Quote of the Day (H. L. Mencken, Anticipating One GOP Convention, Then Another)

“At first blush, the Republican National Convention at Cleveland next week promises to be a very dull show….The whole proceedings, in fact, will be largely formal. Some dreadful mountebank in a long-tailed coat will open them with a windy speech; then another mountebank will repeat the same rubbish in other words.”—H. L. Mencken, “The Clowns Rush In” (column dated June 2, 1924), in On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe, edited by Malcolm Moos (2006)

In the summer of 1924, the middle of the Prohibition Era, many Americans were dying for a drink. This year, with another convention in Cleveland, many Americans are still dying for a drink—for other (but a thousand times more valid, not to mention obvious) reasons.