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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 13, Statesmen, Chapter 14, American Immortals.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Punishment for crime is too often what, according to Mencken?
(a) Cruel and unusual.
(b) Effective, which results in the murder of the human spirit.
(c) The product of poor people exerting influence over the rich.
(d) Hypocritical and dishonest.

2. What is Mencken's assessment of Abraham Lincoln?
(a) He was a bumbler and not fit for office.
(b) He was an out-and-out racist.
(c) He was a practical politician of great talent and rhetoric.
(d) He was a hard-living chauvinist dinosaur.

3. What period in history does Mencken refer to as "New Deal No. 1"?
(a) Britain in the 1910s.
(b) America in the 1770s.
(c) North Africa in the 1900s.
(d) France in the 1840s.

4. Mencken compares Theodore Roosevelt's political ideas to which other politician's?
(a) Germany's Kaiser.
(b) England's Queen.
(c) The United State's William Jennings Bryan.
(d) A Japanese feudal lord.

5. What is the purpose of monogamy, according to Mencken?
(a) Marriage serves to protect society from itself.
(b) Marriage serves to emphasize romantic love.
(c) Marriage serves to kill and restrain passion.
(d) Marriage serves to enhance and legitimize passion.

Short Answer Questions

1. How did morality come to be, according to Mencken?

2. How does Mencken define government?

3. Which is NOT one of the features Mencken imagines for the Confederacy, had it survived the Civil War?

4. How has Mencken organized his book?

5. Mencken sees that too often any discussion of suicide is rooted in what incorrect notion?

(see the answer key)

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