be apocryphal, but it reveals my father's wonderful sense of humor; it could be true of Herr Erik. Whether Herr Erik or Russell Kirk get the laurel for scholarship, I will leave in the lap of the Gods.

Don Lipsett was Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn's most important American supporter. Erik has many American friends and supporters--we could almost form a fan-club that would fit into every nook and cranny of these United States. Not only did we visit him in Austria, but he also visited us all here in the United States. In fact, in loyalty to Erik, on one European trip, Don and Norma, Ed and Linda Feulner, Helen and I went to visit the residence of the Archduke Otto von Habsburg!

He moved to North Adams, Michigan, and served as the Director of Foundation Relations and Director of the Center for Constructive Alternatives at Hillsdale College. George Roche, the President of Hillsdale College had been associated with the Foundation for Economic Education and had know Don for many years. He was, alas, another victim in the effort to make Don a "regular fella," to use one of Erik Kuehnelt-Leddihn's favorite expressions. I remember, when interviewing Hillsdale College, that George's desk (and for that matter Rusty Nicholls' desk) were absolutely meticulous; in fact, there wasn't a thing on them. The irregularity of Don's filing system (?) and the state of his office and house in North Adams were legendary, although let it be said, that Don knew where everything was.

He was elected to membership in the Mont Pelerin Society in 1971. From his base in North Adams, he edited its newsletter for four years.

But my relationship with Don deepened as the years went on. My wife, Helen, another Hoosier from Shortridge High School, had known Norma Huron and introduced her to Don.

Our memories of Don and Norma cover many wonderful trips and visits. Charlottesville, Europe, and yes, we even got Don to go to the beach in Florida with us after I had moved to Louisiana. He would amble down with his pipe, National Review, Time Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal about 3:00 in the afternoon, cavort in the water for about 5 minutes and go back up. But he had done the beach and could not be faulted.

Characteristic enough, Don's closest friend there, the Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Fred Jensen, who looked after Don in his own quiet way for the last several years, knew Don mainly through their mutual love of Bobby Knight and Indiana basketball which came out of their mutual Hoosier roots. The Pastor, as Don referred to him, admitted to me that he never realized Don's "fame" until the Tributes were paid to Don at the service which Fred celebrated in the Woodburn Missionary Church, on November 4, 1995.

Not only his fame was revealed at the Memorial Service, but the older friends of the Lipsett family learned that Don had indulged in the evil habit of pipe smoking which he had carefully, almost miraculously, kept from his family because they would have disapproved. The pipe was such an important part of Don's life that it is hard to imagine how he kept up this deception on his visits to his family.

The marvelous portrait of Don by Tom Curtis not only captures Don's love of his pipe, but also successfully preserves the twinkle in Don's eye whenever Don was able to initiate an ongoing conversation between those whom he loved.

Don did not try to compete with a Milton Friedman, Friederich von Hayek, or Russell Kirk. But he did not hear with patience that his country was being rewritten by the radical left. When he took arms by founding The Philadelphia Society, the purpose could easily have been adopted by The Literary Club of Samuel Johnson: "To sponsor the interchange of ideas through discussion and writing, in the interest of deepening the intellectual foundations of a free and ordered society, and of broadening the understanding of its basic principles and traditions. In pursuit of this end we shall examine a wide range of issues: economic, political, social, cultural, religious an philosophic. We shall seek understanding, not conformity."

If you seek a monument to the man, look around you.

The death of Commodore Lipsett has not been easy for anyone. Just as the Jews leave a place at the table for the Prophet Elijah to return, so too shall we leave a place for Don at the meetings of The Philadelphia Society, the rooms of The Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and the corridors of The Heritage Foundation. If not physically present, he is with us in spirit.

When the Prophet Elisha asked Elijah to bestow on him a double portion of grace, we can understand in that both a blessing and a duty. The duty is to be able to carry on the original purposes and vision of the founder; we need a double portion of grace to bring about what the sociologists call, "the institutionalization of charisma." Particularly is that grace needed when the institutions have become successful in worldly terms.

We can take spiritual consolation for Don's death in the beautiful description of friendship which Samuel Johnson gives us: "Esteem of great powers or amicable qualities newly discovered, may embroider a day or a week, but a friendship of twenty years is interwoven with the texture of life. A friend may be often found and lost, but an old friend can never be found, and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost." The blessing is that for many of us who have inherited the mantle, our friendships with Don extended to almost two-score years.

As Don would have put it, the only persons interested in living constitutions and vague penumbras were probably Commonists. He would have wanted to be remembered as a loyal Hoosier, the founder of the Philadelphia Society, and a good Amurrican.