Daily British Whig (1850), 14 Oct 1922, p. 4

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® '| the packet in the medicine cabinet ° . . behind a round box of bicarbonate Booster Babbitt of Zenith, the Lip City of soda. After this he laid vandal hands on the guest towel, a pansy- embroidered trifle which no guest ever dared touch. His wife came along just in time to discover him town! The ideal of American man- hood and culture isn't a lot of cranks sitting around chewing the rag about their Rights and ther Wrongs, but a Cod-Tearing, hustling, 'réucegasinl. two-fisted Regular Guy, who belonzs Not content with having cleaned circle, of his clubs and the business > Bai Bik i yar Pa et up a fortune from "Main Street," world in which he moves, are made ho a hen lo it Sinclair Lewis has now written a'out of the same clay as his own Elks or Moose or Redmen oT Knights Tollicking satire, entitled "Bab-/coarse self. We can believe that |o¢ Columbus of any ond of a score of Bitt," which will probably have | there are thousands of American cit- organizations of good jolly kidding, twice as large a sale as its predec- izens who act and talk Mke Babbitt, | 1a "ip La le ne: €essor. I imagine that "Babblit" but it is equally true that there are |a-hdnding Royal Good Fellows, who Will be recelved with an agle of lau-|just as many, I hope more, who are plays hard and works hard, and | @hter by the good-natured Ameri- superior to him in character and in whose answer to his critics is a SinclairLewls, Author of "Main Street," Produces "Bab- bitt,"" His Second 8dtire at the Expense of the Solid American Citizen--A Masterpiece of Slang and Photo=~ graph Detail. By Prof. W. T. Allison. 4 ean public, but, if I.were an Ameri- ean, I know that I would be dis- pleased with any novelist who should give such an exaggerated, mot to say distorted, picture of the home, business, and church life of my. country as is to be found in the 'four hundred pages of this story. If # Canadian or English writer were fo pillory the people of the United ~ Btates as Mr. Lewis has 'done, there would be a frightful roar of anger from an insulted nation. But critics dn the great republic approve of "Babbitt." Burton Rascoe has writ- den a review of it in which he fairly shouts with delight; he declares that "Babbitt" is "absolutely Im- mense." Professor Stuart P. Sher- man of the University of Illinois says that Sinclair Lewis is "'conspir- dng with the spirit of the time to be- 'come the most interesting and Im- portant novellst in America." Even the acldulous Henry L. Mencken 'purrs with delight. "I know of no novel," he roundly asserts, "that more accurately presents the real 'America. George F. Babbitt should become as real as Jack Dempsey or Charlie Schwab. The fellow simply \@rips vith human juices." There 13 fio disputing the fact that Babbitt !s Suman, but when Mr. Lewis pres- #nts him and his neighbors and as- sociates in business as typical Amer- fein natlon-builders and the Amer- dea of this story as the real America he is beside himself and truth is speech. It 1s a-pity that Mr. Lewis square-toed boot that'll teach the found no place for a few of these |grouches and smart alecks to respect bettertype Americans near the oen- | the He-man and get out and root for tre of his stage. He has made a {Uncle Samuel, US.A.!"" A wonderful study of the loud-mouth- ed, slangy, pushful, hectoring, im- 9 Regul 3 moral son of Uncle 8am in George Babbiitls Tur » his da 'F. Babbitt, who is amusing, pathetic, book to put Babbitt through his paces disgusting, and always interesting, |ag q "regular guy." We see him in but why could we not have beenihig office putting through a crooked brought into touch with at least one (real estate deal for certain street- neighbor or business associate Who [traction officals: flirting with a mani- could have reminded us of the fact cure girl én a barber shop; discharg- that the Zeniths of the U.S.A. pos-|ing gne of his old employees; mixing sess some citizens who are men of (cocktails for a dinner party in his refinement and high principle ? Mr. |home on Floral Heights, a dinner Lewis allows a Presbyterian minis-|whioh was, as he put it, not only "a ter, a Y.M.C.A. secretary, and a bank [regular society spread but a real president to flit across his stage, but | eure-enough highbrow affair, with they are caricatures introduced for [some of the keenest intellec's and the purpose of holding up religion to |in this act of irreverence and he ridicule. Next to Babbitt in the af- had to listen to a thorough discus- fections of the writer of this story, [sion of all the domestic and social who 1s evidently a socialist, arc aspects of towels. We are spared a | Seneca Doane, a strike leader, and | verbatim account of this deliver- Paul Riesling, who shoots his wife |ance, but nearly a whole page of dia- and lands in penitentiary. logue is devoted to the question -- whether Babbitt should wear his A Long Day-in Babbitt's Life. brown or his gray suit. No wonder The -plot, if it can be called such, | the authorWad to begin chapter two of this story, is exceedingly simpls.