New-York tribune., 1919-04-20
By Herbert ]. Selignann

N 1T true that workingman In mod
b ern industrial civilization must deny
n himself art and literature, music and
the best results Of scientific research?
How much music or drama can be enjoyed
on the wages which laborer earns? Can
laborer learn about the world as science
is revealing it? Are the arts and sciences
the playthings of wealth, or can they be
brought Immediately into the lives and
homes of those who weave. forge, weld,
mine and construct the material fabric
by which the world lives?
"If the average employer were faced with
the alternative of having his wife and
children live they do" said woman
referring to the daily existence of opera
tives In an Industrial town, "or of shoot
ing them, he'd rather shoot them"
This observation Representa- the extreme
of dirt and ughness which prevail in some
industrial centres. 1t could hardly be ap-
piled to New York and other great cities
where, if tenements ara ugly, there are
art museums, tf opera comes high there
ara tree eeneerts, and motion pictures are
within reach OF almost every ene'a purse
Vet what vera called the other day by
! labor leader "the higNef peaehes Of the
! human eptfit." aia Of neeeasity eoeed TO
many wofkmen The art which their en-
poyers enjoy Ia either too eNponsive for
them, or else they have not become habitu-
ated 60 It. Perhaps by tho very nature Of
their lives and their feelings they would
have a very different kind of art If they
could In the past, except as an occasional
settlement house community centre has
reached relatively small groups an orchcs~
ira at popular concert played familiar
airs, it Is only the commercial and the
tawdry which has reached the thousands
who toll They have hung on their walls
cheap Autographs or colored cuts from
magazines and newspapers. The world of
their art has been bounded by the hurdy-
gurdy, the excitement of the motion picture
theatre, the erotic or sensational daily
story in the cheap press
1t is automatic that if you give people a
stake in civilization, even if it is only a
bathtub, they will feel that society in
some measure represents and includes
them 1t is upon this belief that a number
of movements springng up among
workingmen in various cities, but chiefly in
New York. In Boston, the Central Fcder-
ated Union has established university
where working people can obtain an cduca-
ton suited to their needs. In New York
the international Ladies' Garment Workers.
Union has been conducting university
winch ls endeavoring to make the word civ
liizatlon represent something more than a
word to the thousands of workers. But
despite these movements, the plastic arts
have been inadequately provided for.
workers first awoke to their particjnation
IN freedom when they sang in great Choir
uses at their strike meetings and came to-
gether as the town, in its workaday ugli
ness, gave them no opportunity to do Fro
quently, in a strike, workers find emotional
expression which is otherwise denied them
strange as 1t may seem, there is FREQUENTLY
"A manifestation of genius for organization
IN time OF strike, of brotherhood Of 70
sponsivencss to song and mass movement
which Is a crtique Of the barrcnness OF
daily drudgcry uniilumined by the stimuli
that the economically frccr classes regard
as commonplaccs in their lives.
Booksellers and Librarians on the Eas,
Side can tell their tale Of the earnestncss
Of immigrant and naturnized workers. It
is safe to say that Ibsen has been given
more frequently in foreign tongues in this
city than in English. OF the desire OF
large numbers Of workers for the better
things in the arts there can be no doubt.
Under the leadership of the United Cloth