The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-03-04
EXPERIMENTS TO HEAR FINANCIER
SINCLAIR LEWIS RETURNS HOME TO HIS OWN SHORES
He Waxes Sarcastic and Drops a Few Verbal Bombs At the British Writer J. B. PriesHy
BY RANDALL GOULD United Press Stan Correspondent

tOnlUcU I.feSS GtaM AOEEcSlyOhuChtI
 New York. March 4-UP)-Sin- c,air Lewis, Nobel literature prize winner, came back to his native shores to-day. dropping few yer Lal bombs at a British writing col league and announcing that for the present h> will make his only ad- dress at "R. F. D., No l."
 His remark was prompted by ref
 erences to J. B. Priestley, British
 writer and lecturer now in this
 country to make series of address es. some of which have already paid bitter tribute to Lewis and to Amer ica in general.
 Lewis was asked if he were going to make any addresses whereupon
 lie announced, "my only address TOW will be F. F. D. No l." Ships news men prodded Lewis
 with some of Priestley's bon mots, including one to the effect that America has the noisiest streets. And England seems to have the roisiest lecturers" Lewis countered. He had been sufferine from a cold
 and his wiz. Dorothy Thompson,
 could scarcely speak above whis-
 per. In fact, many of the passengers
 on his ship, the Europa, said they
 were just getting over the affects of
 what they called the London flu" Lewis vowed he was not "anti-
 American" and claimed to be much | amazed at the repercussions caused by his Stockholm speech in which he took to task his fellow countrymen | for some of their faults and foibles. | The speech, he explained. had been abbreviated ir cabling, hence lost | lost some of it's flavor, whereas the remarks could easily have been ap- piled to other countries. q spoke of the American scene, fe said, because I know most about that"
 Lewis explained he planned to | work hard now, thought he had no specific project in mind. Much of his
 talk with the ship news men turned on Priestly and the latter's utter
 ances, particularly in a Brooklyn | speech.
 T guess it was because it was in
 Brooklyn" Lewis observed. Many people have said many strange | things in Brooklyn. I guess it's the sea air there.
 "Priestly says my day is done. Well, I suppose that means, at least, that I've had day" Informed that Priestley had c'assed him with Michael Arlen, au-
 thor. Lewis retorted:
 Well, Mikes a good dancer" Then back to Priestley himself. 1T wish he'd take over all the
 writing there is to be done," Lewis said. Writing novels is the drear- fest and greasiest job. If Priestley
 would do the job, there wouldn't be
 any more criticism.'
 He said he had been 'loafing" re- | gently.
 "Now I've got to get back to
 work-and how hate it." he com-
 mented smiling.
 He observed that the 1920-30 de-
 oade of which he had done much
 writing was now "shot to he'll" Incidentally, he paid high tribute tC fellow passenger, Thomas Wolf of Nashville. Tenn. author of Look Homeward Angel" which Lewis
 characterized as great book. Lewis said he would not attempt 10 write of the American in Paris ! holding that Ernest Hemingway had already we'll covered that topic. Mrs Lewis was surprised at the turore caused by Lewis speech in Stockholm at time of his receiving | the Nobel prize.
 "Anatole France" she said. made
 a more sensational speech just after
 he war, attacking the Versailles
 treaty. but nobody paid any particu- l lar attention to it.