Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1239

Carbon of letter from Heath to Raymond V. McNally, 200 East 16th Street, New York City. (Material in Item 1136 also appears here.)

July 14, 1939

 

 

 

 

Dear Mr. McNally:

I have just returned from the University of Virginia where I have been attending the sessions of the Institute of Public Affairs.

     Dr. Dillard seems to have gathered together a lot of speakers of very divergent and largely antagonistic views, or I should say, antagonistic interests, because I do not think that it can be said that any of the participants on the program even pretended to represent any impartial and universal interest of all governments and mankind. I found myself, therefore, quite sui generis among so many special pleaders and propagandists.

     It seems to be the current idea that a grand symposium of opposing beliefs and desires will lead to some unity of purpose and agreement. Participating in one of the subordinate groups, I raised the question whether any constructive ideas had ever arisen out of the turmoil and swirlings of the mass mind. I cited how the special pleaders always play up, each his own narrow point of view in the brightest possible light against the back­ground of his opponent’s wicked and erroneous views, and I offered the classical example of those informal symposia of clashing opinions in the streets of Athens where nothing but disunity of thought and feeling was the result until Socrates joined them to make sport of all their partial and partisan views, and not until after plenty of this horse play did he turn their attention away from their conflicts and the unlikeness of their views and in the direction of that which they held in common among them whence he brought to birth a new creation of the mind, which all were constrained to accept.

     One of the group exulted that this was an example of agree­ment coming out of conflict; but I rejoined that this, on the contrary, was an example of the sterility of the mass mind; only the master mind of Socrates could generalize the uniformities lying within their respective views into a master thought, a new creation of the mind. Only the mind that is inspired by beauty can possess that detachment of special interest that is necessary to give it clarity and creative power.

     From the comments heard about the Inn where I was stopping and at other places, it would be supposed that I asked a considerable number of questions for which the particular propagandists were not very well prepared. Mr. Clarence K. Streit told me that he had received many thousands of questions concerning his propaganda for “Union Now” among some fifteen “democra­cies” as opposed to the Axis and Totalitarian Powers, but that only four times had anyone questioned him con­cerning the powers of taxation and borrowing against future taxation to be conferred upon his proposed new Federal Union. He offered this to me as his reason for thinking such questions not very important.

     In one of the open sessions I made bold to ask Mr. Streit three questions: First, would the proposed new Federal Union be entrusted with any powers of taxation? Second, what safeguards, if any, would be erected against the inordinate extension of this taxing power, and against the mortgaging of future taxes in the form of Federal debts and deficits piled up under the plea of military necessity or humane economic policy? Third, if military alliances among the fifteen members of the new Federal Union were not to be anticipated, how would he avoid such military alliances as were formed by the Northern and Southern members of the American Union in 1861?

     I think these questions raised more apprehension in the minds of the audience than the speaker’s answers allayed. But I was sorry to have to appear almost entirely in the role of an objector. I would like to have shown how it was the taxing power used against the expenditures of the agricultural South that put the South at an economic disadvantage and was the actual cause not only of the Civil War but of the economic sectionalism that still prevails and may bring on yet more internal conflict.

     I met quite a lot of interesting people, some of them really intelligent, and at various luncheons and other informal gatherings did present some constructive ideas and had them favorably received.

     On the whole it appeared to me that for considerable periods the eminent Mr. Browder, of the Communists, and the sanctimonious Mr. Streit, of “Union Now,” were allowed to steal pretty much the whole show. Mr. Browder, of course, represented all those who look with equanimity upon the extension of the taxing powers of our Western copy of the Roman Republic to its ultimate of one hundred percent taxation under some form of benevolent (?) dictatorship. Mr. Streit represented a synthesis of all the emotional complexes inculcated around the patriotic emotions of the American Federal Union being God’s best and last word, and the perfect model upon which the organization and government of the world must proceed.

     However, a good time was had by all; the Institute was a grand success, each participant was more than ever confirmed of his own particular views, and the utmost disparity of thought and feeling maintained.

     While I was at the University of Virginia I received from Mr. Burger a copy of the letter you wrote him on June 18th replying to his request as to points of dis­agreement between myself and the writings of Henry George. I had already received such a request from Mr. Burger to which I replied that I was far less concerned with points of disagreement than with those broader principles and foundations in which there was perfect harmony. I referred Mr. Burger to what I had printed on private property in land, and suggested that he make use of this for the constructive presentation of my ideas. I enclose a copy of my letter to him.

