He talks only of the family as the snuffer for the flame. This does not mean that he excludes other causes, but it does mean that he has overemphasized one.
It is true, as Mr. Hecht insists, that the American family tends to quell revolt. The battle of the generations is as old as the race; the family has always struggled to bring the rebel into line for its own preservation. But that struggle in all its various shades of acuteness has become a truism of modern thought, thanks to a multiplex modern drama, a scientific sociology, and even the daily press. Why discuss the subject only to dwell again heavily on the obvious?
The problem is far more complicated. The verdict of guilt against the family grows monotonous when returned at every inquest. To place a single responsible cause for any tremor to revolt that dies abortive is to lack subtlety.
Along with each verdict against the family there is also a verdict against the individual. One is not to blame if she is not a genius, but if even her greatest emotions are somewhat lacking in poignancy, the fluctuating spirit of restlessness in her never reaches the heights which demand action.
Along with each verdict against the family there is also a verdict against the quality of the revolutionary spirit. Not only are its causal factors weak and fluctuating, but the very vagueness which to Mr. Hecht constitutes its charm spells also its damnation. A spirit of restlessness is, in itself, nothing about which one can go to the hilltops and shout, and when it crystalizes in some particular issue,—a book, a picture, a small individual right,—the object often seems too trivial to struggle for. To be sure the principle is not a small thing, but a principle is abstract and when it confronts a concrete bit of suffering, it fades by contrast.
The sordid bread and butter difficulties to be faced by one standing wholly alone, the scathing force of public opinion, the pain of others which, when you love them, is pain to you,—these are realities which only the truly big souls dare to face. For most of us the spirit of revolt is too diffuse even to demand action, and for most of the rest action is too divine a consummation to be compassed by our weak human spirit. Not to any external cause really, but to an inherent lack in us, is it due that we slowly grow complacent, instead of crusading worthily in behalf of liberty.
Alice Groff, Philadelphia:
The most of you publishers are such unspeakable Kaisers of Kultur that you treat the geniuses who make you what you are as insignificant privates in a literary army, which you deploy; keeping them dangling upon your critical pleasure, or blowing them to pieces because they do not happen to walk the line you mark out.
I suppose this is inevitable, however, in the present social order and that there will never be free literary expression until there is publishing organization on the part of the whole people for the benefit of the whole people. May the universe speed the day of such organization.