In 1965 the National Endowment for the Arts was founded along with the National Endowment for the Humanities as parts of a new independent government agency known as the National Foundation for the Arts and Humanities. The NEA would eventually become an agency all its own, and until its creation, no federal agency had direct responsibility for supporting the arts. Since 1965 NEA has awarded more than 115,000 grants worth over four billion dollars (in 1995 dollars). Most of the NEA money goes to state arts councils, to federal programs in music, dance and theater, to local institutions, and to colleges and universities.¹

Supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson as a necessary and beneficial component of the "Great Society," the foundation of the NEA was proposed by such distinguished members of congress as Senators Hubert Humphrey (D-MN) and Jacob Javits (R-NY).² The agency didn't start without its fair share of debate, however. The Senate was far more in support of the creation of the Endowments, whereas the House of Representatives was not as keen on the idea. An abundance of Republicans and Conservative (for the most part Southern) Democrats argued at the time that the government should not, and was in fact not needed to, get involved with the arts. Nonetheless, the legislation eventually passed, despite the delay tactics and recommital motions of the opponents. But, although the NEA and NEH had hurdled that obstacle to existence, it would be a problem throughout their short history, a problem that has as of late been a source of great controversy and thus a center for attention.

Because the NEA is granted a lease term by Congress, anywhere from three to five years, it future has always been a little shaky. Lately it has been on the verge of cataclysm. Every other Congress or so gets to decide whether or not to reauthorize the existence of the NEA, and set a new term of life and new budgets. Since 1989, when Senator Jesse Helms brought to national attention some of the more explicit and untraditional works that had been helped by Endowment funds, those decisions have been the forum for more and more heated debate, circling back to the original questions posed by the original opponents, and introducing a set of new questions. While the old questions, such as whether or not the government should be involved with the arts and humanities, and whether or not the arts need the help of government, are more political and academic in nature, the new questions have more to do with morals and ethics and how they fit into politics. What is Art? Can the government, or any one person or organization, decide this? Should the government say what is and what is not appropriate art? Should the government continue to support artists whose works some taxpayers are morally and ethically opposed to?

When the Republicans gained control of the 104th Congress in the elections of 1994, one of the major elements of the new "Conservative Agenda" was the elimination of the NEA. However, the Endowment still had its lease which wouldn't be up until the 105th Congress. The Republicans managed to eliminate nearly half of the Endowment's budget, but had to wait until 1997 to try and dismantle and destroy the NEA completely.

The debate in the 105th Congress was not a simple two-sided, single-issue type of affair. Those who were opposed to the renewal of the Endowment did not all object based on one line of reasoning. There were two clearly separate angles from which the Endowment was attacked. One was headed by then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and his "Conservative Action Team." The other angle was that taken by the extremely conservative Republicans belonging to the "Religious Right," such organizations as the Christian Coalition, led by Ralph Reed, playing an important role. The Gingrichians opposed the National Endowment for the Arts based on old American political questions. This camp believed that Government is simply too large, and one of the most inessential areas is the arts and humanities. The Christians took their stand based not as much on strict politics but on strong moral objections. They complained about art sponsored by the Endowment as being blasphemous and immoral. Those who favored the continued existence of the NEA argued that the agency was educational and enriching for children, that art is an industry that helps localities, that art is as vital to the community and society as a whole as much as anything else the government can choose to fund. The pro-NEA camp also protested that to deny the arts funding based on moral objects is to violate the United States Constitution and rip away the Constitutional rights of all Americans, especially the First Amendment rights of free expression.

This debate begged other, deeper, bigger, more important questions. What is Art? Should Politics and Ethics be necessarily tied together? Is it a proper role of the government to fund the arts? These are the questions coming from the NEA debate that will affect the future of American politics most profoundly. In this light, whether or not the funding was renewed and at what level, a cut or an increase, is not as important. But before the crisis in the 105th Congress is examined more closely and these huge political questions can be poked at, an abridged history of what happened in and to the National Endowment for the Arts between its founding in 1965 and the 1990s is in order.

