Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter to Heath from Spencer MacCallum

January 7, 1958

Hi P.D.:

Studying anthropology certainly is giving your ideas a lot of meaning. I keep working up a principle or idea and then recognizing it as one of yours in a different form. An interesting thought occurred to me a while ago about primitive property being inalienable from the group which held beneficiary interest in it. Property hasn^’t changed, only the circumstances surrounding it; the interested group now includes all of mankind as potential beneficiaries. Property is still inalienable – from the whole human race. Another thought that has been forcing itself on me is that private property goes all the way back to the very beginnings of society. It’s beginning to appear from anthropology that private property antedates settled communities and was well developed among nomadic hunters. So it is not property that has changed so much (except in complexity) but our mode of account keeping, of measuring reciprocal equivalences among people. The big change was from keeping accounts by feel, in which elaborate kinship systems and highly formalized gift exchanges were developed as empirical aids, to keeping accounts quantitatively. Another thought has been that property of every kind in primitive societies has always carried with it the obligation on the part of the owner to put the part that he does not consume to the use of others. The “wolf” idea of property can probably be attributed in every case where it occurs to political influence. Effective use of the materials of nature is the great principle underlying the convention of property.

            These were some of the thoughts in my head tonight, and I thought I^’d run them through the typewriter to you. I’ve had a lot of thoughts this fall, but mostly I’ve been very very busy. This term I’m much busier still and am somewhat concerned if I can get through it. I’ve four papers assigned to me to write in the next nine weeks, three of them on books I haven’t read yet, besides keeping up with everything else!

            I’m taking an interesting course on typography and advertising lay-out which is fun. I hope I can keep it up with everything else I’m trying to do.

            Send the Radcliffe-Brown books back when you can. I haven’t had time to read his NATURAL SCIENCE OF SOCIETY, and may not this term, but if you think well of it, I might like to send it to Dr. Harper to look at. (I haven’t written him and owe about four letters, and feel very bad about it. He’s sent me several extremely interesting leads about people looking in our direction in anthropo­logy, and I don’t want him to stop!).

            Send me a novum organum on physics! Or some of the chapters of it.

So long,

 

/Undated fragment written from Seattle/

 I started this letter a couple of days ago, and will go on to finish it now. What I was going to say about kinship systems was this:

 Most kinship systems in the world are not based simply
on nearness of relationship, regardless of side, as ours is,
but recognize descent (of status) through unilineal groupings
which are exogamous. So you inherit status in your mother’s
or your father’s exogamous clan, depending on whether the
organization tends to patriliny or matriliny, and the system
is consistent with mathematical precision throughout. (By
this definition, the Scottish “clans” were not true clans but
something more like tribes.) Unilineal reckoning has two
advantages over cognatic reckoning (where nearness of relationship is all that counts). It’s a device to classify a much larger number of people and thereby systemize their jural rights and duties and integrate them into a much larger cooperating whole than is possible under simple cognatic reckoning, which gets almost hopelessly complex for practical purposes beyond third cousins — descendants of a common great-great-grandparent. Secondly, it allows the formation of corporate groups which keep their identity from one generation to another — just the membership changing. These corporate groups then can develop traditional cooperative relationships in the primitive society with other corporate descent groups. Under cognatic reckoning, the kin group is somewhat different for every individual, and corporate groups cannot develop. The network of established symbiotic relationships, the system of recognized interdependency that develops among the unilineal kin groups, beginning with the exchange of mates under the rule of exogamy and extending to ceremonial and economic func­tions, ties together a large population into a common culture.

            So the Anglo-Saxon kinship system seems to have been a relatively unspecialized and primitive type, dispersed families with a minimum of corporate identity. Since the groups were small and essentially families, they were the more easily broken up by a migration by sea.

            I can probably explain this better than I’ve written it, but the general idea seems to suggest again the rule that adaptation and specialization are opposed to the emergence of new forms, and that when individualism and contractual organiza­tion did occur as a step beyond the level of kinship organiza­tion, it occurred among a people who had the least specialized form of kin grouping.

            P.D., if you think it would be worthwhile from the Foundation’s standpoint to bring me back for a week or so during Christmas to review the fall correspondence and write a batch of letters, I’ll be glad to do it. The transportation cost would be about $220.00. It may be that you and Anita have everything going on at a good rate. My last exams are on the 18th of December. I’m interested to see what has developed with the Foundation over the fall, but I have things I could equally well do here. The two balance out. So you decide if you think it would be desirable or worthwhile from a Founda­tion viewpoint and let me know about it.

            That’s quite a review Rev. Westhof has written for you!

            I had a nice Thanksgiving with Beatrice. Ted is home again, and things seem to be going well with them. Corpy sends his greetings and respects too.

           

Are you planning to go to Winter Park in January or after Christmas? I hope so. I wish we could exchange some Winter Park weather for the weather we’ve got out here. The sun came out one day here two weeks ago, and it seemed so bright that my eyes couldn’t adjust to it all day. Some mornings it seems as if we were living on the bottom of the sea.

            Well, so long for now; I’ve got a lot of German grammar to master for a test tomorrow. Say hello to everyone in Waterford and Elkridge and New York for me.

So long.

 

 

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Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter to Heath from Spencer MacCallum

January 29, 1958

 

 

Dear Popdaddy:

Your letter has just come, and I’ve been on the point of writing you for the last week; so I’m glad I wasn’t able to get to it until now.

            First of all, I admired the typing of your letter and decided you must be in the pink of health and spirits if your artistry on the typewriter was any indication. Then in closing you let the cat out of the bag. So say hello to the “lovely young lady” for me too!

            What I needed to write you about was to ask you to arrange for Mark to sell some of my Standard Oil of California stock for me. Thanks for your offer to lend me something to tide me over until the market lifts — to be repaid out of “future profits on investments.” However, I’ve been very im­pressed in the last six months with the uncertainty of future profits. And besides, your investments must certainly be making more profits than mine are now (Standard Oil is down to 145.00).

            I am wondering how much I should sell now. My needs until the end of school are $600, due in these amounts:

February 15: $200

March 15: $400.

There’s not much time for leeway, but perhaps timing isn’t as important for such a small number of stocks anyhow. Fifteen shares at the present market price would meet my requirements through the spring. (I don’t suppose it would be worthwhile to divide the sale in two parts, 5 shares now and 10 in March.)

            The advertisements for CMA look fine. Roscoe Pound’s quote was certainly used to good effect! And the note to the Prospective Reader is also very well expressed. The Note is nicely reproduced and on a fine quality of paper. It looks to me as though Mr. Munson did that job for you; it’s his style.

            I had a very nice letter from Dr. Harper the other day. He didn’t know about Radcliffe-Brown either (somebody should have brought him to his attention!), and said he’d try to get a copy of the book in Irvington. I’d rather lend him my copy with your marginal notes in it, and maybe get some more notes from him too! That’s one of the things that makes a book especially interesting. So will you please send me back the book as soon as you can? I hadn’t had a chance to look at it before I sent it to you, and as soon as I’ve read it, I’d like to send it on to Dr. Harper (hoping he won’t already have got a copy of it).

