THE CRAFTSMAN MOVEMENT: ITS ORIGIN
AND GROWTH: BY GUSTAV STICKLEY


FEW weeks ago I was showing a friend of mine over
the new Craftsman Building, explaining my plans for
its development--describing all the interesting things
I hoped to bring together there. And after listening
to me for a while, he said:
    "Tell me, what makes you do this? Why do you


                want to move into thns Dig placer D)o you realize the
 enormous load you are shouldering, how many more problems you will
 have to solve, and what a difficult undertaking this will be to carry
 through? You're getting on in years; you've reached an age when a
 business man usually begins to think about retiring and settling down
 to a quiet life. Instead, you are taking on harder work and bigger re-
 sponsibilities. Why do you do it?"
    "Because I can't help it," I told him. "A movement that
has
 grown as this one has, must keep on growing, People need it; they
 wouldn't let me stop even if I wanted to."
    As I think the matter over, it comes to me more and more clearly
 that here lies the true explanation-that it is a movement, and not
 merely an individual enterprise. It must either grow or decay; it
 cannot stand still. For a movement is like a tree--if it once gets a firm
 hold in the soil, if it has its roots in the ground, it cannot help growing.
 Barring accidents, nothing can stop it.
    In every vital movement this principle of growth is seen, and the
 Craftsman Movement is no exception. Its development has been a
 matter of natural, logical expansion. First it had to be rooted in the
 soil of actual physical conditions, to be the outgrowth of real spiritual
 needs. It had to push its way up toward the light of a definite ideal.
 It sent forth one branch after another, each new development suggest-
 ing still wider and more varied growth. And like the tree, each branch
 had to be hardy, had to weather rebuff and criticism just as the
 branches of the tree have to withstand storms and insects and other
 natural foes. Moreover, its growth had to be more or less in line with
 the thoughts and wishes of the people, for the public tendency, in a
 general way, is right, and the wind that sways and determines the
 growth of any democratic movement is always the zeitgeist, the "spirit
 of the times." Because of these things its present stature has been
 reached.
   Fifteen years ago this Movement started. It had its origin in a
few simple chairs. Yet such sound principles of craftsmanship inspired
their conception, and such popular response did their making invoke,
that out of this seemingly insignificant beginning developed all that
the word "Craftsman" now implies.


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