Mencken on Utopia

Mencken on Utopia

Thomas Allen

    In 1926, H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) wrote Notes on Democracy in which he expressed his views on democracy and related issues. He was a journalist, satirist, and critic and a libertarian and one of the leaders of the Old Right. In his book, he describes utopia, pages 115-124. Below is an overview of his discussion of utopia; my comments are in brackets.
    Mencken notes that in the United States, “every office-holder, when he takes oath to support the Constitution, must swear on his honour that, summoned to the death-bed of his grandmother, he will not take the old lady a bottle of wine. He may say so and do it, which makes him a liar, or he may say so and not do it, which makes him a pig.” [When Mencken wrote, the Constitution contained an amendment that prohibited the sale of alcohol — the Prohibition amendment. Much of Mencken’s hostility toward democracy and, to a slightly lesser degree, toward religion, seems to result from Prohibition. At least, Prohibition is often his prime example of democracy run amuck.]
    In spite of this dilemma, “idealists, chiefly professional Liberals, . . . argue that it is the duty of a gentleman to go into politics.” To which, Mencken replies that this remedy “is quite as absurd as all the other sure cures that Liberals advocate. When they argue for it, they simply argue . . . that the remedy for prostitution is to fill the bawdy-houses with virgins. . . . [This] device would accomplish very little: either the virgins would leap out of the windows, or they would cease to be virgins.” Then he adds, “The same alternatives confront the political aspirant who is what is regarded in America as a gentleman — that is, one who is not susceptible to open bribery in cash. The moment his leg goes over the political fence he finds the mob confronting him, and if he would stay within he must adapt himself to its tastes and prejudices. In other words, he must learn all the tricks of the regular mountebanks.” That is, he must either respond to the mob and serve it or lose his job.
    Mencken supports his argument with some examples. He notes, “It is an axiom of practical politics, indeed, that the worst enemies of political decency are the tired reformers — and the worst of the worst are those whose primary thirst to make the corruptible put on incorruption was accompanied by a somewhat sniffish class consciousness.” One example is Theodore Roosevelt entering “politics as a sword drawn against demagogy.” Yet he became a “violent and shameless demagogue.” [We may be seeing the same happening with Donald Trump. He entered the political arena as an outsider who was going to “drain the swamp,” end American foreign entanglements and wars, rebuild America, and control and limit immigration. Yet he has expanded America’s wars and filled his administration with swamp monsters. Most of the real outsiders that he appointed, he has since removed. He continues America’s Israeli-first foreign policy instead of adopting an America-first foreign policy. He is beginning to soften on immigration and give into the establishment on that issue and others. He is acting ever more like the typical establishment politician.]
    Mencken admits that a gentleman may enter politics under democracy. However, “it is almost impossible for him to stay there and remain a gentleman.” He continues, “The haughty amateur, at the start, may actually make what seems to be a brilliant success, for he is commonly full of indignation, and so strikes out valiantly, and the mob crowds up because it likes a brutal show. . . . If he retains his rectitude he loses his office, and if he retains his office he has to dilute his rectitude with the cologne spirits of the trade.” [Much of what Mencken is describing can be written about Donald Trump, a gentleman by Mencken’s definition and an amateur politician. Will he remain a gentleman or will he become another sleazy politician catering to the mob, or, more correctly, the minority that manipulates the mob? This minority resides in the old news media, the leadership of the Democratic and Republican parties, the military-industrial complex, most big businesses and big banks, the globalists, and a host of their demagogues.]
    In a democracy, “the man of native integrity is either barred from the public service altogether or subjected to almost irresistible temptations after he gets in. The competition of less honourable men is more than he can bear. He must stand against them before the mob, and the sempiternal prejudices of the mob run their way.”
    Democracy in the United States is worse than it is in Great Britain because the United States have no aristocracy to check the mob. For the most part, American Presidents were not intellectuals, and most avoid intelligent men. Likewise, has been the average American governor.
    Moreover, “[t]he judiciary, under the American system, sinks quite as low.” The U.S. Supreme Court “carries on its dull and preposterous duties quite outside the stream of civilized thought, and even outside the stream of enlightened juridical thought.” Furthermore, “few American judges ever contribute anything of value to legal theory. . . . The Constitution apparently has no more meaning to them than it has to a Prohibition agent. They have acquiesced almost unanimously in the destruction of the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments, and supinely connived at the invasion of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth.” [What would Mencken think about what the Supreme Court has done to the Bill of Rights in recent decades with the War on Drugs and the War or Terrorism?] America’s mediocre judiciary results from the average judge being a trailer instead of a leader when he was a practicing lawyer. [When the judiciary does lead with its activist judges, the results are usually worse than when it restricts itself to being a follower.] “The judicial office is not attractive, as a rule, to the better sort of lawyers.” Moreover, “judges are so often chosen for purely political reasons, even for the Supreme Court of the United States, that the lawyer of professional dignity and self-respect hesitates to enter into the competition. Thus the bench tends to be filled with duffers, and many of them are also scoundrels, as the frequent complaints against their extortions and tyrannies testify.” [An example of such a Supreme Court judge was Earl Warren, whom President Eisenhower appointed to pay Warren for delivering California's convention delegation to Eisenhower. Warren’s court was notorious for tyrannical, despotic rulings that are still destroying the country.] Mencken notes, “In the States, where judges are commonly elected by popular vote, the shyster has every advantage over the reputable lawyer, including that of yearning for the judicial salary with a vast and undivided passion. And when it comes to the Federal courts, once so honourable, he has every advantage again, including the formidable one of knowing how to crook his knee gracefully to the local dispenser of Federal patronage (in the South often a worthless Negro) and to the Methodist wowsers of the Anti-Saloon League.” [America’s judiciary, especially the federal courts, has deteriorated even more since Mencken wrote.]
    Mencken admits that the shyster does not always prevail. “[A] man of unquestionable integrity and ability occasionally gets to the bench, even of the State courts.” [Today, many State courts, especially the higher courts, have a larger percentage of competent judges of integrity than the federal courts.]

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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