            Here are my plans for the summer:

                   School lets out on Friday, June 13th. I’m no longer planning to go to Harvard in the fall, but expect to come back here in September to finish my Master’s Degree. Therefore, I wouldn’t be returning with you to the East at the end of the summer.

            For catching up on Foundation work, there’s no place so nearly ideal as Elkridge, where we have our records, correspondence, stationery and typewriters, etc.

                     Unless you get an invitation to come out to California earlier, how about my coming back to Baltimore and our picking up our correspondence and reviewing all Foundation work up to that time there — accessible to Baltimore and New York — and when we have our work squared away and an itinerary planned, come out West perhaps the first half of July. This way, perhaps we could get some correspondence started that we could follow up during the rest of the summer.

            This is just my first reaction to your letter. There’s lots of time, so let me know what you think of it.

            Hey, when you get to Elkridge, send me copies of the reviews of CMA. I may not have time to make translations of the Spanish ones now, but I can translate any parts that we might be able to use, and I’d like to read anything in print about CMA. Also, C.J. and Cather have asked me to send them on to them after I’ve seen them.

 I’m real glad you’re getting down to Florida before Febru­ary’s traditionally bad weather starts. It’ll get you away from being bothered with CMA, too. P.D., the most important, the most interesting, the most urgent, the most promising thing now is for you to pursue physics and see what you can make of it.

If this letter reaches you in New York, you might con­sider trying to visit that fine physicist who wrote A Sextet of Sibyls (his name slips me right now) on your way to Elkridge — call him from New York and stop over at Princeton if necessary.

 Oh – I didn’t tell you why I decided against applying to

Harvard. I’m not sure what I want to do yet in anthropology, and am thinking about some small colleges and (not very seriously) the University of London. In the meantime, as a result of the reorganization of this department, it may be one of the best on the West Coast in a few years. So a degree from here may be good professionally, besides giving me more time to look into other schools.   

               So long and all the best,

               /s/ Spencer

 

 Here’s a thought for today, nothing special but an
interesting comparison that occurred to me. (Incidentally,
I find I have to use “society” for primitive groups too; there
isn’t any other to fill the need. And anyhow, we don’t deny
babies the appellation “human”. But I do distinguish it as
primitive and modern. And also, we can speak of primitive
societies in the plural, whereas we can only speak of
modern society in the singular.):

      In normal society, primitive or modern, every extension of property or service to another is reciprocated and a balance maintained among the membership. The reciprocation may come from the same party or from another or from a number of others, and it may come at the same time or at a different time or at a number of different times.

      In modern society, a man commonly puts property or services to the use of another in exchange for a draft on the general market. He receives equivalence at his option from the same or, more often, from different persons — in the market at different times. Services of all kinds are readily measured against a common numerical standard of equivalence — the prevailing market price.

      In primitive society, each person has many statuses, which take effect only as they are called upon — depending on the person to whom he is relating and the occasion for the contact. Therefore a man commonly puts property or services to the use of another because that person is a kinsman and occupies a certain status in relation to him. He receives back from other persons at different times according to his status towards them.

 (Immediate completion of a trade between two persons is barter and is rare both in primitive and in modern — or status and contractual — society.)

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Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter to Heath from Spencer MacCallum,

3000 Indiana N.E., Albuquerque, New Mexico

September 27, 1958

 

Dear Popdaddy:

It was good talking with you on the telephone this morning.

            Enclosed is copy for the coupon which I said I would send. I have sent copies of this to Mr. Fink and to Mr. Meeks. If this is satisfactory, will you give Mr. Meeks your okay so that he can go ahead with it?

            Sorry we delayed Mr. Fink by not getting the letter of instructions to him. The last time I saw the letter, it was on the left-hand side of the big desk under your brief case. But the carbon copy of the letter will cer­tainly do as well. If you didn’t find the carbon filed under Fink, look under Lewis Advertising, and then in the file box labeled “General Promotion of Cit.M.A.” But I’m sure you found it all right on the first try.

            Popdaddy, I’d like very much to see the letter from Mr. Fink restating the terms of our arrangement with him. You were going to send it on to me, but it hasn’t arrived yet. Not that I don’t think it’s all right — you could judge of that — but I’m just genuinely interested in it. I’m interested in how business people talk to one another — the common law of business practice. So will you forward it on to me?

            Enclosed is a carbon of my letter to Mr. Fink. I sent a similar letter to Mr. Meeks covering the corresponding points, but neglected to make a carbon. I’m now waiting to receive from Mr. Meeks the galleys of the booklet of reviews, the proof of the coupon envelope, and finally the silver print (is that the right word?) of the finished circular.

            I got a nice letter from Aunt Marguerite yesterday that you forwarded (thanks), asking, among other things, if I could tell her something of Heath Charles. So I’m sending her his present address. He must be as bad a correspondent as we are.

            Cather says you told her you might be coming out before very long on your way to California. That sounds swell. Don’t wait until you’ve arranged your reception in California in advance — that’s too uncertain!

      Cather’s still working on her short story writing and trying to publish. If you ever wonder what the appropriate gift to her might be, the typewriter she uses is a horror — it’s a small Remington portable used after the first World War by her father when he was a young man, and that he gave her to use in college. For Gosh sakes, don’t let Cather know I’ve said anything about this to you.

            When do you think you might be coming through? Lucy is thinking about coming out and visiting too, I think, if she can arrange it.

            Keep in touch with me about the advertising. C.J. and Cather are very much impressed with the circular. They think it’s in good taste.

Best in everything,

 

P.S. I won’t bother to send back the proof I now have of the circular since I’ve no comment on it.

 

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Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter to Heath from Spencer MacCallum,

3000 Indiana N.E., Albuquerque, New Mexico

October 24, 1958

 

Dear Popdaddy:

Here’s the proof of the circular, and I’m sorry it has been so much delayed. I’ll write you later about the things that have been happening that held it up.

            I’m sure you remember Mr. Fink saying, on the last day that I was in Baltimore, that 6″ lengthwise was too long to fit easily into the envelope. He asked that we reduce the long dimension by about 1/8″. That informa­tion apparently didn’t get to Mr. Meeks, since the folded size is still 5 ¼ X 6”. We can remedy this if we reduce the pages, exactly in the proportion that they are, until the short dimension is 5″ even. This will leave the length something under 6”.

      I notice on the first page, you have moved the decorative monogram up 3/16″ and right 1/2″. I vote for the monogram inside as Mr. Meeks placed it — my reasons being that it gives a tighter organization of the page and a more clearly defined organization, since it then aligns with the end letters of the words POUND and APPROACH, above and be­low. This inner margin thus defined is important because it forms the right-hand side of the perfect inner square I have marked lightly in pencil. Moved out, the monogram aligns only with the margin below and with nothing above, since as you have noticed, the line, “CITADEL, MARKET AND ALTAR” is extended out beyond the page margins on both right and left to give it more prominence. (The monogram is set back with rubber cement — so can be moved.)

            The photograph of the book is just wonderful! The top and bottom edges of the book exactly parallel the slope of the line, “CITADEL, MARKET AND ALTAR”. Is the rather dark, grey background in the photograph to be removed when the half-tone is made? It should be.

