New-York tribune., 1916-01-02
Our Poets and Artists Must DO the
Work by Rescuing and Glorlfy-
ing American Lesend-Com-
mercialism Is at Fault.

our country in the form OF stories and pictures
I. must be done By private enterprise at hrst
If the state did this at present 1t would be
fatal because the state is the product OF Just
the conditions that have been describing
The government should also take care OF the
immigrants in their economic life, / believe,
by providing employment agencies insurance
and the like That leave TO minds that are
better qualified on the subject than mine, but
I know that if we expect 10 make these new
comers feel their Ame-icanism we must get
az their sub-conscious minds through their
imaginations And for this we must call on
our artists.
have made an attempt in this direction IN
nv "Civic Ritual" which I devised as cere-
mony of naturalization. This is a collection
Of extracts from great American documents
such as the Declaration Of independence,
Washngton's farewell address and Lincolns
Gettysburg speech, arranged in dramatic iorm
But this is only the merest beginning. We
must present American history and legend in
dramatic form Children are made 70 read
about Washington, whom they usually see in
statue But let the actor impersonate him.
Let him speak as a living man, contemporary.
Our artists have hardly made an attempt 70
make our history and legend live.
MANY AMERICAN LEGENDS.
What are our legends7 you ask. Every To-
cali.v has them, though most people do not
know IT, Take any trip on a railroad tram
Did you ever imagine the dramatic lives uat
were lived by the pioneers OF the country WHO
IL LxNsU
first made trail, then a road then ouilt houses
and finally made the railroad possble' Every
SQUARE mile of American soil is alive with
legends But where are our artists TO make
these legends live in peoples imaginauonsf
We need the regular theatre for this But
much more we need the local community per
formances, such as St. Louis had TO celebrate
her asoth anniversary in 1914, such as Ne"
York will have this spring to celebrate heI
tercentenary of Shakespeare's death and sucn
as Mr.. Arvold has organized in the villages
and social centres of North Dakota.
American soil is bristling with legends and
the people hardly know it. Do we know about
the battle Of Plattsburg? The farmer lads OF
the neighborhood, hearing that the British
were planning a naval invasion, went out into
the woods with their axes, chopped down trees
and built them feet of ships, which were
commanded by boys of sixteen and eighteen,
This is the stuff OF American folklore and
legend. But it needs the dramatist and the
artist to make it live.
Rip van Winkle has become character N
American folklore because Washington Irving
took the story and projected it in artistic form
through his genius. The Plattsburg legend
and the thousands of other American Legends
are waiting for the poet TO dramatize them
to make them live in peoples imaeinations.
When our American artists have done this tor
American soil, making each locality live m
the imaginations of its inhabitants, we shall
see some OF the symbols necessary TO bind
people emotonally to their country Only
when America is dramatzed and symbollzed
by the artist can the immigrant love and un-
derstand her And only then shall we have
go. to the realities of this problem OF hyphena-
ton.
II Is the artists job.