by Richard M. Ebeling
Richard Ebeling is former president of FEE.
On Friday, May 5, Dr. George C. Roche III, former president of Hillsdale College and one of the leading educational advocates of freedom in America, passed away at the age of 70.
While he was best known for his 28-year tenure as Hillsdale's president, Roche's intellectual roots were firmly established at the Foundation for Economic Education, where he served as director of programs and seminars from 1966 to 1971.
Born in Colorado in 1935, he attended a one-room school house through the eighth grade. He enlisted in the U.S. Marines when he was 17. After a few years in the military, Roche went back to school and earned a doctorate in history from the University of Colorado.
While working on his degree, Roche attended a FEE summer seminar in Irvington-on-Hudson. He was deeply impressed with the freedom ideas he heard presented by the Foundation staff, especially FEE's founder and first president, Leonard E. Read. During these years he also absorbed the writings of Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Wilhelm Rouml;pke.
Rouml;pke's writings, in particular, resonated with him. In the mid-1960s he resigned as professor of history at the Colorado School of Mines to accept a postdoctoral fellowship to study with Rouml;pke in Geneva, Switzerland. But as he was preparing to move to Europe in the summer of 1966, he learned that Rouml;pke had died of a heart attack.
Uncertain what to do, an unexpected opportunity arose. Leonard Read, who had come to Colorado to give some talks, offered Roche the position of director of programs and seminars. Roche accepted the job and began what he later called a seminal period of his life. He described his time at FEE:
FEE in 1966 was an exciting place for a young man. Leonard had assembled a fine senior staff. Paul Poirot, Ed Opitz and the rest were not only fine editors, authors, and thinkers, but were always kind and generous in their willingness to show a youngster the ropes. Leonard had also created an open, creative atmosphere. When he had come to Colorado to hire me as Director of Seminars, I had told him, quite correctly, that I knew nothing about directing seminars. Typically, he responded with a wave of his hand, Don't worry about that! You've just been telling me about the idea you have for a book. Well, come to New York and write that book. Whatever you need to know about directing seminars, you'll pick up along the way. In FEE's creative atmosphere, I wrote four books in the next five years.The senior staff and Read shared morning and afternoon coffee and a daily lunch prepared there at the Foundation. Those daily meetings were mini-seminars for staff and also usually included one or more visiting authors, professors, political leaders, major business figures, or publishers from this country or around the world, a part of the steady stream of idea leaders who were integral to the FEE experience. Anyone playing a significant role in the growing battle of ideas in America or on the international scene was almost certain to appear sooner or later at those staff lunches.
Roche also explained that Perhaps most important, I acquired from Leonard his absolute commitment to freedom's message. I learned that freedom demanded telling the truth, whatever the cost. Tell freedom's story and the world will find you and spread the message. As the quotation on the wall of FEE's boardroom announces, 'Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. The rest is in the hands of God.'
Concern about Education
Among the books Roche wrote while at FEE were American Federalism; Power; Legacy of Freedom; and Freacute;deacute;ric Bastiat: A Man Alone. Through the story of Bastiat's life, Roche presents the case for individual liberty, private property, and the market economy. Most important, he uses Bastiat to emphasize the importance of courage and integrity in defense of freedom, even when it seems that you stand alone.
In 1969 FEE published his book Education in America. One of Roche's frequent tasks for FEE was to speak on college campuses around the country. Those visits reinforced his concern that academia had lost its way, become a wasteland of moral relativism and collectivism, and abandoned the values inherent in liberal-arts education.
The growth of government intrusion in higher education, Roche believed, was one of the central elements of this decline in the quality and content of the academic world. In Education in America and other works, such as The Bewildered Society, Roche warned of the increasing danger to educational excellence from affirmative action and political correctness.
Indeed, it was his insightful analysis of American academia that brought him to the attention of the board of trustees at Hillsdale College and his appointment as president at age 36 in 1971.
Roche never severed his connection with FEE. From 1972 to 1991 he served as a very active member of the Board of Trustees, continuing to offer his insights for advancing FEE’s mission on behalf of the freedom philosophy.
Roche had that elusive quality called charisma. After the first few minutes before an audience, he mesmerized all those listening to him. It was not only how he spoke, with a tone of calm certitude, but the undeniable confidence of a man who sincerely believed in the truth of the message of freedom he was presenting.
In an academic world in which most college presidents pander to the political fashions of the time and wallow at the trough of government funding, George Roche stood apart, a principled man alone, like his hero Freacute;deacute;ric Bastiat.