Why I Feel H.L. Mencken Is An Ancestor of Bill Maher (And That Doesn't Speak Much For Either of Them)

 

Last week, in yet another of my diatribes against Bill Maher, I mentioned that I’d considered writing a comparison of him to the legendary Baltimore journalist H.L. Mencken but had decided against it. But you know me: once these ideas capture my fancy, I find it hard to let go of them.

            Now for those of you who may have grown tired of my ‘picking’ on Maher, let me assure that the lion’s share of this piece will deal with the work and personality of Mencken. There will be a direct comparison at the end, but this is more on my personal views of Mencken. (If that’s still too much for you, leave now.)

            Mencken is one of those legends of journalism and criticism, no doubt quoted far more than he is read these days, assuming he is read at all. But I am in the rare position of having read two volumes of his work in my younger days and quite a few excerpts of it in various compendiums over the years. So as someone who had read much of his work and who is a voluminous understanding of the political era he covered, I believe I am qualified to make this critique.

            First, let’s not deny it: Mencken was an incredible writer. No matter how much you disagreed with what he wrote – and as you’ll see, I disagreed with the lion’s share of his view – one cannot deny that he had an incredible ability both with his turn of the phrase and the expressions he coined. He had a biting cynicism that was quite common of many of great journalists of the 1920s and 30s when he was at his peak – I speak of Heywood Broun, Westbrook Pegler, and Dorothy Parker. (If you have no idea who any of these people are, google them and start finding their work. You won’t regret it.) Many of the columns and terms he wrote about were legendary well past the careers and lives of the politicians he wrote about. In his column ‘Gamalielese,’ the term he used for the banalities spoken by Warren Harding in his 1920 campaign run, he expressed just how bland and meaningless this future disastrous president was as a speaker – and in a way, he foresaw what so many future campaigns would be come. (As for how he voted that election… I’ll get to that.) Like so many political journalists of that era, he had low opinions of campaigning, the speeches and politicians that campaigned and he could make you understand why. You might have to get through two or three pages, but you didn’t regret it reading. On his worst day, Mencken had more talent in his little finger than Maher has had in his entire body.

            But Mencken’s cynicism held a darker edge that becomes increasingly clear in his political writing. The volume I read covered the Presidential Campaigns of 1920 to 1936 and while Mencken had a very cynical view of politicians, unlike the partisans of today that did not make him a party man. In 1920, despite his finding Harding ridiculous, he decided that he was the better candidate for President. In 1928 and 1932, he advocated against Herbert Hoover, first enthusiastically for Al Smith and then, more by default for FDR when Hoover faced reelection. He was not much impressed by FDR as a President; in 1936, he advocated for Republican Alf Landon, who FDR demolished with a forty-six-state victory. Perhaps his oddest choice came in 1924 when, rather than vote for the incumbent Calvin Coolidge or the Democrat John W. Davis, he spent many of his columns praising the third-party Progressive candidate, Wisconsin Senator Robert LaFollette. (LaFollette did surprisingly well for a third-party candidate, taking five million votes – roughly 16% of those cast – and carrying his home state of Wisconsin.) One can find little consistency in Mencken’s columns between these various candidates based on their overall policies, but there was a lot of ebbing and flowing between the nature of both parties at that time; with just as many conservative Democrats as there were liberal Republicans. (LaFollette had been a Republican but ran as a Progressive in 1924. Back then it was a term more associated with Republicans than Democrats.)

            Beneath this analysis of candidates, however, one finds a darker edge. Writing about the 1920 campaign, he dismisses the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, as ‘world-changers’ and seems to think that Taft was a more fitting president. Wilson and TR have little in common except that both men did advocate – and accomplish – much reform during their administrations and did more to help the average person. Taft was considered by many progressives and contemporaries as more pro-business (not, in retrospect, a fair definition of the man or his presidency) but that does not appear  to enter Mencken’s thinking. Since he pushed for FDR in 1932 and was adamantly opposed to him in 1936, you get the feeling the sole reason he pushed for FDR was his dissatisfaction with Hoover and that he would have gone for any Democrat who won the nomination. The fact that he seemed so strongly in support of Landon, a man who himself knew he had no chance of election, would seem to indicate how little he cared for the New Deal.