            On pages 2 and 3, the words “DISTINGUISHED APPRECIA­TION” have always been planned for red, but they appear black on this proof. Is this a change made on purpose or is it a mistake? If a mistake, it should be corrected; I think red is very desirable.

            On page 6, I pulled a boner. I intended asking Mr. Meeks to crop the photograph of you so that your head would be proportionately larger, instead of reducing the picture that we gave him exactly as was. I was thinking so much in terms of this end result that I took all for granted and forgot to note it for Mr. Meeks. The photo should be corrected. The head is definitely too small and lost in the half-tone area, with too much dead space around it re­sulting. This portrait should be the attention-focusing spot of importance on the page. As it is, it is a weak spot instead. I have penciled in a smaller frame of same proportions as the half-tone cut, to show how I think this should be. It is a question now of enlarging this to the size of the present half-tone cut.

            I note your penciled directions on the proof to trans­pose pages 5 and 6, which have got out of order, and to delete the last line on what will be page 5 when these are transposed.

            Crawfish and Cather pointed out as a weakness of the circular the fact that it only carries the comment of individuals and no names of familiar periodicals or publications. Crawfish then also made the happy suggestion of including as a third insertion — besides the circular and the collection envelope — a single sheet the same size as the folded circu­lar with nothing on it, at all, but our three reviews from American periodicals of highest standing, namely, MODERN SCHOOLMAN, NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, and WASHINGTON POST (which are chosen in this order on the basis of content). I think those three alone are all that are wanted, and that the page would need no word of explanation but would be self-explanatory. Neither would the page need to be in two colors; one color would do the trick. Finally, this would be printed on one side only, so that the unprinted side could lie in­serted against the face of Mr. Fink’s large mailing envelopes and thus have no printing showing through the front of our final letters as they go out to our prospects in the mail. You will of course need to arrange with Mr. Fink to handle this extra insertion if you decide to go ahead with it. I think it’s distinctly worth doing, and am grateful to Crawfish for suggesting it.

            I’ll write you a good letter about my calculus and other studies right soon. I wrote Dr. Harper and got a nice letter in reply. When are you coming out???

So long for now,

/s/ Spencer

Carbon copy to Mr. Meeks

I’m sending photo of book directly back to Mr. Meeks.

 

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Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter to Heath from Spencer MacCallum,

3000 Indiana N.E., Albuquerque, New Mexico

October 25, 1958

 

Hi P.D.:

It was swell hearing you on the telephone last night. I’ve finished the letter to you commenting on the circular proof, and enclose it. I’m writing two letters to you because the one containing the information about the circular, I typed in duplicate and sent a copy to Mr. Meeks, along with the photograph of the book.

            Here’s a paragraph I decided to leave out of the other letter when I thought I would make a carbon for Mr. Meeks. I’ll enclose it here just for the record:

“At considerable risk of seeming garrulous, even boorish, I’ll mention again that on page 4, it seems out of character with the “low pressure” sales effect of the whole circular to run the sentence about CMA being reviewed in 14 “leading countries” and irrelevant how many languages these reviews were written in. It seems a jarring note in what is, however, an otherwise very harmonious circular. So pass over this with only a light curse, and I hope maybe a little indulgence.”

I’m glad you like the idea of perhaps finding Cather a typewriter. She’s spent so much on overhauls for this one that it seems she might almost have been able to rent one (a figure of speech, since I don’t really know how much typewriter rentals are). I’ve rigged up a rubber band spring for the carriage to keep it from piling up letters, but it’s slow to use. How about giving her one of the Foundation typewriters and getting a new one for the Foundation? I should think the kind we have, Smith Corona, would be very satisfactory. And Christmas time might be the most appropriate time. A good typewriter will certainly be the perfect gift for Cather, for everyday use as well as considering her aspirations towards short-story writing.

            I’m really sorry this proof has been delayed this way. I’ve been alternating diarrhea and constipation since I’ve been here, combined with some flu or something. I’ve had two exams in Calculus and Organic, we’ve been trying to lay a floor and finish off a room for me to live in here, and I kept thinking I wanted to do this circular all at once instead of in sessions — combined with inertia that runs in our family. I’m sorry.

            Again, P.D., if you’re going to wait until you have California connections lined up, you might as well do your waiting out West! So I’ll hope to see you sooner or later and I know Corpy would like you to come out to Seattle. Good luck at the College down south!

/s/ Spencer

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Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter from Spencer MacCallum, 3000 Indiana N.E., Albuquerque, New Mexico, to

Ben Meeks, John D. Lucas Company, Printers, 26th and Sisson Streets, Baltimore, Maryland

November 10, 1958

 

Dear Mr. Meeks:

I have just had a letter from my grandfather, in which he enclosed a favorable review of his book from “The Solicitor” of London for October. I have written him back, suggesting that the name of this magazine be added to the “Index of Reviews” in the back of the booklet, “SAMPLING THE REVIEWS”, that you are making page proofs of for us now.

            The new entry would read: “The Solicitor, London, 10-58;” and would be inserted alphabetically immediately after the entry, “Santa Ana Register …”, a few lines before the end of the Index. This would also require changing the words, “September, 1958”, on the front cover, to read, “October, 1958”.

            I told my grandfather that I would send this sug­gestion on to you so that he could simply authorize it or not, and you would know exactly how to proceed.

            I hope everything is progressing well. Everyone certainly seems pleased about the circulars; I haven’t seen them yet, but am looking forward to getting some Popdaddy has sent so that they can be shown to the rest of our family out here.

     Before long, I shall be looking forward to getting some page proofs of the little booklet.

With very best wishes,

Spencer H. MacCallum

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Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter to Heath from Spencer MacCallum,

3000 Indiana N.E., Albuquerque, New Mexico

Ovember 12, 1958

 

Hi Popdaddy,

Thanks for the letter and enclosures, which I am returning for the files. They look fine.

            The circulars have not come yet. I’m hoping they will, because Lucy is a fine person for distributing them, and she’s contacting interesting University people here — Dr. Hibben included, who is head of the Anthropology Department. I was taking a graduate seminar with Dr. Hibben in anthropology, along with the math and chemistry, but have had to drop it for lack of time. I attended the last session today, and am very sorry to have to let it go.

            How far has the book of reviews gone at the printers? Is it too late to add the name of “The Solicitor, London, 10-58” to the Index of Reviews? This insertion would come immediately following the “Santa Ana Register”, about three or four lines from the end of the Index. This would also entail a change of the date on page 1 from “September, 1958” to “October, 1958” — which is good because it makes the pamphlet more current by a month.

            I’m dropping this suggestion to Mr. Meeks tonight in a separate note, copy enclosed. So will you please let him know your opinion on it? If you decide to do it, then he will already have the instructions, and can go ahead when he receives your authorization. So will you please tell him one way or another on this? Thanks. (Incidentally, I think it’s worth doing — it gives us a complete record now.)

            We all enjoyed reading the “Solicitor” review at the table tonight, and hope you make a big contribution at Salemburg, N.C. — Wish I were going to be there!!

Best wishes — So long,

                                                           /s/ Spencer

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Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter to Heath from Spencer MacCallum,

3000 Indiana N.E., Albuquerque, New Mexico

February 18, 1959

 

Dear Popdaddy:

I received the gift check from you, for which much thanks, indeed! Also for your two letters.

