"I am an American, who, after eight years’ residence in Europe, come back to view America with new eyes. I have just realized America—its extraordinary potentialities, its size, its youth, its unlimited material for the photographic art, its state of flux particularly as applying to the city of New York.... I feel keenly the neglect of American material by American artists.... America to be interpreted honestly must be approached with love void of sentimentality, and not solely with criticism and irony"
