Down to a recent time, there was more militarism in the American spirit than most people realized. We had a goodly supply of the courage of battle left over from our several wars and their corresponding victories. America found expression for that spirit in the work of such men as John Philip Sousa, and others of similar, though less widely recognized talent. For a long while, the sound of the stately march has served as an outlet for our patriotic feelings. We now share the general decline in militaristic feeling, but the march will remain. If war dies from the earth, as so many fondly hope it will, our stirring marches will still be treasured as tone pictures of the days that were. Particularly is the folk song a page from the history of a people. One might gather more of the spirit of the old South from hearing a collection of its songs than from the reading of many pages of its story. The same would be true of any section of any land. Ragtime and Jazz represent two successive steps in the development of the recent world spirit. It was a spirit of nervousness and restlessness, a spirit willing to go to any length for the sake of novelty and action. It helped to make the world war possible and is still keeping the planet in a turmoil of restlessness and dissatisfaction. Jazz has been defined as animalism expressed in tone. It might also be called the anarchy of music. There are those who hope for a calmer day in the world’s temper and feeling. When that time comes, its spirit will express itself in a renewal of dignified and stately music. We may assume this to be true because the thought and action of any age, whatever its spirit, is traced upon the long scroll of time in the form of a golden thread of song. We have noted only the products of the lesser musical ability of America. To fail to call attention to the fortunate exceptions would be to fail to do justice to the better culture and taste of our country. The fact that we have had some real masters is one not to be overlooked. Our Cadmans and MacDowells bear testimony to the fact that our faces are forward. There is a spirit of culture in America, and it has found expression in some of the finer and more enduring forms of musical composition. It has obstacles to surmount, but it makes progress. America has a national future. It follows that she has a musical future. The one vouchsafes the other. The other expresses the one. Correspondence (1929) Two important influences go out from an office. One is that of the representatives who make outside personal contacts. The other is the stream of correspondence that issues forth into the outside world. The second is no less important than the first.