            About that tax-form for 1958, here are the best sugges­tions I can give. You might check each of these methodically, and then if it still hasn’t turned up, ask Ada to take a morn­ing off from her work and make a thorough search through everything, including a second search of her own through the following points:

1. I do not think it could be in the attic.

            2. Check both the Active File and the 1958 File under the _v following categories, in this order:

Science of Society Foundation

Taxes

Foundation

Government

U.S. Government

     3. Check in the Minute Book, which should be in one of the drawers of the metal file cabinet (active file) or in the bookcase under the orange (inactive) file boxes.

4.  Call Mr. Bartlett and ask if he possibly has a copy.

            5. Look on the top shelf of the large wardrobe (the only reason I suggest looking here is that I forget what is supposed to be there.

            6. Look for a large clasp envelope marked something like, “OBSOLETE BUT TO BE KEPT”, which may be on the long table, on the bottom of the steps leading to the attic, or somewhere else. This envelope has some superseded copies of Aunt Beatrice’s Treasurer’s Reports. It should not contain the tax-forms; but I am trying to include all of the places where these could remotely have been misplaced.

            The booklets came this afternoon from Mr. Fink, and all the letters (some eighty of them) should be out by tomorrow. I’ve typed in the date of January 6th on all of them.

            I’m relieved that the repairs on the car are not as much as they might have been. That was a real whack I gave it, and it’s been on my mind. I have my new driver’s license, and all that is in order now. I own a bright red motor-scooter now that takes me to school and back each day at about 35 miles an hour and goes well over a hundred miles to a gallon. It would seem like just the thing to have at Elkridge to go down to the village on. I got an unheard-of bargain on it, nearly 50% less than regular price, so that I’ll get my investment out of it, if not interest as well, when I sell it in June. Actually the way I got it was to buy a 1956 super model from an individual for $70 (there was the bargain!), for which I was allowed $200 trade-in value a few days later on a very slightly used 1958 economy model which the dealer had marked at $225.

            This typewriter is really a honey! There’s another bargain at the same pawn shop, a “new” Clipper model of the Smith Corona exactly like your typewriter with the standard type. It’s $70, which is $25 less than the retail price. Not as good a buy as this typewriter you got for Crawfish and Cather, but it looks very good indeed. Shall I pick it up for you? I’ll be glad to.

I just got back from a weekend spent with an old Andover classmate, Byron Harvey (of the Fred Harveys), as guests in a distant Hopi Indian village for some religious ceremonies. Byron has a number of friends in the village, including the Chief Priest. The Hopis have no Christian church of any denomination that I saw, and no pretentions whatever of being Christians. They have a richly developed culture of their own with roots as deep into the past as ours, which is still intact and living, unmarred by contact with European ways — usually so corrosive of folk cultures on first contact.

            Sure do hope your analysis from California comes up with some good results!! It could mean a lot to a lot of us, not to mention your own self. You want to put these next fifteen years to good use, not have to drag through them. So best wishes,

            Best to the MacCallums and Lyneses,

So long,

/s/ Spencer

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Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter to Heath from Spencer MacCallum,

60 Richardson Road, Berkeley 7, California

August 14, 1959

 

Hi P.D. —

How are things coming? I’m still in the reading stage of my thesis. Did I tell you I met with my advisor from Seattle, when he was visiting in Berkeley for a day, and he approves of my thesis subject? Also, I’ve been offered an assistantship in the Museum in Seattle for this year if I want to take it.

            Here’s a copy of a letter I’ve just finished writing to Corpy. It occurs to me you might like to see the kind of letters your grandsons write to each other, and also it will tell you some more about what I’m doing. Corpy wrote offering to reserve space with his Russian family if I’d like to come there to live this fall.

            I just wrote a letter to Mr. Holden in New York, asking him for the references to his articles on consoli­dating realty for urban renewal projects.

            A lot of my reading for my thesis has come out of the Appraisal Journal and the real estate journals. In thinking about your Elkridge property, you might sound out the MOSS-ROUSE COMPANY in Baltimore about an economic analysis to determine the best use of the property — whether a garden-apartment development, residential development, shopping center, office buildings, industry or whatnot. They were credited in 1955 with making some important innovations in this kind of analysis with respect to shop­ping centers. They also developed the Mondawmin Shopping Center in downtown Baltimore, which has had a lot of publicity. Of course, Homer Hoyt Associates in Washington, D.C., are topnotch. And the Ring Construction Company in Washington has had a lot of publicity as innovators and builders of garden-apartment developments.

            Does the Foundation really want to sell the land (assuming it will get title)? Maybe the land is a good investment. If it were leased to a good purpose now, wouldn’t it always be salable as an investment? By leasing it, it could be developed immediately, if that seemed the best thing to do, and the title transferred to the Foundation whenever that was most convenient. I should think the first consideration would be to find out the best use of a piece of land. If it’s developed to a good purpose, I should think the ownership or leasing arrangements could always be negotiated advantageously. (I like that word, “negotiate” — in Spanish, negocio is the general word for “business”).

 Well, so long for now. Give my best to Lucy.

 

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Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter from Spencer MacCallum to Irvan T. O’Connell, Jr.

August 14, 1959

 

Hi Corpy,

 

Thanks for your letter! Things are progressing here, but not fast. I’m hoping to have the worst of my reading done by the end of this month and then start organizing and outlining for the writing. But it looks in any case as though I won’t be able to start school until the second quarter. Also, the tax exemption hasn’t come through for the Foundation yet, and things are in a mess at Elkridge — income tax returns etc. I think I ought to try to schedule a few weeks there. That tax status has to come through if anything is ever going to be done with the land.

            So thanks for the invitation, but don’t hold any space for me.

            Want to hear a sort of new thought? Victor Gruen, the architect, describes the shopping center development in terms of our urban life crystallizing around new centers. That’s quite a sweeping picture, but there’s nobody around who’s offering to contradict it. The old retail districts have been in absolute decline since the end of the War, and there’s a lot of hue and cry about what to do with them. I think they are going to consoli­date just the way P.D. has been predicting they would, and that we will have proprietary shopping and business districts in the old city areas just as we have in suburban areas. These centers then, both in the urbs and in the suburbs, will act as seed crystals for all the remaining area, each being set up to take increasing areas of surrounding land in exchange for stock in the develop­ment corporation — both for speculation, to profit from the rising values caused by their own operation, and because they are in the business of land management. So this may be the mechanism by which Popdaddy’s prediction will come about.

            Thanks for the good word on Hobhouse, Wheeler and Ginsberg. I’ve put it on my reading list.

            One thing I think you could predict a priori about the Yakut or any sedentary community below the level of sovereignty, is that the land in any kinship group will be held in single ownership and the title (distributive function) explicitly vested in one individual. This gradually fades in the earlier groups as the distribu­tive function within the group becomes less important. In some cases the ownership authority comes into sharpest focus around other kinds of valuable property such as domesticated cattle or reindeer. Don’t quote me here; I’m just serving out of the top of my hat.

