William F. Buckley Jr. and the American Character

Summary

The Radio Free Hillsdale Hour

Episode: William F. Buckley Jr. and the American Character
Date: March 14, 2025
Host: Scott Bertram

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Overview

This episode of The Radio Free Hillsdale Hour explores the enduring legacy and personal character of William F. Buckley, Jr.—the influential author, intellectual, and founder of National Review—through a conversation with Lawrence Perlman, author of American Impresario: William F. Buckley, Jr. And the Elements of American Character. The show also features an initial discussion on the origins and evolution of the American administrative state with Dr. Joseph Postel, associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.

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Segment 1: Bureaucracy in America — Dr. Joseph Postel

(00:47–14:48)

Main Points

• Defining the "Administrative State"

  • The "administrative state" refers to the vast system of federal agencies (EPA, SEC, OSHA, etc.) that wield substantial rule-making, enforcement, and judicial powers—often bypassing the constitutional branches.

    “Most of the power, most of the laws, most of the enforcement is really done not by the Schoolhouse Rock branches of government that you are familiar with… but this new sort of fourth branch.”
    — Dr. Joseph Postel [01:54]

• History and Civil Service Reform

  • Rooted in efforts to curb patronage in the 19th century, civil service reformers sought neutral, competent federal appointments—sparked notably by the assassination of President Garfield by a patronage seeker.
  • The Pendleton Act (1883) is commonly viewed as the origin of federal bureaucracy, but Postel stresses most advocates only sought to temper party patronage, not create an administrative leviathan.

    “Most people see the Pendleton Act... as the beginning of the bureaucracy… it’s not really what’s going on.”
    — Dr. Joseph Postel [06:05]

• Creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and Early Administrative Limits

  • The ICC (1887) was a response to railroad abuses, intended to regulate rates and ensure fairness.
  • However, the ICC was, by design, a “paper tiger”—lacking independent enforcement/judicial authority and constrained by close judicial oversight.

    “One person calls it an ornamental board, as useless as the fifth wheel on a wagon.”
    — Dr. Joseph Postel [09:25]

• Judicial Review and Agency Power

  • Unlike today, early agencies like the ICC had to go to court to enforce orders and did not receive judicial deference.
  • Modern agencies now have broad legislative, executive, and judicial powers, a stark contrast to 19th-century ideals.

• Progressive Era Expansion and the Real Birth of the Administrative State

  • True agency power—like the authority to set rates—arrived with the Hepburn Act (1906) under Theodore Roosevelt.
  • This shift reflected new progressive theories that emphasized expert-driven administration.

Notable Quotes and Timestamps

• “It describes an alphabet soup constellation of agencies… the real governance decisions in America are made today.”
  — Dr. Joseph Postel [01:54]

• “We want to make sure there are limits on these administrators. We don’t want… a system of government where the administrative officers have power that should belong to [Congress, the President, and Courts].”
  — Dr. Joseph Postel [11:38]

• “If a person were to ask me, ‘What is the birth date of the administrative state?’… I put it [at] 1906.”
  — Dr. Joseph Postel [13:24]

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Segment 2: William F. Buckley Jr. and the American Character — Lawrence Perlman

(16:34–37:05)

Main Points

How Larry Perlman and Buckley Met

• Perlman, a first-generation American and aspiring concert pianist, was inspired by Buckley— “a light in our house” for his anti-communist role and love of classical music.
• Wrote Buckley a thank you letter offering a piano recital as gratitude; Buckley personally invited Perlman to his home to perform.

  “Much like Charlie Bucket… he had sent me a golden ticket which was the start of an incredible friendship.”
  — Lawrence Perlman [19:05]

The Friendship and Musical Bond

• Recital led to sporadic correspondence, followed by a second “bigger” letter about promoting music education, a shared passion of Buckley’s.

  “I wanted to do for classical music that which he had done for conservatism in America. And that got his attention.”
  — Lawrence Perlman [21:00]

• Buckley provided Perlman with a research grant to study the effects of music education in NYC schools.

• Buckley’s upbringing involved deep exposure to classical music and disciplined practice—a value he sought to disseminate.

Buckley’s Values and Character

• Openness & Mentorship

  • Buckley believed in responding earnestly to letters, supporting young talent, and mentoring new voices.

    “If you took time to write a letter to him, he was going to take time to write a letter back to you.”
    — Lawrence Perlman [26:00]

  • Buckley’s many proteges and broad friendships (even across ideological divides) evidenced his hospitality and sense of responsibility.

    “Milton Friedman was asked once what greatest quality Bill Buckley had, and he said, Friendship.”
    — Lawrence Perlman [27:25]

• Love of Music—Especially Bach

  • Buckley cherished the structure, order, and beauty of Bach as a model for both music and intellect.

    “Bill loved structure. He understood this foundational element… the importance of that.”
    — Lawrence Perlman [27:34]

• Philanthropy and Recognition

  • Buckley insisted on compensating Perlman for performances—out of respect for creative work.

    “I’m a writer, and I expect to be paid for my writing… you are a musician, and you’re going to be paid.”
    — William F. Buckley Jr. (recounted by Perlman) [29:27]

• Discipline

  • Habitually kept a rigorous schedule, retiring early to rise at 5 a.m. to write, reflecting respect for time and self-mastery.

    “When it hit about 10 o’clock, he was gone… up by five… an incredibly rigorous regimen.”
    — Lawrence Perlman [33:30]

• Communication

  • Buckley was a prolific correspondent with over a thousand shoeboxes of letters—valuing the written word and personal connection.

    “What did you learn from Buckley about the importance of communication? I learned in spades, really.”
    — Lawrence Perlman [31:20]

• Influence on Proteges

  • Buckley’s belief in Perlman emboldened him to pursue ambitious projects in music and media, providing a platform and confidence for broader ventures.

