Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (12 page)

Rand’s individualist “Manifesto” was the culmination of a series of shifts that had transformed her thinking since the publication of
We the Living
in 1935. Most obvious was her overt and enthusiastic embrace of politics. In this she was returning to an early interest, reprising the fascination with revolution and her father’s political ideas that had marked her years in Russia. But American politics both challenged and reinforced her strongly held beliefs about the world. Working on the Willkie campaign helped shake Rand out of her reflexive elitism. She saw now that democracy might be more hospitable to capitalism than she had ever assumed. And she had come to believe that individualism was a fundamentally American value, one that had merely been disguised by collectivist propaganda. It was simply a question of getting the right ideas out to a broad audience.

The campaign also suggested another career path to her. Politics was now just as captivating to her as fiction. As
The Fountainhead
lay stillborn, Rand had found it easy to write thirty pages of political philosophy. In the 1940s she went on to forge a hybrid career, devoting herself to the spread of political ideas as much as the creation of dramatic stories and characters. It was the first step toward an identity she would later claim with pride: novelist and philosopher.

CHAPTER THREE
A New Credo of Freedom

BY THE TIME
she completed the “Manifesto of Individualism” Ayn Rand’s interest in politics was all-consuming and her literary life was at a standstill. She left
The Fountainhead
manuscript largely unattended and plunged into another round of organizing efforts. Wielding Channing Pollock’s name and her writing, Rand began meeting as many New York “reactionaries” as possible. She was in a city known as the reddest in America; indeed the very phrase “New York intellectual” came to connote a certain type of leftist-literary thinker with Communist sympathies. What Rand joined instead was an alternate universe of
other
New York intellectuals, committed to free markets and laissez-faire.

These contacts, particularly her new friend Isabel Paterson, further introduced Rand to the American individualist tradition she had encountered through her opposition to Roosevelt. Rand found libertarian ideas compelling but the libertarian attitude alarming. The Willkie campaign had energized Rand and convinced her that Americans were receptive to capitalist ideas, but it had the opposite effect on others. Alone among her fellows, it seemed, she believed in the possibility of political change. Through months of letter writing, meetings, and impassioned talks, Rand found few willing to join her crusade to develop a “new credo of freedom.”
¹
Her organizing failures increased Rand’s sense of urgency. As she wrote to Pollock, “Who is preaching
philosophical
individualism? No one. And if it is not preached, economic individualism will not survive.”
²
Rand had a new sense of mission that would eventually find its way into her uncompleted manuscript.

When she finally secured a publisher for
The Fountainhead
Rand returned to the book a different person, with different ways of thinking about the world. In its origins
The Fountainhead
reflected Rand’s earlier
intellectual orientation toward Nietzsche and her deep-seated elitism. But in execution the novel bore the marks of what had happened since. The remaining two-thirds of the book, written in a tremendous year-long spurt of creativity, layered the themes of the “Manifesto” over the structure Rand had devised years earlier. The result showed Rand the writer at the height of her powers, even as Rand the thinker continued to emerge.

Since the expiration of her first contract in late 1940, few other publishers exhibited interest in Rand’s unfinished manuscript. Her agent, Anne Watkins, racked up eight rejections in about as many months. The best she could do was help Rand secure an hourly position as a reader for Paramount Pictures, a job she started in the spring of 1941, just as her efforts with Pollock got under way. The string of rejections strained relations between agent and author. Watkins’s interest in the book wavered, and she began to criticize Rand’s writing. Rand gave no quarter, and the two argued unproductively over why the manuscript wasn’t selling. The breaking point came just after Rand finished her “Manifesto.” After another discussion of her novel, Watkins told Rand, “You always ask for reasons. I can’t always give reasons. I just go by feelings.” The statement came as a “traumatic shock” to Rand. To her it was a shameful confession of personal and intellectual inadequacy. She could tolerate criticism of her book that was carefully and consciously justified, but to be attacked on the basis of unspecified feelings galled her. Watkins’s confession also destroyed any possibility of an ongoing professional relationship. Rand told her as much in a long philosophical letter announcing that she no longer wanted Watkins to represent her work.
³

