The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 23, 1925, Page 9

_ _ quite important since so many of | thesis of a late discussion on bourgeois art and artists seems to be. that some artists are bigger pros- titutes than others, and much clothes- line gossip and spicy detail are given to “prove” the theory. Thero isn’t much use in paying serious attention to this attempt at catch-penny sensa- tionalism; were it not for the fact that it fools many of my simple minded comrades, But just as the bourgeoisie fool many millions of workers into kissing their chains by means of the church, the press, the public school, the plat- form and even the soap-box, so does it make potent use of the various forms of art expression, such as the novel, the essay, the drama,—spoken and silent,—and the art critique to enslave its subjects. S° the writer who is guilty of the piece of bourgeois collaboration mentioned above has done his masters &@ good turn by again drawing the red herring of false criticism across the workers trail of the revolution. Let’s recall our dogs and start over the path anew. All art is mammonart save Com- munist art; so there’s that. It is a fact that a bourgeois artist’s first works are less obsequions than his later ones, after he has tasted work- ers blood. But aiming at popularity, which means royalties, even his first works are subtle attempts at class collaboration, whether they are in the forms of novels, poems, paintings, statues, sermons, essays, plays or what-not. difference between those bour- seois artists who start by licking the king’s boots, and those who end in doing so is the difference between tweedledise and tweediedum. Rud- yard Kipling likes the dust of his And who forgets that the very man who now draws such fine haired distinctions between god and for democracy (this too with capitals) in return for a little recognition and some office of emolument and profit. NOTE that this brassy author claims to be the third great artist of the U. S. A., Mark Twain, the humorous cuss, and Jack London, the drunken bum, being No. 1 and 2..He is welcome to such company, so far lu : is Bz and philosophical bankruptcy kissing the toe of his god and savior, H. H. Ro- gers, the Wall St. pirate. Jack didn’t sink quite so low, but he bought an estate, stocked it up with horses and booze and a bourgeois wife and re- nounced socialism, thru which he had acquired all his popularity acquired a fat belly, and died a sot. HE eminent and profound critic, whom we shall call No. 3, begins to look bloated and puffy, and tho for the present he keeps fit by daily exercise, he is on his way to a break- down from over-eating and under- writing. He better turn common labor- er, join the union, quit talking about art, and do a little work for Commun- ism, if he wants to be remembered along with the blessed, like John Reed, Joseph Dietzgen and Daniel De Leon, whom I should call the big 3 of Amer- ican letters. ET us examine closely into this thing and find out if we can see the difference between bourgeois art and Communist art, The matter is shrewdest comrades fail to see it. In the first place no art is art un- less it is first of all wise and truth- fal. That is, if the artist. does not lve amongst evolutionists and revo- lutionists, he will get no material worth while. He may like Mark Twain, be an adventurer in his youth, and a loaferin his old age} that won't get him anywhere. Not with adults. I understand his “Tom Sawyer” and “Puckleberry Finn” circulate widely amongst the children of Russia; for that matter so does “Treasure Island.” N°? one claims these books have any value for fighting men and wo- men. There is nothing revolutiopary about them. Nothing Marxian or Le- ninist. “In short nothing therein to add thot to the wise; or make them more resolute in their struggles to be free. These books are childish; com- posed by childish minded men, who never grew up, or if they did grow up, became corrupted by sycofancy, para- sitism and class cllaboration. