Spencer Heath Archive

Item 3067

Application submitted by Heath for federal tax exemption for the Science of Society Foundation

May 9, 1960

 

Commissioner of Internal Revenue

Washington, D.C.

Re:   T:R:EO:4  HCC

Application for tax exempt status for

The Science of Society Foundation, Inc.,

1502 Montgomery Rd., Baltimore, Maryland

Dear Sir:

Referring to the above application for tax exemption, we submit herewith the following papers for your cong1deration:

1.  Statement by Spencer Heath.

2.  Biographic sketch.

3. Reading sources in Foundation research.
4. Letters to Commissioner of Internal Revenue from:

1. Dr. George C.S. Benson, President, Claremont

Men’s College, Claremont, Calif.  (Photostat)

(b)   Dr. John L. Davis, President, Chapman College,

Orange, California. (second original)

2. Dr. F. A. Harper. economist, William Volker

Fund, Burlingame, California.  (Photostat)

3. Letter from Dr. F. A. Harper to Mr. Frank Keith,

    Keith School, Rockford. Illinois.  (Photostat)

6. Dr. F. A. Harper, biographical sketch.
7. Letter from Dr. James A. Campbell, Chairman,

Department of Chemistry, El Camino College, California.

6. Letter from Dr. James B. Watson, Chairman, Department

Of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle,

to Mr. Spencer MacCallum.

 9.   Descriptive matter, Citadel, Market and Altar.

1. Extracts from letters.
2. “Sampling the Reviews.”

10. “Proposed Solution for the Suez.”
11. “Extracts from letters re: proposal for Suez.

  Respectfully submitted,

  Spencer Heath, Director

SH/m

___________________________________________________________________________

Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2987

Copies of two letters on letterhead to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Washington, D.C., supportive of Heath’s effort to obtain tax exemption for his Science of Society Foundation, one from George C.S. Benson, president of Claremont Men’s College, Claremont, California, dated March 2, 1960, and the other from John L. Davis, president of Chapman College, Orange, California, dated March 11, 1960. Included with the originals is correspondence relating to the possibility of Heath merging his Science of Society Foundation with Claremont Men’s College, which never happened.

March 1960

 

Claremont Men’s College

Claremont, California

The Commissioner of Internal Revenue

Washington, D.C.

March 2, 1960

 

 

Dear Sir:

 

Mr. Spencer Heath, President of the Science of Society Foundation, has asked me to write a note indicating my evaluation of the work of the Foundation.

 

     I am not acquainted with all of its activities but I have read carefully the book Citadel, Market and Altar. I have also arranged for a series of seminars with the members of the Claremont Men’s College faculty to discuss this book with its author, Mr., Heath.

 

     I would certainly characterize the book as a thought­ful, scholarly document. I could not characterize it as “propaganda” for any specified cause. Mr. Heath, in his dis­cussions with us, was much more interested in the process of philosophical exploration than in conversion of anyone to his views.

 

     I am not sure that I would agree with every statement in the book. But I am sure that I respect it as a very thoughtful analysis of some of the problems of society. I should like very much to see further research into the problems suggested by the book.

                            Sincerely yours,

                            George C.S. Benson

GCSB:eb

_________________________________

 

Chapman College

Orange, California

March 11, 1960

 

Mr. Dana Latham

Commissioner of Internal Revenue

Washington, D.C.

 

Dear Mr. Latham:

 

Mr. Spencer Heath, whom I have known for the past year, informs me that his application for tax-exempt status for The Science of Society Foundation, Inc. has been denied. Mr. Heath is founder and president of the Foundation.

 

     In his letter explaining the basis for the denial, Mr. J. F. Worley, Chief, Exempt Organization Branch of the Internal Revenue Service, seems to base his decision on the fact that “publishing a book is not of itself” a project which fulfills requirements of Section 501 (c) (3) of the Code. Also that the prime activity of the Foundation “has been the promotion of the views of your Founder and President, Spencer Heath.”

 

I know little about the actual work of the Foundation, but I do know Mr. Heath and his book, Citadel, Market and Altar. He is a man of integrity and great intellectual power, whose knowledge of science and engineering leads him to depend on scientific methods and research for results. He is not a propagandist for his own views. He has visited classes, conducted seminars and delivered lectures on our own campus, and at all times, he gives full weight to the best scholarship and historical perspective in presenting his material.

