Insulters

H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, iconoclast editors of Smart Set, delight in insulting their fellow men. Each month they proclaim in Smart Set their candidacy for the Presidency and Vice Presidency of the United States and announce various platform planks, of which the following are typical:

" They agree to order the Hon. Charles E. Hughes seized by the military, to have his whiskers cut off, and to have photographs of him made and distributed, that the world may see what he actually looks like."

" Mr. Mencken agrees, if elected, to deport the whole Roosevelt family. Mr. Nathan dissents on the ground that the act would be unconstitutional." " They agree that Major-General Wood should be provided for, but disagree as to the means. Mr. Mencken favors keeping the General in the Philippines; Mr. Nathan advocates getting him a job as an archbishop in Soviet Russia."

" They agree, while traveling, to stay in their seats in the Pullman, and not to walk out onto the back platform and wave their handkerchiefs idiotically at the yokels." (Insult to Mr. Harding.)

" Neither of them is an enthusiastic reader of detective stories." (Insult to ex-President Wilson.)

" They agree to continue Sir John Pershing as commanding general of the Army and to give him ten additional medals, provided only that he stops making idiotic speeches and resigns from the Elks."

" They promise to change the face of the Goddess of Liberty as it appears on the present coinage, so that the lady will look less like a senescent schoolmarm and more like a cutie." (Insult to the Goddess.)

" They agree to invite Lord Robert Cecil, or his successor, to luncheon at the White House, and to have ten grains of cyanide of potassium introduced into his consomme."

" They agree to kiss no babies--that is, under the age of 17."

In the current issue of Smart Set Mr. Mencken reviews A Man from Maine, biography (TIME, April 14) of Cyrus H. K. Curtis by Mr. Curtis' son-in-law, Edward W. Bok. After speaking of Mr. Curtis as "the Philadelphia Barabbas" and of Mr. Bok (whom he insists on calling Edwin W. Bok) as " a quite unusual Babbitt," Mr. Mencken concludes with this indictment: " A bad, bad book. An incredibly mushy, banal, tedious and preposterous book."

Thomas Nelson Page was Woodrow Wilson's ambassador to the Court of Savoy. Of Thomas Nelson Page : a Memoir of a Virginia Gentleman by Rosewell Page, Mr. Mencken writes: " Let the Scribners take the gold-mounted custard pie for printing the worst biography every heard of."

Slightly over a year ago Mr. Mencken was well described in the columns of The New York World: " A Boy I cannot Hand Much to Is Henry Louis Mencken, who Is Sadly lacking in Respect For the Anointed and Elect; He has no Proper Reverence for A Congressman or Senator! Great Names that Time can never dim

Anathemata are to him: "Pish Posh!" he labels in a Rage The writings of that Worthy Sage, That Man of Superhuman Brain, The Syndicated Doctor Crane, And loudly voices his Dislike For the Reverend Doctor H. van Dyke.

The homely sentiments expressed In Poetry by Edgar Guest, Inspiring and Uplifting Thought Of 0. S. Marden go for naught; This Unregenerate Young Cuss Is utterly Impervious To what is recognized by You And Me as Beautiful and True. Right Thinkers all are in accord That such a one should be Abhorred; All Forward Looking persons Shun A Boy who never will be One Hundred Per Cent. American When he grows up to be a Man."