Reflection on Legacy

• Perlman credits Buckley as a critical mentor whose friendship, open-mindedness, and belief in the potential of others transformed his own life and ambitions.

  “All of these things became possible because Bill Buckley gave me the confidence—his belief in me.”
  — Lawrence Perlman [36:19]

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Notable Quotes & Moments (Chronological Highlights)

• On Patronage and Bureaucracy:
  "The federal bureaucracy… they were appointed by the parties. They were political in nature. And what happens… is that these people are no longer put in by elected officials…"
  — Dr. Joseph Postel [04:06]

• On Music and Human Achievement:
  "Bill saw music…as one of the greatest achievements in human history."
  — Lawrence Perlman [22:58]

• On Philanthropy:
  "He didn’t take talent for granted… It comes back to mutual respect and not taking things for granted, which is an amazing quality."
  — Lawrence Perlman [29:27]

• On Mentorship:
  "If the right thing was presented to him, he would then connect. But he felt a responsibility to come back to a person with an answer."
  — Lawrence Perlman [25:26]

• On Friendship across Differences:
  "Bill Buckley was the greatest example, I think, through his program Firing Line… and through his general friendships… many others who he didn’t see eye to eye on in terms of politics or social issues… he was an incredible friend."
  — Lawrence Perlman [26:37]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:47 — Introduction of Dr. Joseph Postel; administrative state basics
• 04:06 — Pendleton Act and civil service reform context
• 06:58 — Founding of the ICC and its limited power
• 12:11 — Comparison of early vs. modern agencies
• 13:24 — The real origins of agency power (1906 Hepburn Act)
• 17:28 — Larry Perlman on meeting Buckley, their first recital
• 20:12 — The importance of communication and the second meeting
• 22:58 — Buckley’s musical upbringing and family values
• 25:26 — Reflections on Buckley’s openness and mentorship
• 27:34 — Buckley’s love of Bach
• 29:27 — Philanthropy, respect for work, and compensation
• 31:20 — The art and discipline of communication
• 33:30 — Buckley’s disciplined lifestyle
• 36:19 — Buckley’s long-term mentoring and its effects

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Conclusion

This episode offers a richly personal and philosophical portrait of William F. Buckley, Jr. Beyond his political and cultural legacy, listeners witness Buckley’s devotion to friendship, the arts, discipline, communication, and mentorship—qualities that, in Perlman’s words, constitute “the elements of American character.” The initial segment provides historical and constitutional context for contemporary American governance, rounding out a broadcast rich with both intellectual history and human story.

Transcript

[Dr. Joseph Postel]

Foreign from the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, where the good, the true and the beautiful are taught.

[Scott Bertram]

Nurtured and honored, this is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.

[Lawrence Perlman]

It incredible capacity for discipline. I was blown away by it. One of the examples was really going to dinner parties and he would disappear. When it hit about 10 o', clock, he was gone. He had to get to bed because he would be up by five. And he had this incredibly rigorous regimen where he was writing three columns a week. He had firing line.

[Scott Bertram]

This is your host, Scott Bertram. Welcome to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. That was Lawrence Perlman, author of the new book American Impresario, William F. Buckley, Jr. And the Elements of American Character. We'll talk in depth with Lawrence about that book later on in today's program. First, we're joined by Dr. Joseph Postel. He is associate professor of politics here at Hillsdale College and is the author of the book Bureaucracy in the Administrative State's Challenge to constitutional democracy. Dr. Postel, thanks so much for joining us.

[Dr. Joseph Postel]

Thanks for having me on.

[Scott Bertram]

That book's been out for a couple of years now, still very relevant. And so we'll have a couple of conversations in which we zero in on one of the chapters inside bureaucracy in America. And today we talk about the beginning of bureaucracy. I want to define a phrase first. It's one that people have heard often and perhaps use themselves. But for our purposes, how would you define what the administrative state is? What does it mean when we use that phrase?

[Dr. Joseph Postel]

So this term, people sort of wondering, what are we talking about when we talk about the administrative state? Of course, it's hard to come up with a definitive definition that everybody will agree on. But essentially what describes a sort of Alphabet soup constellation of administrative agencies where the real governance decisions in America are made today, epa, sec, osha and so forth. And we've reached the point in American history and American politics where most of the power, most of the laws, most of the enforcement is really done not by the Schoolhouse Rock branches of government that you are familiar with from civics classes, but this new sort of fourth branch of government where the powers are collected. And a couple of basic features of this administrative state stand out. One is the transfer or delegation of legislative power to these agencies. So EPA makes rules and regulations, or faa. The Federal Aviation Administration makes rules or regulations. Those are essentially laws, but they're not passed by Congress anymore. They're passed by These agencies. A second thing is that these powers are now combined, so the same hands that write these rules and regulations enforce them. And even this is something people don't generally understand happens in America today. Many of these agencies have their own judges. We call them administrative law judges. So they decide the cases brought by the prosecutors in their own offices having to do with laws that are written by their own office. It's sort of judge, jury executioner, lawmaker, prosecutor, investigator, investigator. And so not just the transfer of legislative power to these agencies, but also the combination of all of these powers in this sort of fourth branch of government. And so many people ask questions, well, where did this come from? How did we get to this point in this country? And so the book Bureaucracy in America is really an attempt to trace the history in a broad way of how we got from the Founders Constitution to where we are now.

[Scott Bertram]

Typically, this discussion over civil service reform is presented perhaps as a fight between progressive reformers on one hand and then corrupt political parties on the other. But there's also a powerful constitutional argument from traditional republican principles against civil service reform. Talk more about that, please.

