Garet Garrett | |
|---|---|
 Garrett in the 1930s | |
| Born | Edward Peter Garrett February 19, 1878 Pana, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died | November 6, 1954(1954-11-06) (aged 76) Tuckahoe, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Occupations | Journalist, author |
| Spouse | 3 |
Garet Garrett (February 19, 1878 – November 6, 1954), bornEdward Peter Garrett, was an American journalist and author, known for his opposition to theNew Deal and U.S. involvement in World War II.
Garrett was born February 19, 1878, atPana, Illinois, and grew up on a farm nearBurlington, Iowa. He left home as a teenager, finding work as aprinter's devil inCleveland. In 1898, he moved toWashington, D.C., where he covered the administration ofWilliam McKinley as a newspaper reporter and then changed his first name to "Garet", which he pronounced the same as "Garrett." In 1900, he moved to New York City, where he became a financial reporter. By 1910, he had become a financial columnist for theNew York Evening Post. In 1913, he became editor ofThe New York Times Annalist, a new financial weekly later known simply asThe Annalist,[1] and, in 1915, he joined the editorial council ofThe New York Times. In 1916, at 38, he became the executive editor of theNew-York Tribune.
In 1922, he became the principal writer on economic issues for theSaturday Evening Post, a position he held until 1942. From 1944 to 1950 he editedAmerican Affairs, the magazine ofThe Conference Board. In his career, Garrett was a confidant ofBernard Baruch andHerbert Hoover.
Garrett wrote 13 books:Where the Money Grows (1911),The Blue Wound (1921),The Driver (1922),The Cinder Buggy (1923),Satan's Bushel (1924),Ouroboros, or the Mechanical Extension of Mankind (1926),Harangue (1927),The American Omen (1928),A Bubble That Broke the World (1932),A Time Is Born (1944),The Wild Wheel (1952),The People's Pottage (1953) andThe American Story (1955).
Garrett's most-read work isThe People's Pottage, which consists of three essays. "The Revolution Was" portrays the New Deal as a "revolution within the form" that undermined the American republic. "Ex America" charts the decline in America's individualist values from 1900 to 1950. "Rise of Empire" argues that America has become an imperial state, incompatible with Garrett's views, "a constitutional, representative, limited government in the republican form."[citation needed]
Garet Garrett was married three times: to Bessie Hamilton in 1900, to Ida Irvin in 1908, and to Dorothy Williams Goulet in 1947. He had no children. He died November 6, 1954, at his home in theTuckahoe section ofUpper Township, New Jersey, while inspecting the proofs ofThe American Story.[citation needed]
Garett was called aconservative in his obituary, and after his death, his bookThe People's Pottage was adopted as one of the "twelve candles" of theJohn Birch Society. He is now sometimes called a member of theOld Right and is seen as alibertarian orclassical liberal.
Under the editorGeorge Horace Lorimer at theSaturday Evening Post, in the 1920s, Garrett attacked proposals for American forgiveness of European war debts and for the bailout of American farmers. After the election ofFranklin Roosevelt, he became one of the most vocal opponents of Roosevelt's centralization of political and economic power in the federal government. He attacked theNew Deal in articles in theSaturday Evening Post between 1933 and 1940.
In 1940, he became thePost's editor-in-chief. Garrett opposed the Roosevelt administration's moves toward intervention in theSecond World War in Europe and was one of the most widely-read non-interventionists. After the Japaneseattack on Pearl Harbor, Garrett supported the war but was still fired from thePost.[2]
The libertarian writerJustin Raimondo argued that Garrett's 1922 novelThe Driver was an unacknowledged influence on philosopherAyn Rand.
Garrett’s novel is about a speculator called Henry M. Galt who takes over a failing railroad and becomes the wealthiest man in America. This is very similar to the basic concept of Rand’s 1957 novelAtlas Shrugged, which has a mystery character namedJohn Galt who operates a railroad; the book uses the repeated question “Who is John Galt?”[3]
In contrast,Chris Matthew Sciabarra argued Raimondo's "claims that Rand plagiarized...The Driver" to be "unsupported".[4]
Garrett's biographer,Bruce Ramsey, wrote: "BothThe Driver andAtlas Shrugged have to do with running railroads during an economic depression, and both suggest pro-capitalist ways in which the country might get out of the depression. But in plot, character, tone, and theme they are very different."[5]