            Have you had a chance to look at V. Gordon Childe? I think his whole thesis is concentrated in a couple of chapters, the ones I marked in the table of contents. If I were editing the book, I’d leave everything else out. I’ve adopted his characterization of sovereignty as a kind of authority that is not general throughout the population — an authority of a different order than is exercised elsewhere in the society. In a proprietary community, on the other hand, the public authority is an authority of ownership, the same kind of authority as is general throughout the society with respect to different kinds of things than land. So the sovereign community is a split personality, whereas the proprietary community is all of a piece.

From here I could go on and write my whole thesis; I think I’ll take the easier course and quit.

So long,

 

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Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter to Heath from Spencer MacCallum,

September 7, 1959

 

Hi P.D. —

You haven’t heard from me for a long time, so I expect it’s time you did.

            This thesis is coming along so well that I’m almost afraid to talk about it — for fear it will disappear or get up and walk away. BY GOLLY, but you were on the right track about the development of society towards proprietary real estate management! In the ‘thirties, when you got the idea, it was hardly visible. I can’t see how you could have caught it. You or Arthur Holden, because his writings on the development of real estate are superb. But now it’s BLATANT. Yet I haven’t found anyone else who has articulated it or caught the full significance. Why, it wasn’t until the ‘thirties that appraisal and property management were developed far enough to support professional associations. You certainly gave me an exclusive scoop, as the newspapermen say, and I’m writing the best damn story on it I know how.

            You couldn’t possibly have an inkling of all the development that has taken place since the early ‘forties. We hear most about the shopping centers (estimates are that there will be 10,500 in operation by 1976, a center for each 21,000 of the projected 1976 population of 221 million. Nearly 3,500 of these are already built), but other kinds just as significant are busting out all over — industrial, professional, commercial (wholesaling and warehousing), and residential (garden apartment developments, rental housing developments, complete with their own business and shopping centers). There is such profusion of kinds and combinations that the only word to describe them all is “real estate com­plexes”. One of the most important developments, but one that you hear the least about, have been large, organized industrial districts, which are so well architected, land­scaped and controlled (smoke, noise and such nuisances) that they are not only being called “industrial parks” but are compatible with exclusive residential areas, and are being so considered now by urban planners. The origins of these developments, some of them, go back into the 19th century, but the modern form and development of them has all come since 1940.

            The contribution to social theory for anthropology is just as exciting to me. It’s a natural. I’m enough of a partisan anthropologist now to be glad the sociologists didn’t see it first. But it fits so well with the development of primitive villages that it seems appropriate now for anthro­pology to be the discipline to study this further step.

  Listen to me boast about something I haven’t started writing yet! But the worst part of the reading is out of the way. In the last ten weeks I’ve read or scanned over 50 books and 700 articles in journals and magazines of every description and have over 1,000 5×8 cards of notes. I have my ideas generally organized — I’ve outlined and re-outlined the thesis several times — and hope to get to the actual writing next month. I’m making arrangements to register again in Seattle for their second quarter, which begins just after New Year’s. I’m very much hoping to have a first pencil draft of the thesis by the end of November. This is taking on the dimensions of a doctorate, so I may just adapt a part of it for a Master’s thesis; but that won’t be hard to do once I have something to work with.

 I think when this is all over, I’ll take a vacation to a South Pacific island, no Melanesian natives or anybody, and just sit on the sand, and when I get to feeling active again, dig a hole in the sand or maybe find a tide pool to look at.

 I was glad to hear from you that things went well in New York. The architect family I’m staying with are enjoying the last part of CMA, which I recommended to them. They’re very interesting and perceptive people. I haven’t talked much with them about what I’m doing, though, because I’m finding out as Crawfish did with his physics, how hard it is to talk intelligently with laymen. But with an anthropologist, some­one who knows something about primitive kinship structure, there’s not the least trouble communicating. I’ve never yet drawn a blank look. The language of anthropology seems made for developing your kind of ideas, P.D. But your ideas have undertaken such a development in this peculiar direction, that I think that you won’t recognize them at first and will be right pleased to meet them again.

            An unusual animal got into my room from the outside the other day: an arboreal salamander (Aneides lugubris), about six inches long with a prehensile tail to swing from the twigs and branches! It’s an unusual animal, and after noting all its peculiarities properly, I let it go. A Dr. Anderson of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, down at the University, identified it for me the next day beyond all question as an albino of the species, a rarity indeed since an albino of this species has yet to be described in the litera­ture. Needless to say. Dr. Anderson was interested, and I regret that I let it go so soon.

            Have you thought much of the suggestions I made about the Elkridge property? The name of the Baltimore firm slips my tongue just now, or I’d make them again. I’ve read more good things about that firm since.

 Well I have to hang up now; the library opens again in less than 8 hours.

So long,

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Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter to Heath from Spencer MacCallum,

60 Richardson Road, Berkeley 7, California

September 17, 1959

 

Hi P.D.:

I forgot in my last letter to say that Dr. Harper was telling me about the tax exemption fight his own foundation had been in for the past few months. It seems most applications were “put on ice” by the government during the past year while the new regulations governing tax exemption were being drawn up. (The new requirements have been out now for a couple of months). What made their own application seem hopeless was that they were actually refused exemption during the time when most applications were being held on ice. But they have a lawyer in San Francisco who specializes in tax exemptions and in whom Dr. Harper has a great deal of confidence. Their lawyer appealed the rejection with such success that the decision was re­versed and the organization now enjoys full tax exemption.

            Dr. Harper suggested that it might be well worth while talking with this lawyer, who seems to be expert in this field, and get his perspective on our case. I said that I didn’t know how our case might have changed since I was last in touch with it (has it changed at all, or does it still stand as it did?), and that I felt I should check with you first. My own feeling is that we couldn’t lose much by it and that we might get a new slant if this lawyer is as informed and energetic in this field as Dr. Harper thinks he is.

            The name I’d forgot is James W. Rouse, real estate analyst and financier in Baltimore. His firm is considered one of the best and most live-minded in the country. I’d be proud to have his estimate as to what is the most profit­able long-term use for the Elkridge property.

            P.D., for a long time I went along with your definition of society as a very recent phenomenon, no older than the development of impersonal contractual relations. But I didn’t try to adopt your strict use of words because it was too difficult to do — it left primitive society, based on kinship, neither fish nor fowl and nothing to call it by; and primi­tive society, after all, has been the main object of study of anthropology. But now I’m beginning to think my expediency has the support of sound principle as well. My thinking runs this way: property is the criterion of society. Contract and kinship (systematized kinship rights and duties as opposed to mere biological relation) are techniques whereby the proprietary principles can be realized. True, contract is a technique infinitely more suited for developing the poten­tialities of property. I say infinitely, because it is impersonal and thereby not limited, as kinship is, to the numerical possibilities of the face-to-face situation. But kinship can also be utilized by man as the basis for for partially realizing the implications of the abstrac­tion of ownership or property right.