President Lyndon Baines Johnson had supported the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts, saying that the benefits of art must be available to all people of a "Great Society." He also pushed the creation of the NEA through because of Vietnam. Leading artists and intellectuals were vocally upset about the conflict, and their "loud protests escalated to the point where the President and his top advisors were no longer welcome on any major campus."³ The creation of an agency specifically and completely devoted to the advancement of the arts certainly helped to appease this constituency, for a while. In the bill signing ceremony, President Johnson said:
 

He couldn't have made the bill sound any better.

The legislation, the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act, sought to establish an independent agency within the Executive Branch. The foundation would have two separate funding vehicles, to be called Endowments. Each Endowment would be supervised and instructed by presidentially-appointed Councils, each consisting of twenty-six citizens distinguished in their respective areas of the arts or humanities. The National Council on the Arts and the National Council on the Humanities would be further overseen by a Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities, consisting of nine officials from instituted government agencies that were somehow related in their operations to the arts and humanities.⁵ Included on the Federal Council were the Chairmen of the NEA and NEH.

President Johnson appointed as the first chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Roger L. Stevens, a former theatrical producer and high-risk real estate investor. The President also was quick to suggest the formation by the Foundation of a National Theatre, a National Opera Company, a National Ballet Company and an American Film Institute. He also wanted to see new works of music from American composers, support of the nation's symphony orchestras, and residency programs for artists studying at university.⁶

During Johnson's Administration, funding levels for the National Endowment for the Arts got off to a slow start. In fiscal year 1966, the Endowment was appropriated approximately 2.5 million dollars. In FY 1967 the appropriation level was raised to approximately 6 million dollars.⁷ FY 1968 saw the appropriations reach 6.5 million dollars, while FY 1969 saw a drop down to 5.4 million dollars. While these dollar amounts do not seem to be very largesse, under the extraordinary leadership of Roger Stevens the Endowment was able to get several great programs started and allow for many grants.

The Laboratory Theatre project helped theatres across the nation begin to cultivate younger audiences so that they eventually became stronger adult audiences, fortifying itself for the future. The theatre program also opened up opportunities for experimental theatres as well as the established resident or regional theatres.⁸ The dance program pushed ballet outside of New York City and helped it succeed and in fact thrive nationally. The literature program disbursed funds so that poets could go into young children's classrooms and read and teach poetry to them.

The first three years of the National Endowment for the Arts seem to have been quite successful, and much of that success can be attributed to the leadership of Roger Stevens. "Stevens understood how to handle the problems raised by the diverse financial needs of the various art forms, from penniless dance to affluent film, and he possessed the prime qualification of a genuine love and understanding of the arts."⁹ When Lyndon Johnson chose not to run for re-election in 1968 and Republican Richard Nixon triumphed over Johnson's Vice President, Hubert H. Humphrey, Roger Stevens was on his way out. Stevens had allegedly "raised substantial campaign contributions for Humphrey,"¹⁰ and would therefore be counted out as Chairman. Nixon was a Republican, and would presumably appoint a more conservative Chairman than Stevens had been. In turn, the new chair would presumably fill the departmental heads with more conservatives and Republicans. Presumably, the Endowment might have been in danger. In fact, Nixon's Administration was a great boon to the arts. However, that was for the sake of politics, and not art, of course.

Nixon's main political rival in the 1960's was Nelson Rockefeller.¹¹ It was Rockefeller's New York State Council on the Arts that served as a model for the NEA. Rockefeller's work for the arts as Governor of New York from 1959 to 1973 was unparalleled by any other public official. Nixon used the NEA in competitive political fashion when he gained the office of President. He even appointed former Rockefeller aide Nancy Hanks to the Chairmanship. When Rockefeller pushed the New York State Council on the Arts budget up to 20 million dollars in 1971 from 2 million dollars in 1970, Nixon responded, amazing the art world by asking Congress for similar increases in the NEA's funds authorizations, which he received. He hoped to neutralize political opposition among the art patrons who otherwise preferred Rockefeller to him.¹²

