H. L. Mencken on William Jennings Bryan

I've always enjoyed H.L. Mencken, having first encountered him as a sharp critic of the "New South" and America's rising middle class, which he called the "Booboisie." Today we rarely encounter writing of this quality in our newspapers. Moreover, the demagogues of talk radio and television could learn a thing or two from Mencken.

I just encountered Mencken's obituary of William Jennings Bryan, who died shortly after participating in the famous "Scopes Monkey Trial" in Dayton, Tennessee. For me, much of Mencken's judgment could be applied to some of the more conservative, evangelical Christian leaders in this country who peddle hatred and anti-intellectualism like desperate salesmen. Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell come to mind. (The photograph shows Clarence Darrow, left, and William Jennings Bryan, right, in Dayton during the trial.)


The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 27, 1925

William Jennings Bryan

It was plain to everyone, when Bryan came to Dayton, that his great days were behind him -- that he was now definitely an old man, and headed at last for silence. There was a vague, unpleasant manginess about his appearance; he somehow seemed dirty, though a close glance showed him carefully shaved, and clad in immaculate linen. All the hair was gone from the dome of his head, and it had begun to fall out, too, behind his ears, like that of the late Samuel Gompers. The old resonance had departed from his voice: what was once a bugle blast had become reedy and quavering. Who knows that, like Demosthenes, he had a lisp? In his prime, under the magic of his eloquence, no one noticed it. But when he spoke at Dayton it was always audible.


When I first encountered him, on the sidewalk in front of the Hicks brothers law office, the trial was yet to begin, and so he was still expansive and amiable. I had printed in the Nation, a week or so before, an article arguing that the anti-evolution law, whatever its unwisdom, was at least constitutional -- that policing school teachers was certainly not putting down free speech. The old boy professed to be delighted with the argument, and gave the gaping bystanders to understand that I was a talented publicist. In turn I admired the curious shirt he wore -- sleeveless and with the neck cut very low. We parted in the manner of two Spanish ambassadors.

But that was the last touch of affability that I was destined to see in Bryan. The next day the battle joined and his face became hard. By the end of the first week he was simply a walking malignancy. Hour by hour he grew more bitter. What the Christian Scientists call malicious animal magnetism seemed to radiate from him like heat from a stove. From my place in the court-room, standing upon a table, I looked directly down upon him, sweating horribly and pumping his palm-leaf fan. His eyes fascinated me: I watched them all day long. They were blazing points of hatred. They glittered like occult and sinister gems. Now and then they wandered to me, and I got my share. It was like coming under fire.


II

What was behind that consuming hatred? At first I thought that it was mere evangelical passion. Evangelical Christianity, as everyone knows, is founded upon hate, as the Christianity of Christ was founded upon love. But even evangelical Christians occasionally loose their belts and belch amicably; I have known some who, off duty, were very benignant. In that very courtroom, indeed, were some of them -- for example, old Ben McKenzie, Nestor of the Dayton bar, who sat beside Bryan. Ben was full of good humor. He made jokes with Darrow. But Bryan only glared.

One day it dawned on me that Bryan, after all, was an evangelical Christian only by sort of afterthought -- that his career in this world, and the glories thereof, had actually come to an end before he ever began whooping for Genesis. So I came to this conclusion: that what really moved him was a lust for revenge. The men of the cities had destroyed him and made a mock of him; now he would lead the yokels against them. Various facts clicked into the theory, and I hold it still. The hatred in the old man's burning eyes was not for the enemies of God; it was for the enemies of Bryan.

Thus he fought his last fight, eager only for blood. It quickly became frenzied and preposterous, and after that pathetic. All sense departed from him. He bit right and left, like a dog with rabies. He descended to demagogy so dreadful that his very associates blushed. His one yearning was to keep his yokels heated up -- to lead his forlorn mob against the foe. That foe, alas, refused to be alarmed. It insisted upon seeing the battle as a comedy. Even Darrow, who knew better, occasionally yielded to the prevailing spirit. Finally, he lured poor Bryan into a folly almost incredible.