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” has more guts in one of its historic pages than all of these other works combined, and I don’t find it catalogued in the famous Howl by No. 3. (Someone had to take a fall out of that intolerably conceited bour- geois ass; if no one else would do it, I who have no appetite for such naus- eous matters must volunteer!) OMMUNIST art is ripening in Moscow. I can’t say much about it as I haven’t been there, but Barkis is ‘willing, and I hereby serve notice on my left wing comrades to organize and send me as a delegate there, if they want a better report than I can give now. ‘ However suffice it to say that Plet- nev in the Proletcult theaters has kickt out the Nos. 1, 2 and 3’s and re- placed them with proletarians who give the worker audience the thrill of their lives. He makes them partici- pate in the performances too, as sing- ers, marchers, and _ collaborators: working class artist collaborators, if you please. He throws out the old Belasco settings with their overstuft drawing-reom furniture; he puts over- alls over the John Drew creased, pants; he sets on the stage platforms, machines, bits of the shop, the circus, the street and the field and centers the action around proletarian revo- Ition. He considers that Communist Mammonart and Commun leesteueeatereneenmeeeeet list Art - art must be all propaganda, just like bourgeois art is now; and he blue pencils love as the prime motive, and makes mass progress the main spring of the new stage. HH individual is set aside; the great man killed off; the Nos. 1, 2 and 3’s with their sloppy and slobber- ing heroes and heroines are thrown out of the -door by the scruff of their necks, and the clean high spirited men and women actors of the factory are invited in. The theater itself is torn down and the shows are given’in the factory communal halls. No salaries; no professionals; no charges at the box office. All is for love, instead of all being about love, and sensual love at that. The dirty, the pornografic, the lewd, the drunken, the low, the bummy, the bourgeois in short is shown the gut- ter, and the healthy worker running his beloved machine, conqueror of famine, poverty, and want is given the center of the stage. The trapeze, and the flying rings replace the davenport and the sofa. The setting is for work and for work- ers, not for lounge lizards, and jazz hounds and sex degenerates, who moan and whime in Oscar Wildean monotones about not sufficiently satis- fying their degenerate appetites, their sadistic cravings, ‘their abnormal thirsts. This stuff is fine business for the artistic brotherhood, who de- nounce all that part of the brasscheck press that doesn’t pay them royalties, praise their scribblings, while contri- buting snide and sly counter-revolu- tionary article to the so-called radical papers, the other branch. (YES: it is true. No, 3 did invite President Wilson to meet him at his local hotel, and take lunch with him. Prexy res- peetfully declined, showing almost as much contempt for N. 3 as the work- ing class itself does.) . . URIPIDES first’ put -woman-in-love +4 on the stage. According to the ‘other Grecian playwrights, this marked the degeneracy of Athenian art. Euri- pides had two wives who both betray- ed him, like bourgeois wives usually do where it is a question of how much ‘ By Robin E. Danbar money they get out of their trechery, they act just like bourgeois artists do. But Greek art was founded on con- quest of workers in and out of Greece; it was for the owners of slaves, just as art has been ever since. No wonder that it is rotten; no wonder that the American stage has become Frenchi- fied, where nude women and adulter- ous wives hold thé boards to the. ex- clusion of all other heroines, Wine, women and song is the bour- geois littany; all its artists must sing that or pass out. No. 3 sings it too, tho with a wry mouth; but he listens to it with wide open asses ears! That’s why he likes his own kind so well; the Shaws, Menckens, Brisbanes and his paymaster, Hearst. No. 3 is a sad exanmiple of bourgeois perversity. He may be a great humorist like Mark Twain, but he'll never die a laughing at his own jokes any more than Mark did. HAT killed Mark was he had to keep his mouth shut or lose his job; so he took to his bed and smoked himself to death; just like Jack Lon- don took to his front porch and his bottle. Both were good men and true; and both died cursing their paymast- ers Isn’t it too bad, comrades, to be a great author? The third in America, that means in the world, for America thru Wall Street, leads the world; and of course its artists, being Wall Street artists, are greater than Lombard St., or Wil- helm Strasse, or the Paris Bourse or other literary thorofare artists in foreign countries. And as for Moscow outside the Belasco Art Theater there, that town is not in the running at all! Third in the world, and not be recogn- ized by all the bourgeoisie as such and by none of the Third Internation- al? Such negation is a great depri- vation. irultieasg doesn’t pay. I rather like it for.that reason. For I am not: tempted..to. follow .No.. 3's fatal foot steps, and become an unknown