Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2468

Letter to Spencer Heath, Director, The Science of Society Foundation, Roadsend Gardens, Elkridge, Maryland, from John J. Grebe, Director, Nuclear and Basic Research Department, Dow Chemical Company

October 24, 1956

 

 

 

Dear Dr. Heath:

Thank you so much for your letter of October 18, with the galley sheets. I am interested in the subject matter you sent and the fundamental thoughts that are in back of it. On the other hand, I feel that I cannot very well be a good critic with the limited informa­tion that I have about your subject.

I like particularly the chart on, “Population Energy Available for Creative Functioning”. I would like to keep a copy of it in my files with your letter and have taken the liberty of having a copy made for this purpose. However, I am returning the galley proof, as I feel you may need them for the benefit of other people who can do a better job of reviewing.

I am enclosing a copy of a paper printed in the Armed Forces Chemical Journal in 1949. In the mixture of many subjects dealt with, there is a portion pertaining to population trends and their interpretations. I am sorry that at the time I was writing this, it was impossible to get the Bureau of the Census statisticians to permit any more optimism than was shown by the figures on page 6. They allowed that there might be an increase of 20,000,000 in the total of an ultimate 160,000,000 population for the United States. The diagrams, however, I made to indicate the more optimistic trend as I saw it. I think the very first commandments that man was given — first, “Be fruitful”, and second, “Multiply”, can be considered to say the same thing as you express in population energy.

 It is wonderful to see how your analysis gets closer to a measure of our performance as a society than anything I have come in contact with so far. In 1952 I drew a different curve, as shown on the enclosed reprint of a paper at that time.

Thanks again for keeping me in mind.

Sincerely yours,

/s/ John J. Grebe, Director

Nuclear and Basic Research Department

 

Encl.