The age-herald., 1901-03-05
The Crime of unIInesa

Bliss Carmen in the New York Com
 mercial-Advertiser.
 l am profoundly skeptical of the validity of any theory of conduct which can countenance the cultivation of any form of happiness at the ex- pense of others. If it were not true that we can only reach happiness by a degree of cultivation of all our facul- ties, there certainly would be many more happy people In the world. All people who cultivate their mind asSid- uously and exclusively would be happy and those who cultivated their taste with no regard to thought or sincerity of emotion would be happy But this is not the case. And, more than that we perceive that pIety Is by no means sure bringer of happiness. The blameless life is often hidden under mask of woebegone unlo1eliness. Our good friends are not happy be- Our good friends are not happy be- thinking goodness the only aspect of the universe, whereas it is only one of Its three aspects. God does not ex- ist as goodness alone, any more than man exists as soul alone; but He ex- ists as truth and beauty also, just as man also exists as body and mind.
 We are not constituted to find pleas ure in falsehood or wrong, however much our ill-balanced natures may seem to at times.
 There Is always within us the capac- luy for approving what is noble and for believing what Is true. No more are we constituted for deriving benefit from what Is ugly, however we may tolerate 1t. For once show us some thing beautiful in its place and instant ly we are influenced by 1t. Now, cer- tainly the love of truth and the love of goodness are great virtues; yet there are no greater, I take 1t, than the love of beauty. And when we allow our selves to act without regard for truth and goodness our acts become injuri- ous to our fellow-beings and are called crimes. For the same reason I call ugliness, or the creation of what Is not beautiful, crime. That 1t Is not so considered generally Is only too evi- dent. When any one creates a beauti- full object be Is thought to have added to our luxuries. When a millionaire gives library to town he Is even thought to have conferred a benefit upon the community. This, however, Is rather from the idea that towns people are getting something for noth- ing than from any sense of the beauty of their town being enhanced Indeed, the library Is too often but another crime against taste. But any general sense of the value of beauty or any general sense of the hurtfulness of ugliness, fear, we shall look for in vain. And yet that is not true either, xUo al nf Ol{ Only we have not been taught to rec ognize 1t as an offense against the public welfare. The only instance of such recognition in recent days is the legislation against the disagreement of the landscape with advertising signs. Certainly the perpetration of these hideous enormities all over the fair earth cannot be considered a crime in the ordinary sense of the term; they cause no material injury to any one And yet they do offend every one of us, whether we are conscious of 1t or not. And that common, widespread in jury, that hurt to every mans innate sense of beauty, Is of the very nature and essence of the crime For my part I must think that public art Cor rather public work) is much more rightly the oupJCSb OA NOhoOt o1iP Shoh pAtNdSO morals.
 But of course the cure for the dis ease does not lie in censorship at all; 1t lies in securing freedom for the workman. The appalling ugIiness of our civilization in the mass, Its drear- mess, its monotony, its lack of cheer fitness, Is only the reflection of our own lack of Joy and elasticity Our works are hideous because we have no pleasure in them; and we have no pleasure In them because we are slaves to commercialism.
 But we must not scold. Only to rail against conditions that seem false and unlovely Is to be unlovely and false ones self. If we do not like things as they are and do not believe in them, let us change them. And let us go about it with some degree of good na- ture and tact; for tact is only good taste in matters of conduct. If ever a burden of conviction hurries us away into angry speech, let us repent of our haste. We shall accomplish little for the good cause of beauty by the sacri- flee of beauty in our own works and words.