The most prominent newspaperman, book reviewer, and political commentator of his day, Henry Louis Mencken was a libertarian before the word came into usage. His prose is as clear as an azure sky, and his rhetoric as deadly as a rifle shot. Frequent targets of his lance were Franklin Roosevelt and New Deal politics, Comstocks, hygenists, "uplifters", social reformers of any stripe, boobs & quacks, and the insatiable American appetite for nonsense and gaudy sham. But his life was not defined by negativity. He was positively enthusiastic about to the writings of Twain and Conrad, the music of Brahms, Beethoven and Bach, and the victuals offered up by Chesapeake Bay.
Mencken's writing is endearing because of its wit, its crisp style, and the obvious delight he takes in it. The Introduction to The Impossible H.L. Mencken: A Collection of His Best Newspaper Stories, edited by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers which relates Mencken's manner while reporting on the presidential conventions:
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image and text via the H.L.Mencken Page
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