[Dr. Joseph Postel]

Yeah, you're starting to see this come up. This is an interesting part of the history and bureaucracy in America that's come up recently with debates over something like Schedule F, which is a reform about giving the President more control over who's in the bureaucracy. All of this really traces back to this very famous episode in the 1880s that led to a law in 1883 called the Pendleton Act. And what had happened, of course, and we're mostly familiar with this from our high school and college level history classes, is you have the rise of the patronage system. To the victor go the spoils. You win the election and you get to put all of your people in the dog catcher, postmaster, customs collector positions. And so the federal bureaucracy, which there really wasn't one in the 19th century. But to the extent you had administration and officers in the 19th century, they were appointed by the parties. They were, they were political in nature. And what happens over the course of the last 140 years or so is that these people are no longer put in by elected officials. They're now basically appointed through a civil service examination, civil service system. And what happens in this period where this all originates, leading to the pendleton act in 1883, is there are a bunch of civil service reformers who say the patronage system has sort of gotten out of hand. The party machines have gotten too powerful, they've become too corrupt, and we need to at least take Certain positions out of the hands of the parties. If you're a clerk in an office, you don't really need to be appointed on the basis of your loyalty and allegiance to your political party. We should just have somebody in there who's competent and who's chosen on the basis of some sort of neutral principle, like they'll do their job well. So in the early 1880s, this all comes to a head. There's an event that gives rise to this. The assassination of president Garfield. He's actually shot by a civil service office seeker or patronage office seeker who thinks that he's entitled to a patronage job because he supported the party in the last election. And he actually shoots Garfield. And this leads to Garfield's death. And the country is so shocked by this excess of the patronage system that it gives a lot of momentum to the passage of the Pendleton Act. But the interesting thing that I try to explain in the book is that most people see the pendleton act in 1883 is the beginning of the bureaucracy and the civil service. When you go back and you look at the history, it's not really what's going on. Most people are not committed to creating an administrative state in the 1880s. They just want to take some of the excesses of the patronage system out of the system. And really that's what you see happening in the early 1880s.

[Scott Bertram]

The other part of the 1880s that we'll spend a majority of our time, the rest of our conversation on is the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission, which happens in 1887. What is the Interstate Commerce Commission, and what issue was it trying to address? The creation of it.

[Dr. Joseph Postel]

Yeah, the interesting thing. So the Interstate Commerce Commission is one of those very few administrative agencies that must be referred to in the past tense. So it is no longer in existence, Although most of its functions are still part of the federal bureaucracy. It was the first, according to many scholars, the first major administrative agency. It was created in the late 1880s, and it was basically designed to deal with problems in railroad regulation. So discriminatory rates being imposed by railroads, problems in the market conditions in the railroad industry especially, that led to small farmers being discriminated against as opposed to large shippers. And so there's a real fight in the 1880s over what are we going to do about this problem of regulation. And this actually gives rise to a really important point, one that changed my whole thinking as I was writing the book. I used to think the 19th century in America was some sort of wild west, laissez faire, no government Regulation whatsoever, period. And that's not actually the case. There's plenty of regulation happening in America in the 19th century, but everybody is concerned, or almost everybody is concerned during that century with making sure that regulation is kept within the boundaries of constitutional government, that the, the regulations are made by people who are politically accountable and that they're just carried out impartially by executive branch officials, and that you get your day in court in an independent court when that day comes. What happens with the case of railroad regulation is that the government wants to step in and deal with a set of problems, but nobody is in agreement about what form the government regulation should take. And the fight over the Interstate Commerce Commission is a fight by people who want a government agency or a commission to set railroad rates, to regulate what rates shippers are charging for shipping products on their railroads, versus people who say that form of government, that kind of commission style government, is completely antithetical to the republican principles on which this country is founded. And my argument is that although the ICC was created, the people who actually won the fight were the people who were opposed to bureaucracy, because the ICC was essentially a paper tiger for the first several decades of its existence.

[Scott Bertram]

You say the opponents actually won in the end. Was that intentional meaning? Did they realize what they were doing in setting up sort of this paper tiger of a commission?

[Dr. Joseph Postel]

Yeah, I think they all understood this. So when you read some of the account that I provide in the book, one person calls it an ornamental board, as useless as the fifth wheel on a wagon. That the ICC is really something that looks very, very power, but through a variety of legal restraints that they put on the icc. The ICC really couldn't make its own laws, it couldn't enforce its own orders. It was actually having to go to court over and over and over again just to get any of its edicts and its orders enforced as law. And so it's an interesting story when you look at the 1880s outcomes which you created. Administrative agency that still needs to go to court to get its orders enforced. And the judicial review process is not deferential to the agency versus today, where you have many doctrines in our legal system that say, well, when the administrative agency speaks, the judges need to defer to the experts.

[Scott Bertram]

I want to come back to that in a minute. But you mentioned the court system and the ICC having to go to court. How did the Supreme Court around that time interpret the extent of the powers that were given to the icc?

[Dr. Joseph Postel]

Yeah, so the short answer to that question is that the Supreme Court really restricted the powers that were given to the icc. There's always this problem when you pass a big law that creates a new commission or a new agency. See, everybody thinks that the job is done. And what really happens is that's when the policy process begins. So you know, when Obamacare is passed in 2009, that's not the end of the process, that's the beginning. That's when you find out what HHS is going to do. And so there's a whole lot of action that happens after the passage of the ICC, the Interstate Commerce act in the late 1880s. And essentially what happens is the Supreme Court, in a series of decisions, says, well, the ICC can make its pronouncements, but when a railroad sues the icc, it goes to our court. And we're going to take all new testimony, we're going to find the facts completely new, we're going to interpret the law de novo or anu, and we're not going to grant this deference to the so called experts over there at the icc. And even when the ICC issued an order, you basically had to file suit in federal court to have the order enforced. Unlike, say the EPA today, which can issue orders and those orders are legally binding regardless of whether an independent judge has sanctioned the order. And so you see in the early decades of the administrative state, sort of the working out of we want to make sure that there are limits on these administrators. We don't want to create a system of government where the administrative officers have power that should belong to the legislative, executive and judicial branches.

