Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2191

Dictation taken from Heath by Spencer MacCallum at “Catoctin Creek,” the home of Heath’s daughter, Lucile Heath MacCallum, in Waterford, Virginia. Here was a moment of optimism about the tide of history that was not borne out.

 

 

Dear Sir:

 

Let me congratulate you on your fine issue of Newsweek for December 12. It is in the main a grand picture of what has been happening in the world and particularly in the United States in recent years. It gives more details of our tremendous economy for 1955 and upon this what seems like a well-founded forecast of what the next decade is likely to bring forth.

 

 The whole is epitomized in just two of your lines: “The United States Government will spend more money but take less relatively out of the economy during the next ten years.” If this turns out to be true, it is the most important prediction that has been made for 2,000 years. The Christian era was founded on a new precept for man, that each should do unto others in the same manner that he would have others do unto him — that men should enter into world-wide contractual relationships with one another and thereby become builders, creators, of a new world.

 

 For a thousand years, this new rule was obscured. During this time, the iron rule of governments sank into decline and made possible the growth of trade and industry that was the mother of the Renaissance and upon which modern civilization has grown.

 

 But as trade and civilization developed, so was sovereignty reborn. For four hundred years the sovereign powers have battened on the wealth and values created by industry and trade. The golden rule has been in a race with the iron rule. The outcome has been until now obscure. The powers of the world have destroyed more than free men would create. But now for the first time, it appears that our great economy may be able to produce more abundantly than its one great sovereignty will destroy. If this is true, civilization has turned the corner and a great emergence into freedom and abundance is in view for mankind. If this is true, the golden rule has at last prevailed over the iron rule and a golden age is at hand.

 

_______________________

 

As affecting large populations, there are only two rules under which they can work. One is the ancient iron rule of government taxation and war, leading always to economic decline and shortening lives. The other is the golden rule, which commands men to enter into contractual relationships, to serve others in the same manner they would have others serve them.

 

 When the Christian Era began, the iron rule was supreme, and for a thousand years freedom and civilization — the life of man — declined. Virtually all sovereignties expired, and a new age could begin. There was a Renaissance in which the modern world was born. But of the new wealth that sprang from freedom, new sovereignties arose, and for four centuries what the golden rule created the iron rule again in large measure pulled down, and many men despaired that the golden rule would ever prevail. The great world wars of the twentieth century tended to increase their despair. But now it appears that the point of turning may have arrived. It is reliably predicted (Newsweek, December 12, 1955) for the decade ending in 1965, the United States Government, although spending more and more of the proceeds of industry, will yet take relatively less. If this is true, and continues, it means that civilization has at last turned the corner from darkness into light. The golden age will have prevailed over the iron rule and a golden age come true.