Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2853

Typed working draft by Spencer MacCallum, with many penciled additions and amendments, of a biographical account of Heath for an obit or some publicity purpose now forgotten.

No date

 

 

 In 1929 he turned his attention to society. Using basic engineering methods, he observed, questioned, read and wrote until his material took on the dimensions of a book. In 1955, his grandson, Spencer Heath MacCallum joined him and helped bring his manuscript, which he liked to refer to as an “engineer’s report,” to final form under the title Citadel, Market and Altar. The following year, Mr. Heath established the Science of Society Foundation, Inc., which has as its chief purpose to promote wider and deeper understanding of the voluntary institutions of mankind. In 1957 this organization published his book, designed and printed by the Yale University Press. John Chamberlain contributed a forward, and scholars and men in public life such as Roscoe Pound (Dean Emeritus, Harvard Law School), Virgil Jordan (Chancellor, The National Industrial Conference Board), William Ernest Hocking (Alford Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Harvard University), and Edwin G. Nourse (Past Chairman, Council of Economic Advisors to the President), sang their praises of Mr. Heath’s book in reviews and letters. Mr. Heath envisioned a free society as a natural outgrowth of capitalism, which he saw as still in a youthful and immature state of development but destined to give full expression to the ideals of individual self-realization, freedom, and personal accountability.

 In 1958, Mr. Heath visited with friends in Orange County, California, where he met many people who were interested in his pioneering background in aviation and formed a circle of friends who became “kindred spirits” in their understanding and appreciation of his general philosophic ideas. Colleges such as Chapman College in Orange, California, Santa Ana College in Santa Ana, Pepperdine College in Los Angeles, and the Harvey Mudd College of Science and Engineering, in Claremont, invited Mr. Heath to hold seminars and discussions with their faculty and students. (In 1956, Mr. Heath was a guest of the Harvey Mudd College, during which time its president, Dr. Joseph B. Platt, suggested his title might be “Octogenarian in Residence.”) From these occasions, a collection of extemporary talks and discussions with Mr. Heath was preserved on tape. In many of these, Mr. Heath approached his ideas from their religious, or inspirational, aspect, an interpretation of the Christian doctrine of man that for some time had been developing in his mind, especially during an academic term in 19___ at The University of South in Sewanee, Tennessee, as guest of Chancellor Edward McCrady. Many of these tapes have been transcribed and edited by his grandson (now pursuing his doctorate in social anthropology at the University of Chicago) who helped with the book, Citadel, Market and Altar. Plans are going forward for early publication of a second book, this time treating the subject of society from the standpoint of the spiritual life of free men.

 In Orange County and Southern California, Mr. Heath finally achieved what he had long dreamed of — a circle of people who could understand and further develop the basic principles of freedom he had discovered in the social field and use them as a basis on which to soundly build greater and greater freedom in the world. His ideas are being carried forward vigorously in a new organization, The Free Enterprise Institute, founded independently in Los Angeles in 1961 by astro-physicist Dr. Joseph A. Galambos and research engineer Alvin Lowi, Jr. As his work was gaining momentum, however, illness overtook Mr. Heath, then in his 86^th year. He returned to the East in March of 1962 to be with his daughters in his native state of Virginia and died in Leesburg on October 6, 1963.

 Perhaps the words with which he ended his 86^th birthday dinner sum up his total philosophy:

There is no end to life;

There is only life, to life.

Spencer Heath

January 3, 1962

Santa Ana, California

Affiliations

Surviving Family

Telephone:  (Waterford, Virginia and Santa Ana, Calif.)