[Scott Bertram]

How would you compare or contrast the constitutional character, the constitutional muster of the ICC to our more modern administrative institutions?

[Dr. Joseph Postel]

I think they're almost completely different. And so the ICC doesn't have the power to set railroad rates in the late 1880s when it's passed. Of course, the EPA today makes air quality standards, OSHA makes workplace safety standards, the securities and Exchange Commission makes all kinds of rules and regulations having to do with what is a security and so forth. And then of course, this is the judicial side of it as well. The ICC did not really have judicial power. It had to go to court. Whereas the sort of sweeping nature of judicial power that's in our administrative agencies today is shocking. There's a case right now in front of the Supreme Court, a case called Jarkercy v. Sec, the securities and Exchange Commission, that has to do with whether an administrative agency, we call them an administrative law judge at the SEC can issue fines, civil penalties, and can actually ban you from practicing in the securities industry based on violating SEC rules. There was nobody at the ICC that had that kind of power over an individual's livelihood or their ability to go out and get and make a living.

[Scott Bertram]

Talking with Dr. Joseph Postel about his book Bureaucracy in America, the chapter the Beginning of Bureaucracy. If the ICC is this paper tiger, as you describe it, when do the regulatory agencies become real tigers?

[Dr. Joseph Postel]

Yeah. So obviously it happens over a long period of time. But if a person were to ask me what is the birth date of the administrative state, it actually also relates to the ICC and that date, I put it 1906. There's a law that is advanced by then President Theodore Roosevelt called the Hepburn act. And it essentially gives the ICC the power to set railroad rates. So now it is the maker of a law, the rate that you can charge to ship something on a railroad. And this was a very controversial power that was really kind of a new frontier that we were giving a legislative power to an administrative agency. So this is the first time you get rate setting power in an Agency in 1906. And I don't think that's just a historical point. I think it also indicates something about the ideas and the philosophy that led to the rise of the administrative state. It was right around that time that the progressive theory of government really advanced by somebody like a Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson after him, where that new theory of government that we want the experts to be in command, we want to consolidate power rather than separate power, that's when you start to see that theory emerge. And so it's no coincidence that that's when you start to see the agencies pick up these new authorities.

[Scott Bertram]

Dr. Joseph Postel, Associate professor of politics here at Hillsdale College and his book Bureaucracy in the Administrative State's Challenge to constitutional democracy. Dr. Postel, thanks so much for joining us on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.

[Dr. Joseph Postel]

Great to be with you.

[Scott Bertram]

Up next, Lawrence Perlman joins us. His book American Impresario. I'm Scott Bertram. This is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.

[Dr. Joseph Postel]

This show is a part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network.

[Scott Bertram]

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[Dr. Joseph Postel]

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[Scott Bertram]

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[Dr. Joseph Postel]

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[Scott Bertram]

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[Dr. Joseph Postel]

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[Narrator/Promoter]

Great books, great people, great ideas. Learning about these things is critical to being a well educated human being. And we can help with the Hillsdale Dialogues. Each week, Hillsdale College President Larry Arne joins radio veteran Hugh Hewitt to discuss topics of enduring relevance. And from time to time, they also talk about current events, but always with an eye toward more fundamental truths. And they want you to tune in to a conversation like no other. The Hillsdale Dialogues are posted every Monday on the Hillsdale College Podcast Network at podcast hillsdale.edu. that's podcast hillsdale.edu. or listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you find your audio.

[Scott Bertram]

Foreign welcome back to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. I'm Scott Bertram. Be sure to join us on X. For updated show and guest info. We're at Hillsdale Radio. We're joined now by Lawrence Perlman. He's the author of American Impresario William F. Buckley, Jr. And the Elements of American Larry, thanks so much for joining us.

[Lawrence Perlman]

Scott thanks so much for having me.

[Scott Bertram]

Enjoyed reading the book. At its core, it is this great story about your relationship with William F. Buckley, Jr. How you met, how it deepened and how it ended, in fact, near the end of the book. Tell us briefly, if you would, how you and William F. Buckley became intertwined in your lives.

[Lawrence Perlman]

Scott thanks for the question and the opportunity to talk about the book. Writing to Bill Buckley is what basically got it all going for me. I was growing up in St. Paul, Minnesota, son of Soviet Jewish immigrants who came to America with basically nothing, started their lives up, and I was a product of that incredible work ethic and always told you can do anything or meet anyone. And I was studying to be a concert pianist. I moved to New York City. I didn't have many friends. And Bill Buckley really shined brightly in my life in the 80s. We're talking about 1994, when I moved to New York. And growing up in the 80s as a Reagan kid, anti communist kid, influenced by my dad in a big way, I knew who William F. Buckley, Jr. Was. He was kind of a light in our house, as was National Review. And I was reading one of his books, which was called Happy Days Were Here Again. It was a post Bush presidency book and post Reagan years. So he was going through his own own kind of search. And in that book I found a few articles that he had written, columns about classical music and the fact that he himself was so interested in such a good pianist and harpsichordist that he played with an orchestra and all sorts.

[Dr. Joseph Postel]

Of things like that.

[Lawrence Perlman]

And I suddenly thought, you know what, William F. Buckley, Jr. Lives here in New York City. So he is really the direct line for my parents coming to America and making it here. Because that's what he did as an anti communist warrior, having played the major role in really bringing and making Reagan a reality and defeating communism. So, long story short, I wanted to write him a thank you letter for emboldening Soviet Jews to come to America to make it here. And the thank you would be a piano recital. And incredibly, Bill Buckley wrote back and invited me to his house at 73rd and Park Avenue here in New York to play a recital. I was just 19 and walked into a world that I had never imagined, only seen in movies. An incredible maisonette, as they called it, a ground floor apartment, 5,000 square feet or so, and into the Buckley world. And that was the first step. Much like Charlie Bucket and let's say Willy Wonka, he had sent me a golden ticket which was the start of an incredible friendship in 1995.

