Sir John Marks Templeton, Michael J. Boskin, Charles H. Townes, Robert W. Galvin, George F. Gilder, Václav Klaus, Louis R. Rukeyser, John L. Schroeder, David J. Theroux
Welcoming Remarks—David J. Theroux, President, The Independent Institute:
We are delighted to have you join with us, and we hope that you will thoroughly enjoy tonight’s program. For those of you new to the Independent Institute, The Independent Institute was founded to cut through the intellectual poverty of special-interest public policy in the U.S. and elsewhere. To do so, the Institute is a non-politicized, non-profit, scholarly research and educational organization that sponsors comprehensive studies of critical economic, social, environmental, legal and international affairs.
We believe that the pervasive politicization of society has largely confined public debate to a stale rehashing of the justifications for too many, failed government policies, the prevailing influence of partisan interests, and a consequent stagnation of economic and social innovation. And it is this cultural, political and intellectual paralysis in dealing with “government failures” combined with political scandals that has generated so much of the anti-political sentiment and uncivil climate today in the United States.
In order to understand both the nature and possible solutions to major issues, The Independent Institute’s program adheres to the highest standards of independent inquiry and is pursued regardless of prevailing political biases or conventions. The resulting Institute books and other studies are published and widely distributed by major university presses and other publishers. And, the results of the Institute’s studies are publicly debated through numerous conferences and media programs. For example, our new book, Money and the Nation State, addresses the global financial crisis and the serious, moral-hazard problems created by IMF, World Bank and central bank policies. In addition, please review the copies of our quarterly journal, The Independent Review.
Throughout this work, we seek to push at the frontiers of our knowledge, redefine the debate over public issues, and foster new and effective directions for government reform. To do so, the Institute draws its support from a diverse range of foundations, businesses, and individuals, and we welcome you to join with us as an Independent Associate Member.
In addition, on October 29th, we will be holding an Open House at the Institute’s new conference center in Oakland featuring the best-selling author and political humorist, P.J. O’Rourke, who is a member of our Board of Advisors, and his newest book, Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics, which is an hilarious and insightful world tour on the principles of economics. If any of you are not on our mailing list, please let us know so that we can see that you receive an invitation.
In the course of our work, the Institute also takes special interest in recognizing individuals whose contributions are so unusual, noteworthy, and effective that they merit special attention, and tonight’s honoree is especially exemplary in that regard. However before we begin, I want to note that in making tonight’s dinner possible, the assistance of many wonderful people was critical. I would like to take this opportunity to thank many of those special people:
- First, I would like to thank the honorary co-chairmen of tonight’s dinner: Patriarch Bartholomew, the Duke of Abercorn, the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, Lords Coggan and Howe, former Czech Prime Minister Václav Klaus, who is with us this evening, the Dalai Lama, Nobel Laureates Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Desmond Tutu, Lady Margaret Thatcher and Elie Wiesel.
- The Dinner Committee was co-chaired by 12 distinguished business leaders whom I also wish to thank: Howard Clark, Chuck Durham, Stan Hiller, Charlie Johnson, Henry Kotkins, Dick Kramlich, Peter Lynch, Tony O’Reilly, Phil Quigley, Louis Rukeyser, Skeet Rymer and Bill Simon. The Dinner Committee for tonight’s event is, I believe, a rather impressive one, in that it shows a small representation of the many people around the world who share our enormous admiration for Sir John Templeton.
- In the course of trying to assemble the committee, we have had the help of a number of people, in addition to the co-chairs I have just mentioned. I would like to particularly thank Peter Howley, who is a member of The Institute’s Board of Directors. Peter was an enormous help in lining up many of the key members of the committee.
- I also want to thank Tom Jordan of Jordan Vineyard and Winery, whose generosity has provided the splendid wines for tonight’s program. We also had help from John Gnaedinger, Bob Bee, Dick Buxton, Lynn Folk, E. C. Grayson, Rev. Glen Mosley, and Jack Templeton, who were a great help in our contacting others regarding the program. See’s Candies also was of particular help in generously providing the delightful chocolate confections you have at your dinner place.
- There are many others who have contributed to tonight’s program, too many to list, but I would like to simply point out that we have had the assistance of the fine people at the Association for Investment, Management and Research; the Chief Executive’s Organization; the World President’s Organization; Phi Beta Kappa; the Yale Club; the Oxford Club; the Tannenbaum Center; and the Society of Rhodes Scholars. And most especially, I want to thank Mary O’Shea and our entire staff of people who worked so hard in coordinating the many details that have made tonight possible.
At this time, I would like to introduce our head table. If each of you would please stand, and if everyone would also please hold your applause until I have finished: Václav Klaus, former prime minister of the Czech Republic; Chris Boskin; Robert Galvin, executive committee chairman of Motorola; George Gilder, best-selling author and member of the Institute’s Board of Advisors; Nobel Laureate Dr. Charles Townes from the University of California at Berkeley; Dr. Georgette Bennett, president of the Tannenbaum Center for Inter-Religious Understanding, who is representing Sir Sigmund Sternberg, this year’s recipient of the Templeton Prize. (I should mention that Sir Sigmund was the founder of the Center.) Father Alan Jones, dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, who is representing Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Dhonyo Tenzin, president of the Tibetan Association of Northern California, who is representing the Dalai Lama; Rosemary Mill; Stephan Solzhenitsyn of Earth Tech who is representing his father, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn; Mini Gilder; Thomas Jordan of the American Ireland Fund, who is representing the Duke of Abercorn; Metropolitan Anthony, who is representing Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew; Frances Townes; Donald Monroe, managing director of NationsBank Montgomery Securities, who is representing his father-in-law, former Treasury Secretary William Simon, also a member of our Board of Advisors; Michael Boskin from Stanford University, former chairman of the President’s Counsel of Economic Advisors; and, my wonderful wife Mary. And, most especially, our distinguished honoree, Sir John Templeton.
As you might suspect, because of the distances involved, and the press of busy schedules, many of those who had wished to be with us this evening simply could not be here but have expressed in letters, phone calls and many other ways their high regards for John and best wishes for the program. If I may, I would like to read just a handful of them, just to give you an idea of the variety.
As you might suspect, because of the distances involved, and the press of busy schedules, many of those who had wished to be with us this evening simply could not be here but have expressed in letters, phone calls and many other ways their high regards for John and best wishes for the program. If I may, I would like to read just a handful of them, just to give you an idea of the variety.
