Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1475

Carbon of letter from Heath to Frank Chodorov, Human Events, Inc., 1835 K. Street, N.W. Wash­ington 6, D.C.

December 11, 1953

/This letter is adapted from that to Russell Kirk of November 23, 1953 (Item 1499)/

 

Dear Frank Chodorov:

For some time I have been happy in my subscription to Human Events. Just now I want to tell you how much I have thought about your articles, and most particularly your article about taboos. You and William Henry Chamber­lin are right on the ball and I hope to see you keep on that way. Have you read Russell Kirk’s recent book, published by Regnery, The Conservative Mind? As one brought up in the Liberal tradition I have found it a mine of enlightenment on the conservative kind of thinking that has been holding the line for almost a century against our free institutions’ running all the way down into the totalitarian hell.

But of course I am, as always, way out in front. When one sees further ahead than his contemporaries this must be so. So I wrote Russell Kirk my commentary on the The Conservative Mind as follows:

As human society evolves, all unconscious, now in triumph, now in decline, towards its destined organic norm, two tendencies appear — one to save, the other to waste and destroy.  The one is called conservatism, the other radicalism.

In times of growth and gain conservatism stands motionless on guard. In times of fear and loss, when growth declines, radicalism rides high and conservatism only seeks to retard the downward trend.

Conservatism saves and conserves. Its power is in the brake; for it is the stator, not yet a motor, of social organization and advance. Radicalism is born of frustrations; dynamic, it is also explosive. But for the brake of conservatism it would completely destroy.

Conservatism, inert and potential, affords no release, gives no forward guidance to the social power. The task of the “Conservative Mind” is to find the rationale implicit and operative in the organic relationships among men. It must develop a positive, non-political dynamism of its own.

Advance in social organization awaits a dynamic conservatism that will have motor power as well as braking power, that finds the forward way and sets foot in it.

All hail to an enlightened, to a rational, to a DYNAMIC CONSERVATISM.

November 13, 1953            Spencer Heath

 

The above doesn’t disclose what the new dynamic must be. I whisper it to you: proprietary instead of political administration of the public capital and serv­ices. If you don’t know just what I mean by this, read the two pages beginning at the bottom of page 21 in the enclosed review of Progress & Poverty. This however is pretty condensed stuff and may need further elucidation.

What about the long session on the subject of understanding the institution of property in land that we used to talk about? You of course realize that mere complain­ing about extravagances of government cannot of itself get us anywhere. If we could so clip the claws of the politician that he wouldn’t scratch us any deeper than he did in 1900, we wouldn’t then have prospect of any­thing better than we have had from that time to this (they would of course grow out again).

But if there is a better way of conducting our affairs, a higher form of administration towards which society tends to evolve and towards which we now only empirically move, it might help a lot to have that vision before us in our interpretation and understanding of current affairs.

     Anyhow I would like to see you either alone or with any of your good associates in Washington or in New York as opportunity may arise.

SH:sm                                                                              Sincerely,