Gwendolyn Bennett,
250 West 154th Street,
New York, N.Y.

Toward A Permanent Bureau of Fine Arts.

H.R. 8239, H.R. 9102, S. 3296, H.J.Res. 671 ---- what do these numbers mean to the average Harlem citizen, or for that matter what do they mean to the Harlem worker whose life's work lies in the cultural fields, to the musician, the writer, the artist? It is because of these numbers, designations/proposed United States legislation, constituting a long, more or less triumphant march toward the security of American culture are generally little known in Harlem that this article is being written. Briefly, the above list of numbers traces the history of the present movement toward enacting legislation that will provide for a Permanent Bureau of Fine Arts, administered by the United States Government. These attempts toward legislation run roughly from the introduction into the House of Representatives of the Bill - H.R. 8239 by Mr. Coffee, a Representative from the State of Washington, on August 16, 1937, to the present joint resolution (H.J. Res. 671) now in the hands of the Rules Committee following a unanimous endorsement of the resolution by the Committee of Patents, after its introduction there on May 4th, 1938 by Representative Sirovitch of New York. The citation of numbers designating various types of bills for the establishment of such a bureau represents the usual change, amendment and substitution through which proposals for United States legislation must go before they are finally brought before the two divisions of Congress for discussion and vote. What does this delay due to change and amendment mean to all American citizens and to America's black citizens in particular? It means that the fate of American culture and incidentally the golden opportunity of the black cultural worker is teetering on the edge of either success or failure with here or there a weight or measure for a

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against its fate being applied by either faithful friends of our national culture or on the other hand sometimes unsuspecting objectors and more often than not by truly vicious enemies of an American culture that will embrace all the people.

Never in the 130 years of the United States Congress has legislation for a Permanent Bureau of Fine Arts advanced far enough to be scheduled for consideration by the Rules Committee of the House of Representatives. Never before has such legislation had so hopeful an opportunity of being scheduled by this committee for debate on the floor of Congress. For it is the hope of the friends of the bill that the Rules Committee of which Mr. O'Connor of New York is the chairman will find a way to present the bill for discussion on the floor of the House before the middle of June. Should this happen it will represent a long step forward along the route taken by 116 artists in 1859 who "memorialized" Congress to the effect that:-

> "They cannot but deem it a matter of deep regret that so important an element of national progress (Ed: a consideration of American arts by the government.) should have recieved as yet so limited a share of attention at the hands of our legislators, and that opportunities for the illustration of our country's history, rich as it is in material......... should have been, with a few exceptions, denied to those whose province it is, and whose pride it would be, to employ in enduring and beautiful forms, for the benefit of our own and future generations, all that is glorious and enobling in our history, character and life as a people".

Further, it would be a dawning light in the hundred and fifty year old struggle which has been the definite and collective action on the part of artists to prevent the control of government patronage of art from falling in the hands of departments of the government which are far removed from the Fine Arts.

To date credit for the Fine Arts bills should go to those trade

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been employed unions that have sprung up around those workers who have/for the past three or four years in the Federal Arts Projects under the Works Progress Administration and to those public-spirited individuals who have rallied to the support of their cause. If a Permanent Bureau of Fine Arts is enacted in the United States Congress, it will be fair, indeed, to say that relief workers in the arts have been the ones to crystallize the public's need and desire for such a bureau. Their friends, such as Burgess Meredith and Lillian Gish, actors, Leopold Stokowski, conductor, Max Weber and Rockwell Kent, artists, and countless well-known writers have banded themselves together as a Federal Arts Committee to publicize and push the enactment of a Fine Arts Bill. Their struggle has been a valiant one meeting often with well-organized opposition, as in the case of the Seventeen Art Societies of the Fine Arts Federation, who, although broken in their unanimity by the dissenting votes of the Mural Painters Society and the Society of Painters, Sculptors and Gravureers, have waged a ceaseless and expensive campaign against all the Fine arts Bills proposed to this date. On the other hand such important figures in the arts as Walter Damrosch, orchestra conductor, Otis Skinner, actor, Booth Tarkington, writer, Channing Pollock, playwrite, Jonas Lie and Charles Brinckerhoff, artists, have offered consistent objection to the proposed legislation.

The reader may wonder why there has been such an evidenced opposition to legislation for a Permanent Bureau of Fine Arts on the part of those individuals and groups who have always professed a love for the maintenance and growth of American culture. In answer to such questioning it is safe to say the opposition to the proposed bills has been projected by those who are essentially interested in maintaining the status quo in the American arts, namely an art for the few rather than for the masses of people. On the other hand objection has been leveled against the bills, prior to the Sirovitch resolution, because they provided for the selection of administrative personnel by panels drawn from the trade-