Professor H L Mencken

The Free Lance, May-August 1913 Professor H L Mencken

As he began his third year of his controversial "Free Lance" column, H. L. Mencken felt ever free to speak boldly and pungently on the follies of the day. He continues to lampoon the ludicrous arguments of those who opposed woman suffrage; he continues to criticize Baltimore for its laxity in the treatment of tuberculosis, typhoid, and other diseases; he continues to protest the hounding of sex workers, as if that will solve the problem of which they are only the symptom; he ridicules increasing attempts to ban liquor, cigarettes, and other supposed "vices. Mencken was battling an array of "moral legislation" being proposed throughout the nation, recognizing that one person's immorality is another person's rational pleasure. As he states in a column, "the most ignorant man is always the most sure that his right is the right, and that all other rights are bogus." And he understood that the best weapons against such fanaticism and quackery were reasoned argument wrapped in a patina of satire and ridicule. It was a technique that he honed in these columns and carried on throughout his long career.