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But when the first thrills had passed, the dwellers in the cave with Ogi fell victims to panic. An aurochs was a fearful and destructive beast; it was hard enough to have to kill him for food-but now to bring back his angry spirit was tempting fate. In the Holy Mountain fronting the cave dwelt the Great Hunter, who made all aurochs, and would be jealous of usurpers. The Witch Doctor of the tribe, who visited the Great Hunter and made spells for good luck-he was the proper person to make magic, and not an up-start boy. So the Witch Doctor trampled out the drawing of Ogi, and the Old Man of the tribe, who made the laws, drove him out from the cave, and into the night where the sabre-toothed tiger roamed.

(And last winter the writer stood one night at 43rd Street and Broadway, a busy corner of New York, and across the front of a building a whole block long he beheld great letters of violet fire, spelling three words: THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. He entered the building, and there upon a silver screen he saw a flash of lightning, followed by a burst of clouds and a terrifying clatter of stage thunder, and out of the lightning and clouds and thunder was unrolled before his eyes the Second Commandment: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.)

Ogi found a cave of his own, and escaped the sabretooth tiger. And not all the furies of the Witch Doctor, nor even the Ten Commandments of the Great Hunter, could take from his mind the memory of those delicious thrills which had stolen over him when he made the magic aurochs in the dirt. Being now alone, he had time for magic, and he got red stones and covered the walls of his cave with pictured beasts of many sorts. And presently came young men from the tribe, and beholding what he had done, they took to visiting him in secret to share the forbidden thrills.

(And on Main Street in our Great City, I can take you to a cave with letters of fire over the top, called an "arcade," and you may go in, and find the magic of Ogi hidden in little boxes, into which you drop a token made of copper, and see what is to be seen. One part of this cave is labeled, For Men Only. I have never been into

this part, and therefore do not know what magic the descendants of Ogi have there hidden; but it is interesting to know that a nerve channel, once established in a living organism, can be handed down through generations to the number of three thousand, three hundred and thirtythree.)

Now in the course of time it happened that there was war in the tribe between the Old Man and the Next Oldest Man; and also between the Old Witch Doctor and the Next Doctor. The rebels, having learned about the magic of Ogi, desired to make use of it. There was a secret meeting, at which the rebel Witch Doctor declared that he had had an interview with the Great Hunter on the Holy Mountain, and the Great Hunter Himself had given Ogi power to make the magic aurochs, and to kill them in magic hunts. In other words, said the Witch Doctor, Ogi was an Inspired Artist; and if he and his friends would help the new party into power, Ogi would become Court Painter, and his scratches would be raised to the status of Ritual. Needless to say, Ogi was delighted at that, and likewise his friends, some of whom had learned to make scratches almost as good as Ogi's, and who desired now to become Inspired Artists, and to decorate the cave walls and weapons of the tribe.

But one provision must be made clear, said the rebel Witch Doctor; Ogi and his friends must understand that they were to glorify the magic of this particular Witch Doctor. When they portrayed hunting, they must make it plain that it was the new Old Man who was head of the hunt; they must make him wonderful and fearful to the tribe. Ogi and his pupils answered that so long as they were permitted to make drawings of aurochs and of hunters, it made not the slightest difference what aurochs and what hunters they portrayed. Art was a thing entirely aloof from politics and propaganda. And so the bargain was settled; the banner of insurrection was raised, and the new Old Man became head of the tribe, and the new Witch Doctor set up his magic behind the aurochs-skin curtains in the far end of the cave; and Ogi made many pictures of both of them.

(And I have walked through the palaces of kings, and through temples and cathedrals in many lands, and have seen long rows of portraits of the Old Men of many

tribes, clad in robes of gorgeous colors, and wearing upon their heads crowns of gold and flashing jewels; they were called kings and emperors and dukes and earls and princes and captains of industry and presidents of chambers of commerce. I have seen also the portraits and statues of Witch Doctors of many varieties of magic; they were called popes and priests and cardinals and abbots and college presidents and doctors of divinity. And always the paintings were called Old Masters.)

So Ogi became Court Painter and painted the exploits of his tribe. And when the tribe went out to battle with other tribes, Ogi made pictures to show the transcendent beauty of his tribe, and the unloveliness of the tribe they were to destroy.

(And when my tribe went out to battle, its highly paid magazine illustrators made pictures of noble-faced maidens shouting war-cries, and it was called a Liberty Bond Campaign. And the story-tellers of my tribe became. martial, and called themselves Vigilantes.)