I allude to his astounding argument against the notion that man is a mammal. I am glad I heard it, for otherwise I'd never believe it. There stood the man who had been thrice a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic -- and once, I believe, elected -- there he stood in the glare of the world, uttering stuff that a boy of eight would laugh at! The artful Darrow led him on: he repeated it, ranted for it, bellowed it in his cracked voice. A tragedy, indeed! He came into life a hero, a Galahad, in bright and shining armor. Now he was passing out a pathetic fool.


III

Worse, I believe that he somehow sensed the fact -- that he realized his personal failure, whatever the success of the grotesque cause he spoke for. I had left Dayton before Darrow's cross-examination brought him to his final absurdity, but I heard his long speech against the admission of expert testimony, and I saw how it fell flat and how Bryan himself was conscious of the fact. When he sat down he was done for, and he knew it. The old magic had failed to work; there was applause but there was no exultant shouts. When, half an hour later, Dudley Field Malone delivered his terrific philippic, the very yokels gave him five times the clapper-clawing that they had given to Bryan.

This combat was the old leader's last, and it symbolized in more than one way his passing. Two women sat through it, the one old and crippled, the other young and in the full flush of beauty. The first was Mrs. Bryan; the second was Mrs. Malone. When Malone finished his speech the crowd stormed his wife with felicitations, and she glowed as only a woman can who has seen her man fight a hard fight and win gloriously. But no one congratulated Mrs. Bryan. She sat hunched in her chair near the judge, apparently very uneasy. I thought then that she was ill -- she has been making the round of sanitariums for years, and was lately in the hands of a faith-healer -- but now I think that some appalling prescience was upon her, and that she saw in Bryan's eyes a hint of the collapse that was so near.

He sank into his seat a wreck, and was presently forgotten in the blast of Malone's titanic rhetoric. His speech had been maundering feeble and often downright idiotic. Presumably, he was speaking to a point of law, but it was quickly apparent that he knew no more law than the bailiff at the door. So he launched into mere violet garrulity. He dragged in snatches of ancient chautauqua addresses; he wandered up hill and down dale. Finally, Darrow lured him into that fabulous imbecility about man as a mammal. He sat down one of the most tragic asses in American history.


IV

It is the national custom to sentimentalize the dead, as it is to sentimentalize men about to be hanged. Perhaps I fall into that weakness here. The Bryan I shall remember is the Bryan of his last weeks on earth -- broken, furious, and infinitely pathetic. It was impossible to meet his hatred with hatred to match it. He was winning a battle that would make him forever infamous wherever enlightened men remembered it and him. Even his old enemy, Darrow, was gentle with him at the end. That cross-examination might have been ten times as devastating. It was plain to everyone that the old Berserker Bryan was gone -- that all that remained of him was a pair of glaring and horrible eyes.

But what of his life? Did he accomplish any useful thing? Was he, in his day, of any dignity as a man, and of any value to his fellow-men? I doubt it. Bryan, at his best, was simply a magnificent job-seeker. The issues that he bawled about usually meant nothing to him. He was ready to abandon them whenever he could make votes by doing so, and to take up new ones at a moment's notice. For years he evaded Prohibition as dangerous; then he embraced it as profitable. At the Democratic National Convention last year he was on both sides, and distrusted by both. In his last great battle there was only a baleful and ridiculous malignancy. If he was pathetic, he was also disgusting.

Bryan was a vulgar and common man, a cad undiluted. He was ignorant, bigoted, self-seeking, blatant and dishonest. His career brought him into contact with the first men of his time; he preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses. It was hard to believe, watching him at Dayton, that he had traveled, that he had been received in civilized societies, that he had been a high officer of state. He seemed only a poor clod like those around him, deluded by a childish theology, full of an almost pathological hatred of all learning, all human dignity, all beauty, all fine and noble things. He was a peasant come home to the dung-pile. Imagine a gentleman, and you have imagined everything that he was not.

The job before democracy is to get rid of such canaille. If it fails, they will devour it.