Funding for the NEA in fiscal year 1970, the first year appropriated under the Nixon Administration, was at approximately 6.25 million dollars. In FY 1971 the appropriations were set at 12.59 million dollars, which was the first big increase in NEA history, thanks to Nixon. He claimed that "doubling the budgets would bring arts to millions of patrons, help financially strapped museums and orchestras, induce more private philanthropy, improve writing skills, redress the balance between the sciences and the humanities, and bring the lesson of history to bear on racial and generational tensions."¹³ This was essentially a regurgitation of the original reasons the Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act was passed. Nixon was attempting to make it look as if this was a bold new initiative, when in fact he only wanted to pacify the liberal artists and intellectuals that were all over his back about arts funding and the Viet Nam. FY 1972 saw another great increase, along the same lines, to appropriations of 26.25 million dollars. Appropriations in FY 1973 reached approximately 38.2 million dollars; in FY '74 they jumped once again to approximately 60.775 million dollars. Overall the Nixon years were good for the NEA in terms of federal funding. Hanks was also easily able to convince Congress of the invaluability of the Endowment when the time came for its first attempt at Reauthorization in 1970, and its second in 1973. It was during the Nixon years, however, that the first inklings of artistic controversy began to seep in from the opponents of the Endowment.

The initial occasion concerned a grant awarded to one George Plimpton. George was the editor of a literary volume entitled The American Literary Anthology. In 1969 he was awarded a grant to publish the second volume of this anthology. This Anthology/2 included a poem by Aram Saroyan entitled "LIGHGHT." The poem, of a new style of post World War II art called "concrete poetry,"¹⁴ consisted of nothing but the title itself, the word (or collection of letters) "lighght." When the stalwart opponent to the NEA, Representative William Scherle (R-IA), happened upon the Anthology/2 on a visit to Deputy Chairman Michael Straight's office in 1970, sensationalist journalism and Congressional controversy soon erupted. "Within a month, the right wing of the nation was demanding Miss Hanks' head on a plate--and mine. Protests by the sackful were mailed to the White House; Congressmen who yawned at the mention of overruns of billions of dollars in the Pentagon were aghast at our profligacy in allowing $500 to be given to Mr. Saroyan for his poem."¹⁵ Nancy Hanks and Straight did a good job making the proper rounds on Capitol Hill, and getting the word out around the country that the Arts Endowment needed indication of national support. Local arts agencies across the nation got to canvassing¹⁶, and while there was certainly a commotion and a big stir, everything seemed soothed enough for the upcoming inaugural Reauthorization of the Endowment that would hit the floor on June 30 of that same year.

Everything seemed fine for Reauthorization until Straight reviewed the galleys for Plimpton's upcoming Anthology/3. The third installment of Plimpton's work, again under grant from the NEA, included a short story by author Ed Sanders called The Hairy Table. This story was an explicit account of erotic exploits in a bookstore in Manhattan. It was in fact very explicit, and seemed to include almost all the slang terms for those most private parts of the human anatomy. Straight got scared and ran to Hanks with the Hairy Table. "If Aram Saroyam could wound [the Endowment], then Ed Sanders might finish it off; or so we feared."¹⁷ Noting the Foundation Act in Section 4(c), which states:
 

It was clear to Hanks what the course of action must be. The language of the Act clearly mandates for freedom of expression in art, however it does not protect the work of individuals from censorship. The grant for the Anthology series was an individual one, to editor George Plimpton. Hanks urged Plimpton to withdraw The Hairy Table from Anthology/3, and when he refused, she threatened him with the pulling of funds and the cutting off of the Anthology project after the third volume, one edition sooner than originally agreed to.¹⁸ Plimpton backed down, Hanks rescinded her threat, the situation was solved on a matter of procedural provision. This was the first case of intervention by Endowment officials to avoid controversy.

