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5.0 out of 5 stars
An engaging look at a bygone era, September 21, 2005
"This, after all, is MY story, and so I do not apologize for its pervasive subjectivity."
So said Mencken in the preface, and good for him. While his usual verbal pyrotechnics give way to straight reporting here, you always know exactly where he stood.
The book's focus is Mencken's association with the Baltimore Sunpapers. His Free Lance column established his iconoclastic reputation locally. He helped draft the White Paper ("the doctrine that public officials, under democracy, were predominantly frauds, and hence did not deserve to be taken seriously") that became the basis for the company's success during the Roaring Twenties. He represented the paper in its dispute with Baltimore's Catholic archbishop over a reporter's questionable judgment. Despite outside commitments (he wrote and co-wrote more than 20 books, edited two magazines, and wrote hundreds of articles for other newspapers and magazines during this period), he remained a columnist for decades, and eventually joined the board of directors.
Mencken occasionally had a problem with years; he later placed the 1925 Scopes trial and Bryan's death in 1926, and refers back to the 1928 conventions as having happened in 1924. He finished this account before writing Heathen Days; parts of each book overlap, but, save for several Scopes trial passages and a few other adventures, aren't repeated. Even to his Scopes notes, he added many previously unpublished details.
Interesting details abound. In addition to his job, Mencken remembers peers in his field, oppressive censorship and anti-German discrimination during World War I, acquiring liquor during Prohibition, the establishment of Time magazine ("I was surprised by its immense success, for it was marked at the start, as it still is today, by a pretentious and puerile style of writing and a pervasive ignorance and inaccuracy"), several of his trips abroad, and the transient self-aggrandizing government timeservers who became "as completely forgotten as the politicians of the Polk administration". Then there are the humorous moments, such as his lodging arrangements at the 1920 Republican convention:
"I roomed with Kent, and had two disconcerting surprises the first night. The first came when he got down on his knees beside his bed and began to pray audibly and volubly, clad in an old-fashioned nightshirt. The second followed soon afterward, as he fell asleep. Never in my life have I heard more appalling snoring. All the ordinary sounds were there, but in addition there were others - for example, a series of crescendo gurgles ending in what seemed to be strangulation, with both the performer and me leaping up in our beds. The next night I managed to have Kent bunked with Adams, and so got some sleep."
The book is also a window into a transitional era. Cars and airplanes increased in popularity, but passenger trains remained the main mode of transportation for long distances: some of Mencken's fonder memories occurred on and near trains. Wireless telegraphy evolved into commercial radio. The telephone helped facilitate the reporter's job as it became more common.
Above all, this is Mencken as only Mencken could write; clear, opinionated, and quotable. This thoroughly enjoyable reading experience makes me glad he lived when he did: if his like were to come along again, he'd be barred from today's dumbed-down mainstream media.
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