Free Minds And Free Markets In The Heartland

by Jack VanNoord

Our  plans to go to Aruba during Spring Break never materialized.  So, my wife and I packed the kids into the minivan and went to Indianapolis to visit my sister and her family.  If your road trips include sippy cups and animal crackers, then you probably know that no trip to central Indiana is complete without a visit to the famed, internationally-celebrated Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. 

After several hours of studying river currents, dinosaurs and trains, our families had lunch in the museum cafeteria.  In between breaking bologna into bite-size pieces and opening packs of handiwipes, I commended my brother-in-law and his fellow Hoosiers for using their tax dollars to subsidize such a fine museum. 

He quickly corrected me.  “I’m pretty sure the Museum is NOT tax-payer supported.” 

Say what? Don’t museums --especially of this caliber-- have to be tax-payer support?  That’s what I’d assumed.  After all, the conventional wisdom states that left to our own devises we would spend our money on things like WWF, Sylvester Stallone movies and the XFL (well, apparently we won’t choose to spend our money on that last one, but you get the point).  A world-class museum run with non-tax dollars? It just couldn’t be. 

But as it  turns out, my brother-in-law was right --once again. 

The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is a non-profit institution with revenues from investment income; contributions and grants from individuals, foundations, corporations and groups; earned income; memberships; and admission.  An annual budget of  $18 million and not a tax dollar in sight. 

What parallel universe had I stumbled into?  I thought that big, educational things like museums wouldn’t existing if government didn’t take the lead. 

But as the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis demonstrates, arts and education can exist without tax dollars. Turns out, we don’t have to be FORCED to support stuff that’s good for us.  Left to our own devises, not all of us consider Adam Sandler movies the epitome of good art.  

So why is it then that former Governor Jim Thompson is appealing to the State legislature to ante up $7 million dollars to buy the Farnsworth Home in Plano Illinois?  The Farnsworth House is an icon of modern residential architecture designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.  It is a stunning, rectangular glass house on the Fox River.

I like the Farnsworth House.  I would like to see it preserved for future generations. 

But, underlying Thompson’s actions is the assumption that those of us who cherish van der Rohe’s architecture will not support the Farnsworth House of our own accord.  We will do so only if coerced through taxation.  I’m offended by that assumption.  It’s an insult to the depth of your and my commitment to the Arts. 

One metropolitan columnist had the audacity to write “Without state intervention, there’s no telling what will happen to the Farnsworth House.  It’s inconceivable that a private owner could raze it, alter it or even move it out of state.” 

Raze it!?  Alter it!?  He must really think we’re a bunch of Neanderthals.  He must live in that other parallel universe where endeavors like the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis don’t exist.  Come thou O Glorious State and save us from ourselves.  What an arrogant, cultural snob. 

Our world is a better place because we have the Farnsworth House.  We need to cherish it and preserve it.  But the State alone is not uniquely positioned to preserve it.  As the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis testifies, you and I are perfectly capable of choosing the art and educational programs that we wish to support. 

Jim Thompson,  I appreciate your commitment to the Arts.  But, I can see that despite your retirement you are still a politician at heart: being generous with everybody’s money but you own.

05-16-2001

Written by Jack VanNoord - West Dundee.