I’ve been reading Brian Doherty’s Radicals for Capitalism, an interesting book that covers some of the lesser-known corners of the history of the libertarian movement, and I want to share an amusing little song I came across.
From 1935 through the late 1950′s, a religious-based group called Spiritual Mobilization promoted free markets by distributing pamphlets to churches. One of these pamphlets contained a song celebrating what was, in 1950, the only county in the United States that did not have a single civilian federal employee – Armstrong County, South Dakota. Here’s the song.
All Hail to Armstrong, South Dakota,
Land of the Free
You have yet to fill your quota
With a Federal Employee!
No one from Agriculture?
How do you farm?
No one from Justice?
Who keeps you from harm?
No one from Veterans?
By whom are you paid?
No one from Commerce?
How do you trade?
No one from Housing?
Who buildeth your shacks?
No one from Treasury?
Who takes your tax?
No one from Post Office?
Who sells your stamp supply?
No one from Military?
Who keeps your powder dry?
And no one from Security?
How, then, can you be social?
If you have no single bureaucrat
To decide things equivocal?
Even the Department of the Interior
Is from Armstrong’s roster missed.
Tell me, Armstrong County,
How do you exist?
All Hail to Armstrong County,
Where there’s no ‘share the pelf,’
And despite the Welfare Staters,
Each does things for himself!
Armstrong County no longer exists. It was absorbed into Dewey County in 1951, because it was being used as a tax haven.
