Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1410

Carbon of a letter to Raymond V. McNally, 200 East 16th Street, New York City

May 28, 1942

 

 

Dear Mr. McNally:

     I was very much pleased to hear from you ten days ago. I have wondered what might be going on with you and in connection with the School under its new administration.

     It is especially hopeful to know that the Faculty Forum Committee is interested in anybody’s theories that in any way enlarge upon or deviate from the narrow formu­lation of the least defensible of the many theories pro­pounded by Henry George. Needless to say, I am glad that this wider interest seems to extend somewhat in my own direction. Anyone with new and creative conceptions is always most pleased when they are not totally rejected by those who stand most to profit by them, especially his own people, sect or cult, as Christ said of Jerusalem when he so yearned to bring her into his higher vision, but she would not.

     It always gives me satisfaction to realize that, at any rate, one person connected with the School, namely yourself, has had the mental fortitude to give attention to the broader and more constructive views and in addition has possessed such adequate capacity for comprehending them. I hope to have the pleasure before very long of your perusal and encouraging comment on the book-length typescript in which a philosophy of freedom and social growth indefinitely into spiritual realizations is somewhat systematically and comprehensively set forth.

     Meantime and herewith I am sending you some odds and ends of communications that I have sent to three others in the not very distant past. I think you are quite fami­liar with all the ideas expressed but you may find some refreshment of them that will assist you in the selection of what aspects you may think it best to present in your talk to the Faculty Forum to which you refer. I sent these particularly for the reason that they are all addressed to fellow-followers of Henry George and the wider ideas are presented, so far as possible, from their special point of view.

     I would like it very much if after you have finished with them you would be kind enough to send the three items of correspondence and one or two of the printed circulars to Mr. C.H. Walker, of Cause and Effect, Dearborn Street, Chicago. (I am finishing this letter in Winchester, Virginia, and do not have his exact street address with me.) I should be glad also to have you send him a few notes of explanation or comment upon them if you feel so moved, — and ask him to preserve them carefully for me.

     Almost certainly I will be in New York again within the next week or ten days and I look forward to the pleasure of another visit with you — your very compre­hensive (and comprehending) mind and the very simple and unaffected but no less gracious and pleasing hospitalities of Mrs. McNally. Please remember me to her kindly and in the like terms.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

 

Enc.

Mr. Foley’ s letter August, 1940, and my lengthy reply. Letter to Mr. Kendal September 30, 1940, commenting on Beckwith etc. My letter to Miss Bateman, February 11, 1942, with enclosure of my reply to the solicitation of an insurgent group. Also four “Society and its Services”