The humanitarian puts himself in thernplace of God.”rnBut, as Mrs. Paterson notes, he is alsorn”confronted bv two awkward facts: first,rnthat the competent do not need his assistance;rnand second, that the majority ofrnpeople, if unperverted, positively do notrnwant to be ‘done good’ by the humanitarian.”rnHaving considered what thern”good” of others might be, and who is torndecide the question finally, Mrs. Patersonrntrenchantly concludes: “Of coursernwhat the humanitarian actually proposesrnis that he shall do what he thinks isrngood for everybody. It is at this pointrnthat the humanitarian sets up the guillotine.”rn”What kind of wodd,” she inquires,rn”does the humanitarian contemplate asrnaffording him full scope? It could onl)rnbe a wodd filled with breadlines and hospitals,rnin which nobody retained the naturalrnpower of a human being to helprnhimself or to resist having things done tornhim. And that is precisely the wodd thatrnthe humanitarian arranges when he getsrnhis way.” The humanitarian, Mrs. Patersonrnadds, “feels the utmost gratificationrnwhen he visits or hears of a countryrnin which everyone is restricted to rationrncards.” When “subsistence is doled out,rnthe desideratum has been achieved, ofrngeneral want and a superior power to ‘relieve’rnit.” Hence, as Mrs. Paterson keenlyrnconcludes, “the humanitarian in theoryrnis the terrorist in action.”rnAyn Rand, whose Fountainhead camernout in the same month as llie God ofrnthe Machine, accused Isabel Paterson ofrn”stealing” her theory of morality forrn”The Humanitarian with the Guillotine.”rnBut who stole from whom?rnRand’s ‘iew of charit) (which in any casernwas only fully set forth in Atlas Shrugged,rnpublished 14 years later) was not really ofrnthe same order: her frenetic denunciationrnof “altruism” as the root of all moralrnevil is a meat-axe distortion of Paterson’srncrucial and nuanced distinctions betweenrnthe compulsory and the voluntary,rnas well as between the primary andrnthe secondarv, motivations for charitablernaction. Rand, the younger woman whornread virtually nothing, was the eagerrndisciple of Isabel Paterson in historyrnand political philosophy. And rumor hasrnit that Professor Cox has discovered, inrnhis researches in the Herald-Tribunerncolumns, numerous prefigurations ofrnPaterson’s theory of morality and charityrnlong before the appearance of ThernFountainhead.rnSince World War II, Ayn Rand hasrnbeen the object of a cult, while her essentiallyrnmore interesting and more importantrncolleagues have virtually disappeared.rnBut now Professor WilliamrnHoltz has resurrected Rose Lane withrnhis recent biograph)’ and with his collectionrnof letters between Mrs. Lane andrnDorothy Thompson. Let us hope thatrnTransaction’s reprint, and Steve Cox’srnintroduction, will bring Isabel Patersonrnto the attention of a new generation ofrnAmericans for the perceptive insights,rnand for the hard-edged attack on pretensernand sham, that this great lady canrngive them. trnLIBERAL ARTSrnRED RUNNERSrnThe new world record in tlie women’s 10,000-meter run lia.? aroused suspicions around the world. Lynn Jennings, the 1992 Olympicrnbronze medalist in the event, for example, refuses to believe that honest effort led Wang Junxia of China to break the old record byrn42 seconds.rnThe 20-year-old Wang clocked 29 minutes, ? 1.78 seconds in China’s seventh National Games last September in Beijing, accordingrnto the Chicago Tribune. She beat the old record of 30:13:74 set by a Norwegian in 1986. It was the first time a Chinese womanrnset a wodd record in track and field. Wang’s time in Beijing was an unlikely 2:58 better than her personal best prior to this season, andrnalmost 1:20 better than her meet-record time at August’s Wodd Track and Field Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.rnIn Beijing, Wang also ran the 3,00()-meter race in 8 minutes, 6.11 seconds, erasing six seconds from the world record she had setrnin the preliminaries for that event. In the 1,500, both Wang, the runner-up, and Qu Yunxia, the winner, broke the oldest record inrnwomen’s track and field, which had held for 13 years. In short, Wang broke world records four times in three events in six days.rnJennings suspects not only Wang hut all the Chinese women runners of illicit practices: she implied that their times at the woddrnchampionships were derived from performance-enhancing drugs or blood doping. The Chinese, who before this meet had never wonrna wodd or Olympic running event, swept the 3,000-meter run, ran 1-2 in the 10,000, and placed 1-4 in the 1,500 in Stuttgart.rnDECEMBER 1993/35rnrnrn