The first:
“To Sir John Templeton,
“Roselyn and I are pleased to congratulate you on the honors you are receiving tonight. It is only fitting that your lifetime as a philanthropist, champion of spiritual principles and personal integrity, educator, author and business leader is being recognized in this way. We salute your countless contributions to the benefit of humankind and wish you many more years of fulfillment and success.
Sincerely,
Jimmy Carter”
Another:
“I am very happy to send all good wishes as The Independent Institute honours you this evening. I know that you will be surrounded by many friends and admirers who, like me, hold you in the highest esteem will surround you.
“The name Templeton stands for faith and generosity the world over. For many years, you have given unstintingly to promote causes aimed at increasing our spiritual understanding. In a world where progress has often been associated with a decline in moral standards, you have reminded us of the importance of religious values and the relevance they hold for the future. We are all grateful for your tireless efforts.
“I am so sorry that I cannot be with you on this occasion, but I shall be with you in spirit.
Margaret Thatcher”
The next greeting is too long to read. Actually, originally, he was hoping to send a video greeting, so I will just read two small parts of it:
“Brothers and sisters
“Although I am unable to join with you at this auspicious gathering to celebrate and honour the achievements of Sir John Marks Templeton, I share with many of you the admiration for Sir John’s efforts to promote religious and spiritual values.
“The presence of people like Sir John Marks Templeton in society is of inestimable value. Sir John is someone who not only gets things done, as his many wide-ranging achievements attest, but he also takes the trouble through his writing and educational activities to encourage others to do likewise. Expressing ideas in pleasant sounding words is easy, but implementing them is much more difficult. If we have a sense of universal responsibility and a courageous determination, our ideas can be transformed into action. Therefore, I would like to appeal earnestly to all of you attending this happy celebration to take the positive spirit that Sir John has displayed in his life as a successful businessman—as an educator, philanthropist and champion of spiritual principles, and try to put them into effect wherever you live, and work for the universal benefit of all sentient beings.
The Dalai Lama”
Here is another:
“Dear John:
“Congratulations on the success of your important campaign toward achieving progress in religion and contributing to the betterment of humanity. Your life and dedication to helping others has been spectacular.
“Again, congratulations on receiving this honor from The Independent Institute. It is more than well deserved.
Best wishes,
Carolyn and Peter Lynch”
Two more:
“It is my great pleasure to join with all who have gathered this evening as you are presented the prestigious Alexis de Tocqueville Award.
“This award is a testament to your business acumen, exemplary management skills, and most of all, your personal and professional ethical integrity. Over the years, you have consistently demonstrated a commitment to excellence and innovation that has been the hallmark of many of America’s most successful businesses. You should indeed take great pride in all that you have accomplished.
“Communities throughout the United States have been greatly enhanced by the generosity and dedication of individuals like yourself. You have spent your life supporting people in need and have never hesitated your time to assist with a charitable cause. This list of worthy causes that you have helped is long and the individual lives that you have touched are many, and I am proud to applaud your sense of community spirit.
“Gail joins me in sending our appreciation and congratulations on this well-deserved evening of tribute.
Sincerely,
Pete Wilson, Governor of California”
And finallye:
“In national and world affairs, there are precious few individuals whose work profoundly changes the world for the better. Throughout his life, Sir John Templeton has been such a visionary whose entrepreneurship has revolutionized the fields of business, finance, education, religion, philanthropy and much more. But above all, John has exemplified an unwavering commitment to personal integrity, humanity and decency that has served as a role model for millions around the world and will continue to do so for many generations to come. John has shown that character indeed matters a great deal in any field, and, in fact, it is a necessity for success. Regrettably, previous commitments keep me from joining you this evening. The Independent Institute is to be congratulated for its superb work in making this very special occasion possible. But above all, I wish to thank John for all of his fabulous and pioneering work that has raised the well being, knowledge and spirits of us all.
Yours sincerely,
Gerald Ford”
There are many other dinner greetings, but there is just not time to go through them. There are two more I wish to include, and I want to invite the representatives of those individuals to come forward if they would. If Georgette Bennett could please come up, she has a greeting from Sir Sigmund Sternberg, who is this year’s Templeton Prize winner. Dr. Bennett is president of the Tannenbaum Center for Inter-Religious Understanding.
Presentation by Georgette Bennett:
Thank you, David. It is really delightful to be Sir Sigmund Sternberg for a day. I guess most women would rather be queen-for-a-day, but I’m quite happy to be knight-for-a-day. Especially on an occasion like this, Sir John. Here is a special greeting from Sir Sigmund Sternberg:
“It is a great disappointment to Hazel and me that we are unable to be present on this very special occasion to pay our personal tribute to a dear and valued friend. Had we been there with you, we would not have been looking back over John’s life of achievement. Retrospection has never been his way. He has no time for it.
“No, we would have been looking forward to all those challenges which still lie ahead and which make him the unparalleled innovator in the field of development of the spirit.
“As this year’s recipient of the Templeton Award for Progress in Religion, a prize without peer, I am in deep debt to the judges who selected me, but I am equally grateful to John, whose brainchild this prize was. But John would not want to hear of this.
“Although he still has one of the sharpest minds in the world of finance and investment, his mature idea of a credit balance is that deep inner satisfaction to be gained from advancing the world’s understanding of God, and since we are created in God’s image of all humankind. In that sense, we are all beneficiaries of John Templeton and join his countless friends and admirers in expressing our fond good wishes to him and our prayer that he will be spared in good health for many years to come, so that he may continue his devoted labours in the fields of the Lord.
Sir John, congratulations!”
Sir Sigmund Sternberg”
David Theroux:
Thank you, Georgette. I would now like to introduce Metropolitan Anthony of the Greek Diocese of San Francisco, who will very kindly read the greeting from Patriarch Bartholomew:
Presentation by Metropolitan Anthony:
I am honored to be here representing His Holiness, the Patriarch of Constantinople, who asked me to convey his blessings and his regards to all and this special message:
“To the Honorable Sir John Marks Templeton, our Modesty’s beloved spiritual son in the Lord: Grace and peace from God.
“It was with great joy that we received notice from the Most Learned Mr. David J. Theroux on behalf of the organizing committee of the dinner to be held in your honor on Thursday, October 1, 1998 informing us of this most festive event. Unfortunately, we are unable to be with you on this occasion in person, but we certainly will be present among you in thought and in prayer.
“Your countless contributions, especially toward supporting those who labor tirelessly for an increased understanding of God and love for the divine in the world, form a single source of light, a beacon that guides the path of many who seek to delve into the deeper mysteries of life and its Creator and give them direction. Moreover, your unique initiative in establishing the coveted Templeton Prize, for which we are honored to serve on the panel of judges, stands as a beautiful example of what is possible when there is guidance and love, both of which are essential in this world of increased darkness and lovelessness.
