Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2852

Penned letter to Spencer MacCallum at Waterford, Virginia from John W. Ubben, M.D., 103 E. Main Street, Staunton, Illinois

January 20, 1964

Dear Mr. MacCallum,

Most belatedly, and with apologies, I am finally acknowledging your October 1963 announcement of the loss of your grandfather, a truly dedicated pioneer, the late Spencer Heath. May I assure you that I share a part in your bereavement. Since first we met in 1947, Mr. Heath’s piercing intellect, his powerful mind were indeed an inspiration to me as to all with whom his presence reached. And I treasure my autographed copy of Citadel, Market and Altar, dated August 1947.

 Certainly I can lay no original claim to the opinion that Mr. Heath’s greatness of societal concepts as embodied in his science of socionomy, were recognized and appreciated by far too few people in his lifetime; many years will pass until significant reappraisals and reevaluations of Heath’s science of the emerging society will undergo widespread rediscovery and full understanding on the scale it deserves. Such is often the way of great men ahead of their time.

 In retrospect, it now seems inevitable to me that Spencer Heath’s penetrating analysis of human society could result only in the creative optimism (non-Utopian) of his various formulae, theories, diagnoses and prescriptions for the Weltschnerz imprisoning the populations of our era, the latter programs having been thrust upon us by various dialectical materialists, fascists, democrats and gloomy Oswald Spenglers, et al, who have willfully enslaved the minds of men.

 For if Spencer Heath meant anything at all to me, it was Freedom — freedom of man’s mind and soul. We shall miss his provocative genius. Thank you for remembering me in your sorrow-filled occasion.

With kindest respects,

(Signed) John W. Ubben