“Among others I met Robert Cortes Holliday, and Sinclair Lewis,” he replied. “I found Lewis a pleasant fellow. He was anxious to learn about the conditions in England. That man, I think, has considerable genius. I met ‘A. E.’ George Russell, also when I was at Yale. He was completely wrapped up in giving his lectures on agriculture to you Americans.”
“What does he think of our country?”
“He has a semi-humorous, rather critical, attitude towards you. He won’t write anything much in praise or anything particularly hostile.”[C]
[C] This prophesy of Chesterton’s proved to be correct.
“What American cities especially appealed to you?”
“Baltimore I found exceedingly charming,” answered Chesterton. “There is a quaint atmosphere about the place that is hard to describe. Saint Louis I also liked, a most pleasant cultured city.”
“I once heard you lecture in Saint Louis, Mr. Chesterton,” I remarked, “and I agree with what you said about the underdog:
“‘When the very poor man gets angry and ‘bites,’ everyone, even the social workers, treat him as though he were a mad dog. Has he not the right to get deliberately angry, the same as anybody else? Once I debated with Clarence Darrow, and when I talked to him after the lecture, he seemed to have sympathy for the poor man, the underdog, who was goaded on to do things, by saying that he was mad. Why cannot people give the underdog credit for biting when he wants to, instead of contending that he is just the same as a mad dog on a rampage?’”
When Galsworthy became the topic of conversation, Chesterton remarked,
“Galsworthy always reminds me of the solicitor of an old English family. I cannot altogether feel that he reflects modern England. He lays too much stress upon a college education. He believes that a man not blessed with a college education might at any time murder his mother. Galsworthy also lacks the sweet balance of humor, only a rather limited amount of humor breathes forth from his works. Like Darrow he, too, holds to the belief that the underdog is always mad if he causes the slightest trouble.