HEAT—DETROIT—CHICAGO
essays and poems has been compiled and published under
the scheme.
Here in Detroit we met some of the artists at work, a
group of sculptors producing statues, fountains and memo-
rials for beautifying schools and other public buildings. At
least the intention is to beautify, but I have heard one artist
say that he will not work under the scheme unless he has the
job of whitewashing all the W.P.A. murals out of existence,
and removing the statues. There is something in that, of
course, but the scheme does, at least, keep artists from com-
peting with decent workmen in the labour market, and here,
in Detroit, it has caught one poor student whose murals are
certainly excellent, and who will now get experience that
otherwise might have been difficult to get.
We saw also some contributions to the Index of American
Design that is being produced under the scheme, and here
were drawings of old American craft works, of furniture,
buildings, weather-vanes, Indians that had been used as
tobacco-shop signs, and the old marionettes of the Lano
family. It is a wise and courageous " hand out" on the
part of the government, and perhaps through this considera-
tion to artists, society will one day realise that art cannot be
divorced from life, that it is, indeed, the only means of pre-
venting unemployment—but that is a long story.
Being in Detroit we made the Grand Tour of the Ford
Motor Company Rouge Plant and the Greenfield Village.
The Ford company is very generous. It has a supply of
*buses and guides'that are devoted to impertinent visitors
like myself. You go first to the Rotunda, a clever stone
building with a decorative zig-zag wall, and then you fill in
an application form to visit the works. You have to sign a
" waiver "—that is to say if you fall into a vat of boiling
metal during the inspection you waive all claims for com-
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