Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2531

Letter to Heath from F.A. Harper,

February 28, 1957

 

Dear Mr. Heath:

      Could you send me a few copies of your short statement of the Science of Society Foundation purposes? I’d like to have a few, assuming that you have no objection to my showing it — if and when the time should seem right — to a few close friends.

      Thanks for your “semi-fish-bowl” data, which you kindly gave. Also for the other enclosures, of which I am returning the one from PRINCETON ALUMNI WEEKLY.

      I am awaiting word of your plans for the last week in March. Last evening we phoned Harriet to congratulate her on being awarded a scholarship achievement award, of which we just heard, and she told us that she might have to go to Baltimore while home for vacation that week to be interviewed for a job among those she is considering for post-graduation. So it might be convenient for us to come then.

      If you should think it advisable for any reason, I might even come a bit early myself and have them come and pick me up, or perhaps stay a little later if I should come with them. But there may be no purpose in that.

      I realize in all these speculations that we are doubtless in a process of probing into the darkness with hopes that in all sorts of ways may not coincide when we compare notes more care­fully than we have yet had a chance to do. So I keep thinking of any preparatory thinking that should be done in advance, to make further discussions most worth while when the occasion avails.

      There is probably no reason for panic about this matter, but as I watch the monthly FEE financial reports and analyze them, I begin to think that the critical time financially may not be too far off. For February, for instance, we shall fall about $20,000 behind the same month a year ago — admittedly a time when we enjoyed a bit of a windfall. But for the last year, our income will show about $100,000 less than expenses and some reasons for dark clouds within the next year. So needless to say, I am currently looking at three or four possibilities all at once. I have hoped for many years that the Trustees would awake to the critical situation and lay down whatever specifications seem absolutely necessary for continuing success, and see that they are met, but there is no evidence for hope.

      Do you think any persons with funds would support such a project? How, I wonder, might they be felt out in advance without any revealing of any part I might have in it? For as you should know if I failed to tell you, all sorts of strings and influence would be used to kill any support for me, were it to become known to my present employer that such a project was in the making.

Cordially,

/s/ Baldy