Spencer Heath Archive

Item 517

Verbatim note by Spencer MacCallum from conversation at Santa Ana, California

August 14

Our forefathers played with three pets — a bear cub, a lion whelp and a tiger kitten. But they put them under a severe restriction that they should not grow up. They were called the Legislative, Executive and Judicial. They were instructed not to grow up because they knew they would be dangerous if they did. So they gave them a pill to keep them from doing it — which they were to use at their own discretion. They called it the Constitution.

It was a theory of self-suicide.

/On hearing it read back, Heath thought of putting it in better form:/

A fable:  There were once some men who went to a new land to start a new life of freedom. But they took with them three pets …