Dr Mackenzie - America's Prosperity and the Economic League

[Neil_Crafter]

I recently found the following article from The Argus newspaper in Melbourne of 17 November 1926, which refers to an article entitled "America's prosperity" written by Mackenzie and published in a magazine called Popular Politics.



After a bit of digging I was able to discover that Popular Politics was an Australian magazine, published in Melbourne and fortunately the State Library of Victoria held copies. So I have been able to obtain a copy of Mackenzie's article and it is clear that he wrote it for the magazine, the official organ of the National Federation (Victoria), while he was in Melbourne, in between visits to RM, Kingston Heath, Victoria, Metro etc.

I post the article and the cover as I think people will find some things of interest in there, and it further establishes Mackenzie as quite a political animal. From the introduction to the article, it states that Mackenzie was an honorary official of the Leeds & District branch of the Economic League, which was an anti-communist political organisation founded in 1919 and continued until around 1990. We knew of some references to Mackenzie and the Economic League in respect of a possible article that he wrote, but this appears to be the first confirmed link between Mackenzie and the EL.

[TEPaul]

Neil:

It's interesting in that November 15, 1926 article by Mackenzie that in the second paragraph, even though he does not name him, he is talking about Robert Hunter, the man who basically became something of his partner on Cypress Point. Hunter, by the way, wrote one of the premier book on architecture, The Links, that same year.

[Neil_Crafter]

TE
Absolutely correct and well spotted. He spent a lot of that first US trip in Hunter's company, and although he doesn't mention him, Perry Maxwell was his host in Oklahoma City.

[Tom Naccarato]

Neil, I can count on at least three occasions that MacKenzie was here in LA. How many does the time line have at this point?

Great read by the way! more or less goes with my politics. Only if America was really like that!

[Neil_Crafter]

Tommy
Guess it might have changed some in 82 years!
You can see why Mac was so enamoured with the country that he just had to move there.

As for LA Timeline mentions, I'll just check............ these are with a few additions that won't appear until the 15th edition.

February 23 1926 - leaves LA after "brief visit" and conferred with LAAC directors and inspected Riviera (LA Times 24 Feb 1926
March 1926 - to southern Cal consulted on Redlands CC (from AM's Cypress Point Club book)
April 1926 - played at Midwick CC (Sean believes the "Merwick Golf Course, Los Angeles" that Mackenzie mentions in this article is him misspelling Midwick, and this would tie in with info we have that he played at Midwick)
March 13 1927 - visits Dana Point with Hunter (LA Times Mar 13 1927 from T Naccarato)
may have also visited Golfers Country Club on same visit (LA Times May 27 1927, TN)

Thats all we have so far - if you have any others that would be nice!

[Tom Naccarato]

Merwick is a misprint. It should be Midwick. (pronounced Mid-dick)

Interesting to hear he was there, now I'll have something else to cry about every time I drive through Alhambra!

I also have him arriving here on October 29, 1931 aboard the Panama Pacific Liner, Pennsylvania which was coming from New York, Havana, via San Diego. MacKenzie in Havana.... It's a good thing Castro wasn't in power then! mac, could have probably ended up in jail!

[Neil_Crafter]

Tommy
Yes, I was just about to post that Liner arrival ref that you supplied to the timeline, but you beat me to it.
I dont think Merwick is a misprint per se, 6 months on when writing this I reckon Mackenzie couldn't exactly remember the name and his best recollection was Merwick for Midwick.

[Kalen Braley]

Neil,

You just keep coming up with epic stuff.  Certainly couldn't be more appropriate in these times with the big choice coming up in a few weeks.

Interested to hear what the tree-houses take' is on "advising on golf courses".  I know its been debated just how much the courses in Australia were really MacKenzie or someone else.

[Neil_Crafter]

Kalen
This is a passion for me, investigating Dr Mackenzie's work, writings, life etc. Fortunately the internet has made possible things that could not have been physically accomplished  20 or so years ago in searching newspapers for example.

As far as Mackenzie's work in Australia goes, a lot of what he did was exactly that, advising golf clubs, and typically he inspected their course, wrote a report and usually drew a plan to depict his recommended changes. In most of these cases he left it up to the club to implement and went on his merry way. In a number of cases, Alex Russell (pronounced Alec), his Australian partner, did the follow up work and got the course onto the ground.

[Brad Klein]

Have always loved the combined talents of the theorist of military defense and trench work/camouflage, Dr. MacKenzie, collaborating with the army artillery/attack/offense guy. Alex Russell. Great dialectic of offense and defense.

[Thomas MacWood]

Neil
Doesn't this article somewhat parallel his around the world series, as far explaining where he went in the USA on that trip? Do you know if the side trip to Long Island was to see Lido or NGLA or maybe both?

[Neil_Crafter]

Tom
Your question has prompted me to go back through some of my clippings from his Australian trip. I've found an article from The Leader newspaper (Melb) of Nov 20 1926 entitled "Famous American Course" where he discusses NGLA in some detail (suggestive of him taking some detailed notes), also mentioning Pine Valley and Lido in the process. Here it is:



He also talks about The Lido in an article he wrote for The Herald of November 10 1926 about Royal Adelaide, saying that,

"Just dwell upon this for a moment: One club in America, the Lido Golf Club, spent $900,000 (180,000pounds) in an endeavour to construct features of this description which have almost been entirely disregarded at Seaton. And here nature has been kind enough to provide them free of cost!"

So I think we can take it that he visited both NGLA and Lido while in New York, and also took in Pine Valley most probably when he visited Melrose with Maxwell.

Brad
I have never thought of the Mackenzie-Russell combination in those defense/offense terms - very insightful. There is a Mackenzie article on the use of camouflage as an offensive tool as well, so he wasn't purely thinking in defensive terms.