Now Ogi throve greatly, developing his technique, so that he could show all kinds of beasts and men. The fame of his magic spread, and other tribes came to visit the caves and to marvel at his skill, and to gaze reverently upon the Inspired Artist.

(And in a certain hotel restaurant in New York I was admitted behind the magic red cord which separates the great from the unheard of, and sitting at a table my companion enlightened me with discreet nods and whispers, saying: "That is Heywood Broun; and next to him is Rita Weiman; and that's Mencken just coming in; and that round little man in the brown suit and the big spectacles is Hergesheimer.")

The fame of Ogi, and the magic of which he was master, brought thrills to the young women of the tribe, and they cast themselves at his feet, and so his talent was not lost to future generations.

(And in the galleries of Europe I gazed upon miles of madonnas-madonnas mournful and madonnas smiling, madonnas with wavy golden hair and madonnas with straight black hair-but never a madonna that was not plump, manicured and polished and robed in silks and satins, as became the mistresses of court painters, and of popes and cardinals and abbots able to pay for publicity.)

The sons and grandsons of Ogi cultivated his magic, and found new ways to intensify the thrills of art. They learned to make clay figures, and to carve the Old Men of the tribe and the Witch Doctors out of wood and stone.

(And just before the war, being in Berlin, I was taken by a friend for a drive down the Sieges Allée, between rows of white marble monsters in halberd and helm and cowl and royal robes, brandishing sceptres and mitres, battle-axes and two-bladed swords. Being myself a barbarian, I ventured to titter at this spectacle; whereupon my friend turned pale, and put his fingers upon my lips, indicating the driver of the hack, and whispering how more than once it had happened that presumptuous barbarians who tittered at the Old Men of the Hohenzollern tribe had been driven by a loyal hackman straight to the police station and to jail.)

Likewise the sons of Ogi learned to make noises in imitation of the songs of birds, and so they were able to bring back the thrills of first love. They learned to imitate the rolling of thunder, and the clash of clubs and spears in battle fury, and so they were able to renew the glory of the hunt and the slaughter.

(And in the year 1870 the Khedive of Egypt offered a prize of ten thousand pounds to that descendant of Ogi who should make the most powerful magic out of his ancestral slaughterings; and now, throughout all civilization, the masters of the machines of slaughter put on their honorific raiment, and escort their pudgy wives, bedecked with jewels, to performances of their favorite grand opera, "Aida.”)

Likewise the descendants of Ogi learned to enact their adventures in imitation hunts. Inspired by music, they would dance about the camp-fire, thrusting their weapons into a magic aurochs, shouting when they saw him fall, and licking their chops at the taste of imaginary flesh.

(And in thirty thousand "movie" houses throughout the United States the tribes now gather to woo and win magic darlings of luxury, and lick their chops over the acquirement of imaginary millions; also to shudder at wicked Russian Bolsheviks with bristling beards, at villainous "Red" agitators with twisted faces, and at such other spectacles as the Old Men and the Witch Doctors

prepare for them, according to instructions from the Great Hunter on the Holy Mountain.)

Three thousand, three hundred and thirty-three generations have passed, and in every generation the descendants of Ogi have had to face the problem of their relationship to the Old Men and the Witch Doctors. Ogi himself was a hunter, who slew his aurochs with his own hand, and butchered and cooked his meat before he ate it. But now it has been long since any descendant of Ogi has driven a spear through the eye of a charging aurochs. They have become specialists in the imaginary; their hands adjusted, not to spears and stone hatchets, but to brushes and pencils, fountain-pens and typewriter keys. So, when they are cast out from the tribe they can no longer face the sabre-toothed tiger and find meat for themselves and their beautiful women; so, more than ever, the grip of the Old Men and the Witch Doctors grows tight upon them. More than ever it is required that their pictures and stories shall deal with things of which the Old Men and the Witch Doctors approve; more than ever they are called upon to honor and praise the customs of their tribe, as against the customs of all other tribes of men or angels.

CHAPTER II

WHO OWNS THE ARTISTS?

Many and various are the art-forms which the sons and grandsons of Ogi have invented; but of all these forms, the one which bores us most quickly is the parable -a little story made up for the purpose of illustrating a special lesson. Therefore, I hasten to drop Ogi and his sons and grandsons, and to say in plain English that this book is a study of the artist in his relation to the propertied classes. Its thesis is that from the dawn of human history, the path to honor and success in the arts has been through the service and glorification of the ruling classes; entertaining them, making them pleasant to themselves, and teaching their subjects and slaves to stand in awe of them.

Throughout this book the word artist is used, not in the narrow sense popular in America, as a man who paints pictures and illustrates magazines; but in its broad

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