Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1402

Carbon of a letter to C.R. Walker, Suite 705, 127 North Dearborn Street, Chicago, Illinois

January 26, 1942

Dear Mr. Walker:

     It did seem a long time before I received your letter of November 25th and it does seem to me a long time for me to have delayed in making reply to it — and I hope it seems long to you.

     I was very keen about hearing from you for I did feel very much that I would like to come out there to talk further with you and your friends of We, The Citizens either in December or January. I don’t know why I wrote so little to you about it, but it is a habit of mine occasionally to defer unconscionably a matter that is very close to my heart and desires. I have also looked forward to visiting again my daughter and family in Lan­sing and having another fling at the Real Estate Board there among whose members I seemed to arouse such consid­erable interest that they expressed a very strong desire to have me return as soon as conveniently possible and present my ideas to their full membership. The president of the Board, Mr. Baker, is also an officer of the National Association and he is very much interested in the idea of the land owners not only continuing to function as the social distributors, by peaceable methods, of the sites and resources of their respective communities, but also that they perform further services for their clients and customers, the land users, and in aid of their pro­ductivity, by measures looking to the abolition of the tax scourge upon industry that keeps production down and land out of use, the idea being that for these further services to their communities they will be rewarded in further and newly-created rents and values. Mr. Baker seems to see with me that if land owners “abolish all taxation save that on land values” they will thereby create very substantial new values for themselves while giving most admirable and sorely needed services to their communities at the same time. It delights me very much to know that there are now in existence persons and organ­izations who have not only the time, resources and ability for it but also a direct and definite economic interest in putting Henry George’s wonderful anti-slavery formula into practical effect. It remains only for them to become enlightened as to the opportunity of high public services for large private profits that lies before them.

 

     Referring to the “get-together confab” that your letter speaks of, I still hope to be able to be with you for such a purpose, but I am not quite as free now as I was in December and for the most of January. For a long time I have been urged to put my fundamental philosophic and sociological ideas into a more systematic, complete and permanent form than by occasional discussions of them. Disliking authorship as I do, I have worked at it only in a desultory way for a considerable time, but for the time being at least I have with me a young man who stimulates my mind into more consistent activity besides giving me a great deal of clerical assistance. By his aid and inspiration I hope within the next few weeks to have the material for a small but very fundamental volume ready for publication. The title, as it now stands, is, The Energy Concept of Population: The Foundation of a New Science, The Science of Society. The purpose and intention of it is to bring the phenomenon of Society under the same kind of description and analysis as the natural sciences make of other phenomena, and by pre­cisely the same methods employed in them. I have been calling it my magnum opossum because it has been sleeping so long, especially in the daytime.

     However, I do want to come out to see you again before too long and I feel I can arrange it somehow. You have in We, The Citizens a group of energetic, highly intel­ligent and, comparatively considered, very open-minded men. They have the capacity and the urge to do something constructive and well worthwhile, and I think they real­ize, as some do not, that for this purpose they need not only the urge but all the intellectual or analytical light they can obtain. If this were not so they had not given to me and my further development of Henry George’s fundamental philosophy of freedom the considerate attention that it had when I was in your midst.

     So I am hoping to sit among you again and try to illuminate some of the blind spots with /which/ we have all been for so many years affected, to the end of dis­covering a more rational and acceptable, technique for the realization of Henry George’s perfect dream. It was a great pleasure both personally and otherwise to be with you before and I am sure we all profit as well as pleasure by a further examination and re-examination of our basic philosophy as a source of light. I hope you are still working on this matter and will keep me advised. My only thought is to assist in finding further light on our path to the ideal.

     I like very much your remarks about the selection of suitable persons for any conference that we may have and that there should be a definite understanding as to what theme or themes were to be discussed. I note that you have these matters pretty well decided and feel very sure that you have judged well. For my own part, I shall be perhaps the most interested in such discussion as is centered on the nature of rent and its utilization for the maintenance of all public services.

     Yes, I received all numbers of Cause and Effect from November on. I approved of the November and December leading articles very much. They are a long step in advance; a step that I have long proposed. I am con­siderably surprised that John S. Codman does not agree with you, but I am not at all surprised with reference to J. Rupert Mason. All his reactions seem to me predominantly emotional and moral. Your December answer to them is illuminating but, unfortunately, emotion is much less responsive to light than to heat. Mr. Willcox, of course, would be sure to agree with you, as would many of the Pacific Coast contingent.

     Please give my best personal regards to Mrs. Walker and to all of your associates in the search for freedom. I look forward with much pleasure to seeing them again.

Sincerely,

SH:M

/Note: When Heath didn’t have a secretary and typed a letter himself, he sometimes put “SH:M” at the end as if he had dictated to a secretary, whereas in reality the “M” stood for “Machine,” i.e. SH./ to the typewriter — a bit of humor./