In unborn tomorrows I hope to extend these exchanges to include not only Europe, but our sister republics to the South, and the Far East, with whom now, more than ever, cultural rapport is necessary. We are now reaching a time in America when artistic achievement has become something more than casual entertainment, although, in my opinion, artistic endeavor must never lose sight of the fact that entertainment there must be if that public so necessary to the well-being of any art is not to be alienated. The role of art and the artist is, through entertainment, to stimulate and, through the creative spirit, to help the audience renew its faith and courage in beauty, in universal ideals, in love, in a richer and fuller imaginative life. Then, and only then, can the audience rise above the mundane, the mediocre, the monotonous. During the thirty-odd years I have labored on the American musical and balletic scene, I have seen a growth of interest and appreciation that has been little short of phenomenal. Yet I note, with deep regret, that today the insecurities of living for art and the artist have by no means lessened. Truth hinges solely on the harvest, and how may that harvest be garnered with no security and no roof? More than once in the pages of this book I have underlined and lamented the passing of the great, generous Maecenas, the disappearance, through causes that require no reiteration, of such figures as Otto H. Kahn, whose open-hearted and open-pursed generosity contributed so inestimably to the lyric and balletic art of dead yesterday. I have detailed at some length the government support provided for the arts by our financially less fortunate cousins of Great Britain, South America, and Europe. The list of European countries favoring the arts could be extended into a lengthy catalogue of nations ranging from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, on both sides of that unhappy screen, the “Iron Curtain.” Here in the United States, the situation becomes steadily grimmer. Almost every artistic enterprise worth its salt and scene painter, its bread and choreographer, its meat and conductor, is in the perpetual necessity of sitting on the pavement against the wall, hat in hand, chanting the pitiful wail: “Alms, for the love of Art.” Vast quantities of words are uttered, copious tears of regret are shed about and over this condition at art forums, expensive cocktail parties, and on the high stools of soda fountains. A great deal is said, but very little is done.