| before he gathered the Babbitt fa- Its unity centres in B t'and the | mily around the breakfast table. author never lets him get out of our g - sight. He gives the most abundant Babbitt Reads Morning Paper. details of his sayings and doings: | The chief impression which Mr. for example, the first hundred pages Sinclair Lewis secks to leave on the are consumed in describing what |preader is that the average American | Babbitt said and did, and incideat- [{s foolishly conservative in his views ally what the members of his family on public questions, especially in his' fmot in him. In spite of the fact that and his acquaintances sald to him, prejudices aganst socialism. After {the author of this novel is a realist in one long day in. his feverishly ac- | coffee and corn-flakes, to say noth- 'after Zola's own heart, he has notitiye life. I question whether any ing of a slangy' row between the yet learned to portray life accurate-/pnovelist has ever devoted such gen-| youthful Babbitts, Ted and Verona, dy. He is an adept In photographing erous space to trivialities. We catch [the head of the house settles down Individuals and hole-in-corner our first glimpse of Babbitt, aged to enjoy his morning drug, the "Ad: scenes, but he has no sense of pro- forty-six, as he indulges in an early- | yocate-Times." "Lots of news," ne portion. He sees American life| morning sleeping-porch dream. As [cries to his wife, who in twenty- through yellow goggles; he does not ihe hero (7) Mes tossing uneasily at [three years of married life had seen gee it in its own clear, healthy, nor- every dog bark in the street, Mr. the paper before her husband just 'mal light, and he does not see it|y ewig calls our attention to his sixty-seven times. '"Terrible big tor- whole. large Dink head, ms babyiah Jase, nado in the south. Hard luck, all . YS ------. the red spectacle-dents on the slopes | right, But this, say, t!.is is corking! A Story of Zenith, "The Zip City." lof his nose, and his slightly puffy ine of the a for those . | Mr. Lewis niight have redeemed his pands against the khaki-colored |lows! New York Assembly has pass: story from exaggeration if he had pianket. It takes two pages of de-|od some bills that ought to com- fot deliberately made Babbitt the geription to transfer the awakened [pletely outlaw the socialists! And most attractive citizen in Zenith, | pappitt from the porch to the bath- there's an elevator-runners' strike "the Zip city," the beautitul andi oom and another page to shave |in New York and a lot of collage [prosperous American metropolls, ini, We are told that he slipped (poys are taking thelr places. That's he best ole town in the U.S.A." He yy, 'the mat and eid against the tud |the stuff! And a mass-meeting in 'Keeps Babbitt, the most active mem- swore. , He lathered himself | Birmingham's : demanded that this ber of the Babbitt-Thompson Realty gyriougly and raked his plump [Mick agitator, this fellow De Valera, Company, in the limelight all the .;ooks with 8 safety-rasor. A bad-|pe deported. | Dead right, by golly! ~ time, and the other characters, the tempered search for a new blade |All these agitators paid with Ger- . 'members of his family, of bis social | yas ergwned with success; he found | man gold, anyway. And we got no . business interfering with the Irish or any other foreign government. Keep our hands strictly off. And there's another well-authenticated rumor from Russia that Lenin ia i . dead. That's fine It's beyond me . why we don't just step in there and i kick those Bolshevik cusses out." : : "That's so," said Mrs. Babbitt, 3 h = 2 #And it says here a fellow was In- 3 ' : -augurated mayor in overalls--a £ - : ~ preacher too! What do you think of that!" . "Humph! Well!" "He searched for an attitude, but neither as a Republican, a Presby- terian, an Bik, nor a real-estate broker did he have any doctrine about preacher-mayors laid down for him, so he grunted and went oan. She looked sympathetic and did not hear a word. Later she would read the headlines, the society columns, and the department-store advertise- ments." ! Picture of Solid American Citizen. According to this story, Americans pride themselves on being standard- ized. At least the author makes the erowd roar applause when G. F. Bab- bitt, at the annual dinner of the Zenith Real Estate Board, describes the standardized citizen. Babbit's sot speech, full of oratory snd bad English, ocouples nine pages and is caloulated to make every Canadian laugh-Joud and long et the expense of the mation which has "a golden roster of cities," alf of them stand- ing together "for power and purity, and against forefgn ideas and com- munism.' Speaking for the nation of "Regular Guys," Babbitt orates as follows: "Some time I hope folks will So --- quit handing all the credit to a lot oh of moth-esten, mfidewed, out-of-date, i : "N gn ata B /|old, Buropean dumps, and give pro- Frost Your Lives Fairly |i Sratensn UNLESS you 'see the name "Bayer" on tablets, you are not getting Aspirin at-all Accept only an "unbroken package" of, "Bayer Tablets of Aspirin," which contains directions and dose worked out by physicians during 22 years and proved safe by millions for Colds Headache. Rheumatism Toothache Neuralgia Neuritis x