 

His Foundation has presented several volumes of his work to our library and has made it possible for him to spend much time with our faculty and students. I believe he does this as a person dedicated to the search for truth and to the welfare of our free social order.

 

We remember with deep gratitude your many services to Chapman College and hope you are continuing to find your work in Washington challenging.

 

Sincerely,

/S/ John L. Davis

JLD/mr                  President

 

________________________________________________________________

 

 

    The Science of Society Foundation

               ROADSEND GARDENS

 1502 MONTGOMERY ROAD,

             ELKRIDGE 27, MARYLAND

May 9, l960

Commissioner of Internal Revenue

Washington, D. C.

Re:  T:R:E0:4  HCC

Application for tax exempt status for

The Science of Society Foundation, Inc.

1502 Montgomery Rd., Baltimore 27, Md.

                          STATEMENT OF SPENCER HEATH

Dear Sir:

I was the founder and for some ten or more years di­rected The Science of Society Foundation (not incorpor­ated) which in 1956 became incorporated as The Science of Society Foundation, Incorporated. I am at the present time the president of that Corporation.

This Foundation was formed mainly for research and re­port on the origins, the mode of operation and the poten­tialities of the voluntary systems of society, and not to propagandize for any program of political action or any set of beliefs, but rather to seek objective under­standing of our free and voluntary institutions in general, and especially of the system of free economic enterprise on which the revenues required for all purposes, both public and private, must necessarily depend.

My own background for this research began with a youthful enthusiasm for the natural sciences, followed by bachelor’s and master’s degrees in law from the National University in Washington, D.C. (now George Washington) and a successful practice in that place until 1912. From then until 1929, I was engaged in engineering development and manufac­turing, chiefly aeronautical, and during the period of World War I largely as a supplier to the United States and Allied Governments, for which war work both Army and Navy awarded certificates of merit and appreciation to me.

In 1929 I disposed of all my engineering and manufactur­ing properties and patents to the Bendix Aviation Company, with whom I continued for two years as research and consult­ing engineer in this country and abroad.

 

During the 1920’s, I had purchased and extensively improved the 110-acre place in Elkridge, Maryland, which is now the home of the Foundation. For landscaping this area, among other things, I built a greenhouse specially designed and equipped for the propagation of evergreens. In this connection I sent two young persons to the University of Maryland to study landscape gardening while I carried on experimental plant propagation under advice and direction of the University.

During my semi-retirement in the period 1930 to 1939 I resumed my early scientific interests by extensive systematic readings (at college level) in virtually all of the natural sciences. This was done with a special view to their method of investigation as a possible pat­tern for research into and a like understanding of the social organization. For some four years of this period, from 1933 to 1937, I was a teacher and lecturer for The Henry George School of Social Science in New York City, and during that time read extensively also in the litera­ture of social and political sciences and lectured occa­sionally on the history and philosophy of freedom at various institutions, including The Johns Hopkins Univer­sity, Georgetown University, The University of Virginia and the Senior Faculty Organization at McGill University in Montreal.

 

From 1938 onward, under the style of The Science of Society Foundation (not incorporated), I published pri­vately various booklets and pamphlets reporting my re­searches on the nature of the voluntary society. Among these were “The Energy Concept of Population,” “Real Es­tate Administration as Community Services,” “Politics vs. Proprietorship” (first published in 1936), and “Progress and Poverty Reviewed.” These and other lesser publica­tions formed the basis for the manuscript of Citadel, Market and Altar which was published in 1957 as a research report by the Science of Society Foundation after its formal incorporation in 1956. This report essentially follows, as to method of research, the notable series of lectures given at The University of Chicago in 1937 by Visiting Professor A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, Chairman of the Institute of Social Anthropology at Oxford University, but not published until 1957. These lectures, now published under the title, A Natural Science of Society, afford example of scientific method and research basically the same as my own.

