“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
Henry Louis (H.L.) Mencken (1880-1956)
An essayist and critic for the Baltimore Sun, the New Yorker, and the New York Times, Mencken was a founding editor of the influential American Mercury. Often referred to as the “Sage of Baltimore”, Mencken’s notoriety was solidified by his acerbic coverage of what he called the Scopes Monkey Trial and his widely read book The American Language (1919). He was a follower of Nietzsche and counted Twain among his heroes. His support for Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, etc.) helped to launch her career. His distrust of the democratic process is on display in the above quote as well as the following: “No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”
Good Morning Gloucester 