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From another artist: "This gesture on the part of the Government, which is, indeed, of Messianic significance in our American life, I believe, is bound to lead to truly fine creative endeavors."

From another artist: "Here's 1 of the 2,500 artists who will do his darndest to make this thing a go. I'll be mighty surprised if you don't get 2,499 more pledges to the same effect."

Another artist writes: "I have just received your very interesting letter. My intense interest in the Public Works of Art Project and its stimulating effect upon the artists here impels me to answer you immediately.

"It is as if, for many of us, an invitation to project ourselves through our work into the highly exciting and stimulating world has broken the walls of our isolation. We are accepting this opportunity as a challenge, and, if I am not mistaken, a most important period of American art is in the making.
"Every artist I have spoken to and whose project I am aware of is so keyed up to the importance of the situation, amounting practically to a revolution for him, that he is, without exception, putting every ounce of his energy and creative abiity into his work as never before.
"It is with amazement that I see the electric change that has come over the artists here. I assure you it is not a question of relief here, as some of th artists who are not eligible are rightly envious of this great opportunity.
"As for myself, I hope to do the best painting that I am capable of."
Another writes:" Aside from my personal appreciation of this job, which has made me feel that for the first time I am functioning as a regular worker with a definite place as an artist in the present economic system. I am stirred by the significance of this whole plan of the Public Works of Art Project. It is a grand opportunity for the American artist to show that after all we, too, are hard-working individuals striving in our way to contribute the finest we see and understnd for the life we have around us. I can think of no more secure and profondly satisfying existence for the real artist than to be given the opportunity to do his work quietly and steadily--from 9 'til 5-with the assurance of a moderate income sufficient to simple needs and with the deep satisfaction that he lives in a country in which the Government so values his work that he can use his work for the Government to use and distribute as it sees fit."
Another writes: "Briefly, I think it is the finest thing that this country or any country has ever done for its craftsmen, and we are all eternally grateful and will, I am sure, give the best we humanly can to prove to the skeptics that this money is being spent to a purpose and that that purpose is recognized and understood by the artist.
"I am a young man 23 years old, married, and determined to succeed in art.
"In 1931 I sold my work, despite financial crashes, and made a comfortable income of bettr than $100 a week-and I mention that sum purely as a basis of comparison, and for no other reason.
"I was happy in the work of my choice, not for mercenary reasons, for this money came without particular effort.
"I married, and on the money we had saved, lived until it was exhausted.
"By the close of 1932 I was 'cleaned out.'
"My pictures, which people wanted, but couldn't buy were worthless as a medium of levelihood.
"However, I struggled on, painting as I had always tried to do, for myself and my own satisfaction and not primarily for money.
"Then the banks closed, and at the last, in the face of rapidly accumulating debts I strove desperately to sell my works for whatever I could get.
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"Water colors that were better than ones sold 2 years previously for $35 now went for the ridiculous sum of 25 cents and, ironi-cally, I was glad—actually glad to get it.
“It was a losing proposition, however, and finally, with the help of influential friends I secured a job sweeping floors and running
an elevator for $9 a week.
“I felt like a millionaire, and when I was given a raise to $13.50, under the N.R.A. I was overwhelmed.
“But this wasn't art. For 7 long months I was too tired and too busy to touch a paint brush.
“‘Then suddenly I was ‘fired ',without warning, and ‘pounded the pavements’ for 2 weeks in vain; hunting that elusive job—any job.

“Came the C.W.A. Mr. Howard, director of our art institute and representative for district 7, ‘lined me up’ on this art project, and doubtless saved our home—and, perhaps, our marriage.
“Yes; I've a lot to thank Roosevelt for, and it is appreciated.”
I have tried to explain to you as coldly as I could the manner in which the Public Works of Art Project came into being and how it is operating. But from the first moment that this organization began to function one might remain collected but one could not remain cold. It took a little time for the telephone girls in the treasury building to stop calling us the advisory committee on finance, and a little time also for some of the Washington
reporters to believe that the Treasury was giving shelter to art. But when the telephone began to buzz furiously and the mail began to reach our offices and telegrams from every point in the United States arrived in handfuls we all realized that the project which we had started was setting fire to the country. We could actually feel in Washington the lift this project gave to the artists—I really believe it would be no exaggeration to say to the
people as a whole—from its very inception.

You have heard Mrs. Force, the energetic and tireless chairman of the regional committee for New York State and the metropolitan district, tell of the work that is being done here. When I tell you that a corresponding fervor is motivating 15 other regions, covering the remainder of the United States, you will realize what a thrilling and pulsing movement this has really become. Noth-ing about it, to my mind, is finer than the distinguished devotion which almost half a thousand volunteer workers are giving to this project. From end to end of this land our committees are coordinating this movement without regard to time or trouble into a great national undertaking.
Some years ago Mrs. Bruce and I were spending the summer in Vezelay, the beautiful hill town in Burgundy. Below the town, nestled in the valley, was one of those lovely little French villages you all know called Aquins. When I went there to paint I found that everybody in that village, and sought means to make our stay there pleasant and comfortable. I asked one
of them why it was that they were so kind to an artist, and she said to me that years before the famous French painter, Pisarro, had spent a year in their village and painted a hundred pictures of it, and that through Pisarro’s eyes they had all come to see what a beautiful place they lived in and realizing this had added
so much to the happiness of their lives that they wanted to show their appreciation to all other artists who came to visit them. This, to me, is the essence of the service that am artist can render to the people. It is the business of the artist to seek for beauty
and record it, and, if through him, others come to see it, and by seeing it, gain that sense of well-being and contentment that beauty gives, he has had his reward. I hope that this project will be entering wedge to give to America what Pisarro gave to Aquins.
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