The Washington herald., 1921-10-25
MAu'l6ntcn
DAY By DAY
impressions:
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NEW YORK. Oct. 3l.-At the
opening night Of his play Main
Street." Sinclair Lewis csbled from
London to his producer "Unaccus-
toned as / am TO cabling. I
thank you'll" New York apparently
liked his play as well as America
liked his novel
The IT knew him when" crowd
was on hand to cheer. This slim.
he'd headed young author from Sank
Center. Wis.,, has given q new I'M
petus to American letters. He 10 the
founder Of a new style Of novel writ
ing In contrast to the romantic out
put OF Harold MacGrath, Robert W.
Chambers ard Rex Beach.
As result America 10 flooded
with realistic novels of the small
towns. Every Greenwich Village
scribbler Is feverishly attempting to
immortalize the livery stable. COW
pasture and public square.
Lewis is just SO. In the past. year
his Gopher Prairie idyl has easily
Melted him $500, 600. Before the next
year has ended the moving picture
play and book royalties at a con-
sentative estimate will be q half
million.
As Julian Street once wrote. Of
Irwin Cobb. so may one write Of
Red Lewis:
You may praise. you may fatter
Sinclair II you will
But the band OF his derby will At
round him still.
For Sinclair Lewis has not yet
quite grown up. He is just a little
bit bewildered by It all. The last
time I met him at a private dinner
to which few intimate friends
were invited-he spent most of his
time wrestling with II. T. Webster.
the cartoonist. who comes from
Tommyhawk. Wis.
Webster Is more than six feet tall
and weighs more than 200 pounds.
Lewis did not achieve his ambition
but he worked up a great appetite
for dinner. He is going to live in
London a year-perhaps write a
novel and perhaps not. He knows
the bitter days of one-armed
lunches and cramped hall bedrooms
but he hewed to the line letting the
rejection slips fall where they may.
Stories of precocious children are
generally tiresome yet there is
something quite frank about the
New York boy who was a regular
attendant at Sunday school and in
reply to a question as to what ne
learned there said: 81 learned to put
pennies in a dishpan."
Waite Hoyt, the handsome young
blonde pitching hero Of the Yankees.
got just exactly 513 admiring mash
notes during the recent world Sc
ries. Not even the loveliest matinee
idol on Broadway can equal that
record. oyt is a rosy checked young
fellow with the classic features of
the collar ad Apollo.
A millionaire banker recently
much in the limelight has fitted up
the entire tenth floor of an office
building near the Grand Central
Station as living quarters. He seeks
peace and quiet and believes that
he can best bury himself in the very
heart of the teeping metropolis. Mo-
one in the building knows of his
presence. He has a private elevator
and his servants are the kind who
have been tried and found not want
ing. His theory is somewhat like
that of the Detective Bureau which
believes that the man hardest to
hnd is the one who mingles with
the herd. Once he starts for the
open places the arm of the law nips
hip.
Two strangers showed up at the
Polo Grounds the other day and sent
word to John McGraw that they were
two friends of the umpire" seeking
Annie Oakleys. Let 'em in by all
means" said McGraw. Il never
thought an umpire had that many
friends in the world"