Frank Chodorov
Aaron M. Penn
[Reprinted from comments posted to an online
discussion group, November 1999]
The eleventh child of Russian immigrants on the Lower West Side of
New York, he was named Fishel Chodorowsky but was "always known
as Frank Chodorov."1 A 1907 graduate of Columbia University, he
had a textile business, followed by a mail-order clothing business,
which succumbed to the Great Depression. After this disaster, he
went into saleswork, but came to be best known as a promoter of
libertarian ideas.An important influence on Chodorov was the
writings of Henry George, apostle of free trade, free markets, and
unfortunately, some would say the "Single Tax" on
land, which was supposed to alleviate the evils of rent and private
land-ownership. Sometime in the 'teens he read George's Progress and
Poverty, which had a profound impact on his world-outlook. In 1941
he wrote of George: "His is the philosophy of free enterprise,
free trade, free men."2 Another important mentor to Chodorov
was the renowned essayist Albert Jay Nock, himself an extreme
libertarian I do not mean the word "extreme" as a
criticism and Georgist.