“We read in the Holy Scripture, ‘where there is no guidance a nation falls’ (Proverbs 11:14) and ‘Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God.’ (1 John 4:7) You, Most Honored Sir, have guided and have loved. You have guided theologians, scientists, and thinkers into a great nation of their own; one which has come into a closer, deeper, more personal relationship with God. Ultimately, you have inspired them to love God and through Him our fellow human beings. You have recognized that to be fully human means to live a life which is integrated into the life of God, in whom we find grace, peace, love, unity, diversity, spiritual progress, and eternal salvation. In short, you have built up hope and humankind has been its beneficiary.
“Worship in the Christian Orthodox Church is often marked by solemn processions. This simple liturgical act signifies a movement forward of man toward God; a movement of the whole history of salvation—divine progress, if you will—toward its ultimate consummation in the Kingdom of God. Moreover, besides this overt liturgical symbol of progress, there is also great liturgical significance in our posture, which usually is one of standing. We stand upright because we believe that we have been redeemed; we have been given back our true human stature and are risen from the death of sin and separation from God. We also stand as unique inheritors of His holy gifts, which God grants each person on an individual basis. These gifts, when used properly edify the whole body of believers, and by extension benefit the whole world. Throughout your many years of dedicated service you have attempted to incorporate this holistic approach to your life and to the life of others.
“Joining the distinguished guests gathered to pay tribute to you on this festive occasion, we take this opportunity to honor you, Sir John Marks Templeton, our Modesty’s beloved son in the Lord. We pray that our Almighty God will give you many years of dedicated service to His holy and most blessed Name. Invoking upon you the grace of God and His Spirit we convey to you our patriarchal and paternal prayers.
Your fervent supplicant before God,”
Bartholomew of Constantinople”
David Theroux:
Thank you very much. Incidentally, when I first received the message from Patriarch Bartholomew, it was literally Greek to me, so I am most grateful to Metropolitan Anthony for being so helpful.
I believe that you can see the diverse range of people as just a small snapshot of those who have developed such admiration for our honoree. Since the weekly television program, Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser is taped on Thursday, Lou Rukeyser was very sorry that he couldn’t join with us tonight. However, he and I have assembled a special program of excerpts from the many appearances over the years by John on Lou’s program. (Incidentally, I want to thank Carl Close, who is Academic Affairs Director at The Independent Institute, for a superb job in selecting the specific excerpts we have used in the tape we will be showing.)
As many of you may recall, John was one of the initial inductees into Lou’s Wall $treet Week With Louis Rukeyser Hall of Fame, and ever since then, only about a dozen financial leaders have ever been so honored over quite a number of years.
I would now like to call on Father Jones, who will kindly lead us in the invocation.
Presentation by Alan Jones:
Let us pray. Dear God, we thank you for your spirit, which enlivens the world. For acts of generosity and imagination which move hearts to act with courage and integrity. We pray for those members of the human community for whom the life of the spirit is dimmed or diminished by reason of poverty, displacement or injustice. And we give thanks to the men and women of large soul and wide-ranging sympathies who understand that they are our stewards, rather than possessors, of the riches they have been given. We remember with gratitude Alexis de Tocqueville—a man of brilliant intellect, deep sensibility and wide-ranging sympathies who prized individual liberty as the foundation of a humane society.
We give special thanks to the vision of John Templeton whose generous open-handedness and deep faith in humankind’s spiritual vocation has touched the lives of millions.
And finally, we pray that more and more lives may be liberated and enriched at this time of a crisis of spirit, both in our nation, and in our world, that all may enjoy the fullness of life and freedom of spirit which you intend for all your children. Amen.
David Theroux:
Thank you, Alan.
Excerpts of Appearances of Sir John M. Templeton on Wall $treet Week, 1987 – 1997 [See DVD]
Tribute to Sir John M. Templeton by Louis Rukeyser (by video):
Good evening. It’s a pleasure to add a few brief words of my own about the man who taught three generations of Americans that the so-called “world of investing” really is a world, and not just a country; and whose moral and financial inspiration has profoundly advanced the cause of freedom clear across that globe. John has always been an especially admired friend of mine, as I indicated when I inducted him as one of the four charter members of the Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser Hall of Fame on March 23, 1990 [video clip]:
Louis Rukeyser: “John Templeton practically invented global investing. And he has done it with unmatched skill for two generations. Several times, when panic was in the streets, he brought us optimistic, and accurate, predictions. I asked him once why pessimism still seems so perennially popular.”John Templeton (January 6, 1989): “Human nature. People don’t buy newspapers that announce the good news. Some catastrophe attracts the public. And because communication is so much more instantaneous than ever, we are flooded with pessimistic things from nations that we never would have even heard of before.”
It’s nice to see the good guys finish first. So, once again, congratulations, old friend. The triumph of People’s Capitalism, which we talked about for so long, and for which we were long denounced as foolish optimists, now straddles and transforms the planet. And leaves us, even in its most troubled hours, with abiding hope. We truly couldn’t have done it without you.
David Theroux:
Our honoree this evening has labored for decades as an investment pioneer, entrepreneur, and much more, on a global basis. During that time, we have witnessed the rise and fall of socialist experiments in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. And today, markets are empowering and uplifting the lives of billions of people. Few can better discuss the significance of this trend than our first speaker.
Václav Klaus, as I mentioned earlier, is former Prime Minister and also former Finance Minister of the Czech Republic, and currently serves as President of the Chamber of Deputies for the Parliament of the Czech Republic.
A graduate of the Prague School of Economics, he was one of the founders of the Czechoslovak Civic Forum. In 1990, he was elected chairman of the Civic Democratic Party. Having been the first non-communist Czech Finance Minister for more than 40 years, he is also recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees. As I mentioned, Václav also graciously served as honorary co-chairman for tonight’s program. So I am very pleased to introduce Václav Klaus.
Presentation by Václav Klaus:
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to be here. Let me use the opportunity tonight of awarding Sir John Templeton the Alexis de Tocqueville Award he so very much deserves by saying a few words about one of his interests—the importance of clear, simple, classical liberal ideas and the market process. I happened to participate in the process of transition of an entire society from communism to a free society and market economy, which was made possible by the fact that people like Sir John Templeton didn’t stop fighting for freedom for basic liberal ideas and for free markets. I will try to say something from my own experience, which is probably unique in the audience assembled here tonight.