            The art of the Northwest Coast, which ranks with the most sophisticated art styles of all of mankind’s history, is not the product of mere animal behavior. It was the result of men entertaining an abstraction, property, and then arranging their rela­tions in accordance with this principle. Property in the social sense is explicitly recognized in the higher kinship cultures. “Property” in the “monkey” sense I think is one of the side-effects of sovereignty. The Anglo-Saxons were not unique at all in associat­ing the concepts of owe and own (Did you know that ought was a past tense of the same verb?). In Tikopia, an island in Oceania, the natives may disapprove a chief’s exercise of his authority regarding the land in some instances, but they never dispute his right to exercise it. And they are ready with an explanation of their attitude: “The land is his: he owns it.”

 Sure, kinship belongs to the animals. But imagination and abstraction are human. And I think the abstrac­tion of property is the key to social organization. At an early time, men implemented the proprietary principle with what they had at hand, which was simply the recog­nizable facts of procreation. On the basis of these recognizable facts, different groups of men fashioned the most beautiful and complex systems of rights and duties, each of a design most suitable to their own condition (physical environment, level of technology and number of population). The proprieties of the systems were observed by consensus, and the authority recognized in each was proprietary in basis. When men learned marketing and accounting, then this opened up a far superior social technology, a brand new technique involving impersonal agreements, or contract. But contract is an improved technique: the fundamental abstraction, property, remains the foundation of society.

 What do you think?

                                                                                   So long,

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             /s/ Spencer

What about the lawyer?

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Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter to Heath from Spencer MacCallum,

355 Yale Avenue, Berkeley 8, California

November 8, 1959

 

Hi P.D.:

Thanks for the letters and all the enclosures. The material about Dr. Alpenfels is interesting, since she went to the University of Washington and has studied the Haida Indians on Queen Charlotte Islands, the very group I’ve studied more than any other. I don’t believe I’ve read her work on the Haidas, though I haven’t got my bibliography here to check against. I want to look it up.

            The New York Times review of Vernon and Hoover’s Anatomy of a Metropolis is also mighty welcome. There is no reason why there should be an absolute decline of the core areas of cities in retailing that I see except the social-organizational advantage of the suburban shopping centers. Downtown can’t grow as fast as the fringes; but it seems the downtown merchants would have no trouble holding their own if they could achieve the coordination of effort and the leadership possible under proprietary organization. To the extent that downtown retailing declines, we have a measure of the relative superiority of proprietary organization. In the downtown vs. suburbs situation, I think we have a picture of direct competition between two kinds of social organization, proprietary on the one hand and “co-operative” laced with political on the other. There are plenty of uses, it seems to me, for “co-operative” efforts (which I’m tending to call “volunteer organization”, as opposed to the proprietary); but one of them is not the basic organization of any kind of community involving real estate. Its value seems to me to be as an auxiliary form of organization in the scheme of things, with social and esthetic considerations predominating.

            The article by William H. Whyte, Jr., in Readers’ Digest, I had already read as published by the Urban Land Institute. There’s an organization that I think would be the most appropriate group to promote and develop the principle of proprietary organization. Did you see the fine editorial they published in the October, 1957 issue of Urban Land about CM&A? I came across it several weeks ago, and think it must be one we missed. If cultivated, I think the Urban Land Institute could become your most effective ally in the East, if not in the country. It would certainly complement your Claremont association in a nice way.

            One way you could establish rapport with them would be through recalling your pioneering interest in landscaping for subdivision in Elkridge. Their inspirational, or spiritual roots go back to Mr. Bouton, of the Roland Park Company in Baltimore shortly after the turn of the century. A lot of the pioneering ideas about good subdivision practices being good business practice — ideals wedded with business — were talked out in Mr. Bouton’s home. The members of that circle, including Jesse Clyde Nichols, Hugh Prather and Hugh Potter, went out and carried these ideas further in practice in developments in Kansas City, Dallas and Houston respectively. These men were all guiding forces in the Urban Land Institute, which is today turning out the best research in the country on community land planning. Their periodic reports on shopping centers, residential developments and planned industrial districts and the interrelations between these and other facets of real estate development including urban renewal, are the best in the field. The Institute is staying very close to the tradition and ideals of these early developers.

            In thinking about fundamentals, I’ve about half a dozen questions I’d like to get the benefit of your thinking on when I see you next time.

If Mrs. Manning hasn’t got you booked up for Thanksgiving, how about a train ride to Albuquerque? That would make a good short-length holiday from what I’m doing. But from what I hear from Mrs. Manning, she’s arranging a lot of nice things for you, and among them may be something for Thanksgiving.

            You asked me what I’m using for money. I’m using some of the proceeds from the sale of my motorscooter (at a profit) in Albuquerque, $100, which I had let Crawfish and Cather use and they paid back last month, and $100 cash balance from dividends with B.F. Hutton Company. Living here is fairly economical, at about $125 a month. I have planned to sell, at the end of this month, 10 shares of Standard Oil of New Jersey.

            I pretty much misjudged the length of time it would take to do this piece of research. There was a lot more material available on it than I had expected, so I’m just working on with it without any definite schedule in mind. I had wanted to get back East for Christmas for a visit if possible, besides some small things like some dental work from Dr. Madden in Winchester and an eye examination from Dr. Apell. Ideally, I had hoped for a refresher course at the National Hospital in New York; I’ve been having serious trouble with stuttering for the first time since leaving the Clinic, and have been taking some therapy here, but they use a different technique here that hasn’t been giving very good results; so it may be best to stop it. (The clinician here is a stutterer himself, although he has been directing therapy for over 20 years, and furthermore he’s opposed to the methods of the Nat’l Hospital on grounds that I sus­pect are more than a little colored by professional jealousy). In any case, I’m straying from the subject. I’m not finished with a first draft of the thesis by any means, as I had hoped I might be. And I feel too busy with what I’m doing to interrupt it. On the other hand, it just occurs to me as I’m writing this letter that I finished in the library last week and am now wholly engaged in organizing and writing. So the library is no longer holding me in Berkeley, and I could go East and get a month of good work at the Clinic while working on writing this thing. The argument against that is the inertia of moving and the fact that I have a good place to work here — although the apartment would be equally good. As far as distraction in either place, I’d probably see Muriel in New York, and she can be a distraction, as well as an inspiration; but not more distraction than friends I’ve made here in Berkeley now. So it’s mostly a question of inertia — and of course the cost of traveling there. If I felt sure of being at a good stopping point in this thesis (that is, a completed first draft) by January when the second quarter at Seattle starts, then that would be a strong argument for going East to the Clinic now for a session, since there won’t be an opportunity once I’ve begun school again. But I’m not sure where I’ll be at in this project in January. It has taken the proportions of a full-length book, even though I’m skinning down the outline to a purely anthropologically-oriented theoretical study, saying what I have to say in the least words and trying to avoid repeating. The human significance of the ideas in the thesis are to be limited to a single chapter which will be included as an Addendum, so that the thesis will stand on its own theoretical feet apart from the value implications that can be drawn from it.

            Well you see why I don’t discuss my plans more often with other people; I hardly know my own mind enough to. It would seem a shame, too, to go East just at the time when you’re coming out here.

            I’ve heard from Corpy a couple of times, but am not just sure what he’s doing. He says he has some research in mind that might interest us.

