If there be a country which cannot stand any one of these tests – a country where knowledge cannot be diffused without perils of mob law and statute law; where speech is not free; where the post office is violated, mail bags opened, and letters tampered

Herbert Bayer, If there be a country which cannot stand any one of these tests--a country where knowledge cannot be diffused without perils of mob law and statute law; where speech is not free; where the post office is violated, mail bags opened, and letters tampered , 1951, paper and photomechanical reproduction on paperboard, sheet: 23 ³⁄₄ x 19 ¹⁄₈ in. (60.3 x 48.5 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Container Corporation of America, 1984.124.20

Artwork Details

Title: If there be a country which cannot stand any one of these tests – a country where knowledge cannot be diffused without perils of mob law and statute law; where speech is not free; where the post office is violated, mail bags opened, and letters tampered with; where public debts and private debts outside of the state are repudiated; where liberty is attacked in the primary institution of social life; where the laborer is not secured in the earnings of his own hand; where suffrage is not free or equal – that country is, in all these respects, not civil, but barbarous; and no advantage of soil, climate, or coast can resist these suicidal mischiefs. From the series Great Ideas.
Artist: Herbert Bayer
Date: 1951
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: sheet: 23 ³⁄₄ x 19 ¹⁄₈ in. (60.3 x 48.5 cm.)
Credit Line: Gift of Container Corporation of America
Mediums: paper
Mediums Description: paper and photomechanical reproduction on paperboard
Subjects: Occupation — writer — novelist
Portrait male — Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Abstract
Object Number: 1984.124.20
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1984.124.20