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process of being completed, about to make their contribution to the lives of literally millions of people. Of the thousands of easel pictures to brighten the walls of hospital rooms. Of the tens of thousands of children and adults receiving instruction in the arts at the hands of experts. Or of our giant undertaking in The Index of American Design.

I am thinking rather of perhaps the most amazing, because the least foreseen, aspect of our work - the new orientation of art itself which seems to be taking place as the result of a vast new audience. For, heavily interspersed with the criticisms and the questions, there is also the response of an awakened public, a public eager to share in the cultural values of the world of art and artists, which so largely until the Government's intervention was the privilege only of the selected few. It is very possible, in short, that the democratization of art is taking place. Where that leads, and what it portends, no man can know. But one can believe, and I date to assert, that the direction is right and fruitful."

It is significant that even the most ardently anti-administration newspapers have recognized the value of the Government's aid to the Nation's artist and have not only withheld their partisan fire but have urged editorially and in their news columns that the projects be continued.

The Syracuse Post-Standard on August 7 reported a speech by Dr. Harold L. Butler, Dean of the College of Fine Arts, Syracuse University, as follows: