The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-05-04


HOFFMAN.
ample mirror before him, where al
the agopies of his soul can be ten.
derby observed,
The rayon workers are, after all
theme on which the usual Ander,
sonian variations may be played
These very same signs have beer
heaved before by this very same
Mr.. Anderson, Artist and lover OF
Beauty, before this very ample mir
,or.
EVE thousand workers are or
strike in Elizabethton. Starva-
ton wages, long hours, a brutal
speed-up. lives beaten into Goldfish
apathy-and then the strike, the
fire flaring up suddenly in the
night. And in a little town, Marion
Va, sits Sherwood Anderson, novel
ist, short story writer, essayist
poet, newspaper publisher, editor
but above all, Artist and lover of
Beauty-who, after more than fifty
years of CROPPING, of reciting soft,
musical lamentations in an effort to
discover himself" and that vast
mystical something or other: Amer
iea," has at last found the solvent
Of all these perplexities: he has
bought Two small-town newspapers,
tne republican paper and the other
democratic, and-at last the real
thing! The soul Of America" laid
bare.
And so, having become a pub
Usher and editor, Sherwood Ander-
son IS III search of copy. Real hot
stuff! Full of the humping. mad,
mystical neart-blood of America"
Hence the visit to Elizabethton.
CHERWOOD ANDERSON comes
v to the hell-hole built in what
some mad jester named Happy Val
ley. And he is deeply wounded IN
spirit. The soul of Sherwood Ander-
son, artist and lover of beauty, is
ravaged by the sight of ugly build
ings. He writes: "'The premature
aging Of buildings in America,
said my friend Van Wyek Brooks, F"
is the saddest thing in America "
Remember, dear readers of The
Nation. lawyers, doctors, ministers,
socialists, artists, lovers of beauty,
not the premature aging of men aid
women, not the wasting away of
the bodies of children, not the grind
ing Of human flesh and blood into
wealth and power for the few
this is not the saddest thing in
America. 1t is the premature aging
of buildings. How horrible the lot
of the sensitive artist. To be SO tor
tured by the fate of inanimate
thlEgs.
I'VE went to the hotel to dine, u
W continues Anderson, land
went into the washroem. Such places
intimate, personal places-mark a
town. The hotel, but few years
old, already had that shoddy, weary
air characteristic of cheap careless
construction.
"There were few tiny fragments
Of cheap soap, The washbowls were
dirty. Such things are important
They tell story"
Again Anderson brings us to the
realization of how deep the suffer
ings of an artist must be, while we
ordinary clay go about our daily
tasks of getting beaten UP on the
picket lines, hunting for jobs, dodg
ing the landlord, ETC., callous to the
true poignance of life. Sherwood
Anderson, coming to Elizabethton tt
sympathize with the strikers-ant
get copy-was compelled to stop a.
that shoddy, carelessly constructed
hotel instead of in one Of those beau
tiful, modern, carefully and artist
cally built homes in which the mil
strikers live and where his sou
doubtless would have been spared
SuCn IOTluTES. Anu tIiiIlh VI ~. h'
wash-bowls were dirty" It's enough
to make one weep
cHERwoOD ANDERSON goes tx
= inspect the mills.
anyone working in these places
must feel their power. Oh, the beau
ty and wonder Of the modern intri
cate machines! 1t is said that many
of the girls and women in thes'
places are half in love with thu
machines at which they work"
Now we know why the Southern
mill workers won't" strike. They're
in love with the machines. Eugene
O'Neill has written play about /;
man who worships dynamo. Herr
II new wrinkle for him. What
about the women and girls who love
he factory machines so much tina
they gladly work twelve, thirteen
Aours day because they can't teal