October, 1909 
Perhaps I can explain better if I reverse the picture and 
tell what Byrdcliffe has declined to do. We know that most 
colony experiments have failed through socialistic or com- 
munistic government. Byrc-liffe is frankly a benevolent 
despotism. Whitehead is the absolute monarch, and no 
one is tolerated who is not in sympathy with his rule. No 
idlers or mere pleasure-seekers are allowed to encumber 
these classic shades. Work in the broad field of art is the 
basis of Byrdecliffe success. Friends of the colony, properly 
introduced strangers are made welcome and are given good 
quarters and food at reasonable rates in the club house at 
the center of this Medician arcadia; but if they do not prove 
to be of the right stuff they can not hang long upon the skirts 
of this sylvan goddess. 
Absolute monarchy saves the colony from a vast amount 
of wrangling and wasted time which has usually wrecked 
other efforts in this direction. The Byrdcliffe despot is the 
most gentle and admirable tyrant, for under him the colony 
knows no deficits, is never assessed! Would not Onteora 
jump with joy were it subject to a Ralph Whitehead? 
And as for Twilight 
Park and others of 
that neighborhood 
in the upper Cats- 
kills, they would 
gladly repudiate re- 
publicanism if they 
could claim for a 
monarch so munifi- 
cent a master as 
Rajah Ralph! 
No problems are 
being solved at 
Byrdcliffe. The 
founder and _ pro- 
prietor is an artist. 
and he wants to fill 
his bungalows with 
men and women of 
kindred taste. There 
is the secret in a nut- 
shell. 
Much of his for- 
tune he devotes to 
paying the salaries 
of instructors in dif- 
ferent branches of 
handicraft, and, 
needless to say, the salary of an American artisan 1s higher 
than that of the average college professor. Whitehead is 
virtually the president of a high-grade art university, 
equipped with an admirable faculty, laboratory, library, 
gymnasium, recreation grounds and a course of work supe- 
rior to that of anything of its kind in the Western World. 
Of course, he is an idealist; so was Robert Fulton, so was 
Samuel F. B. Morse; so have been most of the men who 
have deserved the grateful prayers of generations to come. 
It was a bold move, this of bringing a colony of artists 
into the heart of a county largely made up of mountain, 
rock and forest, where the farmers are poor and illiteracy 
notorious, where the moneyed aristocracy are owners of 
brickyards or factories, and such like folk who pollute the 
noble Hudson with their foulness and denounce as cranks 
such as want to see our streams kept clean. 
Miracles work to-day no less than in the past, and for one 
I believe that Byrdcliffe is destined to work wondrous 
changes in our country. Just now this work is much 
hampered by the tariff of alleged protection, but if in time 
that should be swept away and tariff for revenue only 
become once more the national policy, then would the work 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
A double house of cozy build 
393 
of the Whiteheads be able to compete in a fair field with 
any work of the same kind anywhere. Art is a child of 
liberty, and we shall never have American art until we have 
first American liberty to trade with all the world without 
exception. 
A bit personal, you say, as a matter of opinion. ‘Truly, 
yes, and so intended. And even though the editor gasp a 
bit when he comes to this very apropos remark, he will, 
[ trust, let it stand, for it proclaims a doctrine very dear 
to me and one which I wish were very dear to the hearts 
of most of my countrymen. 
But let it pass. I see no reason at all why one may 
not express an honest belief honestly without being silenced 
by the singular cry of “Politics!” 
I look upon the movement that Whitehead has started 
at Byrdcliffe as one of the very much-needed lumps of 
leaven this great country of ours is so much in need of. 
The great masses of the people not only do not under- 
stand artists, but they very distinctly do not understand 
the value artists are to the world they live in. Eccen- 
tricity is, unfortu- 
nately, | sometimes 
popularly regarded 
as synonymous with 
the artistic. Noth- 
ing could be more 
mistaken. ‘There is 
absolutely no rela- 
tionship between the 
two. They have 
nothing in common, 
and do not even so 
much as possess a 
speaking __ relation- 
ship. It is true some 
artists are eccentric, 
and sometimes 
wierdly so. But it 
rarely happens that 
this eccentricity, of- 
fensive vulgar pos- 
ing, this pratting of 
abilities not pos- 
sessed, this aping of 
knowledge not 
known that to the 
popular eye passes 
as an eccentricity— 
it rarely happens that this is personified in a true artist 
of note. The name of Whistler leaps to the lips, but 
Whistler was so stupendously great that few of his con- 
temporaries could appreciate him. 
The planting of an artist colony in the middle of a 
region that is apparently quite without intellectual resources 
is bound, sooner or later, to have a pronounced effect on 
the people without it. It is certain to come, and the ben- 
eficence of its juxtaposition is destined to be very wide- 
spread. I hope it will come soon, and I hope, with a mighty 
hope, that its influence will be very wide. 
We need it, and we need it everywhere. 
in the Catskills and we need it in our cities. 
on our Western plains. 
We need it 
We need it 
We need it in the soft climate of 
California and Florida. We need it on the mountains and 
in the valleys. In short, the spot in this United States in 
which we do not need it has not, to my knowledge, been 
discovered by any one. 
So Ralph Whitehead merits richly godspeed in his noble 
work. For it is noble work and nobly done. He has been 
fortunate in his situation, in the place he has selected for 
carrying on his great undertaking. 