The Gerald Ford years were, at least in the area of the NEA, merely a continuation of the Nixon years. Nancy Hanks was kept on as Chairman, no significant changes were made to the structure of the Endowment or the Council. FY 1975 funding for the Endowment, which was authorized under Nixon but appropriated under Ford, went up to approximately 74.75 million dollars. FY 1976 saw levels reach 82 million dollars. The Transition Quarter in 1976 saw approximately 34 million dollars of NEA funding appropriations. FY 1977's appropriations were set at 94 million dollars, the largest sum yet. Overall, the Ford years were an extension of Nixon's strategy of appeasing the artists and intellectuals, who really didn't like them anyway, with increased funding to the arts and humanities. He even made Rockefeller Vice President.

The one note of interest from the Ford Administration with respect to controversy in the NEA was the entrance of the plague of Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC). Regarding novelist Erica Jong's 1974 book Fear of Flying, which she received a $5,000 individual grant for in 1973, Helms attacked Nancy Hanks and the NEA as a whole. Fear of Flying was a best-seller; but many who read it noticed that it was funded by the Endowment and wrote letters to their Congressmen to protest. Senator Helms eventually stepped forward as a leader for the Republicans on the issue. He wrote a letter to Nancy Hanks on June 12, 1975, in which he describes the novel, which he had not read, as "filthy, obscene," and demands "an explanation of the mentality in your agency which prompted the disbursement of funds for such a purpose--in the name of 'art.'"¹⁹ Hanks replied on July 2, explaining to the Senator that once an artist is selected for a grant, the law forbids the Endowment from interfering with its grantees. Helms wasn't satisfied with her response, he wrote back; she wrote back again. The Senator still hadn't gotten what he had wanted, and suggested in his first letter, that Miss Jong be required to refund her grant and that the Endowment make a promise to not fund books like Fear of Flying ever again. Fortunately, though, he did not press the issue on the floor of the Senate, and neither did anyone in the House, and the Endowment was granted yet another increase in appropriations for the fiscal year 1976. That would not be the last of Senator Helms' harassment of the NEA over controversial art, though.

The Jimmy Carter Administration, taking over in 1977, saw to the zenith of funding appropriations for the National Endowment for the Arts. Carter promised in his presidential campaign stronger, more active involvement of the government with the arts and artists. He said in a campaign speech on October 21,
 

The speech was written by Deputy Chairman Michael Straight. Although not much can be said for what was done during Carter's Administration for the growing of the arts as a political tool in foreign relations, there was definitely a paradigm shift in the vision of the Endowment. Carter appointed Livingston Biddle to the Chairmanhsip. In FY 1978 the appropriations for the Endowment reached 123.85 million dollars. In FY 1979 funding reached 149.585 million dollars, in FY '80 it reached 154.61 million dollars, in FY '81, the last budgeting cycle under Carter, it reached a new peak at 158.795 million dollars.

Under the Ronald Reagan Administration, the NEA became a target for conservative intellectuals who looked at the Endowments as the federal feedbox for liberals.²¹ They attempted to cut the budgets and dismantle the agencies. They failed for two major reasons. The Arts Caucus was very effective in fighting off the deepest, major budget cuts.²² Also, many otherwise very conservative and party-bound Republicans recognized that even their GOP constituents were in favor of what the NEA was doing for their local communities. "The social base of the GOP included few people back stage but many from the arts audiences."²³ Even Conservative Americans can enjoy a play or an exhibit of art, it seems. During the Reagan Years the NEA appropriations were as follows: in FY 1982 $143.5 million, in FY '83 $143.9 million, in FY '84 $162.2 million, in FY '85 $163.7 million, FY '86 $165.7 million, FY '87 $165.1 million, and finally in FY '88 approximately 166 million dollars. The Endowment would survive the Reagan Administration without much ado except a few general verbal attacks here and there about the "subgovernment problem" and the need for budget cuts and shrinkage of federal government.