     It appears that you have taken Mr. Burger in earnest and have played things up from the oppositional point of view. But you have done this with so much sympathy and insight that I am almost forgiving you for the controversial form. In this way you move people and get reactions in quarters where an analytical exposition would elicit only the epithet “highbrow” or a cold and fishy stare. The emotional reaction you got from Mr. Goeller is a case in point, and his emotional argument (?) exhibits all the appropriate blur. I would not be surprised if by your controversial presentation, together with your rejoinder, you have converted our good brother from a condition of inept incomprehension to one of energetic antagonism, and I suspect that the publicizing of this controversy would have a tendency to align those who give it attention in support of one or other of the respective antagonists without very much regard to the essentials of the subject matter being discussed.

After all the sour sauce I have been putting upon your really commendable work, I want to give you some idea of how much it delights me to see how clearly you have visioned so much of the truth that I am trying to make clear. To know that one is not alone and that at least another sees far into the nature and the beauty of the things upon which he himself has fed the hunger of his spirit, is a pleasure hardly to be expressed by mere acknowledgement. The penetration and skill with which you analyze the dilemma of George between his spiritual philosophy of freedom and his destructive emotionalism against property in land, might grace the brief of any master advocate. You show the scientist in George tilting against the moralist. The conflict could only be resolved in the poetry of his compromise. Here all the essentials are implicit. It is here like all poets he builded better than he knew, for he was able to feel and to suggest the beauty that he was not able to elucidate. And the value of this is that he thus makes others feel this beauty and, at last, bring it to elucidation and direct expression. I think this is what you mean by your reference to your authentic functioning of the unconscious mind in the feeling of things rather than seeing them clearly. It is thus that all things must first be implicit in art before they become explicit and demonstrable as science. I always feel that George realized this, to some extent at least, when he wrote: “What I have most endeavored to do is to establish general principles, trusting to my readers to carry further their applications where this is needed.”

     Your reference to unconscious thinking being more comprehensive than the thinking of the mere intellect, suggested the following to me:

All untruth is evil and all evil is untruth.

Nothing but evil can be spoken of evil. There­fore

all speaking of evil is the speaking of untruth.

All truth is good and all that is good is truth.

Nothing but good can be spoken of truth. There­fore

all speaking of good is the speaking of truth.

When men speak of evil, they must speak only evil of it, and, therefore, only untruth; and

they know not how much untruth they speak.

When men speak of good, they must speak only

good of it and, therefore, only truth; and they

know not how much truth they speak,

The truth that passeth understanding, the

un­conscious truth, is Beauty. Some call it God.

It is this beauty alone that leads men on and

on and makes them free.

When poetry or any art deals with good and not

evil, it speaks only truth; but not all truth.

In its unspoken truth lies its intimation of Beauty,

its ravishment of the soul out of bondage. This is

the truth that makes men free.

     For my own part I do not feel any urge to write any­thing to Mr. Goeller. He is probably quite an old man and way past welcoming anything that he has not cherished for a long time. It is kind of him to welcome the opportunity of straightening us both out but I am afraid his ministra­tions in my case will have to be more directly applied. If he writes anything to me, I do not think he will be able to engage me in controversy. But I will be glad to give him my best possible expression of my positive views and understanding of things. If he gives these enough attention and consideration to comprehend them, any conflict that arises between them and his long cherished views will be a conflict entirely within himself, one that he alone must resolve, but not by any personal defeat.

     I would, indeed, like very much to have the oppor­tunity of trying to explain to some of the more flexible minded of the Henry George Confraternity some of the dif­ficult questions and sources of intellectual conflict that have been vexing them these past fifty years. I would take a very considerable trouble and undergo some expense for an opportunity to do this.

     Sometime ago our friend Burger wrote that I ought to engage a room near the hotel where the Henry George Congress will convene, and invite there a select group to listen to three carefully prepared talks. He men­tioned the names of about twenty-five whom he thought should be invited, and suggested also some of our English visitors. He proposed to round these and others up and obtain their assurances that they will attend, and give a “build-up.” He thinks a hundred “choice spirits” could be mustered, but that it would require the expenditure of a few hundred dollars. I wrote him from Charlottesville thanking him for so much interest, and saying that I would gladly obtain a room at or near the Commodore, if he would

bring in even four or five who seem as willing to learn as they are anxious to teach. I remarked that if the attendance should chance to be more than the room would accommodate, we could easily get any additional space that might be required. I remarked that I would expect to bear all expense alone, until such time as others might be so far interested that they would wish to give a hand. In a letter dated the 10th, Mr. Burger expresses disappointment, and predicts that it will take “one hundred years to spread your ideas.”

     I hope you have borne well with me for writing a letter even longer than yours to Mr. Burger. I look for­ward to being in New York again before the end of July when I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you and Mrs. McNally and, perhaps, a few other choice spirits. The time of my coming is flexible.

     Henry George at the end of Chapter XI of his Science of Political Economy left six blank pages for a further elucidation of the productivity of the process of exchange. It may be that the remainder of this page will suggest to you something of my intellectual kinship to him.

Sincerely,

 

Spencer Heath