Professor H L Mencken

The Free Lance, September-December 1913 Professor H L Mencken

In this volume of his "Free Lance" columns for the Baltimore Evening Sun, H. L. Mencken continues his satirical look at the follies of his native city, the nation, and the world. Once again he attacks "vice crusaders" (opponents of liquor, prostitution, and other purported "sins") for trying to enforce their own disapproval upon free citizens. Such pressure groups as the Anti-Saloon League, the Lord's Day Alliance (which was lobbying for the banning of nearly all leisure activities on Sundays), and the Maryland Anti-Vivisection Society were, in Mencken's opinion, merely nuisances whose attempts to enforce "moral legislation" were bound to have unintended consequences. As he wrote in the column of November 25, 1913: "At the bottom of all the current agitation lies the pernicious theory, now so lamentably prevalent, that the way to cure all ills is by furious and ferocious suppression." At the same time, Mencken believed that genuine social ills-the prevalence of dangerous patent medicines, political corruption at all levels, the general ignorance of the voting public-were being ignored. He spent a lifetime in seeking to cure them.