UNTIMELY
PAPERS
BY RANDOLPH BOURNE
UNTIMELY
PAPERS
FOREWORD BY THE EDITOR
JAMES OPPENHEIM
NEW YORK B. W. HUEBSCH MCMXIX
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY B. W. HUEBSCH
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
EDITOR’S FOREWORD
Van Wyck Brooks has said of Randolph Bournethat he was the very type of that proletarian-aristocratwhich is coming into being. When Brooksand Waldo Frank and Louis Untermeyer andPaul Rosenfeld and I—a nucleus at the heart ofa group including so many of the “younger generation”—werejoyfully publishing The SevenArts we inevitably found the phrase “the youngworld,” and by this phrase we characterized nothinglocal, but a new international life, an interweavingof groups in all countries, the unspoiledforces everywhere who share the same culture andsomewhat the same new vision of the world.There was in it the Russian mixture of art andrevolution, the one a change in the spirit of man,the other a change in his organized life.
At first Randolph Bourne was separated fromus. He had not yet ended his apprenticeship to[6]that “liberal pragmatism” which he effectually destroysin “Twilight of Idols.” He was still relyingon the intellect as a programme-maker for society.But when America entered the war, his apprenticeshipended. That shock set him free, andit was inevitable then that he should not only joinThe Seven Arts but actually in himself gather usall together, himself, in America, the very soul of“the young world.” No nerve of that world wasmissing in him: he was as sensitive to art as to philosophy,as politically-minded as he was psychologic,as brave in fighting for the conscientiousobjector as he was in opposing current Americanculture. He was a flaming rebel against ourcrippled life, as if he had taken the cue from thelong struggle with his own body. And just as thatweak child’s body finally slew him before he hadfully triumphed, so the great war succeeded insilencing him. When Randolph Bourne died onDecember 22, 1918, all of us of the “younger generation”felt that a great man had died with agreat work unfinished.
He had been quite silent for over a year, forThe Seven Arts was suspended in September,[7]1917, its subsidy withdrawn because of our attitudeon the war. He was nowhere wanted. Itwas difficult even for him to get publication forbook reviews. Backed only by a few friends, heheld a solitary way, with hardly the heart for newenterprise. Nevertheless he began a book, “TheState,” in which he planned the complete expressionof his attitude, both destructive and creative.This was never finished. We have only whatamounts to an essay; but undoubtedly this essay isthe most effective and terrible indictment of theinstitution of the State