            Now at this point, you might think that Mencken was strictly a conservative. In actuality, I think he was worse. During the U.S involvement in World War I, he wrote several columns in which he expressed his admiration for the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires. These columns were censured due to the restriction placed on the press. One of his editors thought he had a point though. I have no idea what his opinions were of the march of fascism across Europe during the 1930s (his political writing, like so many journalists of that era, is limited strictly to domestic affairs) but given his natural cynicism for the average citizen in general – this is the man who famously wrote “No one has ever lost money by underestimating the common sense of the plain people” – as well any politician who advocated for the Progressive Era (LaFollette excluded) and you get the feeling he had problems with democracy as a whole.

            And all of this, by the way, is written strictly as though he has only consideration for white men. There is almost nothing in his political writing about his opinion of the Suffragette movement, and even less during this time about his opinions on race. On the latter, one might excuse this as just the tenor of the time – but there’s more to it.

            The last Presidential campaign Mencken covered was in 1948. At the time, there were four candidates running. Mencken had a low opinion of Truman, thought less of Dewey, and mocked the campaign speeches of Henry Wallace the same way he dismissed Warren Harding more than a quarter of a century earlier. Instead, he found himself charmed and won over by the Dixiecrat, pro segregation candidate Strom Thurmond. He wrote several favorable columns about him, wishing that he was on the ballot in his home state of Maryland. To say this is very troubling is an understatement, particularly that much of his writing is dismissive of the South in general. That’s not the column of an enlightened man.

            Popular culture, believe it or not, actually has a portrait of Mencken etched into it, though I doubt by this point in history very few know about it. Inherit the Wind, the fictionalized version of the 1925 Scopes trial on evolution, is probably more familiar to most people than the details of the actual trial nearly a century ago. It is constantly revived on Broadway (I myself saw a revival with George C. Scott and Charles Durning in 1995) as well as the 1960 film (listed by Roger Ebert as one of the greatest movies ever made). But while most people may still know that the characters of Henry Drummond is a stand-in for Clarence Darrow, who defended Scopes, and that Matthew H. Brady is for William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Presidential candidate who prosecuted him, I imagine at this late date far fewer know that E.K. Horndecker, the journalist who has hired Drummond for Cates (Scopes) is a stand-in for Mencken, who covered the trial for the Baltimore Sun.  

            Now I’ve seen the play and the film, and perhaps most importantly, have read the book of the play several times, first for school and then because I wanted too. Based on that, and much of what I know about Mencken’s writing, I think that writers Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edward Lee are giving us an accurate portrayal of Mencken – and it is decidedly unflattering. Indeed, it is as much due to his portrayal in this play then his writing that I think the comparison to Maher is the most fitting.

            First, an opinion that is open to interpretation. Reading the play at thirteen and several times after that, I’ve noticed something unique about Horndecker’s dialogue. Whereas all other character’s speeches are written in the traditional paragraph format, Horndecker’s alone have the appearance of blank verse. It can be hard to tell on stage or onscreen, but I have noticed a clipped nature to Horndecker’s speeches throughout the play in all the versions I have seen.

            I don’t think Lawrence and Lee are doing this by pure chance. What they might be trying to signify I can not say with certainty. My interpretation (and it is purely an opinion) is that they are trying to show Horndecker, even more than Drummond, is a true outsider. Someone who does not belong in the town the trial is taking place – and maybe not anywhere.

            This is subjective and open to interpretation. The way Horndecker is portrayed by the playwrights is not. Every character in the story takes the trial and what its impact will be on the community and maybe the country with huge significance. Horndecker is the only one who seems utterly detached, even indifferent to what is going on, even though he has paid for Cates’ defense. You’d think he’d at least care about the exclusive he’s going to break, but he spends the entire play seemingly not caring about it, and more determined to assail everybody he meets or deals with. He doesn’t even seem to care about the fate of Cates; when he is found guilty, he seems more interested in the fact that this verdict has proved him right about this town and human nature.