V8

There's been a lot of talk lately about disappearing car marques, including Pontiac, Saturn, and now Saab. If they are erased from the market it wouldn't be the first time a shakedown in the auto world has killed off venerable brands. Studebaker was one of the old manufacturing companies in the U.S., starting as a wagon maker in 1852. As World War II ended Studebaker seemed poised to be a leader in the auto sales race, preparing well in advance with new models and innovative designs. Indeed, one of their advertising slogans was "First by far with a post-war car." But the 1950s brought cut-throat competition in the industry as Ford and General Motors dominated sales. Numerous car companies failed during this period, including Nash, Hudson, Packard (which merged with Studebaker in 1954), and Crosley. Ironically, Studebaker was a victim of some of the same ills afflicting Detroit's "Big Three" today: high labor costs, high pension costs for retirees, quality control problems, and strong competition from other producers.

Studebaker Transtar pickup truck, V8 logo, rusting away in Vermont. Sennelier 9.5" x 4.5" landscape paper, 140 lb., watercolor, pen & ink.

Snow . . . and a bit of history

Images of Madison Square Park (and the Flatiron Building) after yesterday's snow. The statue is Chester A. Arthur, who rose to the presidency in 1881 after the assassination of James A. Garfield by a disaffected - and deranged - office seeker. It's ironic that Arthur would have to support and preside over passage of the resulting Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. As the base of the statue points out, Arthur served in the most lucrative - and perhaps most corrupt - position available in the pre-Pendleton civil service system: collector of customs for the port of New York. Traditionally, collector of customs posts around the country were handed out to the most prominent of local party leaders as rewards for significant service. Although the federal government had established a schedule of regular fees to be paid at its customs houses, the collectors presided over a shadow system of bribes and kickbacks that offered the potential for great wealth in the larger port cities. Moreover, collectors usually controlled appointments for a small army of subordinate positions, from assistant collectors down to weighers and measurers who handled incoming goods. In performing this role, customs collectors thus reinforced party loyalty at the local level.

Always the pragmatic politician, Chester A. Arthur understood that the public outcry for civil service reform following Garfield's death could not be ignored. Sure, Garfield had enjoyed little time in office (two months) before being shot by Charles Guiteau in a Washington railroad station. Nevertheless, his death four months later sparked a national outcry, and, in all likelihood, reopened the emotional wounds inflicted by Abraham Lincoln's assassination just 16 years earlier. (Ironically, Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln, was with Garfield at the station when Guiteau shot the president.)

Mind you, this issue was hardly a new one and promised to be a key issue during the Garfield administration even without the assassination. Reform-minded politicians and critics of the highly politicized civil service system had advocated creation of a merit-based system for decades. Civil service appointments usually dominated presidents' first months in office, and often proved a vexing process. As an editor with the Papers of James K. Polk, I remember Polk's oft-stated complaints about the incessant parade of office seekers who appeared at the White House, hats in hands, letters of introduction at the ready, begging for consideration. Indeed, a majority of the correspondence to Polk during his fist several months in office was penned by desperate citizens soliciting positions at every level, from consulships to village postmasters.

Ok, this doesn't have much to do with snow in Madison Square Park, but the statue of Arthur reminded me of the Garfield assassination and the campaign for civil service reform!

From the Archives at my office . . .

One would think that a New York City organization founded in 1848, one with a rich history of involvement in this neighborhood of Manhattan, might have a respectable archives cataloging its history. Unfortunately, that's not the case here. Indeed, there are official records, diaries, meeting minutes, photographs, blueprints - and god only knows what else - scattered higgledy-piggledy in drawers, closets and cabinets throughout this 1906 building.

(And I should note that this isn't unusual. As a historian I encountered soooo many institutions/associations, some with histories stretching back 200 years, that had taken little or no care in preserving their records. If you're in a business that generates a great deal of paper, you understand the dilemma. What gets saved? Sure, it's easier in a digital age. But New York City still has mobile paper-shredding trucks that shred tons of documents every day. Thus my indignation over poorly preserved and/or badly organized records is always tempered with an understanding of the difficulties inherent in the archival process.)

I found this photo tucked away in a storage cabinet, sharing space with bound copies of Harper's magazine from the 1880s and 90s. It's ca. 1910 and documents the "Free Vacation School" offered to neighborhood children. Close inspection reveals a pretty diverse group, including an African-American boy on the front row and an African-American girl at the rear. Right away one knows that this is not a southern institution! Beyond this photograph, I've seen no other records about the "Free Vacation School" program. (And I have no idea what that netting is for. Any ideas? I don't think it's a product of the "raffia" listed on the sign. In fact, the raffia makes sense in the context of the "basketry" offered as an activity for the children.) By the way, the front of the building looks exactly the same today. My office is behind the leaded-glass windows to the left. (Click on the image to view a larger version.)