I have to start with something that has not been sufficiently stressed or sufficiently understood during the last decade. I would dare to say that the communist system collapsed, not that the communist system was defeated. It collapsed because it was already in an advanced stage of decomposition and because it gradually lost its two strongest constituted elements: namely the Fear, on the one hand, and the Face, on the other.
In its final days, the communist system became both soft and unconvincing, and such a state of affairs was not sufficient for safeguarding its further continuation. It’s an irony of history that communism just sort of melted down. This is, however, not the main story.
It has often been stated that the collapse of communism created a very strange vacuum. This argument seems plausible, but it’s not correct, in my opinion. What remained after communism was not a vacuum. We instead inherited weak, and therefore, non-efficient markets, and we similarly inherited weak and non-efficient democracy. Most of the economic and political mechanisms were shallow. The political and economic agents, the players of the game, were not properly established and constituted. Some of them were totally new. All of them were weak and fragile, and the outcomes of their interplay were less efficient than in a full-grown free society.
We had to undergo a difficult transformation process. No masterminding of the evolution of a free society by means of social engineering was possible. At the same time, it was not possible to wait for textbook conditions, which would mean waiting for perfect markets, for a sufficient degree of market efficiency. The quick abolition of all socialist institutions was the only true plan for success, because it was the only way to minimize the heavy transition or transformation costs. The consistency in pursuing a free market course in the following years was crucial and we had to privatize, to liberalize, and to deregulate the economy as fast as possible.
When I say “we”, it brings me to my first point, which is close to Sir John’s philosophy and thinking. What about the people? Were they ready for such a rapid change? Does a free society presuppose, in addition to the creation of its basic institutions, some set of values or moral standards that would properly incur the whole society. Do the people need an interim period of schooling? Is such a schooling possible? Are there teachers for such a procedure? Are the people willing to be educated?
My answers to these and similar questions are simple. Freedom requires responsibility and ethical behavior, but at the same time, the people are always ready and they do not need a special schooling. What they need is a free space for their activities. What they need is the elimination of unnecessary controls and prohibitions of all kinds. Our experience tells me that the flexibility of the people was the main source of our success.
After the collapse of hard communism, we succeeded in rejecting all kinds of absurd middle ways between capitalism and socialism, which are so fashionable these days. We succeeded in avoiding any form of romantic nationalism. We also succeeded in overcoming utopian, and therefore dangerous, attempts to forget everything and to start building a brave new world based on opportunistic, “moralistic” and elitist ambitions of those who think they are better than the rest of us, but who think we shouldn’t loosen the statist, interventionist, paternalistic socialist democratism which we see in so many societies to the west of us, including this country.
We know—we who are here tonight—that it’s our permanent task and duty to attack the expanding state, which has been the overwhelming tendency of this century of socialism, with the whole variety of confusing objectives and disastrous outcomes. We are greatly honored to have among us individuals who spend their lives defending the free society, defending free markets, and defending the power of ideas and the power of classical, liberal ideas. We are honored to have here tonight, Sir John Templeton. Thank you very much.
David Theroux:
Thank you very much, Václav. The story that Václav tells is one that few of us in the U.S. can fully appreciate.
John Templeton was one of the very first members of the Young President’s Organization many years ago. He later became a member of the World President’s Organization and the Chief Executive’s Organization, of which the latter elected him its president in 1968.
Our next speaker worked very closely with John for many of these years. John Schroeder, in fact, was president of Templeton, Dabrow and Vance, and he is currently a director of Morgan Stanley-Dean Witter Funds and the Trust Company of the West-Dean Witter Funds.
Jack received his MBA in finance from New York University. He has been chairman and chief executive officer of Axe-Houghton Funds, president and chief executive officer of Keystone Custodian Funds and a member of the boards of many top financial, insurance and other firms.
Also a member of the Chief Executive’s Organization, Jack is a former President of YPO. I am very pleased to introduce Jack Schroeder.
Presentation by John Schroeder:
I have been asked to take us back a little bit to the days of John’s work in New Jersey, before he moved to the Bahamas. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, when he started so many of the entities that developed eventually into such great things.
I first became familiar with John when I worked at Citibank as a young analyst, where the Templeton Letter was required reading. I used to look forward to the Templeton Letter coming out, mainly because John had a brilliant way of taking very complex subjects and making them sound simple.
They were often contrarian. At the time, the oil industry was like the internet companies of today. Oil stocks were going up to big heights, mainly because it was assumed that oil prices would go up forever. Then John came out with his Letter and pricked that balloon by saying that, indeed, we were heading toward a time of a world glut in oil. And, of course, that was very sacrilegious at the time. On the other hand, I remember that, in one issue of his Letter, he recommended that people look at airlines. No one wanted airlines because they were losing money, but John was able to point out that the coming of the jet age was going to rearrange the profit structure of the airline industry, and his clients were able to benefit by their investments going up fivefold in three years.
When I first went to work for John, I had to learn his techniques of how to search for bargains in young growth companies worldwide. That was interesting and very enlightening to learn his techniques. I came from an environment of a bank mentality, where the job of a security analyst was to examine the past record. John said, “No, I want you to tell me about the future.” Imagine, a young analyst being asked to do that. How exciting that was.
John’s interest in international investing in those days was really not surprising. Having studied at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship and, afterward, traveling around the world on a shoestring, he knew a lot about the international market. But it was difficult in those days to get clients to invest overseas. I remember he wanted us to put Japanese stocks into every one of the clients’ portfolios. We had to convince the clients it was worth doing. Because they had to, in those days, commit to leaving their money there for seven years. Of course, they were amply rewarded for their patience.
Another very interesting incident I remember: One time, John and I and others were at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and we were being lectured about the importance of maintaining fixed currencies. That was the big job of the Fed. Of course, this was long before President Nixon closed the gold window. I remember John standing up and saying, why don’t we just let the free market decide what currencies should be? There was a hush in the room. That was sacrilege. That was spitting on the Fed’s bible. But how right he has been in the long run.
As I worked with John, I also began to see another side of him, and that is his spiritual strength. I remember traveling with him one time to Canada. I was by then his executive vice president, and I said to him, “can you tell me how you can reconcile your very frugal living with your generosity toward your charities?” And John said, “Jack, when you have 10 apples and you give 9 away in the temporal world, you have one apple left. But in the spiritual world, if you have 10 apples and you give 9 away, you still have 10 apples.”
