After the 2016 US presidential election London's Observer quoted H.L.Mencken on democracy:
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents more and more closely the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
So this brief essay is about H.L.Mencken, born in Baltimore in 1880.
His rather cynical remarks about democracy predated the comment by the English Prime Minister Clement Atlee, who said "Democracy means government by discussion, but it's only effective if you can stop people talking."
Well, enough about democracy. Henry Louis Mencken was a journalist and writer, and came from a line of German immigrants. His grandfather Mencken was a businessman who had landed in America in 1848, having with him his diploma in finance, and a knowledge of the tobacco business. In Baltimore this immigrant went to join a small German enclave there, and after rolling cigars was soon able to open up a small store of his own. He married a German widow, producing August Mencken, father of H.L.Mencken.
H.L. also gravitated towards the family cigar-making business.
One could of course pepper an essay on Mencken with thought-provoking quotes. In his 1918 book "In Defense of Women" he says "... when men go a-courting ... they rather pride themselves upon their enterprise and daring ... and we find Don Juan a popular hero ... As a matter of fact ... it is the woman that ordinarily makes the first advances, and the woman that lures, forces or drags the man on to the climax of marriage ..."
Another comment: "If I ever marry it will be on sudden impulse, as a man shoots himself".[Ref.3]
In spite of these views, Mencken did enjoy a short and very happy marriage, before his wife, Sara Haardt, died of TB. Later he wrote: "I'll have her in mind until thought and memory adjourn."
He also wrote: "It is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest, that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us, but they make us feel safe ... Marriage is a scheme to accomplish the same end."
Mencken never went to university. He had graduated at 15 from the Baltimore Polytechnic, which had developed out of the Baltimore Manual Training School [ibid p.73]. Easily the brightest boy there, he had gone in to the family cigar-making business, which he called his university, at the same time as reading very widely. His father died when he was 19, and he was then able to devote his life to journalism.
For him there was also music and poetry. One can find facsimiles of his neatly written music manuscripts in the wide Mencken literature One of his teenage poems begins:
There was a man that delved in the earth For glittering gems and gold, And whatever lay hidden that seemed of worth He carefully seized and sold ... [Ibid p.145]
Later he wrote "... poetry is an escape from life, like religion, like enthusiasm, like glimpsing a pretty girl ..." [Ibid p.147]
About his habits this iconoclast wrote [ibid p.173] "When the mercury is about 95 I dine in my shirtsleeves and write poetry naked." And from his reporting in the courts: [ibid p.103] "A lawyer is one who protects you against robbers by taking away the temptation."
By the age of 25 he was the youngest Editor-in-Chief of the Baltimore Herald, and his first book, on George Bernard Shaw was coming out about the same time, 1905.
Mencken's many books include "In Defense of Women" (1918), "The American Language" (1919) and in the 1920s a series of books on "Prejudices". In the latter he withdrew some racist as well as antisemitic statements he had made earlier.
Nevertheless, his books show him to be a wonderful exemplar of American-English.
References:
1. "The Man Mencken", by Isaac Goldberg; Simon & Schuster Inc, NY, (1925)
2. "On Mencken", edited by John Dorsey; Alfred A.Knopf, Inc, NY, (1980.)
3. Library of America. (loa.org)
Dr. David Nightingale is Professor Emeritus of Physics at the State University of New York at NewPaltz and is the co-author of the text, A Short Course in General Relativity.
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