Ernest Flagg

Shooting photos of interesting architectural elements recently, I ran across a couple of buildings that immediately grabbed my attention. The Singer Manufacturing Company building, a 12-story structure, was designed by Ernest Flagg and completed in 1904. Flagg's design represented a departure from the thick masonry walls and small windows that defined architectural style at the time. The Singer building would feature an innovative structure of iron and glass, with floor-to-ceiling windows offering far more light than other buildings. Even its colors - red and green - proved innovative exceptions to the dull marbles and granites that punctuated New York's streets.

Today the building holds co-op residential units and commercial spaces. It received a renovation in the late 1990s that included significant work on the facade.

Mills House No. 1, in photos 2 and 3, is on Bleecker St. between Sullivan and Thompson Streets. Completed in 1897, the 11-story Mills House, designed to provide inexpensive housing for men in the city, it had 1,560 single-room-occupancy spaces that were no more than 5 by 7 feet in size. When it opened, the hotel charged 20 cents a night, and 10 to 15 cents a day for meals. (Mills also built two other single-room-occupancy hotels in Manhattan.) Converted to apartments in the 1970s, Mills House No. 1 became a co-op building in the 80s.

Although I didn't know it at the time I was taking these photos, Mills House No. 1 was also designed by Ernest Flagg. This structure doesn't possess the more innovative design elements of the later Singer Manufacturing Company building, but did reflect Flagg's keen interest in "fireproof construction, daylight, ventilation and housing policy."

Andrew Wyeth, 1917-2009

The New York Times has reported the January 15th death of painter Andrew Wyeth, one of my favorite artists. His work depicted a distinctly "American" landscape, and often the harsh realities of rural life, especially in his native eastern Pennsylvania. I'm naturally attracted to his watercolors, which often possessed a non-watercolor look because of his masterful use of the drybrush technique. He also favored use of egg tempera, an ancient, difficult medium (developed centuries before the invention of oil-based paints) that conveys an unmistakable look and depth to his works. (Another American favorite and Wyeth contemporary, George Tooker, also uses this egg tempera medium.) To read the Times full obituary for Wyeth and see a slideshow of some of his more famous paintings, follow the Times link above.

In the "Found Photo" Department . . .

I found this photograph for sale at a weekend outdoor market in Soho. Although I didn't buy it, I couldn't resist snapping a clandestine picture. From the men's clothing and the trappings of Eastern Orthodoxy, it looks to be early 20th century, pre-revolutionary Russian. There's cyrillic text at the bottom but no date. What's the occasion? A wedding? I'm not really sure, but would appreciate input from anyone who is more familiar with Russian custom and dress. Is this photograph here in New York because a family member - even someone in this group - joined the immigrant tide to the United States? This would have been at the height of Eastern European/U.S. immigration, so it's entirely plausible. Like so many of these "found" photos, it tells so many possible stories - but answers so few of our questions as observers.

Sohmer Piano Building

Originally known as the Sohmer Piano Building, this beauty at 22nd Street and Fifth Avenue was constructed in 1897. (The company made pianos at its Astoria, Queens factory until 1982.) A 13-story Beaux-Arts landmark, its is only 29 feet wide (facing Fifth Avenue) but 120 feet deep on its 22nd Street side. Among numerous other tenants, it housed the offices of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1941 until 1960. After its restoration several years ago, the Sohmer Piano Building now holds offices and luxury condos.

Chelsea Synagogue

This is Congregation Emunath Israel ("Faith of Israel"), located on 23rd St. near the famed Chelsea Hotel. The building was constructed in 1863 for the Third Reformed Presbyterian Church. Congregation Emunath Israel was founded in 1865 on 18th St., moved to West 29th St., and relocated to this 23rd St. site in 1920. The synagogue runs Project ORE (Project Outreach to the Elderly), a program that founded to help homeless Jews in the community. Offering free kosher lunches, Torah classes, and counseling, Project ORE now also reaches out to non-Jews in the neighborhood.

