The Acerbic Wit of H L Mencken: On Politicians

This weekend as I was corresponding with someone about the state of today's political scene a quote from Mark Twain, a notable cynic on these matters, came to mind. This was followed by another quote from the curmudgeonly H.L. Mencken, whose scathing pen was more fierce than any sword.

I've enjoyed reading Mencken in the past, in part because he never once paused to consider political correctness in his writing like most writers must today. Writing for the Baltimore Sun, he seemed to relish kicking over hornets' nests. Here are some of his razor-sharp barbs on politicians and politics which I copied them from Wikiquote.  

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Off goes the head of the king, and tyranny gives way to freedom. The change seems abysmal. Then, bit by bit, the face of freedom hardens, and by and by it is the old face of tyranny. Then another cycle, and another. But under the play of all these opposites there is something fundamental and permanent — the basic delusion that men may be governed and yet be free.

* * * * *

All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him...

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.

* * * * *

My literary theory, like my politics, is based chiefly upon one idea, to wit, the idea of freedom. I am, in belief, a libertarian of the most extreme variety.

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Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority of men. Every valuable thing that has been added to the store of man's possessions has been derided by them when it was new, and destroyed by them when they had power. They have fought every new truth ever heard of, and they have killed every truth-seeker who got into their hands.

Homo Neanderthalensis Baltimore Sun (June 29th, 1925), The Impossible Mencken

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No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.

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Democracy, in fact, is always inventing class distinctions, despite its theoretical abhorrence of them.

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If he became convinced tomorrow that coming out for cannibalism would get him the votes he needs so sorely, he would begin fattening a missionary in the White House yard come Wednesday. (Referring to FDR)

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It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

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Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

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The chief difference between free capitalism and State socialism seems to be this: that under the former a man pursues his own advantage openly, frankly and honestly, whereas under the latter he does so hypocritically and under false pretenses.

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I'd love to see what Mencken might have written about the past six or eight years. His way of putting things is entertaining, but if you've got thin skin, keep your distance. The best approach for all readers of Mencken is to enjoy the spicy flavor of the meat and spit out the bones.

Lewis Lapham's Money and Class in America

Lewis Henry Lapham is an American writer. He was the editor of the American monthly Harper's Magazine from 1976 until 1981, and from 1983 until 2006. He is the founder of Lapham's Quarterly, a quarterly publication about history and literature, and has written numerous books on politics and current affairs. --Wikipedia

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For years I was a subscriber to Harper's Magazine during the second period Lewis Lapham served as editor of the publication. Many, if not most, magazines have an opening letter from the editor, and Lapham's lengthy editorial was always something I looked forward to reading. George Plimpton called him a cross between Mark Twain and H.L. Mencken. Even when not in alignment, his prose was pointed and insights worth chewing on, even when sad and cynical. 

For this reason I went on to acquire his book Money and Class in America. Its subtitle: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion. 

While reading yet another story about California, wealth and poverty recently, Lapham's California pedigree came to mind. I pulled it off the shelf in search of a couple comments he made about his family. Now I'm re-reading it and appreciating it even more than the first time I'd held it in my hands.

The factoid I was looking for I haven't found yet, but it went something like this: his family once owned about one-fourth of the real estate of California. What I did find was that his great-grandfather was a co-founder of Texaco and his grandfather was once mayor of San Francisco. Lapham came from money -- as in Big Money -- and understand the paradoxes associated with wealth.

Here's an overview of the book's contents. 

Money and Class in America

Creative Commons license. Author uncited.

Never in the history of the world have so many people been so rich; never in the history of the world have so many of those same people felt themselves so poor.

Chapter One: The Gilded Cage
Seeking the invisible through the imagery of the visible, the Americans never can get quite all the way to the end of the American dream.

Chapter Two: Protocols of Wealth
The history of the United States is synonymous with the dream of riches.