[Scott Bertram]

It could have been a one night affair, so to speak. Could have been, you know, one piano recital and that's that. Why do you think that William F. Buckley was so interested in continuing a conversation with you through letters at the beginning and making you a part of his life?

[Lawrence Perlman]

I've given so much thought to that in my life, really. From 1995 until 98, I didn't see Bill again. It was three and a half years until I saw him the second time. And that experience of playing for him for an hour and the conversation stayed with me in such a defined way. It really defined me in so many ways. I don't think Bill thought about it a single time. I sent him a few letters here and there and he would write back. They were more cursory in tone. They were kind of, you know, thank you for keeping me apprised of your activities. But the door was not wide open to really come back in. And I kept thinking, how do I get back in? And I gave up the career as a pianist. I moved back to Minnesota, finished up at Macalester College, which is not on the National Review conservative college list. And I was a political science and music major and remained true to my conservative values and survived. So I was sitting there at graduation and I thought, you know what? I am an entrepreneur. I wanted to do big things in classical music. And Bill Buckley loved classical music. He was the foremost conservative. Why not go to him for advice? So I wrote a second letter which really had a bigger statement in it that I wanted to do for classical music that which he had done for conservatism in America. And that got his Attention. And this time I got a phone call from his office inviting me to his house for a second meeting that autumn. And of course, people will read about all of this in the book. But in many respects, what I think happened was my kind of comet, or asteroid, if you will, collided at exactly the right moment into his world, because he was thinking about this topic of music education, of classical music, and he himself, many may not know this, but Bill wanted to be a pianist. Up until his teens, he really was thinking about being a musician and then basically gave up the dream because he didn't have the requisite talent. So imagine a world without William F. Buckley, Jr. The great conservative. Had he become a great pianist?

[Scott Bertram]

Talking with Larry Perlman, his new book, American William F. Buckley, Jr. And the Elements of American Character. Throughout the conversation, it gets to a point where he offers you the opportunity for a research grant to look at what happened to 10 years worth of students in New York City schools who did not have music education. You say he wanted to be a pianist. You say in the book that music and faith were at the center of his life. What was it about music that was so important to Bill Buckley that he not only embraced it himself, but wanted others to have the opportunity to embrace it?

[Lawrence Perlman]

I think that Bill saw music, and especially, as he called it, good music, so we would call that classical music in this instance, as one of the greatest achievements in human history. And growing up in Connecticut and in kind of remote Sharon, Connecticut, at Great Elm, the family estate with nine siblings, they were reared on classical music. They had five pianos. They had required piano lessons from a tutor every week, all of them playing and practicing. And then had these listening sessions almost every day, while other kids would be outside playing and, you know, playing here and there, they were looking outside and listening to Mozart and Beethoven and other masters. And at first, I mean, the children would giggle and wonder why they were being put through this. But as Bill points out and pointed out in his writings, after six or eight months, all of these kids were hooked. And I think what Bill was thinking about at that moment when I met him was how could one go through life never hearing this, hearing this kind of music? And when he learned from one of his friends, Skyler Chapin, who was the commissioner of Cultural affairs in New York, that music education, arts education was being reintroduced in the city schools, actually for the first time in about three decades, he said, how could that possibly be? And in came my letter at that moment. So it's kind of an incredible, fortuitous thing for me and it turned out to be fortuitous for him, so he put me out there to research this question.

[Scott Bertram]

Larry Perlman with us, his new book, American Impresario William F. Buckley Jr. And the Elements of American Character. At the end of the book, there is a list of values you've identified, but we see throughout the book you referencing what you think made Bill Buckley special, what made him different. As you accept that grant and go about this study, you mention Bill Buckley was one who trusted fresh minds like yours. Bill Buckley was one who wanted to replicate some of the opportunities that he received, didn't have to do things like this. And there are people out there who perhaps wouldn't have done that. What about Bill Buckley's character enabled him to be the kind of person who would find an 18 year old who wrote him a letter and eventually make him someone who welcomed him into his home.

[Lawrence Perlman]

It was an extraordinary quality of Bill's and virtue, I think, this openness, this idea that throughout his life he had mentors and he had proteges. So he always wanted to give back because he had benefited himself. I think that tied into his faith as well, but it really tied into his core values of not taking people for granted. If you took time to write a letter to him, he was going to take time to write a letter back to you. Maybe he wouldn't take on every single person. It's impossible as a protege. If the right thing was presented to him, he would then connect. But he felt a responsibility to come back to a person with an answer. And when he passed away, the Yale archive received 1100 Shoeboxes of letters in terms of the Buckley Archive. So if you think about that, it made him probably one of the most prolific letter writers of the 20th century. And something was instilled in his childhood and throughout his adulthood to have that respect and not to take people for granted. So I think that friendship stood at the core of Bill. When we look at the era of friends, it's quaint when we talk about connecting with people across the aisle in politics, but Bill Buckley was the greatest example, I think, through his program Firing Line, through the fortnightly dinners that he had at his house on the Upper east side, and through his general friendships, when you look at everyone from Norman Mailer to John Kenneth Galbraith, many others who he didn't see eye to eye on in terms of politics or social issues or things like that. But he found common humanity and he was an incredible friend. And Milton Friedman was asked once what greatest quality Bill Buckley had, and he said, Friendship.

[Scott Bertram]

Why Bach? Buckley loved Bach. Why Bach?

