<--PREV Doc #208  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #210 Document #209; May 25, 1953 To Arthur Ellsworth Summerfield Series: EM, AWF, Administration Series The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIV - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part II: Settling into "the long pull"; May 1953 to August 1953 Chapter 3: "A time for continued vigilance"   Dear Arthur: Herewith a letter from a good friend of mine, together with a short editorial on some murals in a San Francisco Post Office Sub-station.1 I do not know who can be a completely impartial judge as to the fitness of murals appearing on the walls of public buildings.2 I must say, however, that if these murals are really representations of the artist's subversive purposes--in other words, if they are clear propaganda--then I would have no patience with an argument that they should be preserved in the name of art. I hear that your Department is looking into this whole subject. I would be glad to learn of the results of any investigation you make.3 Sincerely 1 Kenyon Ashe Joyce's letter of May 19 is in AWF/A; for background on Joyce see Eisenhower Papers, vols. I-XIII. Joyce had complained that the "so called artist" was paid twenty-six thousand dollars for "class hatred messages." "Such malignant propaganda," he fumed, "should be put out of all public buildings the New Deal decorated and no attention should be paid to the subversive or nit wit left wing minorities that are so articulate for their preservation as `Art.'" Eisenhower would write Joyce on this same day and assure him that the Postmaster General's office was thoroughly investigating the matter (AWF/A). 2 In his reply of June 3 (AWF/A) Postmaster Summerfield would note that the murals had been the subject of controversy since they were commissioned in 1941. He reported that the House Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds had conducted hearings on a resolution to remove the murals and that there had been strong testimony against removal (see U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Public Works, Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds, Rincon Annex Murals San Francisco: Hearings on H.J.R. 211, 83d Cong., 1st sess., 1953; and New York Times, May 2, 10, 1953). Summerfield thought the bill might precipitate a debate in which the Administration would be accused of "witch-hunting, book-burning, and attempting to suppress all ideas contrary to their own." The murals, he concluded, were "not sufficiently important or obnoxious to cause such a fight." 3 On June 4 Eisenhower would tell Summerfield that he preferred to "drop the matter of Executive intervention in this controversial subject" (AWF/A, Summerfield). "If Congress has the thing on its agenda," Eisenhower asked, "why do we not merely wait to see what will happen?" As it turned out, the resolution would not emerge from the committee (see U.S. Library of Congress, Legislative Reference Service, Digest of Public General Bills, 83d Cong., 1st sess., 1953, p. xiv). Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Arthur Ellsworth Summerfield, 25 May 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 209. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/209.cfm <--PREV Doc #208  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #210

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