Daytonians Full of Sickening Doubts About Publicity

A Report on the Scopes Trial by H.L. Mencken Illustration: Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan (The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 9, 1925) ON THE EVE of the great contest Dayton is full of sickening surges and tremors of doubt. Five or six weeks ago, when the infidel Scopes was first laid by the heels, there was no uncertainty in Continue Reading →

Liberals Never Learn

by Albert Jay Nock from The American Mercury, vol. XLI, no. 164 (August 1937), pp. 485-90. THERE IS NO question that the Liberals and Progressives are in the political saddle at the moment, fitted out with bucking-straps and a Spanish bit, and are riding the nation under spur and quirt. Liberalism became the fashion in 1932, so for six years Continue Reading →

Homo Neanderthalensis

A Report on the Scopes Trial by H.L. Mencken (pictured) (The Baltimore Evening Sun, June 29, 1925) I SUCH OBSCENITIES as the forthcoming trial of the Tennessee evolutionist, if they serve no other purpose, at least call attention dramatically to the fact that enlightenment, among mankind, is very narrowly dispersed. It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone Continue Reading →

One Hundred Percent American

by Ralph Linton The American Mercury vol. 40 (1937) THERE CAN be no question about the average American’s Americanism or his desire to preserve this precious heritage at all costs. Nevertheless, some insidious foreign ideas have already wormed their way into his civilization without his realizing what was going on. Thus dawn finds the unsuspecting patriot garbed in pajamas, a Continue Reading →

Anarchist’s Progress

by Albert Jay Nock This classic essay on freedom was published in The American Mercury in 1927. I. The Majesty of the Law When I was seven years old, playing in front of our house on the outskirts of Brooklyn one morning, a policeman stopped and chatted with me for a few moments. He was a kindly man, of a Continue Reading →