In whatever way the war may complicate the architect's personal
problem, it should simplify and clarify his attitude toward his art.
With no matter what seriousness and sincerity he may have undertaken
his personal search for truth and beauty, he will come to question,
as never before, both its direction and its results. He is bound to
perceive, if he does not perceive already, that the war's arrestment
of architecture (in all but its most utilitarian and ephemeral phases)
is no great loss to the world for the reason that our architecture was
uninspired, unoriginal, done without joy, without reverence, without
conviction: a thing which any wind of a new spirit was bound to make
appear foolish to a generation with sight rendered clairvoyant through
its dedication to great and regenerative ends.

He will come to perceive that between the Civil War and the crusade
that is now upon us, we were under the evil spell of materialism. Now
materialism is the very negation of democracy, which is a government
by the _demos_, or over-soul; it is equally the negation of joy, the
negation of reverence, and it is without conviction because it cannot
believe even in itself. Reflecting thus, he can scarcely fail to
realize that materialism, everywhere entrenched, was entrenched
strongest in the camps of the rich---not the idle rich, for
materialism is so terrible a taskmaster that it makes its votaries its
slaves. These slaves, in turn, made a slave of the artist, a minister
to their pride and pretence. His art thus lacked that "sad sincerity"
which alone might have saved it in a crisis. When the storm broke
militant democracy turned to the engineer, who produced buildings at
record speed, by the mile, with only such architectural assistance as
could be first and easiest fished up from the dragnet of the draft.

In one direction only does there appear to be open water. Toward the