Earache Lumbago Pain, Pain | Handy "Bayer" boxes of 12 tablets--Also bottles of 24 and 100--Druggists. Aspirin a is the t dhark (teelstered in "Canada) of Bayer Mi of Motos | HORE ERE win Success that has mede little the brightest bunch of little women in town"; putting mew Mfe into the Presbyterian Sunday school; ex- changing repartee with his friends at the Boosters' Club; buying bootleg- ger Canadian whiskey at the request of a merry widow with whom he car- ries or. an amour while his wife is out of awn; allowing his ego to ex- rand at a real estate dealers' com- vention; asserting his right to think for himself during a big strike and then allowing himself to be dragoon- ed by big business; finding a new love rising in his heart for his much- abused wife when she goes to the hospital for an operation, and, final- ly, blessing his pert son for throwing up his college career and elopeing with the young daughter of the next- door neighbor. Theee episodes will give my readers some idea of the ac- tion of this story. In spite of his niastery of the art of observation and of the glang now current in the zip cities int America, in spite of the en- ergy of his style end his power to taise a laugh in almost every para- graph, I do not feel that Mr. Sinclair Lewis should pride himself on having written this parody of American Jife, --W. T. ALLISON. r Notes. A Canadian writer, who in the near future may be eexpected to write a long poem after the style of Virgil's '"Georglos," is F. L. Pollock. He has forsaken the city for the country and has recently es:ablished an aptary in Shedden, Ontario, This year he ob- tained from his industrious little workers eeveral thousand pounds of honey. In a year or so he will' be shipping honey by the carficad. But Mr. Pollock is extracting not only honey but stortes from his hives. Sev- eral years ago he wro%e 'Wilderness Honey," a capital narrative which at- tracted so many readers that the Century Company has persuaded him to write a sequel, which is now in the prees. In addition to being-en accomplished story teller, Mr. Pollock is & poet with a real style. | An important event in the history of the Anglican Church dn Canada this year was the publication of a re- vised edition of the Book of Common Prayer. The Ven, Archdeacon Armi- tage, of Halifax, who was secretary. of the reviefon committee, has writ- ten "The Story of ithe Revision of the Prayer Book," wherein he has described the aims and labors of 'the committee and has explaindd the changes that have [been made, Robert + Keable, the ex-olergyman who wrote exotic novels, "Simon Called Peter' 'and "The Mother of All Living," has now produced another story which will shock his former as- soclates in the church. 'Peradven- ture" is the story of a young man who pasdes through one denominational beMet after another in search of epir- itual satisfaction and of peace. The author shows that he 1s = rebel against organized religion. His novel Among scholars there has been, during the last twenty years, a decid- ed modification in the ol views of the causes which led to the American Revolution. '"The Causes of the War of Independence," by Phot. C. H. Van Tyne, of the Univendity of Micliigan, fs the first book in which all recent investigations in the archives of Am- orion, France and England have auth- orftatively been employed. The Eng- lah publisher of this book 4 Consta- ble, of London, . An Amerjcan writer, Willard H. Wright, bas put on his war paint and talken up his hatchet against the edi- tors of ithe latest edition of the En- cyclopeedia Brittandoa because they have failed to mention im thier sup- plement many of his fellow-country- men. Even when they have noticed prominent, -Amerjoans, Newton D. Baker, for instance, he claims the: they have revealed bias. Listen, however, to Mr. Wright's plangent indictment of the B.B. He says that it ds "characterised by misstatements, nexcuseable omissfions, rabid and pa- iriotio prejudices, personal animos- ities, blatant errors of fact, scholas- tic ignorance, gross neglest of non- British culture, an astounding egot- ism, and an undieguised contempt for Amerdcan progress." This is passing strange, for there are & number of American scholars on the staff of EB. if Mr. Wright's charges are true ft looks as if he ought to lay the blame at the door of his fellow-citisens, kan In view of the desire 'which has been expressed that a biography of the late Viscount Bryce should be 1 ublshed, Viscountess Bryce would be grateful 1f his friends in the United States and Caneda would have the courtesy ¢o forward to ber any of his letters which they may hive pre- served. The letters will be duly re- turned as soon as copies of them have been made. ~--W.T.A. Alt a méeting of the Renfrew coun- oil a resolution was passed donating flour and blankets to the value of $600 for sufferers fn the Northern Ontario fire disaster, Local mills will Down! (on) at once, All men who stand upright do not Yes Sir-e-! Two plugs for 25 cts.! And some tobacco too! You never chewed better! It's real chewing, sure as you're a foot high! Try it--that's all I've got to say! 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