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To William Mullendore [Letter 124]

Item Reference Code: 004_15B_008_001

Date(s) of creation

January 17, 1944

Recipient

William Mullendore

Transcript

William Mullendore (1892–1983) was executive vice president and later president of Southern California Edison.

January 17, 1944 

Dear Mr. Mullendore:

Please forgive me the delay in acknowledging your note and the excerpts from Toohey’s speech which you sent me. Allow me to thank you now and to tell you that I appreciated it very much. 

I was rather thrilled by the excerpts you chose—it was very interesting for me to see what impressed you out of that speech. I note that you picked several which were my own favorite lines, such as: “Suspend reason and you play it deuces wild.” 

I hope that I will have an opportunity to see you again and to talk to you. You were one of five guests at that dinner who, I felt certain, were true and intelligent conservatives.[*] Unfortunately, I was not so sure about some of the others—and I should have liked to hear more from you. 

With my best regards,

Sincerely yours,

 

Ayn Rand

 

*The dinner, held on December 21, 1943, was hosted by Leonard Read. The guest list is not known.

In 1961, AR described Mullendore as “the only businessman that I know of—then or in fact now—who was completely uncompromising. He was for free enterprise, laissez-faire, with no middle of the road, none of that conservative compromising.”