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Book Review: A Mencken Chrestomathy
by Rich Brooks
6 January 2004
A MENCHEN CHRESTOMATHY
His Own Selection of His Choicest Writings
Edited and Annotated by HLM
Originally published by Alfred Knopf (New York, 1949)
Vintage Books (paperback) edition, first published 1982, 625 pp.
Since I was required to spend a good part of the recent Christmas holidays without access to a computer, I was finally able to open one of the books which had been sitting on my shelves collecting dust for several months. One infrequently noted downside of the internet, at least for me, is the way its demands cut into the available reading time of its addicts. I have been aware of Mencken and his political philosophy for many years, but sadly had never actually sat down and read any of his myriad writings. As the eminent author himself states in the preface, "What the total of my published writings comes to I don't know precisely, but certainly it must run well beyond 5,000,000 words."
The current volume contains over 600 pages of these words compiled into a "chrestomathy." What is a "chrestomathy" you are probably asking? Well, I'll just quote HLM's own answer, because it is so typical of his style. "In my title I revive the word chrestomathy in its true sense of 'a collection of choice passages from an author or authors.' . . . . [W]hen this book was announced, some newspaper smarties protested that the word would be unfamiliar to many readers, as it was to them. Thousands of excellent nouns, verbs and adjectives that have stood in every decent dictionary for years are still unfamiliar to such ignoramuses, and I do not solicit their patronage. Let them continue to recreate themselves with whodunits, and leave my vocabulary and me to my own customers, who have all been to school." Mencken, to understate it, did not suffer fools gladly.
For many years I had been a fan of Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko, a Liberal but one who had a redeeming wit and a general skepticism about human nature. I once mentioned something about Royko to VNN's editor, and I found Alex's response interesting. He said that, yes, he was familiar with Royko and that, yes, he could write with a certain flair, but that, no, Royko couldn't hold a candle to Henry Louis Mencken. After reading HLM, I will go further and make an even stronger statement; Mike Royko shamelessly copied Mencken's style but unfortunately not his ideas. Never having encountered the original, I now sheepishly admit that I was taken in by a cheap imitation.
And, yes, there is an intellectual depth to Mencken which defies his lack of a college degree and the fact that most of his writings were produced under the pressure of a newspaper editor's deadline. HLM was a working reporter writing about the transitory happenings that filled the pages of the Baltimore Sun. He was not sitting pontificating in some Ivy League ivory tower, so it is truly amazing how much of his writing remains fresh and relevant to our distinctly different age. I am tempted to marvel that a newspaper of general circulation would publish such sophisticated material in the 1920s and 1930s, especially when I compare Mencken to the hacks working in today's jew-controlled media. No, I doubt that anyone of his skeptical, some would say cynical, mind could ever be hired in the homogenized, semitically correct climate of what currently passes for print journalism. That such an iconoclast would spend his entire working career employed by the same metropolitan daily is even more incredible and bespeaks a much different and much freer American age. I had the distinct impression while reading Chrestomathy that Mencken would be forced to ply his trade on VNN were he alive and writing today, but more on that later.
A self-described libertarian, Mencken had far more courage (his highest character attribute) and common sense than those at lewpus.com now claiming that title. HLM did not believe in either democracy or racial equality and was completely unafraid to tell us so. He looked at humanity as primates belonging to distinct (and, for the most part, genetically determined) classes, and very few men in public life made the grade as "first rate" with him. Most he considered to be either Babbitts or members of the "booboisie." For politicians and government workers he reserved a scorn almost as great as that he held for religious leaders. Given his general disdain for Christianity, and especially for cult-followers such as Christian Scientists and Jehovah Witness colporteurs, I was somewhat surprised that HLM included Brigham Young on his short list of nineteenth century first-raters. No doubt, however, he would have some disparaging words for Mormonism's present-day incarnation just as he did for the far more numerous Baptists and Methodists of his time.
Every page of Chrestomathy contains at least one quotable gem, and I could spend pages reciting them to you. Grover Cleveland is perhaps the only American political leader since Jefferson to earn Mencken's respect, and he is especially scornful of Woodrow Wilson and FDR. Bible-belt flag wavers and the Rotarian Republicans of Middle America will, on the other hand, find little to comfort them in Mencken's brand of conservatism. He is an elitist through and through and continuously makes the case for aristocratic (but not plutocratic!) government. He is particularly suspicious of do-gooders, or "up-lifters," as he calls that ilk.
HLM was writing, of course, in a time when America was a White nation and long before "civil rights" were even a faint glow on the political horizon. Race-based inequalities were as commonly accepted as class distinctions, but it was, ironically, a much freer society with much less "democracy." It is fruitless but nevertheless fun to speculate on Mencken's probable reaction to present-day politicians and circumstances. I'm sure that George W. Bush's lack of intellect would make an especially inviting target for him, but that he also would be truly appalled at the jewed condition of today's multicultural society. Chrestomathy makes very little mention of jews, but Mencken was well-known for the anti-semitic views he expressed in some of his other writings. Mainstream reviewers, of course, try to dismiss his anti-semitism as merely reflecting the prevailing prejudices of his benighted times, but I find the omission of jew-critical material in this volume to be more than a little telling. My interpretation: Even in 1949 when HLM was compiling this work, the major book publishing firms were already firmly under jewish control, and he no doubt concluded that in this case a little discretion was indeed the better part of valor.
As I indicated above, VNN is perhaps the only place today where we can find journalistic writing in any way comparable to that of Henry Louis Mencken. While he was no fan of the Ku Klux Klan and "niggerbaiting," most of his views were highly compatible with those expressed on these pages; I'd like to think that he would recognize certain VNN writers (most notably, our editor-in-chief) as his spiritual heirs. I'd point out, however, that HLM seldom found it necessary to make up new words or engage in profanity to express his unorthodox and iconoclastic views. Such was his great gift and facility with the English language.
If, like me, you have never really encountered Mencken, pick up a copy of Chrestomathy at your earliest opportunity. You'll be in for a rare treat of superb truthtelling with unvarnished opinions on everything from the legal philosophy of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes to the fundamentalist blatherings of William Jennings Bryan to the musical genius of Beethoven and Wagner. As a non-lawyer, a non-theologian, and a non-musician, Mencken usually hits the nail on the head far more surely than any of the professionals writing in these fields. You'll have to search elsewhere, however, to read his views on jews. That's exactly what I intend to do, and when I come across such writings I'll certainly share with you his quotable quotes.
RICH BROOKS
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