John Fabian Witt — The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America - with David Cole

In 1922, Charles Garland, a young idealist, rejected a million-dollar inheritance, opting instead to invest in a future where radical ideas like economic equality and social justice could flourish. Over the next two decades, the Garland Fund, though dwarfed by the charitable foundations of industrial titans like Carnegie and Rockefeller, would become a crucible for progressive thought.The men and women of the Garland Fund cooperated and they bickered, they competed and (at least once) formed romantic connections. Shared beliefs, however, linked them throughout. They believed that American capitalism was broken. They believed that American democracy, if it had ever existed, disserved those who had the least. And they believed that American institutions needed to be radically remade for the modern age.By the time they exhausted the Fund's resources, they had succeeded in turning their once radical ideas--ideas like free speech, working class empowerment, and desegregation--into guiding principles for American life.The Radical Fund is not just a historical account; it is a testament to the power of visionary organizations, a meditation on the vexed role of money in an age of robber barons and vast fortunes, and a hopeful book for anxious times. Witt's sweeping, luminous narrative provides a road map for how people with heretical ideas can bring about audacious change.John Fabian Witt is the Allen H. Duffy class of 1960 professor of law at Yale Law School and a professor in the Yale history department. He is the author of a number of books, including Lincoln's Code, which was awarded the Bancroft Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The New Republic, among other publications. He lives with his family in Connecticut where he tends an orchard, watches baseball, and fishes in the Long Island Sound.Witt is in conversation with David Cole, David Cole is the Honorable George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy and former National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He writes about and teaches constitutional law, freedom of speech, and constitutional criminal procedure. He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and is the legal affairs correspondent for The Nation. David has published widely in law journals and the popular press, including The Yale Law Journal, California Law Review, Stanford Law Review, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The New Republic. He is the author or editor of ten books, several of which have won awards. David received his bachelor’s degree and law degree from Yale University. He worked as a staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights from 1985 to 1990. He has continued to litigate as a professor and, from 2017 to 2024, as National Legal Director of the ACLU. https://politics-prose.com/book/9781476765877?ic_referral=Lbp6-d3As7DcQ15LoLuKrOI5q_COafdp4RYL6gYyfKUwM55SHo5veRiupIM4ZC0QE9ryfizNk6bP-91D-T8KKKhmvOguktxXRchQY1nmnq6pUpzdmoXqMWVkx5IY9NZMitk-yrY