UNTIMELY PAPERS _BY RANDOLPH BOURNE_ UNTIMELY PAPERS FOREWORD BY THE EDITOR JAMES OPPENHEIM [Illustration] NEW YORK B. W. HUEBSCH MCMXIX COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY B. W. HUEBSCH PRINTED IN U. S. A. EDITOR’S FOREWORD Van Wyck Brooks has said of Randolph Bourne that he was the very type of that proletarian-aristocrat which is coming into being. When Brooks and Waldo Frank and Louis Untermeyer and Paul Rosenfeld and I--a nucleus at the heart of a group including so many of the “younger generation”--were joyfully publishing _The Seven Arts_ we inevitably found the phrase “the young world,” and by this phrase we characterized nothing local, but a new international life, an interweaving of groups in all countries, the unspoiled forces everywhere who share the same culture and somewhat the same new vision of the world. There was in it the Russian mixture of art and revolution, the one a change in the spirit of man, the other a change in his organized life. At first Randolph Bourne was separated from us. He had not yet ended his apprenticeship to that “liberal pragmatism” which he effectually destroys in “Twilight of Idols.” He was still relying on the intellect as a programme-maker for society. But when America entered the war, his apprenticeship ended. That shock set him free, and it was inevitable then that he should not only join _The Seven Arts_ but actually in himself gather us all together, himself, in America, the very soul of “the young world.” No nerve of that world was missing in him: he was as sensitive to art as to philosophy, as politically-minded as he was psychologic, as brave in fighting for the conscientious objector as he was in opposing current American culture. He was a flaming rebel against our crippled life, as if he had taken the cue from the long struggle with his own body. And just as that weak child’s body finally slew him before he had fully triumphed, so the great war succeeded in silencing him. When Randolph Bourne died on December 22, 1918, all of us of the “younger generation” felt that a great man had died with a great work unfinished. He had been quite silent for over a year, for _The Seven Arts_ was suspended in September, 1917, its subsidy withdrawn because of our attitude on the war. He was nowhere wanted. It was difficult even for him to get publication for book reviews. Backed only by a few friends, he held a solitary way, with hardly the heart for new enterprise. Nevertheless he began a book, “The State,” in which he planned the complete expression of his attitude, both destructive and creative. This was never finished. We have only what amounts to an essay; but undoubtedly this essay is the most effective and terrible indictment of the institution of the State which the war has yet brought forth. It furnishes a natural climax to _The Seven Arts_ essays; together they make a book, both historic and prophetic.