DISTURBER OF THE PEACE, THE LIFE OF H L MENCKEN. By William Manchester

Throughout my life, my eye has been attracted to quotes by H L Mencken and when this book became available to me, I decided to learn just who he was.

Examples that serve as hooks:

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

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

When speaking about religious opposition to Women’s suffrage:

The only good woman is the well-policed one.

Such quotes seem timely.

As I read through the chapters, I was impressed with the influence he had in his time: he attracted favor with the intelligencia, college students, and artists. He was the sworn enemy of social conservatives and evangelizing religionists. My mind wandered to a contemporary influencer, Joe Rogan. I thought, “He was the Joe Rogan of his time.”

Not so. The biography points to his unique interests and abilities in journalism and the arts—when educated classes thought these supremely important—as they held sway over the levers of power in society. His position and influence supported an evolution into something of a snob and elitist. He knew he was a curmudgeon. I would not accuse Joe Rogan with these labels—and the landscape of information sharing has evolved in the 100 years since Mencken’s prime. In 1920, newspapers served as the internet does now. It had a tradition and a hierarchy with rules. The internet and social media today is a form of anarchy. Traditional news sources are declining along with Rotary Clubs and Church attendance.

While the social environment was different, the issues were very much those we can relate to today: minority rights, women’s rights, the rise of fundamentalist Christians seeking a political voice, and the failure of Democracy at many levels—especially during and after WWI. He comes off as very antidemocratic without ever actually proposing an alternative he could support. He lived when monarchy, fascism, and communism were all viable models on the world stage. He was raised in Baltimore in a family with deep ties to German culture and as a consequence,  he was very pro-German (and anti British) up to and after the American declaration of war in World War I. He did learn to shut up and withdraw with the writings that reflected his true views until it was safe to do so. He very much reacted after the war to the Red Scare and the socially conservative wave that hit the culture the decade after WWI.  He would recognize the bare bones of our current culture wars.

We all have laughed at an off-color joke that makes some tortured class  of people the butt—because the joke is clever—even when we know better. Mencken could flip back and forth with his one liners never being clear about where he actually stood. He wrote a book in support of women’s suffrage before it became the law of the land. He supported women’s reproductive rights and published Margaret Sanger (a critical player bringing contraception as a right into our society) when it was politically dangerous to do so. Yet, he could still leave you wondering what he really believed: “At least on one issue men and women agree: you can’t trust women.”  Or, “Of course I believe women should vote; it will hasten the end of democracy."

Early in his life, he was tasked with the bragging of a successful publisher using the huge sales of a newly published book and labelling it “influential.” He argued that high sales (say 200,000 in the decade of WWI) still represented a minuscule percentage of the overall population and so, the influence of such a book had to be put into perspective. His fellow citizens largely did not read much. He referred to his fellow voting citizens as, “boobs.” This is the basis of his antidemocratic quotes.

Mencken had no formal or strong religious feelings . He did battle with strong religious sentiments throughout his productive life. He hated what he called “Puritans” ie religiously oriented socially conservative people who instinctively hated him. He defined it: “Puritanism, the haunting fear that somewhere someone may be happy.” Or,  “I am tired of being lectured by people about right and wrong when they don’t know the difference between an Old Fashioned and a Manhattan.” Culture wars, indeed!

He would struggle mightily with Puritans, one being reverend J Franklin Chase centered in Boston, home of both puritans and white social conservatism. His magazine featuring stories by up-and-coming writers one of whose work was labelled obscene. Sales of the magazine in Massachusetts was forbidden largely because of Mr. Chase’s influence. Mencken hounded him into making a deal: if he came personally to buy a copy of the magazine on the Boston Commons, Mencken would allow himself to go to prison and subsequently to court to argue his right to sell the magazine. This attracted quite a crowd of pro-Mencken people and when Chase paid 50 cents for the magazine (Mencken bit into the coin with exaggerated motion to make sure it was real) the arrest ensued. The judge (chosen by supportive clerks in court—the original named judge was in Chase’s orbit and influence; the substituted judge’s orientation was an unknown—heard the arguments, read the story in question, and dismissed the charges.  Chase would influence the Federal Post Office using the Comstock act to prohibit its being mailed anywhere.

We will hear about the Comstock act again with our current administration.

Front and Center in his life and of his reputation was the Scopes Monkey Trial whose 100 year anniversary will come this Spring. Mr. Mencken was responsible for getting the lawyer Clarence Darrow to defend John Scopes. For the prosecution, William Jennings Bryant, a Christian Populist whose beliefs did not include agreement that humans were mammals—like the United States, we humans  were special and apart in the eyes of God all mighty. This trial and his reporting of it cemented his reputation as a sarcastic and talented gadfly.

For background to the trial, he observed a fundamentalist religious meeting of rural Appalachians and wrote The Hills of Zion. (http://bactra.org/Mencken/the-hills-of-zion/). A wonderful portrayal of what educated and thoughtful people were up against. His reporting of this story was questioned; a Texas newspaper dismissed it as all too improbable, “unless of course the parishioners were negroes…..”

His reporting made clear that the court case was in fact a form of theatre and the defense attempt to bring science experts to testify regarding the facts known to science was not allowed by the judge. When Clarence Darrow grew angry with the judge’s bias: “Judge Raulston finished the benign business yesterday morning by leaping with soft judicial hosannas into the arms of the prosecution. The sole commentary of the sardonic Darrow consisted of bringing down a metaphorical custard pie upon the occiput of the learned jurist. ‘I hope,” said the latter nervously, “that counsel intends no reflection upon this court.’”

To which Darrow replied, “Well, one can always hope, your honor.”

Mencken struggled in the thirties to remain relevant but he faded out—to the point that when his quotes came up as world war II was coming, it was common for students to ask, “Who is he?”  There would be a resurgence of interest and commentary after the war: “American Morons don’t think that way—they would rather have their Ford even if it meant losing the Bill Of Rights.”  He would recognize the autocratic posturing of Douglas McArthur who he felt whined too much, … given that he lost in a fair fight.

And like MacArthur, H L Mencken just faded away.