Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
1039
AUTHOR:
Henry Louis Mencken (1880–1956)
QUOTATION:
The legislature, like the executive, has ceased to be even the creature of the people: it is the creature of pressure groups, and most of them, it must be manifest, are of dubious wisdom and even more dubious honesty. Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner. The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle—a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game…. If the right pressure could be applied to him he would be cheerfully in favor of chiropractic, astrology or cannibalism.
ATTRIBUTION:
H. L. MENCKEN, “The Library,” The American Mercury, May 1930, p. 123.
This view of Mencken’s comes from his book review of The Dissenting Opinions of Mr. Justice Holmes (1930).