Rand’s new boss at Paramount Pictures, Richard Mealand, was dismayed by the turn of events. He loved the parts of the novel he had read, and Rand immediately became one of his favorite employees. She was also beloved by her supervisor, Frances Hazlitt, who was an outspoken conservative. Frances was married to Henry Hazlitt, a journalist who would later become known in libertarian circles for his
Economics in One Lesson
. Together Hazlitt and Mealand gave Rand the pick of incoming stories and championed her writing career. When Mealand learned
that her manuscript was languishing in obscurity, he pressed his services on Rand. He had contacts in the publishing world and was eager to help her out. Reluctantly she agreed to let him submit her chapters to Little, Brown, a publisher she viewed as relatively free from Communist influence.

At first it looked as if she had struck gold. An editor at the house pronounced the chapters “almost genius” and arranged to have dinner with Rand. There he probed her political views, assuming she was an anarchist. Rand set him straight: “I was telling him all about what I think of the New Deal, why this book is anti–New Deal, why I am for free enterprise, and what passages and what proves it.”
⁴
It was a significant shift. Only a few years earlier she had been assuring prospective editors that her novel would
not
be political; now she insisted that her latest literary suitor recognize its deeper meaning.

Rand’s spirits during this period were low. She had completely stopped working on the manuscript, and her work at Paramount further dampened her ambitions. Each day as she picked through yet another potboiler that the studio had bought, she moaned to Frank about the trash that was published while her work remained unnoticed. He was at once sympathetic, supportive, and suitably outraged, but with a gentle touch that cracked Rand’s despair. “I know how you feel,” he told her. “Here you are throwing pearls and you’re not getting even a porkchop in return.”
⁵
Rand crowed in delight and gave the line to one of her characters. After Little, Brown passed on the manuscript, Frank rose to the occasion masterfully. Rand was ready to junk the book entirely. Frank stayed up with her one long, terrible night, urging her to continue, reaffirming her genius, helping her believe the world was not the cold and hostile place it seemed. That was the night he “saved” the book, earning his place on the dedication page.

Despite her renewed resolve to finish the book, Rand’s primary interest remained the new political organization. She chafed at Pollock’s slowness in lining up converts and cash cows. George Sokolsky, a conservative columnist, came onboard at once. By June Pollock and Rand had discovered another important ally, DeWitt Emery. Based in Ohio, Emery owned a small manufacturing company that produced letterhead. A foot soldier of the anti–New Deal forces, he doubled as head of the National Small Business Men’s Association, a lobbying concern.
After an initial introduction by Pollock, Rand and Emery met three times during a visit he paid to New York. Emery was deeply impressed by Rand. Her passion, clarity, and literary talents overwhelmed him, and he immediately pledged his support for the new organization.

Small business owners like Emery would always be among Rand’s most consistent fans. Her emphasis on economic individualism coupled with her newfound patriotism resonated powerfully with politically conservative business owners. When she showed Emery her “Manifesto,” he wanted the NSBMA to publish it. He passed it on to his friend Monroe Shakespeare, the owner of a Michigan-based company that manufactured fine fishing tackle. Shakespeare was similarly enthusiastic. He wrote Emery, “What do we have to do to get this Individualist Manifesto available for publication? I had a speaking engagement before the luncheon club at Three Rivers this past week and I condensed that down to a half-hour presentation and they were wild about it. They would have been twice as wild, if possible, if they could have seen the whole thing.”
⁶
Soon Shakespeare was corresponding with Rand too.

Although Rand spoke in the coded language of individualism, her business audience immediately sensed the political import of her ideas. Many correctly assumed that her defense of individualism was an implicit argument against expanded government and New Deal reforms. Rand was a powerful polemicist because she set these arguments in terms both abstract and moral. She flew above the grubby sphere of partisan politics, using the language of right and wrong, the scope and scale of history to justify her conclusions.

