Today is H.L. Mencken’s 130th birthday, and we commemorate it here with two important and seldom seen essays by the Master of the Pen himself. –Ed. by H.L. Mencken THE RECURRENT EFFORT to eliminate criminal stocks by sterilizing criminals is opposed violently by sentimentalists, and also by the pseudo-scientists who argue fatuously that character is not inheritable. Common experience shows Continue Reading →

by H.L. Mencken First published in The American Mercury, August 1937 DISCUSSING IN THE PLACE a few months ago the sorrows roweling the great Republic we live in, I ventured to throw out a double-headed suggestion. The first part of it was to the effect that an easy way to reduce those sorrows today, and almost obliterate them tomorrow, would Continue Reading →