Why is H.L. Mencken relevant today?

In a long line that stretches from Benjamin Franklin to Mark Twain and beyond, H. L. Mencken stands as one of America’s most influential stylists and its most prominent iconoclast. “It is a sin to believe evil in others,” Mencken said, “but it is seldom a mistake.” Preachers, politicians, pundits and pedants — Mencken exposed the mountebanks among them with humor and courage. Known for his writing and wit, Mencken remains a legend quoted around the world today. He is the 6th most cited dead intellectual on the internet, with books and works about him translated into Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, German and French. He is even out in Braille. In Baltimore, Mencken’s hometown, a clipping service gathers mentions of Mencken from newspapers and magazines all over the world and, each year, those clippings fill 1,000 pages.

There is a reason why Mencken was so popular, and why he remains so today. When few dared to question complacency, Mencken took on the issues of civil liberties and civil rights. For all of Mencken’s reputation as a racist, the recent overdue Senate apology on lynching brings to mind the key role Mencken played regarding this issue, when few others dared to speak out. His series of newspaper columns on lynching, written during the 1930s, brought forth a storm of criticism and personal threats. For all this, The Nation magazine gave Mencken an award for distinguished journalism in the face of personal danger. But Mencken went further. Determined that lynching should not be dismissed as a mere crime under the protection of state’s rights, Mencken said lynching should be viewed for what it is — as murder. He joined forces with the NAACP to advance a bill to make lynching unlawful, testifying before Congress and using his influence to galvanize support when there was precious little. It took courage to do these things. Even Franklin D. Roosevelt remained silent on the issue of lynching – he did not want to lose his southern votes.

Mencken also took on the issues of censorship and free speech. He was against an all-powerful Justice Department and Supreme Court; he said their only mantra was “concentrated upon throwing the plain people into a panic.” As a champion of free press, Mencken’s views are still relevant today as America reexamines the role journalists play in our society, especially during times of war. But as Mencken put it, the role of the press is “to keep a wary eye on the gentlemen who run this great nation, and only too often slip into the assumption that they own it.” An adroit president can wield a great deal of power when a press is mediocre. As was his habit, Mencken turned for inspiration to Thomas Jefferson, who said, “Our liberty depends on freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited, without being lost.”

– Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, author of Mencken: The American Iconoclast (ie., “The best Mencken biography to date!”).