Dr. Edwin Feulner (1941-2025): An Appreciation.
by Edward Hudgins
Dr. Edwin Feulner, the founder and longest-serving president of the conservative Heritage Foundation has passed away. I worked at Heritage from 1984 to 1992. Dr. Feulner was a truly decent man and patriot, and I add to the appreciations that so many others have rightly offered some of my own reflections on his crucial advocacy innovations in the fight for liberty:
•Know your audience & the “briefcase test.” Dr. Feulner saw universities and other policy institutions producing materials that were often overly long, very technical, and disconnected from the needs of policymakers in Congress and administrations. So he had Heritage scholars produce papers that were 10-12 pages, timely, and easily understandable, with solid facts to back up policy recommendations. Busy policymakers should be able to throw them in their briefcases and read them in cabs on the way to the airport. Our opponents would use our material because doing so was an easy way to get background information on issues, even when they disagreed with us. That’s why those publications were named “Backgrounders”!
•Supporting public policy innovation: Dr. Feulner rightly had us offer positive alternatives to failed government policies. For example, foreign aid did little to help the impoverished of the world. I had the idea for an Index of Economic Freedom to define specific policy paths that could bring countries to prosperity. Dr. Feulner embraced this positive idea and so many others offered by my colleagues.
•Practical and principled: Early in my Heritage tenure I wrote a piece advocating opening American markets to more textile and apparel imports. Dr. Feulner received a call from a major donor, an American textile manufacturer who wanted his business protected from imports, saying “This is the sound of a six-figure check being torn up.” Feulner not only did not admonish me for losing a donor, he would tell this story to audiences of other Heritage donors to demonstrate our commitment to principles, including over party. Under Feulner, we supported the free trade efforts both of the Republican Reagan and Democrat Clinton administrations. And we strongly opposed the tax hikes of the first Republican Bush administration.
•Big tent conservatives: There are honest disagreements in the liberty movement; some of us are more libertarian than some conservatives at Heritage. But Dr. Feulner always sought to focus on the vast areas in which we agreed. The portraits in the Heritage lobby of cultural conservatives like Russel Kirk and libertarian economists like Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and F.A. Hayek graphically make this point well.
•Nurturing young talent. Dr. Feulner sought out young people to work at Heritage, not only to produce content but to help build them in their professional maturity and their reputations. I was one of them.
•People are policy. At major conferences or banquets, Dr. Feulner would ask Heritage alumni to raise our hands. He saw Heritage as a breeding ground for individuals who would go on to other efforts in the liberty movement. And so many did!
•Peripatetic. Dr. Feulner was always traveling, always involved with so many other organizations and efforts. In keeping with his admonition to keep materials only as long as necessary for one’s audience, I’ll let readers who are interested explore further his vast global reach.
I cut my professional teeth and made my own early contributions to the cause of liberty at the think tank Dr. Feulner built. I celebrate his as a life well lived.
Edward Hudgins, Ph.D., is founder of the Human Achievement Alliance. You can contact him at ehudgins@humanachievementalliance.org.
