(6 of 6)
When Dorothy Thompson goes out and digs up a story she almost always gets her facts right. Last week, starting her month's vacation, she planned to do a good deal of digging before returning to New York. Next month she will go to Europe and write On The Record from there. This will be good news to those wno have detected in some of her recent writings the personal pontifications of a Lippmann, the intransigence of a Broun and the peskiness of a Westbrook Pegler.
But even those who consider her opinionated will not deny that she has influenced many people to think about problems that were once too much for them, that she can do more for a cause than almost any private citizen in the U. S., and that when she meets a situation face to face she reacts with warmhearted, gushing humanity. She has not been content to inveigh against Hitler, but by one radio speech raised $40.000 which has gone to aid German refugees. She has a real enthusiasm for great political ideas and is not ashamed to show it in her column. And in the no longer lusty profession of journalism she is one figure of dominant vitality.
Mrs. Lewis now lives apart from her husband, although they are on extremely good terms. Their nine-year-old son, Michael, goes to school in Arizona and Mrs. Lewis' trip to the Coast last week was for the purpose of seeing him. They get along well together and precocious Michael is one of the few people who can stand her off in an argument. He knows her mental processes so well that he has his comeback ready before she has finished talking.
To the career of being a mother Dorothy Thompson devotes herself with gusto. She does everything that way. She eats enormous meals and loves heavy Viennese food. Two hours after a big dinner at her house sandwiches are brought in. She smokes in chains and drives too fast. She dresses sloppily most of the time, but when she decided about two years ago that she needed more feminine clothes she went down to Bergdorf-Goodman's and bought a bunch of $250 evening dresses.
She always has a literary passion. Last year it was The Federalist, this year Walt Whitman. Some day she is going to quit journalism, which she says she detests, and write a couple of novels. She writes poetry now, and last year she wrote a play. It wanted a little more work.
She is a plump, pretty woman of 45, bursting with health, energy and sex appeal. She thinks, talks and sleeps world problems and scares strange men half to death. This is too bad because she likes men better than women, and when she takes a train she rides in the smoking car.