Nobody reads H.L. Mencken anymore, but that’s not because they shouldn’t.
Henry Louis Mencken – the Sage of Baltimore – was an early 21st century journalist, newspaper man, editor and author, who invented the op-ed and aneviscerating prose style feebly imitated today by the likes of admitted plagiarizer Maureen Dowd, and not so feebly by British born contrarian Christopher Hitchens.
If the words curmudgeon and muckraker hadn’t been invented before Mencken began decorating papyrus with his petulant pen, they most certainly would have been soon after.
Here are some examples of Meckenania.
On Taxes
Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
On Change
The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth – that the error and the truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it is cure of one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.
On Democracy
[Democracy is] based upon propositions that are palpably not true and what is not true, as everyone knows, is always immensely more fascinating and satisfying to the vast majority of men than what is true. They turn, in all the great emergencies of life, to the ancient promises, transparently false but immensely comforting, and of all those ancient promises there is none more comforting than the one to the effect that the lowly shall inherit the earth.
On God
It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods. If such a board actually exists it operates precisely like the board of a corporation that is losing money.
On Saving the World
The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake.
On Clergymen
What is the function that a clergyman performs in the world? Answer: he gets his living by assuring idiots that he can save them from an imaginary hell. It is a business almost indistinguishable from that of a seller of snake-oil for rheumatism.
On William Jennings Bryan (at the 1925 Scopes monkey trial)
One day it dawned on me that Bryan, after all, was an evangelical Christian only by sort of afterthought — that his career in this world, and the glories thereof, had actually come to an end before he ever began whooping for Genesis. So I came to this conclusion: that what really moved him was a lust for revenge. The men of the cities had destroyed him and made a mock of him; now he would lead the yokels against them. The hatred in the old man’s burning eyes was not for the enemies of God; it was for the enemies of Bryan.
Related Links:
H.L. Mencken: The Joyous Libertarian
H.L. Mencken Account of Scopes Monkey Trial
H.L. Mencken Collection – Enoch Pratt Free Library
4 responses so far ↓
1 Robert D Flach // May 23, 2009 at 8:33 am
PP-
My favorite is:
“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
Case in point – reality tv!
TWTP
2 Marton // Sep 22, 2010 at 6:16 am
May I correct you? Start your post with “few people read Mencken anymore…” There is quite a fan club of Mencken out there (I know a few). http://www.amerika.nl/cms/geschiedenis/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.76
But you are right, they should. My favorite quote… Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere might be happy.
And the reports from the Scopes Trial…. One of the greatest pieces of writing around.
3 What's a religion anyway? // Jan 23, 2011 at 12:19 pm
[...] Following are some thoughts by H.L. Mencken on the topic of God and Religion and the Clergy H.L. Mencken: Quotes from a Contrarian’s Contrarian On God It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it [...]
4 Perry Hamburg // Apr 30, 2011 at 4:11 am
At the conclusion of the Scopes trial, Mr. Mencken was supposed to have written: “Thus ends the greatest news story since the resurrection”.
Thanks for anyone who can help me verify that quote and the context in which it was expressed.
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