            If you’ve studied Mencken’s writing casually (as I have) you know that he thought extraordinarily little of the people in the South, mainly because of their obsession with religion (he may not have been an atheist, but he spent a lot of energy translating and publishing Nitschke whose ‘God is Dead’ could be as much as Mencken’s mission statement on the subject). So the fact that Horndecker dismisses Bryan and the townspeople as fools is to be expected. But he doesn’t seem to care about the scientific part of it either – when a circus performer with a monkey shows up, Horndecker shouts: “Grandpa!” This line is traditionally played for laughs, but its pretty clear that Horndecker either doesn’t believe – or just as likely, doesn’t care – about whatever Darwin may have said. All of this to him is fundamentally an exercise.

            It’s small wonder that in the final act, Drummond himself grows sick of Horndecker and says so. It’s hard not to openly loathe Horndecker: Brady has just collapsed of a heart attack. Horndecker is dismissive of him, referring to him as ‘an also ran’ and soon ‘Mt. Brady will be biovating again.” When Brady’s death is announced, he shows even less compassion: “Matthew Brady died of a busted belly,” and calling him a ‘Bible-beating bastard.” Even Drummond’s admonishments to him roll off. The only time in the play Horndecker shows any reaction is when he tries to remember a verse Brady quoted (“he wrote his own eulogy”) and Drummond knows it verbatim. This irritates him beyond words: “You’re more religious than he was!” he insults him. Horndecker’s last line is: “I have to write a story about an atheist who believes in God.” That’s what Horndecker’s considers more important, not the fact a precedent has been set, not even the death of an important American. No, he comes off as angry that someone he considered a fellow traveler didn’t ‘share his values.’

            Much of this may be dramatic license, but knowing Mencken’s writing and opinions, I think it’s less than we believe. Given his views on religion and the South and his loathing of Bryan (this is present in his political writings; Bryan was a major figure in Democratic politics until the day he died), I think just as with Drummond and Brady, Horndecker is modeled from reality.

            And those of you who knew nothing about Mencken before this don’t need me to draw you a map to Maher and how he has followed him in all the wrong ways. We both know how much of an atheist Maher is. We know how little he thinks of most people, Republicans and Progressive alike. He may not be as racist as Mencken was but given his dismissiveness about the concerns of African Americans, women, and LGBTQ+ in particular, he sure as hell acts less enlightened. Mencken had little use for ‘world-beaters,’ which I’m guessing to him was as offensive a term as ‘woke’ is to Maher. Maher argues for science, but only the science he cares about. The only key difference between their beliefs is that Maher does at least recognize the dangers of fascism and dictatorships. That said, neither man ever cares that much about what happens beyond the borders of their country (based on the former’s writing and the latter’s show.)

            Of course, there is a key difference as to their talent. Mencken worked infinitely harder than Maher has to get where he did, writing thousands of pages and millions of words. And he was more than willing to give opportunities to fellow writers: in 1915, he and George Jean Nathan founded Smart Set, a journal that featured some of the first published work in America of (among others) James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dashiell Hammett, and Eugene O’Neill. And his wit, while cynical, is sharper and often subtler than Maher’s ever was. Maher’s entire career has been based on performing for shorter and shorter periods over the course of a year. Both rely on friendly audience, but at his peak, Mencken’s was much bigger than Maher’s has ever been.

            I don’t know what Maher thinks of Mencken (I don’t even know if he could spell his name right) and I don’t know what Mencken would have thought of Maher. But I do think Mencken would be utterly dismissive of Maher as so many others are, as another ‘biovator’ who thinks he’s clever and considering his ‘New Rules’ as utterly lacking in imagination. I don’t know if Mencken believed in evolution, but I’m fairly sure that if anyone told him Maher was a figurative descendant of him, Mencken would say that this was the strongest argument he’d ever seen against it.