            Darn it, just before that last paragraph I went out to the store on my bike and had a bad spill, which leaves me with sore hands and shoulders so that it’s hard to type. I guess I’ve said everything, though, so I’ll quit. Say hello to Lucy and Aunt Beatrice for me. And lots of success in Chicago. Henry George certainly made a contribution, as you have said, in emphasizing rent as the natural social revenue. Wish I could be with you.

So long,

/s/ Spencer

 

 I’ll make a copy of that URBAN LAND editorial tomorrow morning and enclose it to you. Notice that it’s by Max Wehrly, the executive director of the Urban Land Institute.

 Darn — Didn’t get this off in time and now will have to send it to Santa Ana.

 

 

355 Yale Avenue

Berkeley 8, Calif.

December 4, 1959

Dear P.D.,

It was mighty good to hear your voice the other night. You sound in fine fettle.

      I thought I had told you about my living arrangements. The name of the family, for your record, is Mr. and Mrs. C.R. Routsong. Another time, please call before 10:30, which is what time the family goes to bed. I know I hadn’t said anything about that, and I’m sorry, because I should have.

      I’ve a very interesting job now, working mornings for the Museum at the University. My job right now is wrapping Egyptian material, getting it ready to be moved to a new building. I’ve been assigned to the perishable materials, like baskets, cloth, wood carvings and even dried fruit and other food, many of them already more than a thousand years old when Christ was alive. Afternoons and evenings I spend on my own work, mainly the thesis. This is being delayed just now because I’m in the process of transferring the bulk of the information I’ve collected onto a punched card filing system. A lot of thought has to go into setting up the particular punch card system that will be most useful for my special purposes, before the laborious job of transferring all the old information from the
old cards to the new.

            Punch card filing systems are a mighty interesting development in data processing for business that has come into use in about the last ten years. There are manual systems as well as the variety of electronic systems. The basic idea in the kind I’m setting up is that you have a stack of cards with a uniform series of holes punched just inside the edge all the way around the cards. All cards in a file are alike so that the holes align when the cards are grouped together in any order with their edges even. Certain holes or combinations of holes in the cards are coded by you to predetermined categories of interest. When you write some information on a card to be filed, you decide what different fields of interest this information relates to; and then with a hand punch you notch out the edge of the card at the holes corresponding to the appropriate categories. Wherever the card was notched, there is now a V-shaped wedge missing from the edge of the card instead of a closed hole.

 You put all the cards together now and run a sorting tool, fashioned like a knitting needle with a handle on it, through all the cards at the hole corresponding to the subject that you want to separate out. Lift the cards on the sorter, give them a shake, and all those cards that have been notched for the particular category you’re sorting for will drop out onto a tray. When you’re finished with these cards, you just put them back into the file in any order instead of searching for the right place for each one — which takes so much time and is so liable to error in the old-fashioned filing.

 The chief advantage of punch cards, besides not having any refiling to do and the file never getting out of order, is that you can code so many different kinds of information on one card instead of having to make duplicate cards for different filing purposes. For example: I could make up a simple filing system for the Foundation’s mailing list which would occupy no more space than the present one, and in which I could separate out the names of persons in just a few quick sorts for the following purposes:

1. By name
2. Persons who were sent any particular piece of literature
3. Persons who were added to the file on, before, or after a given date
4. By category of interest, such as religion, philosophy, city planning, etc.
5. By geographic location

6. Persons who are described in WHO’S WHO or belong to certain organizations

etc.

Finally, a few chosen sorts will arrange the whole file in alphabetical order if that should be desirable for checking against other lists.

            There are different kinds of punch cards, some with double rows of holes, as well as various systems of coding the holes to correspond with the subject-matter. I’ve been figuring out what’s the best set-up for my own needs. With 2,000 cards of information, the chore of organizing them in the conventional way seemed like a back-breaking job. Now I’ll be able to expand the file and keep it up to date, and still have it flexible and useful.

            Did you know that Crawfish is a published physicist now? He co-authored an article recently in the JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS.

            Enclosed is a page of quotations from Dorothy Thompson’s article that I think I wrote you about in the summer. Isn’t this swell writing? She’s a gal you should be in touch with.

            Oh yes – the letter to Baltimore went off immediately after it came, on the day after you called.

      I’m sorry I haven’t any part of my paper finished to send to you. It’s taking a lot longer than originally planned, so better not publicize it prematurely.

      I guess it’s not proper for me to invite you up here; youngsters are supposed to go to their elders instead of vice versa. But there seems too much work spread around on the floor here to leave just now. I felt left out that you didn’t come up this fall. I’ve been wanting to have a bull session with you all fall as questions about certain points have come into sharper focus. I doubt if they’re the kind of questions you’d have a ready answer for, but they need talking about. It will have to wait now, though, because I’m thinking more of going East and will stay at least through January and possibly through February, depending whether I decide to register for courses this Spring here or in Seattle. It will be a job lugging all this material, whatever traveling I decide to do.

      I feel sort of disoriented tonight, so I’ll quit talking.

      Oh — One thing I wanted to say is: If you should decide to call again, let me know by way of a 3-cent postcard first so that I can plan for it and we’ll make the best use of the call. This last one caught me unawares, and I didn’t think of the things I wanted to talk about and questions I had for you until the next morning.

      Let me hear what you’re doing from time to time.

           So long,

          /s/ Spencer

 

Northland Shopping Center

“Commercialism” has been blamed for most of the faults in American life, and buying and selling associated with rapacity, its principle being defined as buying cheap and selling dear. The struggle to attract the public eye in an advantageous location has been blamed for land speculation, the inflation of real estate values, and the creation of commercial and residential slums. The commercial spirit has been described as the antithesis of the esthetic, defacing beautiful landscapes with screaming billboards, blotting out the sky with neon signs.

     Commercialism has been accused of cut-throat competition, and socialists and other social reformers have declared private commerce incompatible with cooperative planning. Thus has the case against the tradesman been built up.

     As in most cases, there has been an element of truth in the accusations, as usual unbalanced by other truths. The trader has been the great opener-up of the world, the bridge between human cultures, and between country and city. He has been the purveyor of news as well as wares.

     More than any other group, merchants created the city and urban civilization, with all its graces and amenities. One of commercialism’s greatest recent accomp­lishments is Northland. It is prosaically described as a “shopping center,” and that is what it is — together with several other things besides. It is the most ambitious of such mercantile centers in America or the world. It is a model of enlight­ened planning, and of social cooperation — between merchants, architects, sculptors, artists and civic-minded citizens — and it is entirely the creation of private enter­prise; in fact, the creation of one great Detroit department store, J.L. Hudson Co., a family enterprise which has capitalized and financed it to the tune of #25 million for no other reasons than that much-deplored “profit motive”, the capacity to think ahead, and the very human desire to create something admirable and worthy of repute.

Northland — which flies its own flag, a white (wind rose) sunburst on a blue ground, and, of course, the Stars and Stripes as well — is not one market place but a series of ten connected courts (piazze they would be called in Italy), terraces, malls and lanes. The largest of these — the “courts” — like the “terraces” are squares, the courts open on one side; these one enters from the parking lots. Malls are twice as long as they are wide; lanes are smaller. But characteristic of all of them is that their central areas are beautiful gardens. Fountains spray water into the air; everywhere there are solid and handsome oak benches where one can sit and gossip or smoke, and in every court or mall a delightful piece of modern sculpture attracts the eye — and suggests meeting places.