 

For the ten years now past I have devoted practically all my effort and time and modest resources to publiciz­ing, from a background in the natural sciences, the results of my readings and researches in the social and political sciences and indicating further possible un­derstanding and applications. As one example, the Foundation publicized in 1956 a proposed non-political solution of the then acute problem of the Suez Canal. Notwithstanding its necessarily limited circulation, this proposed solution was heartily commended by very eminent authorities in science, economics and public affairs. Among these were Dr. Graham P. DuShane, Fellow of The American Association for the Advancement of Science; Dr. Ludwlg von Mises, internationally eminent and now Visiting Professor of Economics at New York Uni­versity; Hon. Peter Grimm, of the United States Embassy at Rome; Dr. William E. Rappard, President, Institute Universltaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales, Geneva, Switzerland; Lord Robert Gilbert Vansittart, late Under­secretary for Foreign Affairs, London, England; and, nearer at home, Dr. Josef Solterer, Chairman of the Depart­ment of Economics, Georgetown University; and Dr. Felix Morley, educator, publicist and political scientist, Gib­son Island, Maryland.

By reason of its being in the nature of a research report, distribution of the Foundation’s major publication to date, Citadel, Market and Altar, has been limited for the most part to scientists in the physical, social and biological fields. It has been generously commended by persons of public reputation and authority. Among these are Dr. Roscoe Pound, political scientist and Dean Emeri­tus of The Harvard University School of Law; Dr. William Ernest Hocking, Alford Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Harvard University; Dr. Edwin G. Nourse, Past Chairman, Council of Economic Advisors to the President; Dr. 0. Glenn Saxon, Professor of Economics, Yale University; Dr. A. H. Hobbs, Professor of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Charles C. Gillispie, Professor of His­tory, Princeton University; and Dr. John J. Grebe, former member of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, now Director of Nuclear and Basic Research, Dow Chemical Com­pany — all as shown on the printed circular and the printed excerpts from book reviews, American and foreign, attached to and made part of this statement.

For the past eleven months work for the Foundation has been carried on principally by me and at my own expense among colleges and business organizations in Southern Cali­fornia, and by Spencer H. MacCallum, secretary of the Foun­dation, in research under the direction and approval of the Department of Anthropology at The University of Washington, Seattle, gathering thesis material for his Master’s and Doctor’s degrees in social anthropology. This is being done without cost to the Foundation and with a view to further advancement of its purposes and work.

The Foundation work in Southern California has included, among other things, a series of informal, two-hour semin­ars at one of the group of Associated Colleges at Claremont, California. These four seminars were proposed and arranged for by Dr. George C.S. Benson, president of Claremont Men’s College, specifically for the purpose of examin­ing and evaluating the research work of the Foundation as reported by its president and in its principal and its lesser publications. These seminars were attended by the president of the College and participated in by him and his administrative assistant and by faculty members from the various departments of political and social science. This and other activities of the Foundation in Southern California are listed on the partial schedule hereto at­tached and made a part of this statement.

The work of the Foundation, current and prospective, is looked upon favorably by scientists and educators and others similarly distinguished, and plans are under dis­cussion for a working relationship with one or more well accredited academic institutions. Research projects now in view or already planned extend to such as: population in relation to environment; patterns of change in urban land use; proprietorship as social authority; community organization in England before and after 1066; and, by special subsidy, fostering continued physical research on “particle versus wave.”

To facilitate these and other projects it is now planned to enlarge the present Board of Trustees to include addi­tional members of standing and repute in their respective fields and to employ in this work substantial funds that are now conditional upon the Foundation’s being found eli­gible for tax-exempt status as a scientific and educational organization having value in the near view and in the long-term public interest.

All services given to the work of the Foundation by its officers and personnel are voluntary and without salary or compensation in any form. It is my desire and firm intent that every act or undertaking by the Foundation shall fall within the provisions of Section 501 (c) of the 1954 Code and shall be strictly within the purposes and limitations of the Foundation as set out in its Articles of Incorpora­tion and that its principal officers shall continue inde­finitely to donate their services and that no money, from whatever source, shall be paid to any officer or employee of the Foundation otherwise than for full value received.

Respectfully submitted,

Spencer Heath, Director

 

 

 

 

/The following is added in pencil:/

 

Personally appeared before me, a Notary Public in and for the District of Columbia Spencer Heath who makes oath that all representations and statements of fact contained in his letter of May 9, 1960 to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to which this oath is ________ are true to his best knowledge and belief.

 

__________________ to this 9^th day of May 1960