When George Bush took the office of Presidency in 1989, controversy seemed to come along on his coattails. The explosion was set off by an artist by the name of Andres Serrano. His "Piss Christ" exhibit featured a crucifix submerged in a plastic container filled with Serrano's own urine.
Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ"

Congress responded to the "Piss Christ" issue with legislation of a type that the nation hadn't seen before.  For the first time since the Endowment was founded in 1965, the nation's Congressmen passed a bill that placed regulatory restrictions on the Endowment's grant process that were political, ethical, ideological in nature and having nothing to do with true, unadulterated artistic merits.  The conservative, snooty moralists in Congress, led by the art-ignorant rants of Jesse Helms, decided the government, if it had to fund the arts, would decide what art was appropriate and good for the United States and its people, based on Christian and conservative moral ideology. Section 304(a) of Pub. L. No. 101­121, 103 Stat. 701, 741 (1989), provided that no funds appropriated for the NEA (or the NEH) may be used to promote, disseminate, or produce materials which in the judgment of the [NEA or NEH] may be considered obscene, including but not limited to, depictions of sadomasochism, homoeroticism, the sexual exploitation of children, or individuals engaged in sex
acts and which, when taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political or scientific
value. Afraid of an expanding consciousness among the people, the government had to start constricting the filter they put on the public's minds, closing them down. Open minds, artistic minds, expanded consciousnesses lead to lack of need for government.

Immediately following the "Piss Christ" controversy, another uproar was upon the Endowment concerning the work of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Although Mapplethorpe himself was dead at the time, his autoerotic and homoerotic photographs were still on display in museums. Some of these institutions and exhibits were funded with help from the NEA.
"Self-Portrait" (1978)

The Christian Coalition and other conservative luminaries jumped all over it. "As Ralph Reed, the Washington Times, Helms and Pat Buchanan reiterated endlessly (with videotapes and dirty pictures to drive home the point), taxpayers were subsidizing filth and obscenity foisted upon them by a distant (and rich) elite that did not share Christian values."²⁵ Congress reacted with a law that prevented either Endowment from funding obscene or homoerotic arts, or depiction of sexual conduct. Liberal critics were able to convince the courts that this law violated First Amendment rights, and in 1990 Congress removed some of the restrictions and put in place stricter procedures to exert more oversight rather than flatly censor. These new administrative restrictions were the catalyst for the recently decided Supreme Court case NEA v Finley. At the core of the case was the constitutionality of restricting artistic expression based on value judgments.  For an excellent site that deals with the controversy of free artistic expression and the NEA, and focuses specifically on this case, see California State-Long Beach Philosophy Professor Julie Van Camp's Freedom of Expression at the NEA.

With the Clinton Years comes the really turbulent waters for the NEA. Throughout the Clinton Administration's time in Washington, the opponents of the Endowment have rained down steady blows of protest. There seems to always be some new piece of federally funded art that any of numerous conservative Congressmen are attacking as travesties to the American people. Clinton appointed actress Jane Alexander to the Chairmanship. She tried to restructure the Endowment as much as possible so that more funds would be funneled into museums and siphoned off from avant garde individual artists. However, nothing could be done from preventing at least some individuals from somehow getting their hands on NEA funds. The money would always filter down to hundreds and thousands of individuals through grants and regrants.

Even with Alexander's attempt to reorganize the Endowment and give it an appeasing facelift, the whirlwind of controversy and protest got more intense. This was due to a religious right that was once again on the rise after a serious decline due to leadership during the 1980's.²⁶ With newfound aggressive leadership in the Christian Solider Ralph Reed, the Christian Coalition et al had no problems making controversy over certain works of non-traditional art that still managed to be funded by the NEA. Also, the Republicans gained Congress in the 1994 midterm elections, making Newt Gingrich the new hero of the day. Gingrich and his Conservative Action Team of leading House Republicans, including Majority Leader Dick Armey, were dedicated to budget slashing in the name of fiscal sanity, anti-bureaucracy, and anti-elitism. Toward the very top of their list was the National Endowments.

The 104th Congress (1995-96) was not successful in eliminating the Endowment, however it did slash approximately 70 million dollars from the FY 1996 NEA budget. They planned a timeline for agency termination by FY 1999. They would find the road harder than they thought in the 105th Congress, however. Denying Reauthorization of the Endowment was crucial. The great debate ensued.

