Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1576

Carbon of a letter from Heath to Mrs. Russell W. Davenport, Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

May 28, 1956

 

 

 

 

Dear Mrs. Davenport:

     Thank you for your note returning my “Prefatory Brief” and your response to my long delayed (wrongly addressed) letter to Mrs. de Vito.

     Most broadly stated, my purpose, in common with your late husband, is of course to aid in the advance­ment of mankind into richer and more and more abundant life. And pre-requisite to this is understanding, not feeling or desire alone, not even good intentions — which so often fail.

    

     Mr. Davenport’s faith demanded “a bold search for a new synthesis .. to kindle new light” towards “the foundations for an Idea of Free Man.” My own best con­ceived program for this search is set out in the several Purposes, copy of which I handed to you and Dr. Winkler at our very pleasant tea-time conference of May 8th.

     You will note that these Purposes are quite general and broad, but Number Four is specific to Mr. Davenport’s prescription of “the expansion of private initiative for social goals,” in which “private parties acting on their own initiative and in their own deepest interest can carry out responsibilities that everywhere in the world are being turned over to the state” … co-operation of fellow citizens “to improve their communities”.

     This Purpose points to a voluntary alternative to the vices inherent in the political administration of local community properties and services that can be real and enduring because self-sustaining — not only socially motivated but also profit motivated and as little dependent on private philanthropy as on political force.

     “The doctrine is that of Jesus Christ,” especially in its specific application to public and community affairs. “But to be carried out, it must be rediscovered in its quality of universality” for this, as for any other, life or world. It is consonant with all that has been truly discovered by the scientific (quantitative) processes of mind and rich with promise to the long hope, the faith and the aspirations of mankind.

     The creative research into the social (non-political) heritage, its mode of operation and its obviously impending great advance has been set out systematically, like a surveyor’s or engineer’s report and is now being or about to be set in type at the Printing Office of Yale University Press. I would like very much to put into your hands a fair copy, clearly typed and bound in a number of small sections for convenient handling.

     Awaiting your further wishes, I remain

Very sincerely yours,

 

N. B.  The quotations in my third and fifth paragraphs you will recognize as from The Dignity of Man.

Please address me until June 15th at my home

address,

Roadsend Gardens

1502 Montgomery Road Baltimore 27, Maryland

SH/m