Hear! Listen to a great
Jew." Asch was given the floor and finished the speech.

Asch feels that only now is he beginning to drop his Jewish past as
material for his work. He is going out into the future: he is becoming
impressed with a vision of the America to be--the ideal democracy. And
his work is showing it. He is planning a poetic industrial drama, he
is finishing a gripping war play. His deep understanding of the
industrial slavery of our times is shown wonderfully in his novel,
_Motke the Scamp_, which is now appearing in serial form in the New
York Yiddish _Forward_. He begins with Motke's infancy. His mother's
milk is sold to the rich man's baby; Motke is cheated of everything.
Picture after picture of sordid Polish ghetto life follows--intermixed
with wood and river sunshine as only Asch can do it. One feels the sun
resting eternally over all, while man with his laughter and tenderness
and pain struggles toward perfection.

* * * * *

ASCH is becoming an exposer and a prophet, but with great beauty of
style and purity of emotion. He is decidedly modern, decidedly
Russian, decidedly Hebraic, and eternally universal. He is bringing
the message of beauty and freedom to the American Yiddish working man.
Asch is not a socialist; he is a real individualist. With a sincere
contribution to the happiness of the world he believes that every
human being is entitled to all the joy of the world, no matter what
form his contribution may assume; shirts, street cleaning, cooking, a
painting, dishes, a poem. He does not preach eight hours and a dollar
more, he demands joy in labor. He wants people to play--to be happy at
their work. He demands freedom in one's personal life and beauty in
mind and body. He is an industrialist plus an artist.

Asch has traveled through Russia talking on various subjects to Jewish
gatherings, not for money but for love of his race. He has visited
Palestine, but with a keen interest in the growth and development of
the Jew--not from a nationalistic standpoint but from a world point of
view.

And this is why he admires America--because it brings to him a vision
of a perfect race, the result of the mixture of all races,
perpetuating the fine traits of all. He is immensely interested in
the public school. He believes in democracy and thinks we have it in
America.

For artists, however, he says this country is not good. The newspapers
in Europe, he says, print w