Exactly a century ago, the United States was a highly charged magnet for immigrants around the world.  Thousands entered Ellis Island each day on the hope of making a better life for themselves and their families.  Two of those immigrants were Jeno and Sara Friedman; they would become the parents of Milton Friedman, one of the most influential and important economists of the 20th century.

Dubbed the "grandmaster of free market economic theory" by The New York Times, Friedman's writings, especially his 1980 book "Free to Choose," authored with his wife Rose, refuted popular claims that "more government" would improve the quality of our lives.  Milton Friedman was the most ardent spokesperson advocating the complete opposite. Voluntary choices of individuals rather than arbitrary dictates of the state, he argued, should be the default mode of human life. Government is justified only insofar as it preserves, protects and defends individual liberty.