The Last Gasp
H.L. Mencken
November 1, 1920
Tomorrow the dirty job. I shall be on my knees all night, praying for the
strength to vote for Gamakiel. What ass first let loose the doctrine that
the suffrage is a high boon and voting a noble privilege? Looking back
over 19 years I can recall few times when I voted with anything
approaching exhilaration -- maybe the two times I voted for the late
Major-General Roosevelt, a fellow who always delighted me -- the
mountebank inordinate and almost fabulous, the great reductio ad
absurdum of democracy, and even of civilization. Tomorrow my one
cross mark with joy in it will go to the account of the Hon. W. Ashbie
Hawkins, candidate for the United States Senate. This Mr. Hawkins I did
not know, and have never knowingly witnessed. My decision to vote for him
has been reached by pure reason. He at least has an intelligible
platform: justice and self-determination for our fellow-Christians of the
darker side of the moon. What is John Walter's platform? I have yet to
hear it. In the Senate he has raised protective coloration to the height
of a grand passion. As for the Hon. Old Man Weller, I shall desert him
for the Moor because he is a pussyfooter. His supporters go about
whispering that he is as wet as the Hon. Sam Appleby or the Hon. Bob
Crain, but he seems to lack the courage to say so himself. As between
such a pianissimo wet and a frank and honest dry, I am in favor of
the dry. The Hon. Mr. Hawkins, I assume, is wet. If not, then a curse
upon him.
In my Congressional district, the number of which I forget, the
candidates are the Hon. J. Charles Linthicum, the Hon. William O. Atwood
and Dr. med. Knickman. The Hon. Mr. Atwood I have known for many years
and hold in high esteem. He is honest and intelligent and the full milk
of human kindness. Unluckily, he is dry, and so I am forced to hatchet
him, and even to speak against him. Remember this Mr. Atwood. If you are
dry, vote for him; if you are wet, pass auf! He is no pussyfooter.
This leaves Charlie and the doctor. Charlie I have nothing against, save
that I am tired of voting for him. I shall cast my ballot for the doctor.
He is as wet as the Hon. Mr. Atwood is dry. My agents tell me, indeed,
that he is the wettest candidate ever heard of; compared to him, even Sam
Appleby is dry. It seems impossible, but I simply tell you what I
hear.
The loans, I suppose, will all go through. It is very seldom that a loan
is defeated at the polls. The argument that its rejection will mean an
increase in direct taxation is very potent with the small householders,
who are chronically opressed by the extortionate taxation. The taxes on
an average two-story house are now at least twice as much as they ought
to be; many a poor man, having struggled for years to pay for one, now
finds himself scarcely able to keep it up. The honest working man is also
always in favor of loans; they bring him jobs. The net effect of a public
improvement loan, in fact, despite the enthusiasm of the small
householders, is to take money away from the haves and hand it over to
the have-nots. It is simply a device to mortgage thrift. The more money a
man saves, the larger his relative share of the ultimate cost. Borrowed
money is always freely spent.
In the present case, the loans are also vigorously supported on
boomiferous grounds. The argument is that they will attract more capital
and population to Baltimore and so cause the city to go on increasing in
size. This argument, so far, has failed to penetrate my native
skepticism. I am far from convinced that the doubling of the city's
population would accomplish any intelligible good. The boomers crow every
time they bring a new factory to Baltimore, and the newspapers diligently
applaud. But the more one ponders upon it, the more nonsensical it seems.
Consider, for example, the great coup lately hymned: the capture of a
huge oil refinery for Highlandtown, the second largest in the world.
Imagine this refinery in full operation. It will convert a whole section
of the new city into one vast stench; it will ruin a vast tract for all
other purposes; worse, it will bring in a horde of low-grade laborers and
so diminish the general social and intellectual level of the town,
already low enough, God knows. You and I will be taxed to pay cops to
club and murder those wild Slovaks and Slovenes and to pay firemen to put
out the weekly fire at the refinery, and to pave streets to reach it.
True enough, the refinery will also pay taxes, but it will not pay enough
to cover the communal cost of maintaining it. What benefit will it bring
to any civilized Baltimorean?
Here, of course, I preach treason. The principle that every new factory
is a boon to civilization is a settled one in American thinking. This
principle deserves a more scientific examination that it has ever got. If
you regard it as beyond cavil, then I advise you to read a small book by
Ralph Adams Cram, entitled "Walled Towns." Mr. Cram is not
scientific, but he is at least eloquent. He is the same Cram who designed
St. Thomas' Church in New York. An artist, and hence an idiot. I
apologize for mentioning him, and for seeming to approve him. I shall be
glad to make amends by writing a poem in praise of the new Highlandtown
refinery when it is opened at last and its pall of imperial smoke begins
to settle over East Baltimore. Let us have, not merely one such factory,
but a dozen. Out in the slums of Southwest Baltimore, where I have lived
for years, there are factories which exhale an odor of decaying proteids.
A few whiffs of the more volatile mineral oils would give me some relief.
Across the street from my house is a city square and in the next block is
a convent. I advocate donating the square to the guano factory, and
dispossessing the holy nuns in favor of a slaughter-house. The squeal of
the pigs as their throats were slit would certainly give more thrills to
a forward-looking man than the present somewhat melancholy tolling of the
convent bell. Every squeal would represent so many dollars -- so much
more on the weekly bank statement, so many more workers to patronize the
movies and buy phonograph records, so much more work for labor
leaders.
But this takes us far from Gamaliel, and the eve of his annunciation.
Unless all signs fail, he will be elected tomorrow by colossal plurality.
The solemn and holy referendum will thrust upon us, certainly for four
years and maybe eight, a ruler with the high ideals of a lodge joiner and
the general intellectual lift and punch of a mackerel. Vox populi, vox
Dei. Maybe so. But -- quam incomprehensibilia sunt judicia ejus,
et investigabiles viae ejus! Let us hold our noses, and do our
duty.
... But wouldn't Jim be less painful, less rasping to the higher cerebral
centers, less horribly ipecacuanhaistic? Alas, if Gamaliel is an oil
refinery, then Jim os a soap factory. ... A sweet choice indeed. Oh, long
may it wave!
--
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