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Explaining A Misquotation To the Emiob of >The Evening Sun—Sit;
I beg to call your attention to an error in the last section of my article, "The Shore and Mencken," as printed in your issue of December 22. Mencken',s reply to the imaginary question, "Why do you continue to live in the United States?" (Prejudices, Fifth Series, p. 304), was "Why do men go to zoos?" and not "Why do monkeys live in zoos?" as erroneously printed. The error might have been mine in hurriedly copying the quotation. However that may be, it seems to impaif materially the relevancy of the paragraph that follows.
E. Clarke Fontaine.
Chestertown, Md., Dec. 22.
Some Things Mencken Likes
To the Editor of The Evening Sun—Sir: Mr. E. Clarke Fontaine gives ample proof of his ignorance by saying in his article on H. L. Mencken, "It is very difficult to discover from his articles anything he likes." As a matter of fact, all of Mr. Mencken's articles have shown that he likes Governor Ritchie; that he likes Maryland as a whole; that he likes most Democrats; that he likes the old-time beer; that he likes the city of Baltimore; that he likes Senator Tydings; that he likes the Vermont hills; that he likes "Al" Smith; that he likes the Bach festivals in Bethlehem, Pa.; that he likes Sir Oswald Mosley, the British statesman, 'etc. And, if I wished to draw on his books, I could elaborate upon the fact that among litterateurs he likes Ibsen, Nietzsche, Shaw, VanWyck Brooks, Ring Lardner and George Ade, to mention but a few.
It is odd that all of the pasquinades about H. L. M. have come either from Eastern Shore backwoodsmen or from Baltimore nonentities. I have yet to see an. article slandering him from a fellow-Marylander of accepted intelligence and esteem. But the people who praise him—what of them? In that respect, laudatory words about Mr. Mencken have been uttered by such nationally known literary people as James Branch Cabell, Carl VanDoren, Sinclair Lewis, the late James Gibbon Huneker, and Dr. Will Durant, who states in his latest book that "H. L. Mencken is the most influential and original of American critics." Thus I pay no heed to the abusive words of jackasses. Louis Kraus, Jr.
Baltimore, Dec. 22.
Instructing A Self-Styled "Damned Yankee"
To the Editor of The Evening Sun— Sir: Zounds, sir, does the cosmopolitan "Bar-cus" mean that ,she has never heard of "one Mencken" before visiting the wilds of "one" Baltimore City? If not, she should be advised to attend a year more of school (assuming, of course, that she at one time attended some school) to be taught the fundamentals of modern literature.
The lady seems never to have heard of "one" G. B. Shaw, or "one" H. G. Wells, or "one" Eugene O'Neill. These men, in her estimation, are like Mr. Mencken, "critters." "Critters," I might add, is a word of sectional use only and so is hardly befitting a vocabulary so learned as "the Damned Yankee's." But to return to the discussion, I might inform the "Yank" that in the eyes of the world, these men are the leaders in their respective branches of literature. Further, Mencken not only is the foremost international essayist and editor of the American Mercury but he has even undertaken to defend a most sorry subject . . . that of justifying the reason for the "female of the species" in one of his numerous books called "In Defense of Women." It seems queer that a woman should attack the only real man of letters to stand so well on so unstable a platform! T. Arthur Cadwell.
Baltimore, Dec. 22.
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