Evening star., 1938-05-23
The Fine Arts Bill
Projects for Writer'S Raises Some Questions How
Far the Government May Go.

Allu, luld1lys 0oAoAA
was to be set up as another inde-
pendent authority tied to nothing and
responsible to nobody. The new bill
puts the projects under the Depart
ment OF the Interior, which is a good
place for them.
The previous bill was killed with
the assistance Of many artists. Mr..
Walter Damrosch got into the pub
lie eye, not because he went to WASH
ington to testify against certain pro-
visions of the bill, but because the
Musicians Union called him UP on
the carpet and threatened to read him
out of it for testifying against the
bill.
am not sure that the fact that
they threatened to do 1t was not the
most telling testimony against the bill
in its previous form. Since Mr..
Damrosch has probably done more
than any single man for music in
the United States, during more than
SO years of activity, the unions stand
certainly cast doubts upon the unions
passionate interest in musical art.
Permanent Jobs.
The present bill provides for the
bodily transference to the new ad-
ministration Of all people on artistic
projects set up by the w. P. A. AS
far as I can see, it thus makes per-
manent jobs originally set up for
purposes Of relief. This ought to be
changed.
Any one who can write a sentence,
not necessarily dramatically cor
rect one, can call himself writer.
Anybody who has ever walked on In
high school performance Of THE
Royal Family" can call himself an
actor. Any one who can do finger
smears with water colors can call him.
self painter
This bill provides that the present
lucky incumbents of jobs with Federal
relief projects are to be blanketed into
the new projects at minimum wage
Of $50 week, regardless!
AS for the writers proiect"-I can
not, to save my life, see how writer's
project can even be imagined in terms
that make sense-if the project ever
gets out of the guide book stage.
The Philosophy of Writing.
The writer is in complete possession
OF the means of production. If he is
writer, that is to say If his work has
any relation to literature. to art. then
he enjoys a natural monopoly. He
has a market as free as can be imag-
ined There are 10000 books published
a year in this country. There are
10000 newspapers and nearly 5000
magazines.
All of them are looking, of course,
for names" but all of them, also, are
looking for talent.
Besides, since when has writing been
necessarily profession" LOB" ex-
cept in these lamentable times? Walt
Whitman and Nathaniel Hawthorne
were both Government clerks; the
late A. E. Housman earned his living
as Cambridge don; Keats was drug
clerk and Disraeli a prime minister;
Arthur Schnitzler, Alfred Doeblin,
Somerset Vaughan, A. ]. Cronin.
Francis Brett Young, Arthur Conan
Doyle and Oliver Wendell Holmes
we're all physicians; Joseph Conrad
was a ships master, Robert Burns
poor crofter and James Stephens was
a lumberjack. The recent winner Of
the Finnish prize for the best novel
in that language was an immigrant
housemaid in New York; William Nc
Fee is working ships engineer, Julia
Peterkin runs plantation, Archibald
MacLeish writes for Fortune to earn
living and writes poetry for fame,
Edith Wharton was distinguished
lady of fashion, Maj. Thomason ma
jor in the Marine Corps. Charles Dick
ems was parliamentary stenographer,
Anthony Trollope a travelling post
office inspector who wrote most Of his
books on trains, Goethe was min
lister of state and Shakespeare was
an actor.
Projects! For writer's! Absurd!
tropyrieht, 1888. by the North American
Newspaper Alliance. Inc.)