In Memoriam Paul L. Poirot (1915ndash;2006)

by Beth Hoffman

Paul L. Poirot, editor of The Freeman for over 30 years, died last Friday in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. He was 90.

Paul Poirot was born in Illinois farm country and received his bachelor's degree in agriculture from the University of Illinois in 1936. He went on to study at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and received his Ph.D. in agricultural economics in 1940. Following stints at the Office of Price Administration and as an economist at a feed, seed, and fertilizer cooperative in Ithaca, he joined the staff of FEE in 1949.

Dr. Poirot edited many of the “In Brief” pamphlets that were the primary releases in the first decade of FEE’s existence. His monograph on Social Security, The Pension Idea, explored in detail the concepts of individual security and property and why we cannot look to the false charity of governmental subsidy.

When FEE began publishing The Freeman as a monthly in 1956, Leonard Read tapped Paul Poirot as editor. It was a sound choice. As a writer, he was an exact thinker. As a reader, he was thorough. As a man, he was modest. These traits, combined with sound judgment, diligence, and firm adherence to principle, made Paul Poirot an astute editor. With his dry wit and forbearance, he was also an amiable colleague and wonderful boss.

Paul Poirot’s real work at FEE was largely unseen. Readers saw only the final product of his labors: the books he meticulously edited and, of course, each finished issue of The Freeman. What they did not see was his voluminous correspondence with authors — encouraging the newcomer who showed promise, delicately rejecting an unsuitable manuscript, or firmly explaining to a freelancer that his manuscript was somewhat outside our rather narrow scope of free-market economics and limited government.

In this sense, Paul Poirot was a teacher as well. A good editor teaches: by his choice of articles; by polishing the work of an inexperienced writer, and by pointing out weaknesses in style or argument to an experienced one. Many a Freeman author has told me that Paul Poirot was an invaluable mentor in the course of his career. Others, years after the sting of rejection had subsided, confided to me that Dr. Poirot had been correct in not publishing their early efforts.

Paul Poirot was guided in all his efforts by his firm understanding of the principles of the free market and individual liberty. As he cogently explained in his May 1975 Freeman article, He Gains Most Who Serves Best: While the rule of the market allows the greatest gain to the one who serves best, it affords no protection for any gain except through continuing use in the efficient service of others. In other words, the market insists that scarce resources be owned by those who are most proficient in serving willing customers, which is the least wasteful social distribution of wealth that is possible. To arbitrarily or coercively change the market-derived pattern of ownership is to introduce waste; and there is no historical or theoretically sound evidence that waste of scarce resources is socially beneficial. What any waste of any scarce resource amounts to in the final analysis is a waste of human lives — the inevitable consequence when compulsory collectivism interferes with or displaces the market process of open competition. Dr. Poirot is survived by his wife of 58 years, Josephine Coder Nash Poirot; his son and daughter-in-law, Richard and Elizabeth Poirot; two grandchildren, Michael and Danielle; his brother Robert Poirot; and his sister Rebecca Havlicek.

Beth Hoffman worked for Paul Poirot for 12 years as his editorial assistant and production editor of The Freeman. She is currently managing editor of the magazine.

FEE Timely Classics
“He Gains Most Who Serves Best” by Paul L. Poirot
“The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty” by Paul L. Poirot