We the Living
was another effective weapon in Rand’s arsenal. It established her, at least among political conservatives, as an expert on Soviet Russia and a living example of American superiority. After reading the novel Emery wrote her an emotional letter describing his reaction: “I thought I was one of the few who was really awake. I thought I knew and appreciated what we have, but I know now that I was at least half asleep.”
⁷
Midway through the novel Emery paused to inspect his full refrigerator, newly grateful for the bounty contained therein.

As the “names” came in, Rand began telephoning and visiting potential recruits in the New York area. She visited Ruth Alexander, a Hearst columnist known for her conservative views, and briefly summarized the main points of the “Manifesto.” Alexander agreed to support the
project, provided it remained uncompromising in ideology and did not evade or pussyfoot “on major issues, such as the issue of defending capitalism,” Rand reported to Pollock. Next on her list was Gloria Swanson, a famous actress from the silent movie era who had been a Willkie supporter. Swanson was originally reluctant to participate, but after reading Rand’s “Manifesto” she agreed to join the committee and make further introductions. “I can’t repeat what she said about the ‘Manifesto,’ it would sound too much like boasting on my part,” Rand bragged to Emery.
⁸
During this time Rand also met John Gall, an attorney for the National Association of Manufacturers, who pledged to drum up interest and possibly funding among his colleagues.

With enough interest aroused, in the late summer and fall Rand and Pollock scheduled a series of meetings to discuss their plans and talk with professional fund-raisers. At least one of these meetings was held at Rand’s apartment. Frank was present as Rand’s escort during all meetings held at their home, but he did not participate actively in any of the planning. He had rung bells and passed out literature for the Willkie campaign but was uninterested in the intellectual and strategic questions that animated Rand.

During these meetings Rand had her first misgivings about the project. She was flattered but surprised by the reaction of her fellows to her “Manifesto,” which she considered a “bromide” full of self-evident truths. Many of her contacts instead greeted it as a revelation, which aroused her suspicions. Now, meeting her group in person, she realized they were not intellectuals. She had pictured the organization as primarily educational in nature, but now she saw that “education would have to begin not with the provinces and the clubs, but with the head quarters, that we would have nobody to run it.”
⁹

Rand’s disillusionment was particularly acute when she met Albert Jay Nock, one of their most prominent recruits. Unlike the others, Nock was a true intellectual. In the 1920s he had edited an idiosyncratic literary magazine,
The Freeman,
and had lately emerged as a vigorous critic of Roosevelt. In 1935 he published an individualist tract,
Our Enemy, the State
. He had been a member of the Liberty League and edited a
Review of Books
for the conservative National Economic Council. Along with H. L. Mencken, Nock was one of the few established men of letters who publicly identified himself as an individualist and opponent of the New
Deal. Rand admired Nock’s writing and had high hopes for his participation in her organization. When she finally met the great man, however, she found him to be fatalistic, mystical, and gloomy. Nock was in his seventies and appeared worn down. Freedom was a rare, accidental exception in history, he told the group. Although he wished them well, they didn’t stand a chance. He argued that individualism as a political concept should be replaced by subjective “self sufficiency.” Rand was unconvinced. “Why surrender the world?” she retorted.
¹⁰

Rand also became uneasy about Pollock’s role in the organization. She began to question his sincerity and his commitment to the cause; too many people had joked to her about Pollock’s wanting to run for president. When he brought in the gravy boys, professional fund-raisers, they talked only about how to raise money, eclipsing discussion of all other issues. She sensed that Pollock and his contacts clung to individualism out of inertia rather than true commitment: “They were going out of fashion. And that that fight was much more to retain the status quo or the personal status of being leaders of public opinion, rather than what did they want to lead the public to, nor what were their opinions.”
¹¹
What bothered her most of all was a sense of resignation she detected. Almost Marxists at heart, some of the group seemed to feel they had ended up on the wrong side of history.