Chapter Three: The Golden Horde
At this late stage in the history of American capitalism I'm not sure I know how much testimony still needs to be presented to establish the relation between profit and theft.

Chapter Four: The Romance of Crime
The pose of innocence is as mandatory as the ability to eat banquet food and endure the scourging of the press.

Chapter Five: Social Hygiene
Once having proclaimed our loyalty to the abstract idea that all men are created equal, we do everything in our power to prove ourselves unequal. Among the world's peoples, none other belongs to so many clubs, associations, committees and secret societies.

Chapter Six: The Precarious Eden
The rich, like well brought up children, are meant to be seen, not heard.

Chapter Seven: Descent into the Mirror
Since the eighteenth century the immense expansion of the world's wealth has come about as a result of a correspondingly immense expansion of credit, which in turn has demanded increasingly stupendous suspensions of disbelief.

Chapter Eight: Holy Dread
Wars might come and go, but the seven o'clock news lives forever.

Chapter Nine: Coined Souls
That the obsession with money dulls the capacity for feeling and thought I think can be an axiom requiring no further argument.

Chapter Ten: Envoi
Surely they knew that the very idea of the future came in an American box - complete with instructions for assembling a Constitution, a MacDonald's hamburger franchise, a row of Marriot hotels and a First Amendment.

* * *

The book is a pretty scathing indictment of American values. Today there are more riches than ever being showered on sports stars, Hollywood celebrities, Silicon Valley whiz kids and Wall Street bankers. Lapham asks, "What's the point of all this wealth without Character?" Hence we see the self-destruction emblazoned across headlines, Tweets and supermarket tabloids. 

"If we could let go of our faith in money, who knows what we might put in its place?"

This Is My Best

Somewhere along life’s way I managed to acquire the 1180 page compilation of stories called This Is My Best in which Dial Press assembled over 150 self-chosen masterpieces by 93 of America’s greatest living authors. Published in 1942, the book is as interesting for its choices regarding authors as for the authors’ own decisions regarding their work.

The book not only has stories, there are also essays, drama, poems, history, reportage and profiles. Theodore Dreiser, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, H. L. Mencken, Sinclair Lewis, Willa Cather, William Faulkner, Dorothy Parker – these are names one might expect to see here.

Upton Sinclair offered up a selection from his novel The Jungle, with these sentences as introduction. “Anyone who reads these five thousand words will have his imagination stimulated, his sympathies widened, and his understanding of the world he lives in increased. At least, that is why the book (from which this excerpt was taken) was written, and it doesn’t happen there is something wrong with either you or with the author.”

There were surprises in the list though. Steven Vincent Benet, for example, who here offers The Devil & Daniel Webster. For some reason I’d associated him with the post-Civil War period of the previous century.

The book is a good reminder that American prose had more breadth and depth than just the big names of Fitzgerald, Faulkner and Papa Hemingway. I have always found books like these to be useful for ferreting out new territories to explore, hence the large number of anthologies on my book shelf.

The down side of all this good literature is that one becomes aware there’s just too much to read and not enough time.

As a short story writer myself, I find the short form exhilarating. But there’s not enough “public” to really motivate publishers to produce the works of unknowns. It’s a celebrity culture, so mags that pay money want a name on the cover that will lead to sales. Unknowns don’t have the clout.
For the record, Hemingway selected “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” Mencken selected his autobiographical “The Days of the Giants.” Dreiser chose “The Hand.” Katherine Anne Porter gave us “Flowering Judas.”

Steinbeck was indifferent as to what was selected from his body of work, an attitude I understand. Every piece has been crafted with the highest aims in mind, and either reflects this or one doesn't attach one's name to it.

As for me, I’m hoping you’ll read everything I write, but I know you don’t have time. So I’ll point you to a story and a poem. The story is long, the poem short, and both hopefully entertaining while thought provoking. And if I'm lucky you'll rejoin me here on my blog again tomorrow.