What has become of the first illusions of which our papers and magazines were full? England expanded her commerce in South America, having forced for the time being her German rival from that field of hottest competition, and Japan practically monopolized the commerce of China. England increases her merchant fleet by capering American ships, and the Pacific Mail retires voluntarily from the Pacific ocean. That is the result of our boasted opportunity in the realm of trade and commerce. Why? Because we underestimated others and because we talked about our own foreign methods instead of changing our own and acting. And now in Art we are doing exactly the same thing. We point with horror to the war that cripples European art and acclaim loudly the superiority of our civilization. Gentlemen, you are all wrong. Art is not crippled in Europe through the war! Inter arma silent musae! The arts are silent, they sleep. Silence and sleep we all understand are good things. The first helps us to concentrate and find ourselves, the latter gives us new strength. And that is the worst that the war does to Art in Europe. Art is at present less active, a self-imposed inactivity, owing to circumstances; not crippled, a result of direct unartistic influences. European Art is free of such crippling influences. Art schools are not run by local millionaires, galleries not governed by rich manufacturers, academy instructors not selected by wealthy trustees with the sole idea that their insignificance will insure submittance to the layman rule! Is Sir Thomas Lipton president of the Royal Academy? No! Is Herr von Krupp president of the Duesseldorf Academy? No! Do they make bankers and brewers directors and trustees of art institutions in Paris or Munich? No! Do they in St. Petersburg or Vienna? No! Do they in Berlin or Rome? No! Do they in Brussels or Madrid? No! _Do they in America? Yes!_ Do they in England, France, Russia, Italy, Germany, or Australia invite their best painters and sculptors to teach in their academies? Yes! _Do they in America? No!_ Do they in England, France, Russia, Italy, Germany, or Austria select these teachers from mediocrities who will be sure not to revolt against the incompetent decisions of a layman board of trustees? They don’t! _Do they in America? They do!_ What is “city beautiful” in Europe? It is a fact! _What is it in America? It is a “slogan.”_ No, gentlemen, you need not be worried about European Art! War is not inartistic. Money is! A general staff in war time can destroy what art has created! Our system of millionaire trustees is preventing Art from creating! War in Europe can kill artists, it cannot kill art. In America we kill art and our artists escape to Europe. —_Garnerin._ The Theatre “Grotesques”