number like he is; unknown to the real rebel workers of the world; an X whose value in the equation turns out to be zero. Jubilee Concert to Honor Proletarian Composer N the 24th of this month, Jacob Schaefer, the well-known musi- cian and leader of the Freikeit Sing- ing Organization, will receive an en- thusiastic, real proletarfan wetcome and ovation from the workers of Chi- cago, as the day will mark the close of his ten years of intensive work and considerable accomplishments in the field of music. Jacob Schaefer, as a musician identified himself with a proletarian task, namely, to bring the esthetic and educational influences of music to the workers who labor in factories and in other various places of business and as they endure the harsh conditions prevalent in their personal lives, gradually lose their sensibilities for the finer assets of life among which music probably plays the most predominant part. He had therefore, devoted his talents and time to the work of developing ‘and creating the song of the toiler, clearly indicating thereby, his firm belief in the existence of proletarian music. E realizes as well as we do, that the (so-called) class struggle; becoming such distinct an event at the present time, has also reached the sphere of the finer arts. A line of demarcation must be drawn in that great field of art. Our music should incorporate characteristics of prole- tarian consciousness and reflect the conceptions and tendencies of our rev- olutionary times, Music of the higher sort is at the disposal of the rich, They are patronizing the artist and the latter, in turn, seeks their favor and tries to satisfy their whims, N the future“we are bound to see music being responsible to the great events of time. To the facts which ee determine the destinies of humanity as they will-be manifested in the revolutionary strug- gles of the oppressed, downtrodden masses for liberation and freedom. Proletarian music suggests tous the idea that proletarian emotions are to find incarnation in musical concep- tions expressed in musical sounds, Music which has been a source of in- spiration to humanity and has been used to elevate the spirit and inbue the soul with longing and desire for justice, spiritual gratification will serve an equal purpose to the work- ers, yet will strengthen their belief in, their ideals and inspire them to do things essential to bring about the realization of their dreams. Bhan proletarian composers are not to be found in numbers. They are rare; but they will appear in due course of time. One of them is the man mentioned in the previous lines, Jacob Schaefer. His musical com- positions present themes, dealing with life of workers. His newly created work which is to be given on the 24th of this month is a musical score com- posed to the words of a dramatic poem written by a revolutionary Rus- sian playwrigth. The selection of that dramatic poem for a theme of a musi- cal work and the making of its per- formance coincident with a time which is regarded by him and his fel- low workers as a jubilee, are evidence that -he is the new type of a proleta- rian composer, organically connected » ne ae proletarian aspirations and i "i B Schaefer is a man of whom we can expect very much, His past life had proved that. He came over to America as an immigrant and started to work as a carpenter, Being a child meant to live comfortably and enjoy those things which a person in the blooming period of youth is longing for. Here, in America, he faced those hardships and deprivations which meet newcomers. He labored hard, and at the same time spared time and saved some of his meager earnings for the purpose of taking up muSieal studies. Being a man of energy and determination he overcame the diffi- culties. He gradually acquired a musi- cal education and thereby afforded his natural talents to come into Play and secure for him a prominent place in the profession. It is expected that the workers of Chicago will take no- tice of this affair and will be present at the Studebaker Theater on the 24th day of May, 2:30 p. m., to hear the work of Jacob Schaefer, performed by the Freiheit Singing Society, members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra — conducted by the composer him- self, Clara Rubenstein. =o Dr. A. Moskalik DENTIST — 8. W. Corner 7th and Mifflin Sts, PHILADELPHIA, PA, GER & NOVAK GENTS FURNISHING and MERCHANT TAILORS Union Merchandise 1934 Ps = Chicago Avenue Cof, Winchester) Phone Humboldt 2707 Does your friend subscribe to of poor parents he never knew what| the DAILY WORKER? Ask him! 4 i ; ! 8 eae ‘