     These centers are sponsored and financed by department stores, real estate de­velopers and builders. /All of them/ refute the notion that civic planning can be successfully accomplished only by government and supported only by government subsidy. … There is room in America for all sorts of planning, under all sorts of auspices; the question is only who will have the greatest interest in doing it beautifully, practically and economically.

     Given not so very much time — and no war — America promises to be a very beautiful country, not only because of its beauties of Nature, but out of the imagination and initiative of its citizens. What has been ill-done will be undone. What has successfully been tried will be improved. America, as Walt Whitman observed, does not reject the past but translates and adapts it to modern needs. Its spirit looks for­ward, upward, and aspires. And like the builders of Solomon’s Temple, the much-berated shopkeeper gilds the columns of his emporium with the lily-work of art.

     … give us time, freedom and peace.

Dorothy Thompson, “A New Look for Commercialism”

ARCHITECTURAL FORUM, page 156. November, 1954

 

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Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter to Heath from Spencer MacCallum,

Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago,

Chicago 37, Illinois

October 30, 1962

 

Dear Popdaddy —

School is certainly working out well. It’s a good department and they’ve plenty of good ideas. My advisor, Prof. Lloyd A. Fallers, has some specially fine ideas on primitive law. He has that gift that anthropology is supposed to cultivate — perspective. I’ve just sent out a copy of an article he wrote in criticism of C.P. Snow to Baldy, thinking he’ll enjoy it.

      I continue to see the Monroes. They’re certainly faithful friends of yours.

                                                                                   Best,

                                                                                   /s/ Spencer

 

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Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter to Heath from Spencer MacCallum,

Dept. of Anthropology, University of Chicago,

Chicago 37, Illinois

October 30, 1962

 

Dear P.D.:

I won’t stop to say very much right now because I’m working on three papers that are converging and due to be handed in next week. One, I think you’ll enjoy seeing. It’s pretty much phrased in academic language, but it’s about the whole institution of property (and not just as it pertains to land) treated from a general theoretical point of view. The other two are on archeology. Incidentally, archeology is coming more and more to look like social anthropology with a time dimension. It certainly has changed as a field in the last ten years, since it got a way (the radio carbon method) of dating things in the past with definiteness.

     Enclosed is a copy of a fine letter from Dr. Davis that I’ve been wanting to send along to you. It’s sure a pleasure having Dr. Davis and Baldy so enthu­siastic about getting the Chapman talks published by the best publisher. I’m looking forward to this Christmas vacation to have a chance to finish up what’s needed on the manuscript to get it in best form, and maybe get a number of copies made.

      Thanks an awful lot for the apartment last summer, Popdaddy. It was more than a convenience. It was a real pleasure living and working there, and I appre­ciate it very much.

      I’m looking forward to being home for a few days over Christmas. So, until then,

                                                                       Best wishes and heaps of love,

/s/ Spencer

 

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Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter to Heath from Spencer MacCallum,

Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago,

Chicago 37, Illinois

April 25, 1963

 

Dear Popdaddy:

Spring is here. Isn’t it grand? January was the coldest month in recorded history for Chicago. But the birds are back now and the days are warm again.

            Chicago is certainly a fine place for learning.

            Enclosed is a reprint of an article I’ve published in a student journal, Anthropology Tomorrow.

            I’m writing a second article to read at the “Institute on Freedom and Competitive Enterprise” at Claremont Men’s College in June, for which I’m being paid an honorarium of $300 plus travel expenses. I can’t think of a finer way to start off the summer, and I’ll have a chance to see our friends like Galambos who are promoting CM&A.

            Because I don’t write doesn’t mean I’m not thinking of you.

Love,

 

 

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Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter to Heath from Spencer MacCallum,

c/o Alvin Lowi, Jr.

2146 Toscanini Drive, San Pedro, Calif.

July 11, 1963

 

Dear Popdaddy:

Here’s just a note to break the silence. I was certainly happy to get the fine article and letter by Richard Weaver from you just before I left Chicago. You also enclosed a handwritten draft of your reply to him, and since I didn’t know whether this was just to let me know how you had written him, or whether you meant for me to type it up and send it to him, I transcribed it and sent it to him. It wasn’t a bad letter; I liked your succinct statement that “Profit through service is the right incentive of all organization,” especially. So if you had already written him, he’s had it double-barreled now and so much the better. I also enclosed a note about my own reactions to his article. He certainly seems to be coming our way.

            I gave a paper out here at the June Conference at Claremont Men’s College. The paper was about some theoretical aspects of property, from an anthropological point of view. It was based on one I wrote last fall in Chicago. When I get some copies made pretty soon, I’ll send you one. Right now I’m in the middle of a summer’s intensive study of shopping centers which is being financed by a grant from the Department of Anthropology in Chicago. By interviewing and collecting case histories, I’m trying to build up an argument that the proprietary arrangement affords a framework of human relations that facilitates the resolution of disputes that arise among the tenants, in this case merchants. It’s a kind of study designed to fit into the traditional anthropological frame of reference.

            A number of people I’ve seen send their best to you, including especially Louis Spadaro, Ralph Raico, Chauncey Snow, Joseph Galambos, Al Lowi and Mina, and of course Baldy. Oh yes, and Dr. Davis.

Chauncey Snow is tremendously taken with your Chapman talks on religion. I was a house guest with him and his wife to talk with them about it and your background and religious development. I represented you as best I could, but sure wished you had been there.

            The Free Enterprise Institute is still growing. I wish I knew where Galambos gets all his energy. Al and Mina Lowi are letting me use their address for the summer while I’m out here chasing down shopping centers.

            I’m writing this in Corpie’s apartment tonight, in Claremont. He sends a lot of first-rate good wishes to you. I’ll sign off for the time being, because there are things still to do tonight before turning in. I’m looking forward to a week or maybe two weeks in Waterford this September before going back to Chicago. In the meantime, I’ll try to write oftener and keep you up on what I’m doing.

Lots of love,

/s/ Spencer

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Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2819

Letter to Heath from grandson Irvan O’Connell, Jr.,

Claremont Men’s College, Claremont, California

June 23, 1963

 

Hello Popdaddy,

I hope this is a nice day for you.

      I was reading last night in Thoreau’s Walden. I had never looked at the thing seriously, certainly not at that last part.

            Did you ever read Thoreau seriously? I bet you want to make fun of that year-round camping venture of his. But at this point in my life often he seems to talk straight to me. Do you know these passages?

“Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

“I learned this, at least, by my experiments that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some new things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and with him; or the old laws be expanded and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.”

            It’s strange writing to you now, my Grandfather. I know you will read what I say, or have it read to you. And you will respond in your old way to these visions, maybe not on the first reading, but later you will when nobody is looking. But you’ll never answer me. But that doesn’t matter. You will be close to me, Popdaddy, in some part of my mind you’ll be there, just as you were ten or twenty years ago, and as you are now.

“What youthful philosophers and experimentalists are we! There is not one of my readers who has yet lived a whole human life. These may be but the spring months in the life of the race.”

Love, from your Grandson,

/s/ Irvan