“If the demise of a national treasure like the Merce Cunningham Dance Company is not sufficient to convince us we must rescue the arts from the hands of capricious millionaires and from the boom-and-bust cycles of legislative appropriations, then our civilization is lost. It is past time to stop accepting their miserly handouts gratefully, and to demand the creation of independent endowments large enough to guarantee operating support and reliable, annual grants to artists. We must stop calling the arts a charity, and call them what they really are: an investment in society. To that end, the new endowments should be underwritten the way other public investments are, through bond issues. These bonds would permit arts lovers great and small to contribute to the common good, while saving money for their own purposes.”
Read Johnson’s entire article in the Newark Star-Ledger…