The Gingrichian Camp came out and immediately proposed privatization of the Endowments. On April 10, 1997, as the time for Reauthorization came just months near, the leaders of the GOP and the Conservative Action Team publicly announced their support for the killing of all federal funding to the arts. The leaders--Speaker Gingrich, Majority Leader Armey, Majority Whip Tom DeLay and Republican Conference Chair John A. Boehner--pressed the case that, in a time of tight federal budgets, taxpayers cannot afford funding for the agency. More outspoken members of this team, such as Representative Steve Largent of Oklahoma, say they are troubled by the federal government's role of arbiter by sanctioning art through grants and subsidies. They say the private sector is better suited to fulfill that funding responsibility. "This is a fundamental issue about the role of government," said Largent.²⁷ Indeed, the question of whether the government should fund the arts, based on matters of responsibility, role, and size of government, is the basic viewpoint thrust forward by Gingrich and the Conservative Action Team. Their answer is no. What it boils down to, as reflected in their proposal to set up a private trust fund, is that they believed in and wished to hold the government to the classical Republican vision that private is better than public, that the "Country" is better than the "Court."²⁸

The religious right, while they may have agreed to certain extent with the Conservative Action Team's regard of the proper role of government as limited in the scope of social spending, concentrated on the issues of the responsibility of government as a moral institution to guide the country. They propounded the rhetoric, in following with the Moral Majority philosophy of 1980 that faded during the Eighties with the fall of many televangelists and the pathetic attempt of Pat Robertson at a Republican party Presidential Nomination in 1988, that the leaders of the nation needed to reclaim America's heritage as a "Christian Nation."²⁹ They focused their criticism on any controversial projects that had received help from the NEA, and generalized the whole Endowment as an organization dedicated to the moral ruin of all good American peoples. Of particular interest and battleground for the religious right was the issue of tolerance of homosexuality. While the arts community insists that gays and lesbians not be persecuted, the religious right sees just the official acceptance of gay lifestyles, aside from the actual practice of homosexual acts, as an affront to their most precious values. This was an issue that they most certainly were incapable and unwilling to turn the other cheek on. Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition and other leaders of religious right organizations, like Patrick A. Trueman of the American Family Association, lashed out at artists' work that they felt "glorified" homosexuality.

One work that the religious right attacked and used to cause quite a stir was an independent film by artist Cheryl Dunye, a black lesbian.
Cheryl Dunye

The eighty-minute film entitled "The Watermelon Woman," included scenes of an interracial lesbian affair, casual drug use, and explicit but brief scenes between the main character and her female lover. Dunye received $31,500 from the NEA to help with production costs. Trueman reacted, saying quite hypocritically of the NEA, "We're uncomfortable with the federal government saying what art is. . .but we wouldn't be so opposed to it if the NEA didn't carry on a campaign to legitimize homoerotic art and blasphemy."³⁰ It seems that the religious right submits that it isn't in the capacity of government to properly interact with the arts, but that they themselves are the only ones with that ability. Down to brass tacks, they are saying that government shouldn't define what art is, we should.

The religious right may have been the catalyst for much controversy and the spark of many debates, but essentially their true political clout in Congress was negligible. Few Senators or Representatives gave voice to their vision on the floors of the chambers. Theirs was mostly a lobby, a media-hype, a whirlwind of rhetoric aimed against liberalism. Those who did represent or lean towards the religious right's angle weren't terribly bad to have as enemies for the supporters of the Endowment. Men like Senator Jesse Helms, who said "It is self-evident that many of the beneficiaries of the NEA grants are contemptuous of, how to say it, traditional moral standards. . .millions of American taxpayers resent the NEA's giving of taxpayer's money to self-styled artists whose art comes from the gutter and the sewer,"³¹ often make more a mockery of themselves and the religious right than they do to harm the Endowment.

Essentially, the view of the Christian camp is that the government has the responsibility to set moral standards, which they believe should necessarily and absolutely be Christian standards. They don't want a democratic process, they don't want a land of opportunity and freedom, they simply want to say what goes and what doesn't for everyone in America.

