Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-11-09
LEWIS RESENTFUL
. Of BADlBOY' NAME
Latest Nobel Prize Winner
Admlres Men Who Can Hold
Newspaper Jobs.

M the Associated Press.
NEW YORK, November 8.--Sinclair
LAWS. Nobel prize winner Of 1880. would
like to be nd Of his bad boy" reputa-
tion.. ~
ia has been called names against his
wishes--this tall, thin. nervous, red
hatred satirist who put Main Street"
and Rabbit" into the American vo-
critirs have called him q romantic
realist. q reformer. He has been accused
Of attacking small towns, civic boosters,
preachers. doctors. business men. all be-
cause he went to them tor MS cnar-
acters.
Admires Newspaper Men.
II WISH" said Lewis. they'd Just let
me be novelist"
He has hts private opinion OF the
Middle West but he insists on keeping
It private.
He prefers to talk about his attempts
at Journalism, or, better yet the star
reporting of his wife. Dorothy Thomp-
son Lewis.
'He has an almost childlike admira-
ton" his wife once said, "for any one
Who can hold job on newspaper.
Lewis couldn't. His first newspaper
work was In New Haven, Conn.,. while
he was attending Yale.
SIT was the only newspaper job /
wasn't fired from" he said.
After I left New Haven I went to
the Waterloo, Iowa, Courier at $1S
week, was editorial writer, proofreader,
telegraph editor and dramatic critic.
II was fired in the middle Of the first
week. The editor came TO me and said:
I've got a telegram from your sue
cessor'
"'what?' I said.
Failed az Reporter and Poet.
"'r've got a telegrom from your sue
cessor. ! didn't want to say anything
until I heard from him. But We'll give
you fun weeks pay. We want our
boys to leave satisfied
Lewis came to New York. For few
weeks he was with the Charity Or
ranization Society, interviewing appli-
cants for charity. He didn't At there,
either.
So he borrowed 500 and went to
California. The father of Stephen VIM
cent Benet. the poet, was commander
of the arsenal at Benica. He put Lewis
up In the arsenal for three months.
Lewis stayed in California about q
year and wrote poetry, short stories and
Jokes. He sold one thing joke. He
worked on the old San Francisco Bull
~.
II guess I was a bad reporter. I
couldn't 90 out and get q story in which
! was not interested.
Got B. A. Degree in 1908.
IT soon was back in washington as
editor-and ONCE hoy-of the Volta
Review, q magazine for the deaf. Then
/ came TO New York to work Tor
publishing house.
'sThe Bulletin had paid me $50 a
week, the Associated Press paid me $25,
the Volta Review, SIS, and the New
York Job $3.50. That was my
Lewis had left Yale ct the beginning
of his senior year and joined Helicon
Hall, a New Jersey colony founded by
Upton Sinclair. There he listened to
Emma Goldman and wrote poetry.
After q while he moved to an obscure
bed room in Manhattan's gas-house
district. He wrote Jokes and was as
sistant editor Of new defunct maya
zine. Then he went back to Yale, and
get his p. A. degree in 1908.
Likes "Arrowsmith'' Best.
It was while he was working in q
publishers ONCE. In New York, after
his discouraging newspaper career. that
he wrote his first novel, "Our Mr..
Wren11." Since then he has written ii
novels and plays. The novels have
sold 1899 900 copies In English and
several hundred thousand more In
translations. The plays were failures.
OF the money his novels earned him,
he said he has plenty"
Once o warm socialist, he says he
now has no political affiliation. He Is
yehemently "agin" prohibition.
OF his own novels, "Arrowsmith" is
his personal favorite-"the only one
can stand reading"