[Lawrence Perlman]

I think that there are a lot of parallels between Bill and Bach. Bach, the greatest composer, arguably the one who set the architecture and really the methodology for classical music in the Baroque era. The complete structure came out of Bach. And Bill, I think, loved structure. He understood it. He understood this foundational element, the importance of that, to kind of set those stones in place. And it influenced him in a very big way, maybe. And this I'm not 100% sure, but of course, there was a lot of Bach played. I know that at home. And so his ear really was trained on Bach because of one of the tutors. And I think that that was a key part of it. And then he got hooked. He got hooked in a big way, to the point where, in my research, I found out through one of the biographies, Bill, that Bill actually wrote a thesis in school or a paper at Yale on the Brandenburg Concerto Number two, which became the theme for Firing Line, which is pretty extraordinary. So it goes back all those decades in terms of the Brandenburg and tying.

[Scott Bertram]

In even with Firing Line around that time, too. You talk about the first time you received a check from William F. Buckley, Jr. For $5, recognition of your playing the piano at one of his get togethers. And it's an awkward situation because he's a friend and you accept it. He insists you accept it. You say Buckley did not take talent for granted. And later on, one of the values you identify as philanthropy in Buckley. What does it mean to support someone, something in a real tangible way like that?

[Lawrence Perlman]

It's such an amazing quality. And what it does for the person who's the recipient is give them even more confidence. I had this tradition with Bill, as people will read playing recitals at his house for many years, for almost a decade. And when I gave that first recital in December 2000, hard to believe almost 25 years ago, I just wanted to play. You know, it was this surreal experience of being back in the maisonette, this time as musical entertainment. Entertainment. And I had great joy playing this Beethoven Sonata, the 31st Beethoven Sonata, which Bill loved very much. And to receive a check maybe a week later or so, it felt wrong in a way, because my. My gift, in a way, was just being there and doing that. And I called Bill and I said, you know, I really can't accept this. And he came back and he said, you know what? I'm a writer, and I expect to be paid for my writing no matter what. And you are a musician, and you're going to be paid modestly. Even in his opinion. But you're going to be paid something for playing. So again, it comes back to mutual respect and not taking things for granted, which is an amazing quality.

[Scott Bertram]

Larry Perlman with US American Impresario is his book the Value of Communication. And this all starts with communication, with this letter that you wrote to Bill Buckley and his insistence that he respond to correspondence. It's a different era and it can be difficult to do this. People want to communicate via email, but other people don't want to use email. People want to communicate via text, but that's not really personal. People rarely pick up the phone to call each other at this point. What did you learn from Bill Buckley about the importance of communication and how did he perhaps come close to. To mastering the art?

[Lawrence Perlman]

I learned in spades, really. And I actually carry a lot of guilt around when I don't answer messages in a timely fashion. And of course, it was a different era, let's say in the early 90s, mid-90s, when I was really writing letters to Bill and from Bill and all those kind of things. And then of course, email entered into the fray. But Bill was always quick, so if you emailed him, he'd email right back. And I was always fascinated. He must be. Must have had hundreds of emails in his inbox, and he was like a machine. And then of course, with letters, he set up a system in his office, and of course he had assistance. But he dictated letters, he made sure that they were written. He made sure that there was an entire culture that was put around that. And I would say that that culture can continue into everything else, into text messages and all kind of communication. But of course, today, the deluge in a way, and also a little bit of a mirage of communication, as you were saying, that we're getting hit from so many different things. It's going back to the most important form of communication, and that is the written word in a formal context. So I feel that if someone actually wants to meet someone and try. And one of the things I want to try to inspire people to do here is to go back to writing a letter and connecting with either your mentor or a potential protege, or if someone's writing you, you never heard of, you have connection to take a chance, you might find an entire world in front of you that you never expected, and that's what build it. And I think we can really learn as a society from that, from that kind of openness. And of course, it's become more difficult, as you pointed out, because of all these other things. But you have to come into focus. And if you FedEx a letter to someone, there's a good probability you may get a form letter. I thought I was going to get a form letter back from Bill Buckley. I never expected this entire thing to happen. So it shows it's worth the investment.

[Scott Bertram]

Discipline is also on the list and you need to be disciplined to respond to communication in the way that Buckley did. Where else did you see this value of discipline make itself apparent? In his life.

[Lawrence Perlman]

He had an incredible capacity for discipline. I was blown away by it. And one of the examples was really going to dinner parties and he would disappear. When it hit about 10 o', clock, he was gone. And people would look around wondering, where is he? And he had to get to bed because he would be up by five. And he had this incredibly rigorous regimen where he was writing three columns a week. He had firing line. Even when he retired from that, he was still writing columns and writing books and doing speaking engagements and all sorts of things. I would say that when Hugh said he was hanging up his hat in numerous areas, he still had a lot of hats that he was wearing. So that discipline was something that inspired me very much. And when I sometimes look and think, oh, you know, I'm getting a little tired from something, or I'm. I have too many things going on, I always think back to Bill Buckley when he was my age and what he was doing. And I have absolutely nothing to complain about. So that discipline of being up at 5 and then going to sleep at 10, making sure that you were going to do that the majority of the time, and that also shows that he respected the value of time and didn't want to waste it.

[Scott Bertram]

You dreamed when you were young of being a concert pianist. That didn't quite happen, although you still were a pianist for William F. Buckley, for his friends, and were still involved in that area for a long time. The reality of what your life became, how would you compare to what perhaps you dreamed it might be when you were young?

[Lawrence Perlman]

Well, in many ways, and not to sound too, let's say, predictable on this, but in a way I've been very fortunate to be living the dream in some ways. And it's really the person responsible for that in a big part, in addition to my parents, really, who were the first people to really invest in everything, was Bill. He was always a positive light of reinforcement for me for projects. And I had this vision to start a cable network actually for classical music 25 years ago, and to do it with Carnegie hall and these kinds of things. And Bill said, why not? That's such a great idea and really kept asking me about it. And this would ultimately become a reality years years later through Carnegie hall plus, which I'm very involved with as a co founder and consultant and the fact that I've been able to do that working in classical music to broaden its appeal to broad it's, let's say, everything from its presence in the media landscape and working with great artists, all of these things became possible because Bill Buckley gave me the confidence, his belief in me. He being there as a friend, as a mentor, made it possible for me to work with anyone and to contact anyone. I never had doubts about my ability to, let's say, interact with people because Bill plopped me down into his universe in my early 20s and that was my training ground. These dinner parties were really my training ground before business school and throughout that. So I'm eternally thankful to him for that because it was the greatest mentorship that I could have had.