John was the first entrepreneur I met. He was always looking for new, exciting ideas, and it was not surprising then that he was among the first, possibly the first, person to create a mutual fund devoted entirely to international investing.
John was one of the original members of the Young President’s Organization. He eventually went on to become president of the successor organization, the Chief Executive’s Organization (CEO). I have here a letter I would like to read from the current president of CEO. I know there are many members of CEO in the audience, including some ex-presidents:
“Dear John,
“On behalf of CEO, I would like to offer our most sincere and heartfelt congratulations to you this evening. As an internationally renowned entrepreneur, business leader, humanitarian, author, educator, philanthropist, and founder of the Templeton Prize, world leaders have recognized your many contributions.
“As a past president of the Chief Executive’s Organization, your contributions continue to be felt.
“May you enjoy this evening and know how proud CEO is of your many accomplishments and to have you as part of our organization.
“With great warmth,
Stanley Miller, President”
There is an old saying that no man is a hero to his butler. But I can tell you that, after 40 years of working with John and knowing John, he is still my hero. And furthermore, I think, he is one of the greatest men of the 20th century!
David Theroux:
Thank you very much, Jack.
Business ventures of all sorts, as many of the people here tonight know, exist to provide goods and services for people. The competitive market process of commerce inspires and incents entrepreneurs to adopt, adapt and innovate in unforeseen ways that produce what many of us realize are an ever-expanding array of better, cheaper and more convenient products. This creative process and the knowledge of it is not a new concept. It has been described by economists ranging from Adam Smith and Jean Baptiste Say to Joseph Schumpeter and Ludwig von Mises.
Our next speaker is a leader among economists. Michael Boskin is the Tully Friedman Professor of Economics and a senior fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. As I also have mentioned, he is former chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors. He also currently serves as chairman of the Congressional Advisory Committee on Taxation and on the panel of advisors to the Congressional Budget Office. He is the author of more than 100 books and articles.
He received his Ph.D. at my alma mater, the University of California at Berkeley, and he is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Adam Smith Prize, which he will receive this coming Monday from the National Association of Business Economists.
I’ve also had the pleasure of working with Michael. We were both co-members of the executive committee for the Templeton Collegiate Honor Rolls for Education in a Free Society during the last two years. So I am very pleased to introduce Michael Boskin.
Presentation by Michael Boskin:
Thank you, David. My wife, Chris, and I are honored to be here. It is a privilege to be here to help honor Sir John Templeton as he receives the Alexis de Tocqueville Award from The Independent Institute. It is also a privilege to be here to participate in supporting The Independent Institute for all of its excellent work.
I first met Sir John Templeton perhaps a quarter century ago at an event organized by Louis Rukeyser, who introduced me somehow as a “bright, young economist.” Incidentally, I hope I can still earn one of those adjectives.
Earlier this evening, Sir John put that in perspective when he said, “Oh, Mike, I just met your daughter.” (He was referring to my wife.) Whether John is going to pursue a career in politics or diplomacy or is just evidencing his wonderful sense of humor and timing, I’ll leave to you to decide.
I have a few simple points I would like to make. The first and most important is that liberty, freedom, justice, decency, and generosity of both resources and spirit requires champions, defenders, exemplars, heroes. Such a man is Sir John Marks Templeton.
Innovation—really fundamental innovation, such as global investing—has enriched both literally and figuratively our lives in so many direct and indirect ways. Innovation requires vision, courage, a wide range of talents, perhaps a dash of luck. Few are fortunate to be able to be a leader in any field. Sir John Marks Templeton is a leader, and I deliberately use the current tense, in finance, in education, in philanthropy, in religion, to name only a few. How remarkable!
A brilliant financier, he is someone who indeed is a superstar in the galaxy or the hall of fame of finance, and someone who has spent so much of his time and resources giving to the community and to the world all that was so good to this man from Tennessee. What a remarkable story!
But most of all, Sir John’s career—his life, the way he has, does and will conduct it—calls out to all of us, all of us, to find something in us, in our religion, in our families, in our own personal sense of justice, decency and honor: To stand up and be counted for liberty and freedom—personal, political and economic. And, I know everyone in this room is proud to join in that cause and join me in thanking Sir John for his leadership. Thank you very much!
David Theroux:
Thank you very much, Michael.
The globalization of finance and markets has greatly accelerated in recent years, as we have witnessed the new revolution of high technology businesses. Our next speaker is one of its real pioneering leaders.
Robert Galvin is chairman of the Executive Committee at Motorola, where he has held senior officership positions since 1959, having begun work there in 1940. He is a member of the National Business Hall of Fame. Bob has served also as chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Illinois Institute of Technology and vice chairman of the Universities Research Association.
He is the recipient of more than 10 honorary degrees from numerous colleges and universities. And under his leadership, Motorola was selected as the first company-wide winner of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
I should also mention that Bob was another of the founding members of YPO and CEO and, among other groups, he is currently a director of Economic Security 2000, which is working to empower all Americans with private retirement accounts to resolve what many of us understand will otherwise be a looming default of the Social Security system.
Ladies and gentlemen, Bob Galvin.
Presentation by Robert Galvin:
Society is a grand and dynamic system. It is grand because of its size and complexity, and it is dynamic because it is ever growing and always changing.
A system is made up of subsystems. The subsystems of our society are many. Education that trains; military that defends; government that regulates; theology that offers us salvation, and there are many more. And one of these subsystems is business.
I define business as that honorable subsystem of society that serves the needs of customers and clients at a profit. If you decode that definition, it means that that subsystem of society is the only instrument or agent of the entire system that creates wealth. All others are important, and they are interdependent and complimentary, but business is the only one that creates wealth.
John Templeton is among the score or fewer of men of the 20th Century who have generated and created wealth for the good of society more than all of the rest of us combined. And, he is the inspiration of the theologist. Any one of us would be delighted to hopefully make a mark in any one of the subsystem fields, but as that bright Michael Boskin said, John is evident in many. I particularly herald him for his matching and complimenting theology and business, for he is the exponent and the proponent of honorable conduct.
John, we honor you tonight, obviously, because you simply are deserving, and we thank you for that. But there is in this audience tonight a hundred or more of those of us who have known you well, and we most appreciate you as a friend. Thank you.
David Theroux:
Thank you very much, Bob.
The incredible advances we have witnessed in business and technology are intertwined with an enormous number and type of advances in science, especially since World War II. At The Independent Institute, we work with hundreds of scholars around the world, and we are finding that more and more scholars are asking whether there exist universal natural laws that may actually cross over and perhaps interweave physics, economics, ethics, and so on.