Amtrak, Part 2: Richmond

Richmond offered some of the most interesting scenery from the train, mainly because the route took us through the Shockoe Bottom district, one of the city's oldest neighborhoods. Located along the James River, this area is full of old warehouses and buildings associated with the city's tobacco industry. The Lucky Strike complex was particularly impressive. Constructed in two phases - 1912 and 1929 - these buildings housed the headquarters of the American Tobacco Company, but until recently have stood vacant for decades. Over the last 25 years Shockoe Bottom has been transformed from blighted to reborn, as investment and restoration have made the area a hot spot for restaurants and shops. Now the Lucky Strike buildings will join the renaissance as they are converted to luxury residential units, a far better fate than the wrecking ball, which has claimed much of Richmond's riverfront building stock thanks to flooding and neglect.

Amtrak, Part 1

The boys and I traveled down to Virginia on Amtrak last Monday, returning Saturday over the same route with major stops in Richmond, Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia (with a host of smaller, shorter stops as well). I was struck by several things during these eight-hour journeys. First, Amtrak was a perfectly pleasant experience. I didn't have to drive, making periodic stops for snacks and bathroom breaks. Second, the cost was reasonable - and far, far cheaper than flying. And third, the scenery was interesting, offering up a view of the country one wouldn't see on a highway or from the air. (In the year 20 years following World War II, the railroads trumpeted this very asset - scenery - in their attempts to combat decreasing ridership and compete with the legions of new car owners who were taking advantage of cheap gas and interstate highways.) Our route took us through bits of the old industrial heart of the northeast corridor and upper South. Richmond and Baltimore in particular presented poignant images of blighted industry and decaying residential sections far removed from the auto-fed suburbs. I've never seen so many empty warehouses, rusting, grass-filled rail spurs, and quiet factories. Seeing the back side of Washington's southeast section, with the Capitol dome and other government buildings rising in the background, reminded me of the city's older, more southern qualities, while giving those of us on the train a picture of the stark poverty missed by the armies of tourists. Of course, most people on the train were probably less enamored with the industrial scenery and more appreciative of the nice views around the Rappahanock, Potomac, and Delaware Rivers. But for a historian long interested in the contrast between rural and urban, pastoral and industrial, the trip offered views well worth the ticket price.

I'm breaking these photos into several groups, from these sepia-toned images, to color in later posts, for example.

St. John's Church Cemetery

After over a week away from home and this blog, I'm back with camera full of photos that includes cemeteries, views from an Amtrak train speeding south to Virginia and back to New York City, as well as views of Brooklyn shot from an elevated subway line. Although the trip was nice, it's always a relief to get back to New York City. For those of you who don't appreciate urban living, it might be hard to understand the appeal of Manhattan as a permanent resident. But having grown to enjoy the city after a decade in Greenwich Village, I can take pleasure in its vibrancy and diversity - as well as the convenience of walking to whatever I need.

These photos are from one of my favorite destinations near my parents' home - St. John's Episcopal Church, which I've previously featured on the blog. Although the parish was founded in 1643, this building, the second on the site, was constructed in 1755 and is now on the National Register.

I had glanced at the headstones before but hadn't really taken note of their inscriptions, having usually been in a hurry to photograph the building itself while anxious kids waited in the car. Look closely at the second photo below and you'll see the reference to a Confederate "patriot" who died in the Civil War "to save his country's honour." The third and fourth photos tell a different story. With three members of the same family, including a five-month-old son, dying over an eight-day span in 1836, one suspects they were victims of some sort of illness, in a scenario so typical of the period. (The top left photo I selected because of its Masonic symbol, not something often seen on local stones from this period. If you click on this image and view the larger version, notice the detail in the carving, as well as the small spots of lichen starting to grow on the stone. The second photo (above right) stands out because it's the marker for a three-year-old, a detail my younger son noticed while marching through the rows of stones. He's now accustomed to seeing the graves of small children in our cemetery travels and I've tried to explain that childhood mortality was a common thing in previous centuries. One has to wonder if this child's death was caused by illness - or was a result of the war.)