[Scott Bertram]

Lawrence Perlman's new book is American William F. Buckley, Jr. And the Elements of American Character. Lawrence, thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.

[Lawrence Perlman]

Thanks, Scott.

[Scott Bertram]

Up next, Dr. Michael Trapepe from Hillsdale's physics department tells us about experimenting with infrared light. I'm Scott Bertram. This is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. On the new episode of the Larry Arn Show, Hillsdale College president Larry P. Arn sits down with pastor, professor and author Kevin DeYoung for a one on one conversation.

[Dr. Joseph Postel]

When Jesus is ascending, about to ascend.

[Scott Bertram]

In Acts chapter one, and the disciples.

[Dr. Joseph Postel]

Ask him, is now, now are you going to set up your kingdom? It's amazing.

[Scott Bertram]

They are still confused. They still are thinking, might this be an earthly kingdom? In John's gospel, they try to make him king by force. Some of his followers, they just can't get out of their head that when.

[Dr. Joseph Postel]

He talks about the kingdom, the only.

[Scott Bertram]

Way they can conceive of power and.

[Dr. Joseph Postel]

True influence and might in the world.

[Scott Bertram]

Is there's a king on a throne.

[Lawrence Perlman]

In a palace, in a castle, in a temple somewhere.

[Scott Bertram]

Listen to this exclusive interview with Kevin DeYoung right now, only available on the Larry Arn Show. Find it on the Hillsdale College Podcast Network at podcast hillsdale.edu, also at Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube and subscribe to receive new episodes delivered right to your device. That's Podcast Hillsdale. Eduardo.

[Narrator/Promoter]

Great books, great people, great ideas. Learning about these things is critical to being a well educated human being and we can help with the Hillsdale Dialogues. Each week, Hillsdale College President Larry Arne joins radio veteran Hugh Hewitt to discuss topics of enduring relevance. And from time to time, they also talk about current events, but always with an eye toward more fundamental truths. And they want you to tune in to a conversation like no other. The Hillsdale Dialogues are posted every Monday on the Hillsdale College Podcast Network at podcast hillsdale.edu. that's podcast hillsdale. Edu. Or listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you find your audio.

[Scott Bertram]

Welcome back to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. I'm Scott Bertrand. Be sure to check out the Hillsdale. Com Podcast Network at Podcast Hillsdale. Edu. Find older episodes of this show, plus other great Hillsdale College audio programs. We're joined by Dr. Michael Trapeppi. He is assistant professor of physics here at Hillsdale College. Dr. Trapepe, thanks for joining us.

[Dr. Michael Trapepe]

Thank you for having me, Scott.

[Scott Bertram]

We're talking today about a lecture you gave last term, why experiment with infrared light? And so part of this will be an introduction, I assume, for our listeners on what exactly is infrared light and then what we can learn by experimenting with it. So we'll start with the. Well, it's all education, I suppose, but what is infrared light? What's the nature of the light? How does it differ from the visible light on the electromagnetic spectrum?

[Dr. Michael Trapepe]

Yeah. So as the name might suggest, infrared light is light that is below the color red. So if we think of the electromagnetic spectrum as being kind of a set of frequencies for electromagnetic radiation, you have frequencies associated with visible light, and blue light has higher frequencies than red light. And then so infrared light is going to be that light that has a lower frequency than red light or higher wavelength. And I apologize right now if I switch between the two interchangeably. That's, that just comes with the field.

[Scott Bertram]

Sure.

[Dr. Michael Trapepe]

But so if, and if you want a number, and here I'm going to make the switch already is its wavelength is between 750 nanometers and 1 millimeter. So it's not quite as long of a wavelength as radio or even microwaves. The way it differs is just, you know, it's, it's the same kind of radiation. But really, what, what makes it different, at least for our experience, is how it interacts with matter and phenomena. So light, because it has a different frequency, will interact with materials differently than infrared light, than radio, than microwaves. So that's what distinguishes all the different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, what can.

[Scott Bertram]

Produce infrared light, and what's special about the light that's Emitted from a laser versus, say, other sources.

[Dr. Michael Trapepe]

Yeah. So you can produce infrared with LEDs. You can obviously produce them with lasers. And actually, anything with a temperature produces infrared light. So. And this is called black body radiation. So you might have heard the term of something being red hot or white hot, that is black body radiation. So that is because that object has a temperature it produces. It emits electromagnetic radiation across the spectrum. And for something that's red hot, the temperature is high enough that that radiation peaks for red light. So the cooler an object is, the lower that peak radiation is. So you and. Or anything in this room is actually, if we could see it, is emitting infrared light.

[Scott Bertram]

What are some of the practical applications of infrared light in fields like science, medicine, industry? And we'll perhaps drill down on some of these in a moment. But how can infrared light be used?

[Dr. Michael Trapepe]

Yeah, so I mean, in a lot of different ways. So I mean, we can think of, like, all the different ways that other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum can be used for just visible light or radio X rays. Rays, and that there's just a variety of uses. Right. Each of these different. Because each of these different parts of the spectrum interacts with matter differently. It allows us to kind of either see into objects differently or control or machine materials differently. So it's. Yeah, I mean, the uses are kind of a little bit all over the place with it.

[Scott Bertram]

Talking with Dr. Michael Trapepe from Hillsdale College, knowledge about experimenting with infrared light. Can we use infrared light to study celestial bodies, distant objects, space?