Many scientists today, in fact, are exploring whether ethical principles, such as those found in the Decalogue, the Golden Rule and so forth, may be more fundamentally rooted in the cosmos itself, a thought that maybe 20 years ago would have been scoffed at.
These are not trivial questions, and they are not trivial people who are considering them. But these are exactly the kinds of question that John Templeton has been interested in.
Our next speaker is one of the most celebrated men of science of our time. Charles Townes received the Nobel Prize in physics for his role in the invention of the LASER and the MASER. He is currently University Professor in the Graduate School at the University of California at Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology, where he is also a member of the Board of Trustees. He has been professor of physics at Columbia University, director of research at the Institute for Defense Analysis and provost at MIT. His list of honorary degrees and awards is so lengthy I can’t even begin to list it. So, I am extremely pleased to introduce, Charlie Townes.
Presentation by Charles Townes:
I am very pleased to be here on this occasion to honor Sir John. Sir John is a scientist. I look at him, and here is a man who uses resources to make more resources as an investor.
Yes, but also in my experience over recent years, I find that he has been investing also his mental and spiritual resources, as well as the financial ones, in ways to improve human life.
He challenges all of us to examine the meaning of life, human values, the nature of our universe—these important and tricky problems.
He is devoutly religious and, at the same time, completely open, willing to consider many viewpoints. These difficult and important questions that we humans all face. As you undoubtedly know, the Templeton Prize has gone to such varied people as Mother Teresa, renowned physicist Paul Davies, and so on.
Now, Sir John has recognized also that some of the strengths of science is what is actually happening currently in science. In recent years, science has continued to penetrate more and more. And more and more, scientists are recognizing that our universe—as we look at it, how it’s constructed, what its origins are, and how a universe somehow reveals a great intelligence.
We recognize science as an attempt to understand our universe and how it works. Religion is an attempt to understand its meaning, and these two must be closely related. Sir John has recognized that science has been making great progress, very rapid progress, and that religion needs more progress. So he has stimulated a kind of unity and discussion, back and forth between scientists and theologians—getting scientists to think more about religion and theologians to talk more with scientists—seeing if the advances in the sciences can contribute somehow to the understanding of these still deeper problems of the meaning of human existence.
Now, this effort is also chancy. These are tough questions. Many of them we tend to avoid. What is the meaning of the universe? What is human consciousness? These are questions that he has pushed. He has encouraged people to study and think about, and he has helped them and supported them to do so.
He has been willing to take chances and to push things just as, I suppose, an investor might have done, and wisely—making difficult choices but with possibly very rewarding results.
There has been, in fact, an enormous growth in the interaction between science and religious thought in the last decade and a half. And some of this has certainly come from his direction, his stimulation and his support.
I suppose many of you saw the very positive front cover of Newsweek a few months ago where there was a story about scientists and God. Now, that is quite revolutionary in recent times. It was the result of a conference in Berkeley that assembled scientists from all over the world—many different faces and some doubters—but all first-class, top-notch scientists from many countries. Many faces to get together and discuss these problems seriously.
More and more scientists have been facing these problems. I think Sir John has had a very powerful influence on this community, and on the growth of more discussion in intellectual communities and serious discussion of these tough problems.
More than a decade ago, it was difficult for a physicist in an academic environment to say he was religiously oriented. You just didn’t do that. Today, I would say, well, scientists are “coming out.” And we can come out, and we are. It has made an enormous difference. Sir John has stimulated and encouraged, not only with his own books that he has written and edited, but encouraged other kinds of intellectual efforts and thought in this direction: courses in universities, new books written by others, discussions within the scientific society.
For example, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, our largest scientific society, recently had a meeting with serious discussions on science and religion. So I am very thankful for his interest and his efforts, and we can all thank him for this thoughtfulness, his perceptiveness and his leadership in this direction. Thank you.
David Theroux:
Thank you, Charlie.
We have been speaking about enormous change, and yet this rapid change seems to be taking place as we discover certain truths in science and technology, business, economics, religion, and much more. In other words, the more we are able to get our intellectual bearing, so to speak, in this complex world, the greater are we able to propel ourselves into new and more rewarding realms.
George Gilder has been a visionary in all these areas. He is President of Gilder Technology Group, Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute and a member of the Board of Advisors for the Independent Institute. He is the author of numerous, highly influential books, including Wealth and Poverty, Recapturing the Spirit of Enterprise, After Television, Visible Man, Men and Marriage, and the eagerly awaited, forthcoming Telecosm, which I understand he has recently completed for publication.
Presentation by George Gilder:
Thank you very much. I had a wonderful experience today. I spent much of it reading—really, for the first time—the works of John Marks Templeton. I found myself reading excerpts aloud to my wife, Nini, and we both were just carried away by the eloquence and beauty of the views that Sir John expresses.
Reading his books and contemplating his work and wealth is like entering a cathedral. You are awed by the radiance of goodness and faith that shines forth. Now, when I wrote Wealth and Poverty, I maintained that the foundation of capitalism is faith, hope and love. But John Templeton not only says it, he writes about love, for example, as well as anyone since St. Paul, but he also proves it through this miraculous spiral of wealth creation, which his funds represent.
But I think that this wealth stems from a deeper fund of goodness that is based on a fundamental conviction that God is good, is infinite and will prevail. And it’s that faith which underlies the tremendous optimism, which has made it possible for John to build his supreme cathedrals of wealth. Because the value of a nation’s goods stems from the goodness of its values. Capitalism is not a Faustian pact where you gain wealth and prosperity in exchange for giving into greed and avarice.
Capitalism is based on the enlightened self-interest of love, giving and faith. The core of capitalism, which is at the root of John Templeton’s global outreach, is that the good fortune of others is also one’s own. You don’t see foreign companies as somehow rivals in a Darwinian struggle over a zero-sum game of wealth creation. You see the good fortune of foreign countries, the good fortune of overwhelmingly poverty, as the hope for the future, and if you’re an investor like Sir John, you always live in the future.
The service of others is the foundation of capitalist goodness, and profit is an index of the real altruism of an investment. It represents the difference between the value of the resources to the producer and the value to the consumer, and that difference is an index of the altruism, the service of others that underlies all investments. Giving, not taking, is indeed the foundation of capitalism.
But still more important is John Marks Templeton’s belief in that story of the apples that Jack Schroeder has mentioned this evening—that it is the spiritual calculus that’s most important, not the material calculus. Not only in the creation of goodness, but in the creation of goods. That goods are a reflection of goodness, and to the extent that capitalism produces bads, it cannot succeed and since it demonstrably does succeed to produce goods, it must stem from the goodness which ultimately comes from the spiritual foundation of God and natural law.
