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Mencken quote
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 06:54:56 -0500
Begin forwarded message: From: Kai Lui <kai () kailui com> Date: November 11, 2004 12:33:53 AM EST To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net> Subject: Mencken quoteIn case you haven't already seen it, the following Mencken quote is being
circulated. I guess the "Sage of Baltimore" is more prescient than we thought. Note especially the last paragraph. ------------------When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental -- men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and
whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. Soconfronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack, or count himself
lost. His one aim is to disarm suspicion, to arouse confidence in hisorthodoxy, to avoid challenge. If he is a man of convictions, of enthusiasm,
or self-respect, it is cruelly hard… The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before smallelectorates, a first rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even a mob with him by the force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second or third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically the most devious and mediocre -- the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual
vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy isperfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. --H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920 ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- Mencken quote David Farber (Nov 11)