The defenders of the Endowment remained quite calm and confident throughout the whole affair, although their opponents were indeed able to succeed in placing tighter restrictions on the procedures of NEA grants; restrictions that would in fact prevent an artist who wished to produce a film along the lines of the "Watermelon Woman" from receiving federal aid. The artists and intellectuals, the liberals, simply reiterated over and over again throughout the debate a few simple points. The agency provides valuable seed money for arts organizations to gain economic footing, that arts groups produce billions of dollars for local economies, and that the agency funds valuable education programs and cultural institutions.³² Representative Rick A. Lazio (R-NY) said that "It is a mark of a thriving civilization that the public support the arts."³³ This echoed President Lyndon B. Johnson's bill-signing speech noted earlier. The supporters of the Endowment rarely addressed the controversy that the more conservative of their opponents, like the religious right, had stirred up concerning certain pieces of art. The art camp wished to avoid a nation-splitting explosive debate about morality. As a result, their opponents succeeded in gaining more oversight and restriction, but the Endowment survived and avoided the Gingrichian chopping block.

In conclusion, judgment on the value of the National Endowment for the Arts comes down to the answer to two questions: "What is Art?"; and "Is there necessarily an unbreakable tie between ethics and politics?" Those, who in historically conservative and Republican fashion, believe that there is a direct connection between art and morality, that a society is affected by its art; and that politics and ethics could not exist separately, inevitably come to the conclusion that government involvement with the arts must either be strictly controlled (fascist) or absent. On the other hand, those who, like myself, believe that art is transcendental of politics and merely reflects the true, underlying apolitical human spirit of society; and who also answer that ethics and politics are not necessarily tied together and in any case do not have anything to do with the fundamental truth of art, come to an entirely different conclusion. We too abhor the government's involvement in the arts for the corruption it might bring to the human spirit, but we will take a stand and say that if government can afford to spend our money on guns and butter, it damn well can afford to spend it on the art that any of us cares to see.
 
 

Notes
1.  Jensen, Richard. "The Culture Wars, 1965-1995: A Historian's Map." The Journal of Social History. v 29 supp. Pg 26.

2.  Moen, Matthew C. "Congress and the National Endowment for the Arts" The Social Science Journal. v34 no 2 1997. Pg 186.

3.  Jensen, Richard. "The Culture Wars, 1965-1995: A Historian's Map." The Journal of Social History. v 29 supp. Pg17.

4.  Taylor, Fannie and Anthony L. Barresi. The Arts at a New Frontier: the National Endowment for the Arts. New York: Plenum Press, 1984. Pg 49.

5.  Ibid., Pg 39.

6.  Ibid., Pg 49.

7.  Ibid., Pg 243.

8.  Ibid., Pg 83.

9.  Ibid., Pg 56.

10. Straight, Michael. Twigs for an Eagle's Nest, Government and the Arts, 1965-1978. New York: Devon Press, 1979. Pg 17.

11. Jensen, Culture Wars. Pg 19.

12. Ibid.

13. Dec 10, 1969 message to Congress in Congressional Quarterly, Nixon: The First Year of His Presidency. Washington D.C., 1970.

14. Taylor, Arts at a New Frontier. Pg 138.

15. Straight, Twigs for an Eagle's Nest. Pg 27.

16. Taylor, Arts, Ibid.

17. Straight, Twigs. Pg 28.

18. Taylor, Arts, Pg 139.

19. The letter appears in full in Michael Straight's Twigs for an Eagle's Nest. Pp 141-2.

20.Straight, Twigs. Pg 173.

21. Jensen, "The Culture Wars." Pg 19.

22. Moen, "Congress and the NEA." Pg 191.

23. Jensen, Ibid.

24. Moen, Pg 192.

25. Jensen, Pg 21.

26. Ibid., Pg 20.

27. Freedman, Allan."Replaying the Battle Scene Over NEA Funding." CQWR. March 15, 1997. Pg 626.

28. Jensen, Pg 31.

29. Ibid., Pg 29.

30. Freedman, "Replaying the Scene. . " Pg 625.

31. Freedman. "As Controversies Fade, Bill's Chances Brighten." CQWR. September 20, 1997. Pg 2218.

32. Freedman, "Replaying the Scene. . " Pg 626.

33. Ibid.
 

Bibliography