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of the most progressive forces in American art today. The applicants for membership were accepted on the basis of their representative power, which simply means that they had already achieved a degree of recognition and esteem as artists in the spheres in which they function.
  
We, members of the Congress, have recognized that we are not alone in this fight. We recognize that our basic interests are not remote from those who do the work of the world. And with this recognition comes the realization that if we are to be serious, we can only attack even the most highly specialized problems that confront us, in relation to our main objective, which is to build a bulwark for the defense of intellectual freedom, for economic security.
  
Even if we were to rally all the American artists to our cause, we would achieve little working as an isolated group. But we have faith in our potential effectiveness precisely because our direction naturally parallels that of the great body of productive workers in American industrial, agriculture and professional life.
  
The Congress will enable us to focus our objectives.
  
To realize them, we plan to form a permanent organization on a national scale.

It will not be affiliated with any political group or clique of sectarian opinion.

It will b an organization of artists which will be alert to take action on all issues vital to the continued free functioning of the artist.

It will be alert to ways and means for extending this freedom and for making contact with a broader audience.

It will be a strengthening element to the whole field of progressive organization against War and Fascism.

It will be another obstacle to the reactionary forces which would rob us of our liberties.

I call on all artists of standing to join the permanent organization which  will carry out the program planned by the succeeding sessions of the Congress.

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WHAT IS WORTH FIGHTING FOR
 ROCKWELL KENT

 During the Franco-Prussian War our General Sheridan was attached to the Prussian army as military observer for the United States. His eminence as a general was due not only to his courage and personal magnetism but to his ability as a strategist; and his knowledge of the nature of war had been gained by long experience. He instructed the Prussian General Staff in the strategy of war: "The proper strategy in war," he said "is to inflict as much suffering as possible upon the civil population of the enemy. They should be left with nothing but their eyes to weep with." That was half a century ago and the means for thoroughly strategic warfare were far from developed. The World War lent a great impetus to the advancement of war strategy; and we are lead to believe that by recent development in flying and chemistry the next world war will prove to be a veritable soldier's dream.
 Artists should be active in the movement against war, for artists, of all people in the world, are most concerned with life. It is by virtue of their love of life in all its manifestations, their love of the life-giving sun, of the moon that is so potent in the tides of living organisms, of the stars and the depths of the heavens towards which the living soul projects itself, of spring, summer, autumn, winter, because these are seasons in the life of mankind's world, in the seven ages of man as he observes them in the generations about him, in all living creatures, for they are, in a measure, his kindred. The living world is beautiful to him: therefore he loves it. It is by virtue of their love of life that men are artists. 
 It is by virtue of their insight into the phenomena of life, their instinctive understanding of the significance of the phenomena, their instinctive true appraisal of values and proportions, their feeling for the enduring and eternal qualities in life, that some of them achieve what we call immortality. For beneath the veneers of civilization, throughout the never-ending surface changes of custom, manner and fashion that mankind affects, there are enduring human values; there is a residue which we may say is Man. Of this essential kinship of all human life, of the kinship of the ancients and the moderns, of the Latin and the Nord, of the Jew and the Gentile, of the primitive and the European or American, of the black, red, yellow, and the white, the artist is profoundly aware; his art records the fact. Man needs to be continually reminded of this, to have it printed in books, painted upon walls and canvas, sculptured in stone, sounded in music, put before his eyes, dinned into his ears. To write it, paint it, carve it, play it, din it, is the artist's job. 

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