awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal fornPoetry in 1967 and was appointednCommander of the British Empire innthe New Year Honours List in 1986nfor his services to poetry.nThe Ingersoll Foundation is thenphilanthropic division of IngersollnMilling Machine Company of Rock-nPrincipalities & Powersnby Samuel FrancisnUntil the discovery in the spring ofn1989 that the National Endowment fornthe Arts was conducting tax-supportednamphibious landings on the farthernshores of anatomy, physiology, and abnormalnpsychology, probably fewnAmericans had ever heard of the relativelynobscure agency that presides overnthe floating wreckage of the Americannarts. Founded in 1965 and with annannual budget costing less than a goodnbattleship, the NEA has gloried in thenanonymity that bureaucrats and thenavant-garde underwodd covet. But oncenthe light of publicity had begun to shinenon the NEA’s woodwork, and the maggotyncreatures that infest it had startednscrambling for their beloved darkness,nthe bureau that serves as a kind ofnfederal gestapo of the dominant culturenquickly became a synonym for thensewage in which these august personagesnlove to wallow.nThe first scandal arose from thenrevelation that the agency had helpednfinance exhibitions of the work of thenlate Robert Mapplethorpe, now deceasednof AIDS, who had missed hisntrue vocation of dressing women’s hair,narranging flowers, or selling ,antiquesnand had instead dedicated his genius tonthe high and mysterious art of photography.nMr. Mapplethorpe was indeed anman of no small talent and reportedlyncommanded no less than $20,000 for ansitting. Had he confined his career tonperpetuating the images of weddingsnand commencements and capturing thentoothless gapes of bubbling infants, henmight have passed on to the greatnTurkish bathhouse in the sky with naryna peep from his following or his adversaries.nBut, as it developed, Mapplethorpenconcocted the notion that henwas called to employ his gifts in en­n10/CHRONICLESnford, Illinois. The Rockford Institutenadministers the prizes. Past recipientsnof the T.S. Eliot Award includenGeorge Garrett (1989), Walker Percyn(1988), Octavio Paz (1987), V.S. Naipauln(1986), Eugene lonesco (1985),nAnthony Powell (1984), and JorgenLuis Borges (1983). E.G. Wilsonnshrining on film forever some of hisnfavorite recreations. Since the contentnof most of these pictures is such that notneven adult bookstores could displaynthem with impunity, he had no recoursenbut to call them “art.”nWhat exactly these photographs depictnmay not be fully described in suchnwholesome publications as Chronicles,nand indeed their precise characterizationnmight elude even one of suchnjaded imagination as your correspondent.nOne may search the works ofnKrafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis innvain to find parallels to some of thendeviations Mapplethorpe relished.nL’Affaire Mapplethorpe might havenpassed with merely the usual struttingsnand expectorations from congressmennwho saw in it a convenient vehicle fornposturing as latter-day Gatos, but itnsoon was followed by the exposure ofneven more bizarre practices that thenNEA had helped to finance. Therenwas the case of Andres Serrano, whondelights in portraying objects of religiousndevotion immersed in urine andnwho readily acknowledges his preoccupationnwith bodily fluids of all kinds.nLater there were confirmed reports ofnNEA support for the exotic entertainmentsndevised by the guild of “performancenartists,” most of which makenMapplethorpe’s creations look like thencrossword puzzles in ]ack ‘n’ Jill. Asidenfrom the live nudity, dabbles in excrement,nand contortions of bodily orificesnin which these artists delight, theirnwork also emits what the performersnare pleased to claim as political pronunciamentoes.nAlthough the politicalnmeaning of the acts escaped most of.nthose who witnessed them or readnaccounts in the yellow press, the artistsnthemselves were eager to explain thatnthey were exposing the “oppression ofnwomen” and other forms of “culturalnhegemony” inflicted on us by thennn(1989), Edward Shils (1988), JosefnPieper (1987), Andrew Lytic (1986),nRobert Nisbet (1985), Russell Kirkn(1984), and James Burnham (1983)nare previous recipients of the RichardnM. Weaver Award.nsinister and ubiquitous “Eurocentrists”nand their heterosexual cohorts.nAs the world now knows, the wholensordid mess was seized upon by religiousnfanatics, conservative congressmen.nNew York cab drivers, and othernfossilized representatives of nearly extinctnpolitical species who imaginednthat there might be something objectionablenin using the moneys handednup by taxpayers to finance the productionnand exhibition of works these samentaxpayers found abhorrent. As thentemperature of the congressional battlenescalated, platoons of actors, actresses,nand aesthetes of all descriptions belliednup to the bars on Capitol Hill tonexplain with their customary hauteurnwhy taxpayers and other white trashnshould shut up, fork over, and docilelynsubmit to the subsidized subversion ofntheir own institutions.nTo their credit, a number of congressmennthought otherwise, and fornthe past year or so they have beenntrying to draft legislation that wouldnprohibit the NEA from sponsoringnobscenity, blasphemy, and other objectionablenexcesses of liberated speech.nNorth Carolina’s Senator Jesse Helmsnand California’s Representative DananRohrabacher took the lead in trying tontrim the NEA’s lurid sails. But in thenend they failed. Just before Congressnscuttled off to tell the voters how muchnit had done for them in the past twonyears, it voted to reauthorize the NEAnwithout any significant “content restrictions.”nIt is noteworthy that PresidentnBush played an important role innstopping legislation for such restrictionsnby coming out against it at a keynmoment in the debate.nIn lieu of strong restricdons, it isnprobable that next year will see thenrevelation of even more scandals of thenMapplethorpe-Serrano-“performancenartist” kidney and that the struggle inn