Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-03-30
Dresser and Lewis Viewed
Through Their Own Glasses

That people who throw stones had
| be the moral of the DreiSer-Lewis face
slapping incident. judged by the COM
| ment of those who chose to satiriZe
Americas great satirists when their own
| manners awake q tolerant smile from
the Nation. The cause Of the row
Sinclair Lewis charge that Dresser bor-
/ rowcd 5000 words from Mrs. Lewis
writings, is not taken very seriously
and it Is pointed out that the literary
material might easily have come to
both authors from a common source.
IF the match settled anything, IL
settled that Mr.. Lewis can be slapped, u
says the GAINESVILLE Gazette, with the
accompanying thought that probably
Gopher Prairie is glad to learn" of the
incident and the expression OF indtf-
ference as to which one got licked.
The Oakland Tribune suggests that
chose who believe American letters
need more vigor and that quarreling
among the artists is conducive to bet
ter work may applaud, not because Mr..
Dresser slapped the face of Mr.. Lewis,
but because men who have sat upon
pedestals have proved they can behave
like the well known human beings"
I'VE have it from Babbitt, incurable
moralist as he is, that only those who
are themselves without guile can afford
to wax gleeful in throwing stones, "
comments the Atlanta Journal, and
that paper gives q picture of the Incl
dents leading up to the dramatic CHI
max: Occurring in select club of
the metropolis, at a dinner of the in
telligentsia, whose honor guest was a
writer from Soviet land, the encounter
becomes cause celebre, contributing
of q
ure, If not to the gayety of nations.
Behold the principals, Thersites and
Timon! Where in all our republic of
letters can they be matched for NOR
dant laughter at the follies of their
countrymen or for mercileSs delineation
of the bourgeoisie2 Who on these I'M
sophisticated shores has equaled or ap-
preached them in holding up to nature
a mirror that dwarfs whatever is ami
able or rare and magnifles all that is
ugly and humdrun? The author of
'Babbitt' and the reporter of An Amer
lean Tragedy-fancy those two in COM
bat! Not q combat of lightning wits
and Jovian bolts, but such fracas as
our own Augustus Baldwin LongStreet
pictured nigh a hundred years ago,
beginning thus, In the dark corner"
of Lincoln County there lived in the
younger days two men who were adj
m1tted on all hands to be the very
best men in the county, which in the
Georgia vocabulary means they could
flog any other two"
4
"It was Mencken. we believe" states
the Omaha World Herald, who wished
that Lewis would talk less and write
more. If Red will just take that advice,
he will leave behind him better repu-
tation than even the Nobel Prize can
give him." That paper voices the
judgment of the controversy: 1.-The
charge that Theodore Dresser swiped
some passages from a book by Mrs.
Lewis is old stuff. Whether 1t is true
or not, it is old enough to have been
charged of the books long ago, and not
kept to be dragged out as the subject
Of personal insult at q party at which
both men were guests. There have
been ample opportunities and ample
time to settle the dispute and call it
ended. II Mr.. Lewis doesn't care to
go to law about it, there is the tradi-
tiona method of the English schooIboy.
in which the disputants go out and
hammer each other with their fists.
After both are well bloodied up they
shake hands, call the row settled and
become fast friends for the rest of their
lives. For all its roughness, there is q
great deal to commend this. 1t GER