Remembering American Mercury Writer James M. Cain

JAMES MALLAHAN CAIN died 33 years ago today. Cain (July 1, 1892 — October 27, 1977) was a celebrated American author and journalist. Although Cain himself vehemently opposed labeling, he is usually associated with the hardboiled school of American crime fiction and seen as one of the creators of the roman noir. Several of his crime novels inspired highly successful Continue Reading →

J.B. Matthews, McCarthyism, and the Religious Left

by Dr. Norman Berdichevsky, Canada Free Press WHILE THE TERM “Religious Right” is one of the most frequently used terms in the political lexicon, notably since the rise of what is usually referred to as the Evangelical Churches, the Political Left is alive and well and a strong crutch for the Democratic Party… During the first term of the Eisenhower Continue Reading →

Baltimore Reading Series Honors American Mercury

by Ann Hendon ACCORDING TO Reading Local, there’s a new literary reading series in Baltimore that honors the spirit of H.L. Mencken and The American Mercury. They say: The second installment of the New Mercury Reading Series was held at Jordan Faye Contemporary Gallery, featuring Charles Cohen, Steve Luxenberg, and Melissa Hale. Their mission statement is a re-envisioning of H. 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 →

Franklin Delano Roosevelt: An Obituary

by H.L. Mencken April 13, 1945 THE BALTIMORE Sun editorial on Roosevelt this morning begins: “Franklin D. Roosevelt was a great man.” There are heavy black dashes above and below it. The argument, in brief, is that all his skullduggeries and imbecilities were wiped out when “he took an inert and profoundly isolationist people and brought them to support a Continue Reading →