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Old Rugged Cro$$. To Author Rand, the "freedom and reason" that should combat "faith and force" were best embodied in the "historical miracle" of early capitalism. "Never mind the low wages and the harsh living conditions" of the early years. "Capitalism did not create poverty—it inherited it." The real miracle was the creation of "the necessary corollary of political freedom"—laissez-faire capitalism. The tragedy is that this "magnificent benefactor of mankind" soon died —Government controls killed it. And even the "so-called defenders" of capitalism were too chickenhearted to resist. "Because, ladies and gentlemen, capitalism and altruism are incompatible. Make no mistake about it—and tell it to your Republican friends: capitalism and altruism cannot coexist in the same man or in the same society." True capitalism is just as dead under Eisenhower Republicanism as under the New Deal, according to Author Rand, and it cannot be reborn with any such slogan as "service to society." Only its original purpose will do: "The moral justification of capitalism is man's right to exist for his own sake." The alternative to this "rational" purpose is totalitarianism.
Is there any hope? In a windup that left Yalemen limp, Author Rand crackled: "Civilization does not have to perish. The brutes are winning only by default. But in order to fight them to the finish and with full rectitude, it is the altruist morality that you have to reject."
— And students at other colleges across the country. Launched at Yale last spring, Challenge already has chapters at Antioch, Chicago, Oberlin, Princeton, Reed, Smith, Stephens and Wisconsin.'