Only during the days of the WPA, in the ’30’s, has the United States government ever evinced any particular interest in the arts. I cannot hope that the present materialistic attitude of our lawmakers will cause them to look with much favor on things of the spirit. The attitude of our government towards the arts is noteworthy only for its complete lack of interest in them or care for them. In the arts, and notably in the ballet, it has the most formidable means and potential material for cultural propaganda. The stubbornness with which it insists upon ignoring the only aspect of American cultural life that would really impress and influence Europe is something that is, to me, incredible. It is a rather sad picture. How long will it take us in our educational process to understand that in the unborn tomorrow we, as a nation, will be remembered only through our art rather than through our materialism and our gadgets? Meanwhile, excellent and highly valuable assistance is being given by such Foundations as the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. The latter’s contribution to the New York City Center has been of inestimable help to that organization. Certain municipalities, through such groups as the San Francisco Art Commission, financed on the basis of four mills on the dollar from the city tax revenues, the Art Commission of the County of Los Angeles, the City of Philadelphia, among others, are making generous and valuable contributions to the musical and artistic life of their communities. There are still to be mentioned those loyal and generous friends of the arts who have contributed so splendidly to the appeals of orchestras throughout the country, of the Metropolitan Opera Company, and the New York City Center. But this, I fear, is not enough. The genuinely unfortunate aspect of the overall situation is that we are so pitifully unable to supply an outlet for our own extraordinary talent. For example, at an audition I attended in Milan, out of the twenty-eight singers heard, sixteen of them were Americans. This is but further evidence that our American talent is still forced to go to Europe to expand, to develop, and to exhibit their talents; in short, to get a hearing. In Italy today, with a population of approximately 48,000,000, there are now some seventy-two full-fledged opera companies. In pre-war Germany with an approximate population of 70,000,000, there were one hundred forty-two opera houses, all either municipally or nationally subsidized.