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Show Man From Main Street Picks Small Town For Best Mcrab - i Am Wallac. man from t ho original Main ttroat. By JOSIPHINK VAN DC ORtFT, NEA Service Ataff Wrtter. NKW YORK, Aug. 4. I5ve had a talk with the man from the original Main street. And bow he did knock the big cities) The small town ta nicer and it's more moral. That's what I found ot when- I talked with Aaa Wallace of Sauk Centra. Cen-tra. Minn. Mr. Wallace la a country editor and he knows an about small towns. And Sauk Centre la the town where Sinclair Lewis came from. (Sinclair (Sin-clair Lewis, you remember, wrote -Msln Street") "Sauk Centre la the original Main street, I gueaa," said kultor Wallace. "Hut there are thouaanad of amall tow aa like It." e Tou can give Mr. Wallace the small town every time. "And 1 want to tell you." he aald, , "I want to tell you, the people wiio live In the amall towns are the hap- 1 El eat and the cleanat and the health-, rat there are. They've got a ht mors morale, too, even If they are not, up to all the modern Idea. "Take ftauk Centre, now. It haa WOO people. Any of them rich? No, I of course not. There la not ah ouae tn town that coat over 20,0(f. Any of them poor? Well, there may be a few faint lira, but you don't see any of this grinding poverty that you a here In New York. "Take It any way yeu want-bralna. health, education, pleasure the city can't offer a man a thing that the small town can't ge one better." "Brains, reiterated Aaa Wallace. "Maybe yod thlak fllnclalr Lewi a waa the only smart fHtow who ever came out of Sauk Centre?" "Who else " I demanded, reaching for -Who's Who." "Well." aald the man from Main street. "Fred Carpenter, tha flrat private pri-vate secretary to Hecretary 'Taft, waa a 8a uk ist re boy. And there's a fellow bv the name of J oh neon who la I one of the drana at Columbia unlver-, unlver-, sity teachea hlatorv or mathematics i or something; he was a Kauk Ontre boy. And James K Hendryx father used to be head of the Km ok Centre Herald he writes thst red blooded hs-msn hs-msn stuff you read In the magailna; he was a Sauk t'entre boy. And Hob M c Kwera. f not ba 1 1 coa c h at W es t foint: he waa a Sauk Centra boy." I "Not ao fast, please," 1 cut tit, taking Botes rapidjy. f The man from Main street told me he would trsde Hauk Centrs for New York, with Yonkars thrown In. I "Now, here In New York," he said, "you have your hospitals and your theatrea ana your concert halls; but out In Sauk Centre the air la so pure a fellow doesn't get slk. And every man haa ant his car, and If he wants to hear Krelsler or any of those fellows fel-lows he can hitch up the radio. "We've got our golf club, only I don't play, because If I did my wife would say that. If 1 Waa abel to play golf, I might J ii at as well stay home and mow the grass. "We've not our high school and our , library, with 14,000 volumes, and the larreat creamery In the county. "Kvtr so often the Masonic club gives a dance not one of those stuck up affairs where you've got to wear a Tux, but where you come In your business suit and call everybody else by their first names. a "Pretty airla, too. aald Asa Wallace. Wal-lace. "And I understand they bob their hair and roll their own." He gaaed out of the windows of the Pennavivsnla hotel to the street where a traffic cop waa endeavoring to extricate ex-tricate a grind organ from an encounter en-counter with a etreetcar. "No," said the man from Main street, "the big city hasn't rot anything any-thing on the small town. Except It i costs you more.' |