Sir John defies what I call the materialist superstition, the belief that wealth consists in things, and I believe that this materialist superstition, as Charlie Townes has just told us, collapses completely in the science of today. In the last century of physics for instance, Newtonian physics, it was essentially based on the proposition that the foundation of reality were blank solid bits of matter.
Well early this century, quantum theory overthrew this notion that matter was merely and ultimately blank, solid bits. The atom turned out to be as empty in proportion to the size of its nucleus as the solar system is empty in proportion to the size of the sun! A quantum theory overthrew the materialist superstition as the foundation of matter itself in the science of matter itself.
Now, I believe in the next century, a similar discovery will arise in biology. It is, at the moment, emerging in biology. Just as the investigation of the microcosm of the atom led to the overthrow of a determinate physics, so the discovery of the cell in molecular biology will overthrow the determinate Darwinian scheme in biology.
Most of Darwinian theory is based on the proposition that the cell is a so-called lump of protoplasm. But molecular biologists have discovered that the cell is the foundation of all life, and is irreducibly complex. It contains thousands of interacting parts that don’t function at all unless all are present. I believe that the cell which molecular biologists are increasingly exploring, indicates intelligent design.
And I believe that John Templeton’s life similarly comprises a guilded tapestry of complex parts that bespeaks the presence of a designer, for whom he is merely a miraculously humble vessel. Thank you very much.
David Theroux:
One of the interesting dimensions of John and his work is that, in many respects, it harkens back to many of the ideas that were discussed during periods like the Enlightenment when fundamental concepts were being explored and people were willing to ask new questions.
Our distinguished group of speakers has sketched us a picture of a very unique man. A man of integrity; a man of intellect; a man of vision; a man of compassion; a man of humility; and far more.
John received his Bachelor’s Degree from Yale University and his M.A. in law from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. As you know, he has been internationally renowned for 50 years as a pioneer of modern global investment. He was decorated Knight Order of the British Empire and Knight of St. John.
In 1972, John created the annual Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. Please note that the title is not the “Prize in Religion,” but instead the “Prize for Progress in Religion.” The idea is to recognize frontier thinking that would add to humanity’s knowledge of itself. Past recipients have included Mother Teresa, who received the Templeton Prize years before she received the Nobel Prize. Others have included Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, physicist Paul Davies, Michael Novak, Inamullah Kahn, and this year, of course, Sir Sigmund Sternberg.
John was the founder of Templeton College of Management at Oxford University, and he has received honorary degrees from many universities. His articles have appeared in newspapers and magazines worldwide. He is the author and editor of 12 books. A founding member of the International Society of Financial Analysts, John has been a leading member of many outstanding organizations, some of which have been mentioned tonight. And far more . . .
I am very pleased and honored to introduce our honoree tonight, Sir John Marks Templeton.
Presentation by John Marks Templeton:
My friends—my dear friends—I think you will all agree with me that there are few joys in life so great as seeing old friends again. This evening has been a tremendous joy for me, and I hope for everyone of you to get together again and enjoy friendship. Enjoy helping each other. Especially helping each other in the great enterprise of bringing freedom, and free competition, for the benefit of the people in every nation.
What has been said tonight is extremely heartwarming, of course. But it also makes me feel very, very humble. I do not deserve the wonderful things that you have said. You deserve them. It is the people here who have been tremendous leaders and innovators in bringing blessings to the world. All over this room are people who are doing things far more wonderful than I have been able to do. I do believe that you are the heroes. I believe that you are the benefactors of humanity—and I believe you are carrying out God’s purposes.
It’s always been one of the great mysteries—why did God create humans? Surely, it was not just accidental. Surely, there is some purpose, and you, especially many of you in this room, are illustrating that God’s creation of humans has been very beneficial.
Humans, more than ever before, are being able to accelerate God’s ongoing creativity. And one of the magics of how you accelerate creativity is through freedom and free competition.
Throughout all the ages, centuries, and even millennia, humans lived under dictatorships. Individualism was practically unknown. Free competition was not accepted. It was only about 200 years ago—when that great professor of moral philosophy, Adam Smith, wrote his great book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, that we first understood in a few nations what could happen if human beings exercised their God-given talents in creative ways.
To make it brief, I’ve calculated that, from the time that book was published, roughly two centuries ago, the output of goods and services on Earth, the whole Earth, has multiplied more than 100-fold. Now, back through history, it appears that it took a thousand years to double the world’s production. But in just the two centuries after Adam Smith, it has multiplied 100-fold in total world production.
So that illustrates, in a simple way, what you people are doing. What you are doing is a tremendous blessing. It’s recognition that we all have blessings. We need to recognize that we are living in the most glorious period of world history. In almost every area of life, you can see how much has been accomplished by free competition.
For example, half of all the books ever written, were published in the last 50 years. Half of all the discoveries ever made, were made in the last 50 years. Half of all the knowledge in medicine has been discovered just in the last 15 years. The amount of knowledge on Earth took a thousand years to double, but now some experts in knowledge say that knowledge is doubling every three years; some say faster than that.
But suppose knowledge continues to double every three years—I predict it will accelerate—but even if it just continues to double every three years, a little arithmetic will show you that, in only 30 years, you’ll have a thousand times as much information as you have today. And in 60 years, you’ll have a million times as much information as we have now.
Now, let’s all think how much new, additional spiritual information we will have in the next 60 years. Even I can’t possibly hope that we’ll have a million times as much spiritual information. But I believe, if it’s possible for us to stimulate people of all religions everywhere to be enthusiastic about new things, we can possibly increase spiritual information over one hundred fold.
Now that’s a bold statement, because there has been very little increase in total spiritual information since the great scriptures were written 1,000, 2,000, 4,000 years ago. And one of the reasons is that that type of progress has not been rewarded by any major religion.
Medical doctors who come out with new discoveries are rapidly rewarded and honored. But in all my years as chairman of one of the largest Presbyterian seminaries, where we have had brilliant people on the faculty, they produced almost nothing truly original. Not intentionally mind you and not for lack of brilliance, but it was not expected of them!
And if they had come out with really radical new concepts, it would not have helped their careers. They would have been thought of as out-of-step—maybe heretics. Now, I believe that that is false and can be reversed, and that the great gift we have from God of freedom, for the first time in the history of humanity, freedom, the ability of each person to invent new ideas and new products, is going to spread into the field of spiritual information.
