It took me a long time to understand why so much that surrounded me was too ugly to tolerate without protest. But eventually I learned the reason. I … - Art Young

One week-end during that trial I went up to Monroe to see my folks. They made me feel at home as always, doing everything possible to insure my comfort. But I noticed that greetings from some of my old acquaintances around town lacked the warmth of the past. They talked with me nervously and seemed to be in a hurry, as if they might be open to criticism if they were seen tarrying with one who had been accused of disloyalty to his country.

While I had no great admiration for my own intelligence or my ability to understand political economy, neither did I have a servile respect for the intelligence of editors and publishers whom I had met, and who expected their writers and cartoonists to conform to a particular policy of their own. Think of spending one's life promoting and propagandizing the prejudices and political "principles" of a Frank Munsey or a Northcliffe or a Hearst! As a choice between accepting the political judgment of the average newspaper owner and my own judgment as to what was best for my country and the future of mankind, I voted in favor of myself. I'd make up my mind, and follow through. But the difficulty ahead was the small demand for my point of view in the editorial offices of successful newspapers and magazines.

Judged by that standard of success which most of the American people accept and believe, I would be classed among the failures. Now past sixty, with an obvious talent and reasonably industrious in doing the work I like, yet never in my life very far from bankruptcy. If I should happen to be a money success when I am old-and the years ahead of me very few-the fact remains the same; in the common vernacular, I lacked brains to get on and clean up; throughout all the years of an average life-time. I belong with the failures-with the man who is sitting at home tonight after his day's work who knows that his wife, his relatives and friends think; "he is a failure." I'm with this man and the whole army of splendid men and women who wear the ragged badge of defeat. I know that some people are successful who deserve to be, but I am with the unadaptable, the out-of-luck, the weary with the money-struggle. I am with them but not sadly because in my vision of a new world there is going to be a different definition of success. (March 1st)