[Dr. Michael Trapepe]

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, the James Webb telescope, which has been on the news a lot lately, is an infrared telescope. So, you know, whereas Hubble and some of the other telescopes out in orbit look at the visible or X ray or even gamma rays coming at us, the James Webb specifically at infrared. And that has its advantages because it allows us to look at objects that are colder, further away from us, and also lets us see through kind of the dust clouds that can be in the galaxy in that.

[Scott Bertram]

Is that the reason why those images from the Web are so much more clear, distinct? Those images that the web has brought back are just unbelievable.

[Dr. Michael Trapepe]

Yeah, I mean, so funny. Funny you should ask that. And I'm not an astronomer, so you'll.

[Scott Bertram]

Have to talk to Dr. Dolch about that.

[Dr. Michael Trapepe]

Yes, yes, talk to Dr. Dolch about the full details of it. But it is true that for those infrared images, because it's infrared, the colors that they give are false colors. So what. The. What. So what is actually happening is they are collecting the. The infrared light and then they are processing those colors. But I mean, the objects you are seeing in fact there. And so I think one of the, one of the stark differences is if you have a picture of a nebula with the visible, you'll see a lot of the clouds and that whereas in the infrared, that nebula will look a little more transparent. You'll start to see some of the objects behind it in that.

[Scott Bertram]

So, all right, what about communication technologies, remote controls, fiber optics? How is infrared light used there?

[Dr. Michael Trapepe]

Yeah, so a lot of the inexpensive remote control remotes in that will use like a infrared LED to send a light signal to a receiver, whether it be on like your TV or some other device. And mainly that's done just because it's cheap and you can, you know, it's a LEDs cost almost nothing nowadays. And it's a lot less distracting than if you were to use visible light for the same task. So you can in fact see it depending on the kind of phone that you have. So if you've got kind of an Android phone. I've had students, I don't own an Apple, but I've had students try to do this with their Apple phones and they have a hard time. If you point the camera at the little, oh, what do you call it, the bulb at the end of the remote and you have the camera app on and you press a button on the remote, you can see the LED light up and that. So your phone is just sensitive enough to that frequency. Now, fiber optics for infrared, that is all done with infrared signals in that. And so it's the reason for that being is the properties of glass in the infrared. Glass is very good at transmitting infrared light, you might imagine, right. On a nice sunny day, you can feel all of that heat coming through the window from the sun. And then also too, it doesn't disperse the. The infrared light like it does other colors. So that allows you to keep signals nice and together so that they don't degrade over the distances that you need for fiber optics.

[Scott Bertram]

What about infrared lights in night vision goggles, Security cameras? We all have rings or home security cameras these days. Infrared light used in those kind of applications?

[Dr. Michael Trapepe]

Yeah, yeah. Now it gets used kind of in two different ways. You can have kind of an active system where you have Again, these infrared LEDs mounted and they will emit light and they kind of illuminate the area and then the camera picks it up. And this is used a lot for your security cameras and that. But you can also do it passively. You can have a. Just a Camera that is set to the wavelengths that are a little bit further into the infrared. And they can then pick up the, the radiation that warm bodies produce. And then you can, you can see, you can see that light then. And that's what gets used in like your tactical night vision or even those thermal cameras where they're trying to inspect like, oh, do you have a draft or something?

[Scott Bertram]

Dr. Michael Trapepe is with us, assistant professor of physics at Hillsdale College. We talk about all these potential applications. So why do we experiment with infrared light? What kind of experiments are you conducting? What data are you trying to find?

[Dr. Michael Trapepe]

Yeah, so why infrared light? Again, because of its just location on the electromagnetic spectrum. It's, for one thing, we can actually get nice light sources from it. So when you're working with lasers, a lot of times you're constrained to what you can actually the frequency, I should say, of the laser that you can get. So infrared is, is a very nice range to use. Now my experiments, we use pulsed infrared lasers and try to study the interaction of light with different materials. And kind of experiment we do is we send this, these infrared pulses through kind of this crystalline sample and it will double the frequency of that light. And so it's called second harmonic generation. And it's kind of a very cool phenomena because you can have basically the light, you can't see it going into the material, but then when it frequency doubles, it becomes green. So you'll just see kind of this green light being emitted by this sample. And it's kind of like, this is weird. Where is this coming from? So, and that's, and that's an advantage of using infrared light as opposed to visible light, because if you were to do that with like a red laser or even a green laser, you know, now if you do second harmonic generation, the light might be blue or even ultraviolet, and it can be difficult to have that light propagate through air. Ultraviolet light, as much as we are still, you know, warned about, you know, UV rays coming through the, coming from the sun, and that is covering up in the, in the daytime, the air actually does a pretty good job of absorbing UV rays. So it's nice to have green light come out because that doesn't get absorbed as much just by ambient atmosphere.

[Scott Bertram]

And then do the students enjoy working with infrared light? Do you work with them at all?

[Dr. Michael Trapepe]

Yeah, no, I have just this past summer had some students work in my lab and that. And they enjoy it. Not what they expect, right? They think laser lab. And so they think. Exactly from the movie that the laser is just this glowing beam kind of shining across the table. So it's a little bit of an adjustment for them. But once they start kind of seeing the visuals, pulling out their phone and they can kind of see that the light is there, they start to get excited about it.

[Scott Bertram]

Dr. Michael Trapepe, Assistant professor of physics here at Hillsdale College, as we talk about why experience experiment with infrared light. Dr. Sripepe, thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.

[Dr. Michael Trapepe]

Thank you.

[Scott Bertram]

That will wrap up this edition of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Our thanks to Dr. Joe Postel from Hillsdale's politics department, Lawrence Perlman, his book American impresario, and Dr. Michael Trapepe. Remember, you can hear new episodes every week on this station. You also can find extended interviews on of some of our interviews or listen anytime to the podcast. Find it at Podcast hillsdale Edu or wherever you get your audio. Until next week, I'm Scott Bertram and this has been the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.