Mechanistic Ass

THE MAN WHO KNEW COOLIDGE, Being the Soul of Lowell Schmaltz, Constructive and Nordic Citizen--Sinclair Lewis--Harcourt Brace ($2).

The Man Located. Lowell Schmaltz takes great pleasure in announcing himself friend to Coolidge, a classmate in fact, though before Christmas of Freshman year he "had to go back home and take up the burden of helping support the family" (in other words, he flunked out). But he did chance once to enter an Amherst classroom simultaneously with Cal, and venture that the winter was going to be cold. Cal "came right back, 'Yep.' Didn't waste a lot of time arguing and discussing. He knew!" On the strength of this intimacy, Lowell Schmaltz, vacationing office supply salesman, with Wife Mamie and Daughter Delmerine, drops in on "the old kid" at the White House. A suave morning-coated Mr. Jones welcomes him, gives gracious noncommittal answers to a persistent "What does Mr. Coolidge think of. . . ." and finally regrets solemnly that the President will be detained for several days in secret conference on the Mayflower, but hopes Mr. Schmaltz will drop in again next time he is in Washington. Unembarrassed by having overheard this White House conversation, Author Lewis stool-pigeons Lowell Schmaltz through interminable monologues. He is then able to present the following data on:

The Man's Habits. Lowell Schmaltz inhabits Zenith, the hypothetical midwestern town boomed by the famed realtor George F. Babbitt.

He lives in a "dandy little Italian-villa-style bungalow with two bathrooms . . . a slit in the wall for the disposal of safety razor blades . . . garbage incinerator . . . electric washing machine. . . ."

His wife, Mamie, with the "advantage of canned goods, and delicatessen shops with every delicacy from salads to cold turkey" is free to play bridge and "get a lot of culture" at her William Lyon Phelps Ladies' Book and Literary Society.

He himself has "always given a lot of attention to intellectual matters . . . right up on history . . . clear through both Wells' Outline of History, or practically through it, and also Van Lear's Story of Mankind, especially studying the illustrations . . . and now kind of specializing on philosophy . . . this Story of Philosophy . . . it gives you the whole contents of all philosophy in one book."

He has a sympathetic girlie in New York, for his wife doesn't quite understand him.

His best friend is Mortician Mack McMack whom he admires for having installed really fine mortuary apartments which paid for themselves in less than 17 months. The mortuary equipment includes "a pile of nice linen handkerchiefs for the bereaved, all absolutely free . . . and a casket that slides out of the back room into the chapel-drawing room on a little electric trolley, as if by magic . . . thus giving a feeling of awe and mystery."

The Man's Soul. Lowell Schmaltz puts in his list of "leading intellects" Anne Nichols, because, "say, the author of a play like Abie's Irish Rose, that can run five years, is in my mind--maybe it's highbrow and impractical to look at it that way, but the way I see it, she's comparable to any business magnate, and besides they say she's made as much money as Jack Dempsey."

He "never could understand why they make so much fuss over Babe Ruth or even a real scientific pioneer like Lindbergh, when we haven't yet done anything to boost the honest-to-God master genius that invented the electric refrigerator. . . Think of what it'll do . . . every sort of frozen dessert. . . ."

He believes in Coolidge because he is safe.

He believes in enforcing European debts because his congressman reported exorbitant prices in all the best European hotels.

He believes in Prohibition because it's the law, but that "don't mean you got to be a fanatic"--if you can find a reliable bootlegger.

He believes in tabloids because "maybe we may prefer more highbrow news papers, but for them cattle [the Bolsheviks who give 'Hunky plays by Gorky or whoever this Hunky playwright is'] the pictures put over a message of Americanization they couldn't get no other way."

He believes travel is broadening because he drives slow enough (45 to 50 miles an hour) "to study the agriculture and other features of the country," and stops at tourist camps--"it isn't a question of money, but it's half the fun as well as information of a trip to get right down among the common, ordinary folks that ride in flivvers."

He believes in "what the great bard says: 'Brevity is the soul of wit.'" but he digresses from any given conversational point, only to digress from the digression.

He believes in progress, but can think of only one improvement upon life--a radio in the bathroom so that he can lie in his tub and listen.

He believes in Real Estate booms.

He addresses the Men's Club of the Pilgrim Congregational Church on "The Basic and Fundamental Ideals of Christian American Citizenship--item: service, item: practicalness:

"Service is imagination. Service is that something extra, aside from the mere buying, stocking, and delivery of goods, that so tickles the comfort and self-esteem of a customer that he will feel friendly and come back for more. Service is, in fact, the poetry, the swell manners, the high adventure of business. . . .

"And now practicalness. ... I want to tell you gentlemen that when we have reached a point in American advertising where we can combine straight selling-talk with not only the joyous spirit of the holiday season, but also the most delicate intimacies of young love, and also a cleverly worked-in quotation from Holy Writ, then by thunder we have reached a point of practicalness never thitherto known in history!"

Significance. Thus in a series of excessively droning monologues Lowell Schmaltz gives himself away to inconceivably long-suffering audiences as a self-satisfied ass thriving in a smug over-convenient America, 1928 model. Lively audiences yawn, groan, escape him, but posterity, trapped by the author's undeniable virtuosity in the spoken word, will listen and believe that the mechanistic ass was typical of the age. And posterity may not detect this flaw: "typical" American butter-and-eggers idolized in Lindbergh all the heroism which their own ready-to-wear existence lacked, and would always prefer a Lindbergh to the "honest-to-God master genius" who invented the electric ice box. Author Lewis has concocted the synthetic Schmaltzian horror, only to flay it for having no imagination beyond its mechanistic world, and yet he, concocter, flayer, is a victim of the same mechanism. Crammed with a thousand facts, equipped with test tube and tuning fork, Lewis's laboratory does not imagine the chemical of human kindness. The defenseless specimen wallows blandly in 100% Americanism, while the experimenter stands off and sneers, smacking his lips, rubbing his hands, gloating wickedly.

The first monologue of the series appeared originally in magazine form. The story runs that his publishers cabled Author Lewis suggesting that they set it up in slim book form and sell it for a dollar. The cabled answer: "Hold off. I'll send you more of the same, and we'll sell it for two."