Sharing the Wealth: Nature's Own Law of Distribution

Babson Park, FL: Nidar Book Co, [1937]. First Edition. Octavo (20cm.); publisher's green gilt-lettered cloth; [8],184pp. Corners a bit bumped, contemporary bookseller rubberstamp to front pastedown and gift inscription to front free endpaper, else Very Good and sound overall. Proto-libertarian treatise by the Norwegian-born American politican. Rustgard began his career at the age of fifteen as a cabin boy aboard a ship, after which he immigrated to Minnesota, working as a farmhand before attending the University of Minnesota. From 1900 to 1933 he lived in Alaska, serving as mayor of Nome for four years. During the Great Depression he published a number of works which greatly influenced the "voluntaryist" newspaper magnate Raymond C. Hoiles, who, like Rustgard, advocated for the abolishment of the public school system. As one reviewer in the Hoiles-owned "Santa Ana Register" descried in a 1939 article, one could walk into any bookstore in Santa Ana and find thirty-six copies of "The Grapes of Wrath" but nary a copy of any work by Rustgard.