Mencken quote

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

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 quote

In 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. So
confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack, or count 
himself
lost. His one aim is to disarm suspicion, to arouse confidence in his
orthodoxy, 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 small
electorates, 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 is
perfected, 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




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