MR. SCHMALZ

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 135, 9 June 1928, Page 21

MR. SCHMALZ

ANOTHER COUSIN TO BABBITT "The Man Who Knew Coolidge; being the soul of Lowell Schmalz, Constructive and Nordic Citizen." By Sinclair Lewis. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co. Mr. Sinclair Lewis now introduces the many admirers of his work to Lowell Schmalz, who may be described as first cousin to G. 3?. Babbitt, tho Realtor of Zenith; and tho reader is promised from the outset a true portrait of a "Constructive and Nordic American citizen" as much entertainment as ever he derived from "Babbitt." Lacking reasonably long residence in tho United States (and the immigration laws do not permit alien observers sufficient time to study the subject), it is difficult to say if Mr. Sinclair Lewis's portrayals of G. V. Babbitt, Elmer Gantry, and Martin Arrowsmith do faithfully represent contemporary Americans. Those open-minded observers who have no more than a transient experience of Americans in the Uuited States will probably agree that they aro much the same as men in Great Britain and the great self-governing British Dominions. Americans as a whole aro in no danger of self-esteem in its pernicious form all the time Mr. 11. L. Mencken, Mr. Upton Sinclair, Mr. Joan Nathan, and Mr. Sinclair Lewis aro able to write as forcefully and entertainingly as they do and tell the world all about their fellowcountrymen. . But the question that will persist in troubling the reader who has been or is in close contact with Americans is this: Does Mr. Sinclair Lewis depict his fellow-American citizen as ho is or as he appears to Mr. Lewis to be? The answer to the question, however, is of less importance beside the fact that many of the characteristics of G. F. Babbitt and now those of Lowell Schmalz, are common to citizens in at any rate some of the Dominions. For instance, Australia has its Babbitts, p.ni the species is by no means rare in New Zealand. In the fictional Lowell Schmalz presented by Mr. Sinclair Lewis will be recognised a good specimen of the class of person wittily described by Professor David Starr Jordan as Sciosophist. Lowell Schmalz is a big breezy man, weighs 220 pounds, even when inflated to bursting point with his own importance. Ho has a big voice and works it hard all the time he is not sleeping. One cannot hate him, intolerable as he may bo. He is generally amusing and always oracular, yet knows next to nothing. He does himself well in dress, and at table when ho is not talking he is chewing a cigar, and he chews it to the point of mastication. Ho is always in tho mode, up to tho second in stylo and speech, and he wears conspicuous large rimless glasses. No one can ever ignore him, no one can over escape his attention. Ho talks and talks and talks, and as a rule ho talks the veriest Tommy rot with all the assurance of one who knows his subject in and out, back and front. Ho is a plngless word-pipe, this Man Who Know Coolidgc." But what lias Schmalz to say upon his friend "Cal," tho first citizen of the United States? Listen: Cal is nafe. What is it more than any other quality distinguishes leaders of men liko Cal? It isn't merely his profound thought, his immovable courage, his genial and democratic manners, but it's the fact that he's so close a student of human nature that ho quickly and thoroughly studies each man as ho meets him. Maybe ho isn't so highfalutin as some people I could name. Hut I wonder if any of you gentlemen ever thought of this? He may not shoot off a lot of fircworlis, but do you know what lie is? He's safe. There is no doubt about Mr. Schmalz's being fully "hundred per cent. American," but is he more than one hundred per cent.; is he really typical of Mr. Sinclair Lewis's fellowcountrymen, or is he but a puppet of that clever writer's fashioning? Hear Mr. Schmalz on the wireless and marvel at how much he does not know about it. Says he: — Talk about miracles! Just think of it! Hero you sit at homo in tile old overstuffed chair, happy as a clam at low tide (or is it high tide—whichever it is). You sit there and smoke your pipe and twiddle tho knob, and what do you get? Think of ill ltiglit tliero at home you hear tho best jazz music in the country, bands in the best hotels in Chicago, and (ho wonderful orchestra at Zion City! All the hockey matches right while thcy'ro going on! Jokes by the best comedians in the country. . . . Yes, sir, there's nothing that makes for sound Internationalism nothing that combats the\ destructive and malign propaganda of tho Bolsheviks and pacifists and all liko that like the radio and personally I class it right in with card-cata-logues as an inspiration of tho New Era. Mr. Schmalz's selection of bromides is new, varied, and extensive. He can talk with assurance on anything— politics, the Church, sociology, League of Nations, anything at all, and ho is generally ill-informed. But is Mi-. Lewis's Lowell Schmalz to be taken by foreigners as a typical American business man? That is tho point. Surely not, for many typical business men on the surface may seem to bo full brothers to Lowell Schmalz —only appear so. Beneath the surface they may be, and most probably are, very much better men—or worse—than they seem. Adroit jester as he is, Mr. Sinclair Lewis seems ever so serious in his bursting of American social bubbles, in exposing social insincerities, which after all aro not monopolies of the people of the United States. But this seriousness in the writer of "The Man Who Knew Coolidge" -will in no way lessen the zest of those who havo riad, chuckled over, and enjoyed "Babbitt," or "Tho Job." In Mr. Schmalz's parlance, when they meet him they will take him by the hand and say, "Pleased to meet you."