I believe that probably no person has ever yet understood even one percent of the totality of God; the vastness of God; the complexity of God. But it is possible, by the gifts God has given us in freedom, that perhaps as quickly as 100 years from now, we may know a 100 times as much about God as we know now.
Now, one of the many benefits from that is likely to be an elimination of religious wars. Throughout history, there have been numerous wars that were blamed on religion, but that was because people were so egotistical that they thought they had the total truth. If you think you have the total truth, and somebody comes to you with a different idea—it was allegedly your duty to convert him or kill him. That has too often tragically happened.
But if you can be humble—if you can be truly humble—and admit that no human being has yet known even one percent of the totality of God, then when a heretic comes to you, you can say, “wonderful, how generous of you to share your new idea with me. Please tell me. I want to learn. I know so little.”
Now, that would be a tremendous benefit—I believe a benefit as great as what happened after Adam Smith, when the output of goods in the world multiplied a hundred fold in only 200 years.
In this regard, I truly admire David and Mary Theroux for what they are doing. It’s totally unselfish. It’s remarkably efficient. I think you can just see from this evening alone how amazing a small organization can be in bringing together marvelous people, so that we learn from each other. And I certainly intend to continue to make contributions every year to The Independent Institute.
I believe there are very few ways that you can help humanity as much as to spread the benefits of the concept of free competition, and one of the great organizations worldwide that is now spreading that concept is The Independent Institute. So it’s an honor for me, and a joy, to participate in their work; to learn more about their work. I feel you are all sharing in that information.
Now one of the things that David and Mary are doing—and that many of you are also are doing—is to point out the misunderstandings about free competition. It’s not difficult to show that free competition has expanded production, but there are still large numbers of intelligent people who think that free competition favors the rich. They think that, in order to make the world a just and loving place, you must forcibly try to equalize people.
When I was at Oxford University long ago, about half of all the students thought that the world would be saved by communism. And I believe that about two-thirds of the Oxford faculty in those ancient days also believed the same way. And there was a period within your lifetime when it was come and go—a toss of the coin as to whether the world’s future was dependent on the attitudes of statism or on freedom.
But look what’s happened. Look what’s happened in such a short time. Humanity has won. No longer is there any question that freedom has won this long contest—a mental contest, a military contest, between dictatorship and freedom. We should be overwhelmingly grateful that, for the first time in all world history, most nations live under relative freedom. In fact, until just 15 years ago, you could not have made that statement. And it may well accelerate.
We don’t know why God created the universe or created the Earth, but it appears from many things that it was to accelerate creativity. Creativity seems to be a part of God. So why did he create humans? As far as we know, there was never any creation before us who had the brains, the consciousness, and the ability to think for themselves that humans have. So, humans may have been created to be helpers in accelerating God’s creativity. And I think you can see it all around you, that creativity is accelerating.
For example, already, and totally unexpectedly—I couldn’t conceivably have predicted this when I was younger—humans are inventing intelligences greater than human intelligence. Already, there are numerous computers available that can do mathematical, factual studies and analysis far beyond human ability. Now, I do not foresee the day when such computers surpass humans in love or compassion or worship, but still, it’s illuminating to me to think that humans may actually be creating helpers to be servants in God’s accelerating creativity.
Now, as I have said, not everybody realizes all of this. And so, I hope that you will continue as you are doing already, to show people—not only in America, but all over the world—how great is the benefit of free competition. Free competition not only enriches the poor, but free competition has proved to be the greatest teacher of moral ethics.
Let’s take first the question of enriching the poor. Many people think that governments and socialism enrich the rich, but let’s study the history of poor people. Last week, a study published by the Department of the U.S. Census looks at the one-fifth of the people in America who are the poorest. Looking at these figures, you find that the living space of the poorest one-fifth of people in America is four times as great as the average living space of all people in Russia, rich and poor. You also find from these statistics on American poor that the number of automobiles owned by those poor in America is greater than the total number of automobiles owned by all the people of Russia, China, Cuba and North Korea.
So that tells you something about what freedom can accomplish materially. But what’s even greater is what freedom can accomplish spiritually. Now what does it accomplish spiritually? I am a great believer in using simple practicality. I made a study for 55 years of literally thousands of corporations to decide which ones were the best bargains for my clients to put their money in. And I observed clearly that, in order to be successful, you must be spiritual. You must exhibit spirituality.
For example, under free competition—not under dictatorship, but under free competition—if you do not give your customer better quality and lower prices, he’ll go to your competitor. If you do not give your employees better living conditions, more opportunities for advancement, they’ll go to your competitor. And if you do not create for yourself and your organization a reputation for total honesty and reliability, you’ll lose your customers. So if you really ever expect your organization to be lastingly, not temporarily, but lastingly successful, it must be founded on ethics. So I hope we can convince the people who do not yet see that free competition is probably the greatest teacher of ethics the world has yet found.
This is what I wanted to share with you tonight. I believe I will also make a prediction: that, in as short a time as one century, we will know a hundred times as much about God as anybody has ever known before. And I believe that many of you will be helpers, participants in that increased understanding of spiritual information.
So finally, my friends, I love you, every one of you. I love you to an unlimited extent and without exception. I try my best to love every human being without any exception, and I think you share that viewpoint with me. And if you do that, all other things seem to fall in place: success comes to you, happiness comes to you, wealth comes to you, and much more, if you genuinely try your level best to love every human being to an unlimited extent without any exception.
And so tonight, dear friends, I look forward to living enough longer after my current age of 85 that I can attend a great banquet to toast the wonderful things that you, all of you, will have done to help freedom and religion. Thank you.
David Theroux:
In the spirit of love and gratitude, it gives me great pleasure to present our award, which is named after Alexis de Tocqueville, the brilliant 19th century classical liberal philosopher and author of the extremely important and influential book, Democracy in America.
John is the fourth recipient of the award. It is not an award we give every year, but it is an award that, in many respects, is defined for John.
John, in deep appreciation for and recognition of your outstanding global contributions in advancing business excellence, free market entreprenurship, education, moral principles, and economic and social welfare, and your unwavering dedication to the principles of individual liberty as the foundation of a free and human society, we very proudly present the Alexis de Tocqueville Award to you.
John Templeton:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I will try to live better in order to deserve what you have done and said tonight. I love you, and God bless you all!
David Theroux:
I want to thank, again, everyone who has been involved in making possible our program this evening—especially you here with us who have shared your time and have been so generous in participating with us. We look forward to your joining with us at future Independent Institute events. Thank you for joining with us. Good night.
