Religious Orgy in Tennessee, A [Paperback]

I'm not especially an admirer of Mencken. He bothers me for much the same reason that Oscar Wilde does: both have a tendency to shoot for the biting witticism, the memorable bon mot, rather than depth. They're sometimes fun to read, but they rarely serve up anything one can sink one's teeth into.

Mencken's A Religious Orgy in Tennessee, a collection of columns about the Scope trial written for "The Baltimore Sun," "The Nation," and "The American Mercury," is more than just entertaining, though. It offers a look at early twentieth-century Christian fundamentalism (Mencken frequently, and incorrectly, calls it "evangelicalism") that is chilling not only for its own intrinsic stupidity--at one point, Mencken cites a woman fundamentalist who boasts that she has no books in her home and that she hates all books but the Bible (p. 54)--but also because it clearly demonstrates that fundamentalism than and fundamentalism now are essentially the same. The fundamentalist hatred of learning, the dogmatic zeal to condemn any theory or opinion not authenticated by scripture, the parochial refusal to look beyond sectarian norms: everything that Mencken encountered in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925 can be attributed to American fundamentalism today. The only difference is that today's fundamentalism is much more organized and media-savvy.

Three chapters in particular stand out: Chapter 2, in which Mencken profiles the fundamentalist mind (calling it "Homo neanderthalensis"); Chapter 7, in which he describes a late night revival; and Chapter 16, in which he defends freedom of thought. The first of these three is especially fine, while the second is one of the best pieces of on-the-spot reporting Mencken ever wrote.

This edition is troublesome. There are numerous typos in the text, and explanatory footnotes for names dropped by Mencken--names that would've been familiar to his 1925 readers but are mysterious today--are at best haphazard. But for all that, these columns are well worth reading. They have far more than mere historical interest--and that's profoundly disturbing.
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* p. 111

If the reader is looking for a play-by-play account of the Scopes Trial, then you've selected the wrong book. I recommend "Summer for the Gods" by Edward L. Larson. Mr. Mencken's dispatches were his arguments about the folly of the proceedings, William Jennings Bryan, the religious "yokels," and the pretzel logic used to refute evolution. These columns are well-reasoned works of metaphorical art. This small jewel compiles all his editorials concerning the trial as well as over a dozen B&W photos and the full court transcript exchange between Bryan and Clarence Darrow. (Be prepared. Bryan comes across as a confused dunderhead.) It even has Mencken's nasty, no-holds-barred obituary about Bryan. Even over 80 years later and I'm still shocked at the viciousness of the author's attack on a person who wasn't alive to defend himself. But to understand why Mencken took such an approach, please read the outstanding biography "Mencken:The American Iconoclast" by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers. People who are insecure and hate anything that questions or ridicules their beliefs should stay far away from this wonderful book. You'll just blow a blood vessel or two. All other readers should quickly get their hands on a copy. Mr. Mencken's pieces are still very relevant today.

I am a huge fan of H. L. Mencken and this addition to the library doesn't disappoint. Mencken was one of America's most respected, despised, and feared journalists. As the number one literary enemy of the fundamentalist most of his career, Mencken was in his element at the John Scopes trial that pitted the science of evolution against the mythology of fundamentalist Christianity.

In 1925, Mencken drew the nation's attentions to a trial taking place in Dayton, Tennessee that would test the boundaries of a new law (the Butler Act) that prohibited the teaching of: "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." One enterprising individual set about testing the law by asking a local teacher (a friend sympathetic with the cause) to teach Darwin's theory of evolution. That teacher was 24-year-old John T. Scopes. Lasting eight days in the courtroom and eleven days in total, the weather was painfully hot probably irritating Mencken even more.

Writing for the Baltimore Evening Sun, Mencken's verbal energy and acute wit are stunning (no journalist, pundit, or commentator today even comes close). And much of his sarcastic eloquence comes, of course, at the expense of the key figure at the trial William Jennings Bryan. As the billing promises, these reports are by the most famous newspaperman in American history are vivid, highly intelligent, scathingly honest, and hysterically funny.

Mencken saw the transparent attempt at keeping evolution from being taught in schools contemptible, and the Scopes trial as ample opportunity to ridicule the "yokels," "half-wits," and "buffoons" who believe that man is not a mammal and the earth is less then 6,000 years old. But Mencken left his most venomous criticisms for those representing the prosecution, especially Democratic presidential candidate and fundamentalist Christian William Jennings Bryan. Five days after the end of the trial, Bryan died. In writing one of three scathing Bryan obituaries, Mencken opines:

"The meaning of religious freedom, I fear, is sometimes greatly misapprehended. It is taken to be some sort of immunity, not merely from governmental control but also from public opinion. A dunderhead gets himself a long-tailed coat, rises behind the sacred desk, and emits such bilge as would gag a Hottentot. Is it to pass unchallenged? If so, then what we have is not religious freedom at all, but the most intolerable and outrageous variety of religious despotism. Any fool, once he is admitted to the wholly orders, becomes infallible. Any half-wit, by the simple device of ascribing his delusions to revelation, takes on an authority that is denied to all the rest of us."

"I do not know how many Americans entertain the ideas defended so ineptly by poor Bryan, but probably the number is very large...though they are thus held to be sound by millions, these ideas remain mere rubbish. Not only are they not supported by the known facts; they are in direct contravention of the known facts. No man whose information is sound and whose mind functions normally can conceivable credit them. They are the products of ignorance and stupidity, either or both."

"What should be a civilized man's attitude to such superstition? It seems to me that the only attitude possible to him is one of contempt. If he admits that they have any intellectual integrity whatever, he admits that he himself has none. If he pretends to a respect for those who believe in them, he pretends falsely, and sinks almost to their level. When he is challenged he must answer honestly, regardless of tender feelings. That is what Darrow did at Dayton, and the issue plainly justified the act. Bryan went there in a hero's shinning armor, bent deliberately upon a gross crime against sense. He came out a wrecked and preposterous charlatan, his tail between his legs. Few Americans have ever done so much for their country in a whole lifetime as Darrow did in two hours."

This volume includes all of Mencken's daily reports for The Baltimore Sun, as well as additional stories filed for The Nation and The American Mercury. It also includes his coverage of Bryan's death just days after the trial, plus numerous rare photos, and the full transcript of Darrow's historic cross-examination of Bryan. Oh wouldn't Mencken have a field day with with our fearless fundamentalist leader were he alive today! Alas, journalists like Mencken just don't exist anymore. Highly recommended reading and very contemporary as it seems little has changed in the "bible belt."