If little proved sacred to Mencken, then it was for the simple reason that, as he saw things, little deserved to be.
Mencken's career generated huge disagreement and controversy during his lifetime, and the uproar has continued into the present day. In the cities, some worshiped Mencken as a demigod; in the American hinterland, others reviled him as the devil incarnate. For the distinguished critic Joseph Wood Krutch, "Mencken's was the best prose written in America during the Twentieth Century." He reigns as America's most frequently quoted author, and some readers rank him as the country's finest humorist after Mark Twain. Others, however, have judged Mencken a defectively educated bully desecrating the American language. He was likened, rabid at his typewriter, to a dog shaking a snake.
In 1926 Walter Lippmann called Mencken "the most powerful personal influence upon this whole generation of American people." His laughter has been celebrated as salubrious, and he has been extolled for his efforts to make America a saner, more civilized country. On the other hand, he has been scorned as an anti-Semite and racist. The Diary of H. L.
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