Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-01-30

which one ran across him.
To those who met the Sage of
Baltimore in the early century.
when his caustic. witty criticism
of everything conventional spiced
the pages of Smart Set and the
American Mercury. he may be
remembered as one who handled
the broadsword with rapier
thruStS.
To the latter-day generation
and those first introduced to his
massive tones clarifying the
American language. Mr. Mencken
may tower primarily with schol-
Iarly distinction.
For the better part of four dec
AIDES. from the time he made an
abiding place for himself with
the Baltimore Sunpapers until
the mellow years when he applied
himself almost entirely to his
The American Language" and
set down his "reminiscences. MIR.
Mencken occupied an unshared
niche in the literary scene.
Potent Influence on Thought.
| At one time many regarded
him as the most potent influence
on thought and letters in Amer
lea. It was during this time in
4 the '20s that every campus was
debating him, that moralists
were shaking their heads over bis
antireligious views and intel
lectual revolutionists regarded
him as a Moses,
, His own thoughts on liberalism
he expressed in an interview sew
eral years ago:
I Il never was liberal" he said.
"a liberal is a man who Is willing
to believe anything-twice."
| The salty and sulphurous
Mencken prose. embracing a
seemless inexhaustive supply of
facts. began flowing before teen
hood. 1t raced through several
years of reporting. starting at 10
on the old Baltimore Morning
Herald and switching to the Bal
timore Sun In 1906.
! With the sprightliness of a
mountain brook and the power of
"a mountain flood. it flowed from
1914 to 1928. when he was liter
airy critic and later co-editor of
Smart Set. and from 1924 until
1888. when his strident pen
scorched the pages of his Mer-
curry. which he founded in league
with George Jean Nathan.
/ During these days his whiplash
bit into everything most people
regarded as inyiolable-religion
Iage-old customs and traditions
a democracy he saw as decadent.
Government in general and the
New Deal in particular. prohibit
ton. sham and hypocrisy of all
kinds. and even the newspapers
he loved dearly
/ Splitting over the pages Of the
magazines, his prolific store of
material showed up in such form
as I'm Defense of Women" the
famous series of "Prejudices" and
Treatise on the Gods"
j Most of these yearS-from 1906
until l941-he was columnist,
editor or director Of the Sun
papers, always keeping alive the
newspaper interest he earned as
a reporter hired at nothing a
week who battled his way up to
81 a week in six months.
I The boy reporter was cher
ubic rascal with high stiff collar
ascot cravat. 100 pounds OF de-
termination. blue eyes and a
round. baby face that he never
entirely outsrew.
Those early newspaper days
furnished raw food for the cyni-
cism that later was to be his
fame and meal ticket. But no
matter how shocked were those
he attacked. it can now be said
authoritatively that there was
nothing of the reformist about
Mr.. Mencken.
"The Complete Anti-Messiah."
In the first place. he offered
no panacea for the evils he at
tackled. Conclusively. these are
his own words. left with an ad-
mirer . to be used in case Of
death:
Having lived all my life in q
country swarming with Mes
siahs. I have been mistaken. per-
haps quite naturally, for one
myself. especially by the others,
1t would be hard. to imagine
anything more preposterous.
Il am. in fact. the complete
anti-Messiah, and detest con-
verts almost as much as detest
missionaries. My writings. such
as they are, have had only one
purpose:
ITO attain for H. L. Mencken
that feeling of tension relieved
and function achieved which a
COW enjoys on giving milk. Fur
Their than that, have had no
interest in the matter whatso-
ever.
1T has never given me any
satisfaction to encounter one
who said my motions had
pleased him. My preference has
always been for persons with
notions of their own. / have be-
lieved all my life in free thought
and free speech-up to and in
Guiding the utmost limits of the
endurable."
MIR. Mencken found a way OF
making money of those people
\ a