Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2398

Carbon of letter to Admiral James Dudley, Leesburg, Virginia

November 15, 1954

 

 

Dear Admiral Dudley:

 

     I have just received word from my daughter that you were so kind as to make a visit to Dean Colclough on behalf of my request for a doctor’s degree from the National University Law School in addition to the bachelor’s and master’s degrees I received from that institution many years ago.

 

     It must seem strange to you that at this late date I should ask for this further degree, unless from some purpose above mere personal and private desire. In my law student days I acquired a very special and growing interest in legal origins, particularly of the Common Law in its spontaneous development through the Middle Ages, especially among merchants and in their towns and in the basic framework of free community organization in Saxon England, despite the force of civil codes and statutory enactments.

 

     For some years I have given my talents as a research engineer to this somewhat neglected field of legal development, as a probable long-term alternative to a wholly political and authoritarian form of society. I am now in process of establishing, as a legal entity and modestly endowed, the Science of Society Foundation for the purpose of publicizing the nature and potentialities of non-statutory law in the growth and development of a safe and stable free society. For your information, I enclose a very preliminary sketch of the purposes the Foundation is intended to carry out.

 

My most excellent friend, Judge Walter Bastian, expresses his hearty approval of my project, and as an aid to it has kindly offered his assistance as a member of the National’s board. As a trustee of the National University School of Law and also of George Washington University, with which the National School is being merged, he has the matter in hand to present to the next board meeting, at which it is hoped the George Washington members will grant permission for the National School to confer the requested degree.

 

     It is my aim to follow further the field of social analysis so admirably surveyed by Dean Roscoe Pound in his several books on the Common Law. Dean Pound writes to me, in response to my suggestion that “it would seem that there is a higher alternative than coercion; if there is a manner of conducting public and community services without resort to coercion, violence, and ultimately war, such alternative should be carefully searched out,” Dean Pound replies, “here is something deserving of careful thought and study … a matter of much magnitude.”

 

     For your further information, I enclose copy of my letter of September 3^rd to Judge Bastian, thanking him for his very kind suggestions and offer of assistance, and further setting out the purpose and circumstance under which the doctor’s degree is being sought. I also send transcript from Who’s Who in the East and a reprint of similar matter appearing in International World Who’s Who.

 

     Let me thank you again, Admiral Dudley, for your kindness in speaking to Dean Colclough, and in advance for anything further you may think should be done.

 

     With many personal regards to you and Mrs. Dudley, I remain,

                            Sincerely,

 

 

                                 Spencer Heath

 

Enc: Sketch of purposes, Science of Society Found.

     Copy of letter to Judge Bastian, 9/3

     Transcript from Who’s Who in the East and reprint

     From International World Who’s Who.

SH/m