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What makes an American poetry is a question that has never been and can never be solved by criticism. It is time that we repudiate the concept of what is American that was held, we will say, about the middle of the last century before the great flood of emigration from Europe began or we must set up positively a new concept of that word. The idea of Americanism, certainly during and especially since the end of the World War, has been in solution. The idea of Americanism is, in face of much contrary emphasis, a matter of psychology rather than political. The suggestion of the difference here vaguely remarked is too complicated to be pursued, and is referred to merely to bring over into the domain of poetry some fundamental inquiries regarding the character of "American poetry."

I suppose that any art may be considered American which conforms in expression to the ideals of the American people. But who are the American people who create or preserve these ideals? It must be admitted that the descendents of the original founders of the Nation are at present in a numerical minority. Do their ideals prevail? Or have their ideals been modified by the majority who are the descendents of immigrants of the last two or three generations? The great political and social effort during the last few years has been to inoculate the great non-Saxon strain with the ideal of the founders of the Nation who are represented to-day by the minority population. After all this is the hue and cry of Americanism. A hue and cry losing its vigor against the persistent modification of American institutions by the new-comers and their