Evening star., 1934-04-28
MENCKEN WARNS
BRAIN TRUSTERS'
Advises Them to Return to
CampuS-HoIdS Govern
ment Is Going Broke.
BY the Associated Press.

-AS'cNAANN~A a
BALTIMORE, April 28-H L.
Mencken, author and critic, last night
called on the brethren of the brain
trust to "begone in peace before the
country rises against YOU
Speaking over Nationwide radio
hook-up, he concluded with these
words:
Go back to your old jobs while the
going is good
Go back to teaching sophomores
to be ashamed of their fathers If
you go on much longer trying a new
sure cure every day on poor old Uncle
Sam. and sending in a bill for one
hundred million dollars with every
one. you may wake up some morning
and find the country bowling for your
hide.
And when that time comes you
may discover that both ends of Penn
sylvania avenue have slid from under
you, and you are left to face some
very loud music all alone"
relivers a Message"
His final words, he said, were
what the pastors call a message,
spelling it with capital M"
This message is not addressed to
the taxpayer. He has begun to fret
and stir already and in little while
he will be blowing steam out of every
pore.
Il address it instead to the brethren
Of the brain trust. some Of whom l
admire and venerate, though do not
like their medicines"
The early part of his address was
devoted to telling a fable concerning
a man who, instead of taking the ad-
vice of his physician to 'cut out your
boozing and your 36-hole golf, eat
lightly. and go to bed early" resorted
to wizards" each of whom had a
sure fire" cure.
Back to the Physician.
He was finally forced to take the
advice of his original physicians and
soon was we'll again.
This little story, ladies and gentle
men" said Mencken, has a moral.
We are all acquainted with fine old
fellow who greatly resembles the man
have been telling you about. He
lives at Washington, and we call him
Uncle Sam.
"A year or two ago he began to
feel very wobbly. He had horrible
dreams at night. and dark brown
taste in the morning. The regular
doctors down at Washington told him
that he was living too fast, and ad-
vised him to slow down bit. But he
didn't like the prescription, and re-
fused to follow it.
Instead, he began to send for all
sorts of amateur healers, each OF
whom allowed that he alone could
cure him, No two of them
agree-save on one thing only: They
all send in tremendous bills. The poor
old man, poisoned by their doses, is
not only making heavy weather OF it,
with many setbacks; he is also going
broke.
Cites Taxpayers Burden.
"And when 1 say that Uncle Sam
is going broke, it is the same as say
ing, of course, that the American tax
payer is going broke. Every nickel
that the professors at Washington are
throwing away will have to come out
of his pocket.
Has all this waste of money done
us any good? I doubt it. We have
moved toward recovery, not because of
it, but in spite of it. The English.
who were much worse off than we
were two years ago. have gone much
further along the road than we have
They have a surplus in their treasury,
and. are even reducing taxes Yet
they have done this without putting
a single bright young professor on
their pay roll, or laying out cent
for economic madstones and bile
beans"