Gideon Planish by Sinclair Lewis

A disturbing letter had come in to Dr. Planish from Mr. Johnson of Minneapolis, written from the Great Lakes Naval Training Center: "I have been asked to be a sponsor, whatever that means, for a Dinner Dedicated to the Plain People, to be held in your very fine Gladiola Hotel and to be conducted by three novelists, a portrait painter and an alderman, at $3.50 a plate, which is a good plain price. There are a lot of other names on the list of sponsors, but what bothers me is that they seem to have left out all the Plain People.

-"Should I send some on? I can't come myself because I am now in the Navy, but I know quite a few of the Plain People in Minnesota-- a dumb farmer who happens to be my uncle, and a surgeon who likes duck hunting, and my plumber, and a chemist who went to Yale, which I guess should make him a Plain Person as that college was founded to promote plain democratic learning. Or do you think they might resent the imputation that they are so Plain and so lowdown that they have to have dinners given to them by liberal novelists to bring them up to a level where Mrs. Homeward can notice them?"