Again, Lewis

REFUSES PULITZER PRIZE

All the newspapers ran the slug on their front pages; it was almost as important an announcement as if a prizefighter, for publicity purposes, had refused a championship title. Not quite so important; the prizefighter would have got an extra, but the man whose solemn, blunt features appeared under the slug had certainly derived as much attention as he could expect from a purely intellectual issue. It was, of course, Sinclair Lewis; he had refused the Pulitzer Prize of $1,000 awarded to him for Arrowsmith.

He made his formal rejection in a letter to Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, chairman of the Pulitzer Advisory Board, in which he stated that all prizes are dangerous, that good manners in a novel are more important than literary merit as qualification for the prize, that novelists had better refuse the Pulitzer Prize unless they want its administrators to become a supreme intellectual court, impossible to challenge, like the French Academy. Sophisticates perused these reasons and put on a wise air. "Very ingenious," they said, "but the real reason is . . ." And then they murmured that explanatory, vastly inclusive word, "publicity."

Other sophisticates, with an equally wise air, undertook to deny that Mr. Lewis refused the prize to advertise himself. They pointed out that he was quite consistent in refusing it just as he refused election, some years ago, to the National Institute of Arts and Letters. He had some reason for objecting to the terms under which the prize is given:

"To the American novel published during the year which shall best present the wholesome atmosphere of American life, and the highest standard of American manners and manhood."

If the board of awards observed this proviso, the Rollo Books might, be more eligible than anything produced by Mr. Lewis. There was at least a 50:50 chance, his defenders claimed, that he had been quite honest. He is a man without taste; that was clearly demonstrated when he recently invited God to strike him dead in Kansas City (TIME, May 3). But his books have shown just as clearly that he is neither a stupid man nor a poseur. Whether, this time, he were sincere or not, nobody could decide, but everyone said something or other:

Nicholas Murray Butler: "I have not yet read the letter ... I do not want to discuss it."

Arthur M. Howe, editor of the Brooklyn Eagle and member of the board: "He did the honest thing in refusing the prize."

Agnes Repplier, essayist: "Interesting and wholesome event."

A nameless author: "The Pulitzer prize is a very silly thing. Prizes given to reporters, cartoonists, editorial writers, advertisers have some relevance because they bring to public notice fine work which would otherwise be forgotten, but a prize given to a well-known novel, play, poem, has the effect of making people think of that piece of work as "the best." There is no best. Nor is the prize money much help to the writer that has received it. It comes to him only after he has achieved some major success; and to give a man $1,000 for a novel that has probably earned fifty times that sum makes one think of John D. Rockefeller's way of rewarding policemen, children and employes with new silver dimes. Mr. Lewis did quite well to throw his dime away."

Franklin Pierce Adams (in The Conning Tower) :

"I shot an Arrowsmith into the air;

It got a prize, but I don't care."