We are told in the Old Testament that Dada followed Babel as a penalty, and the European Dadaists have only sought, as critics of a civilization which has become a spiritual failure, to make this clear by symbols. The American Dadaists, who seem likely to spring up like mushrooms from now on, say “Dada” for its own sake, and so revert to infancy at the moment when men are most needed to interpret our obscure desires. I find their assumed superiority to other mortals snobbish, and their æsthetic attitude is only one present manifestation of the intellectualist sterility and anæmia from which we have begun to escape at last. They are taking “Art” entirely too seriously, and forgetting that every great artist is only great in so far as he can laugh at his own pretensions a little sadly. We are also in some danger of seeking romantic escape from the machine by creating a mysticism of the machine, and by regarding the machine as something transcendental. This is sincere enough, because it is the result of action on the part of those who have suffered from the machine. We know how deeply rooted is the instinct to lay propitiatory offerings before something powerful of which we are afraid. But the artist should not imitate Caliban, even if he does so beautifully, and so while I recognize the truth underlying the work of Stieglitz, for example, I cannot accept this new transcendentalism in American art and literature as a liberating force. It is clear to me that it is really an ostrichlike way of accepting slavery. These remarks are perhaps less irrelevant to the general reader than he is likely to believe. If our more promising artists are driven into a cul-de-sac, it is because they perceive the banality of Main Street, and are seeking a way out into the country. It is perhaps necessary to continue trying cul-de-sacs until the right road has been found, and it may even be probable that when that road is found, many artists will not be disinterested enough to bring back the news. The romantic escape of many is perhaps necessary for the realistic return of one, and all I am seeking to do is to point out if I can what ways appear to me to be cul-de-sacs, and what artists seem to have stumbled on the way out. If these artists run away, something is lost, but more is lost if they are all driven into narrow cul-de-sacs. Meanwhile, Sherwood Anderson seems to me the man who is nearest to finding freedom, and I believe he is also the man who is most anxious to return to Main Street and report what he has found.