H. L. Mencken
From Metapedia
Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956), better known as H. L. Mencken, was a twentieth-century journalist, satirist, social critic, cynic, and freethinker, known as the "Sage of Baltimore". He is often regarded as one of the most influential American writers of the early 20th century.
Mencken was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of August Mencken, a cigar factory owner of German extraction. Having moved into the new family home at 1524 Hollins Street (in the Union Square neighborhood) when he was three years old, he lived in the house for the rest of his life, apart from five years of married life. He became a reporter for the Baltimore Morning Herald in 1899 and moved to The Baltimore Sun in 1906. At this time, he had also begun writing editorial columns that demonstrated the author he would soon become. On the side, he wrote short stories, a novel, and even poetry (which he later reviled). In 1908, he became a literary critic for the magazine The Smart Set. Together with George Jean Nathan, Mencken founded and edited The American Mercury, published by Alfred A. Knopf, in January 1924. It soon had a national circulation and became highly influential on college campuses across America.
Mencken is perhaps best remembered today for The American Language, a multi-volume study of how the English language is spoken in the United States, and his satirical reporting on the prosecution, judge, jury, and venue of the Scopes trial, which he is credited for naming the "Monkey" trial.
Among Mencken's influences were Rudyard Kipling, Ambrose Bierce, Friedrich Nietzsche, Joseph Conrad, and especially Mark Twain.
In his capacity as editor and "man of ideas" Mencken became close friends with the leading literary figures of his time, including Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Alfred Knopf, as well as a mentor to several young reporters, including Alistair Cooke. He also championed artists whose works he considered worthy. For example, he asserted that books such as Caught Short! A Saga of Wailing Wall Street (1929), “by” Eddie Cantor (ghost written by David Freedman) did more to pull America out of The Depression than all government measures combined. He also mentored John Fante.
As a nationally syndicated columnist and author of numerous books he notably attacked fundamentalist Christianity and the "Booboisie," his word for the ignorant middle classes. In 1926, he was arrested for selling an issue of The American Mercury banned in Boston. Mencken heaped scorn not only upon some public officials but the contemporary state of American democracy itself: in 1931, the Arkansas legislature passed a motion to pray for Mencken's soul after he had called the state the "apex of moronia."
Mencken sometimes took positions in his essays more for shock value than for deep-seated conviction, such as his essay arguing that the Anglo-Saxon race was demonstrably the most cowardly in human history, published at a time when much of his readership considered Anglo-Saxons the noble pinnacle of civilization.
Mencken married Sara Haardt, an Alabama writer and professor 18 years his junior, in 1930. Haardt was a professor of English at Goucher College in Baltimore who wrote short stories and had led efforts in Alabama to ratify the 19th Amendment. The two met in 1923 after Mencken delivered a lecture at the college. Mencken promoted her short stories, and a seven-year courtship ensued. The marriage made national headlines, and many were surprised that Mencken, who once called marriage "the end of hope," had gone to the altar. "The Holy Spirit informed and inspired me," Mencken said. "Like all other infidels, I am superstitious and always follow hunches: this one seemed to be a superb one." Haardt was in poor health throughout their marriage, and died in 1935 of meningitis. Mencken later published Southern Album, a posthumous collection of her short stories.
Mencken suffered a cerebral thrombosis in 1948, from which he never fully recovered. The damage to his brain left him aware and fully conscious but unable to read or write. In his later years he enjoyed listening to classical music and talking with friends, but he sometimes referred to himself in the past tense as if already dead.
Mencken was, in fact, preoccupied with how he would be perceived after his death, and he spent this period of time organizing his papers, letters, newspaper clippings and columns. His personal materials were released in 1971, 1981, and 1991 (starting 15 years after his death), and were so thorough they even included grade-school report cards. Hundreds of thousands of letters were included - the only omissions were strictly personal letters received from women.
He died in 1956 at the age of seventy-five, and was interred in the Loudon Park Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.
