AUTHORS QUARREL

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 May 1931, Page 5

AUTHORS QUARREL

INSULTS AND SLAPS. Theodore Dreiser (“The Genius”) slapped the face of Sinclair Lewis (“Babbitt”) last night, says an Associated Press dispatch from New Yoik, published in the “San Francisco Chronicle.” “It was an outrageous, scandalous affair,” said Lewis, the only American ever awarded the . Nobel Prize, for Literature. Dreiser’s comment was twice as long—it contained twelve words: “Rash and unwarranted insults were rewarded with two slaps upon the face.” He declined even monosyllabic further discussion. The men, probably the two best known of American writers, met in a room off the dining room of the Metropolitan Club, where they, with twenty-five other men of letters, were attending a meeting given by Ray Long, editor of a national magazine, in honor of Boris Pilnyak, Russian Communist writer. At the dinner Lewis had said: — “I feel disinclined to speak in the presence of a man who has stolen 3000 words from my wife’s (Dorothy Thompson’s) book on Russia, and before two sage critics who have lamented the action of the Nobel Committee in selecting me as America’s representative writer.” . 1 There w r as a moment's strained silence as Lewis sat down, but nothing hapiiened. Soon afterward the company adjourned to another room for coffee and cigars. Lewis, tall, fiery-haired author of “Main Street” and “Elmer Gantry,” stood talking- with Drejser, broadshouldered and bulky. Suddenly, apparently to ithe surprise of the others, the open palm of Dreiser’s hand swung -out, striking •Lewis sharply on the cheek. Then he struck again. “J didn’t strike back,” Lewis said, “because unfortunately someone standing behind me grabbed my arm.” Other guests jumped between the two and the disturbance was over. Both remained at the Metropolitan '■ Club, where the dinner was given,and were among the last to leave. An Associated Press reporter saw Lewis late to-day just as the writer was boarding a train for Toledo, Ohio, “Can’t two men have a private squabble,” Lewis said, “without all this fuss being made about it?” “I don’t care to be quoted about the incident,” he added. “But what I said about 3000 words being stolen from my wife’s book still stands. No, I don’t intend to sue anyone. The incident is closed-”

The guests at the dinner indcluded many famous in American letters: Rupert Hughes, Irvin Cobb, Ray Long, Laurence Stallings, James RQuirk, Arthur Brisbane, and Burton Rascoe, among them. All who could be reached declined to discuss the affair. Lewis would not say what words led to the blows. “Dreiser’s a pretty big fellow,” the Nobel Prize wi nner remarked, “and must weigh pretty close to 2001bs. I’ll bet he could have put up a pretty good scrap if they’d let us go. Still, he’s pretty old. tie must be 60. He was an ofeta-blished editor in New York when I was a kid trying to get going.” Lewis again called attention to the 3000 words she charged Dreiser had “stolen” from Dorothy Thompson’s (Mrs -Le'.Ms’s) book. He pointed out that Mrs Lewis’s story was published six months before Dreiser’s book came out. Dreiser has explained that the similarity of text was due to the fact that both Mrs Lewis and he took their material from the same source. Lewis, busily packing his bag as he talked so that he would not miss his train to Toledo, remarked that he once had been discharged by the Associated Press for incompetency. “I’d rather be the reporter I might have been,” he remarked, “than the Nobel Prize winner. That is, sometimes I feel that way. It is much better to be bothering someone else for a statement or an interview than to be that person and be bothered.”