more mencken and nathan

    The American Credo consists of all and only the beliefs that all Americans share, the apothegms or truisms endorsing which constitutes american identity, more or less, all of them entirely false, of course. How about (155): "That the extinction of the Indian has been a deplorable thing." (114) "That the editor of a woman's magazine is always a lizzie." (!) (105) "That a negro's vote may always be readily bought for a dollar." Or (114) (79) "That a member of the Masons cannot be hanged." (175) "That a man will do anything for the woman he loves."Every single one of these has a subversive or progressive reading precisely in its various transgressions and the ways they are shaped. But they are the words of a man who essentially controlled his own press and had given himself permission to say whatever he wanted to say, in whatever manner he deemed most amusing. That actually takes tremendous guts.