Professor H L Mencken

Writings in the Baltimore Evening Sun, 1916-1917 Professor H L Mencken

In the two years after H. L. Mencken gave up his "Free Lance" column in the Baltimore Evening Sun, he largely avoided discussing the course of World War I, since it was his vigorous support of Germany that had led to the cessation of his column. Instead, he focused on broader issues of literature, politics, and morality. A four-part article on the work of Joseph Conrad and several articles on Theodore Dreiser showed how Mencken valued these "masculine" writers' approach to literature and life. Music remained a constant interest, as articles on Haydn, Tchaikovsky, and Dvorak's "New World Symphony" attest. An article on the "American language" points to his groundbreaking 1919 book on the subject. His satirical edge remained keen, as demonstrated by a pungent article on Christian Science. In February 1917, Mencken made a perilous visit to Berlin, and over the next month he wrote numerous reports of how he and other Americans had difficulty leaving the country in the wake of the United States' breaking off of diplomatic relations with that nation. He had to be evacuated by way of Cuba, where he witnessed a revolution and wrote several vibrant articles about it. After his final piece, he would not write again for the Evening Sun for nearly three years.