"This nation is like all the others that have been spewed upon the earth - ready to shout for any cause that will tickle its vanity of fill its pockets. What a hell of a Heaven it will be when they get all those hypocrites assembled there!" [For now, ANON]

Every culture, at every time, needs a critic. Otherwise, the people of that culture become overconfident and, often enough, downright cocky. They get a overbearing sense of worth and begin to have an overinflated view of their place in the historical scheme of things. With this delusion in place, they begin to assume they are a noble advance on their predecessors and even superior to their contemporaries of other cultures. When allowed to reach full bloom, the citizenry actually can be convinced (with well-placed propaganda) that they have reached the pinnacle of human civilization. And, since the species homo erectus are, unique among this planet’s animals, unusually prone to preening self-aggrandizing, a sufficiently settled collection of these (often enough called a "nation") come to hold themselves as first and best among the tribes which share the lands on the earth. The Greeks, Romans, Chinese, French and, God Knows, the English have all followed these patterns at one time or another in their long histories. Heck, the French (whose national motto should be: "First in boiling snails, last in self-defense") still today and, despite all evidence to the contrary, feel they are the center of culture in the known world.

In my opinion, the French have managed to cling to their distinctive national delusion because they never were really blessed with a decent gadfly. Greece had Socrates, Rome had Cicero, and England had Samuel Johnson and, later, George Bernard Shaw. I doubt if the Chinese had a decent critic since they remained boringly cocky until Japan came knocking in 1937. Then and only then were they made aware that they probably had a few things to work on. France, well, France had Voltaire but that was a very, very long time ago. France, first, last and always, is (tragically) inhabited by the French. Though France is still recognized (by some) as the home of high fashion they have yet to learn the invaluable lesson that you can’t make a silk purse out a sow’s ear. If they had an effective and diligent commentator, they might realize that uncomfortable fact. But, then on second thought, given that they are French, they probably still wouldn’t.

America has been, at least compared to the French and even most other civilized nations, exquisitely blessed when it comes to having a self-sustaining crop of gadflies. These underappreciated few who, periodically, come around and knocks the stilts out from under our over-reaching, swaggering egos, our sense of being the center of the universe and our never-ending feeling of "specialness." These rare blessings arrive, fortuitously, just about the time we, as a nation and a people, begin to get pathologically "puffed up," self-assured and feeling more than a little "full of our ourselves." In times when we are smugly self-satisfied and downright uppity, they pull our pants down or light a match between our toes to force us to see the (with apologies to Al Gore) inconvenient truth that we still have more than enough shortcomings, faults and idiocies to keep us humble. And, if they are really talented, maybe - just maybe - they will cause us to examine where we are headed as a civilization and consider altering course.

For a while, we really didn’t need our comeuppance. The first hundred years or so - let’s say 1750 through 1850 - we were content to just float about in the world’s pond without much of a national consciousness. If the truth be told, we were just trying to keep the French, the Spanish and the British from swallowing us whole and making us colonies yet again. We were a humble tribe and were tame enough not to make too much noise or take anything for granted. In those early times, we really didn’t need any homegrown critics. Other than an occasional tinge of the "exceptionalism" mythology that was primarily bellowed from the pulpit, America was unsure enough of herself without any outside help, thank you very much. We wore European fashions, read European literature and thought European thoughts. We believed, in truth, that we were a suburb of Europe and knew our rightful spot in the pecking order: somewhere between Turkey and the Barbary Coast.

However, the baby grew up. After the Civil War, America began to feel her bulging muscles and, like a teenager in the psychosis of a hormonal surge, her head swelled with her muscles. And, then, the worst of all things happened: the uncouth, rough-cut, ungainly adolescent found out she was rich! The California Gold Rush (1849) and the Comstock Lode (1878) put a jingle in the pockets of the barely civilized juvenile-delinquent-in-training. And that, dear reader, is never a good thing. Teenagers with too much money are like drunks locked up overnight in a brewery. Just like the drunks, we started partying.

Enter "The Gilded Age," a national frat party, happy hour, Cinco de Mayo and Spring Break all rolled into one. Fortunately, at the same time, the national leadership was in a partying mood and wasn’t too interested in working either. The White House was filled, after the death of Lincoln, with perhaps the longest succession of drunks, derelicts and ne’er-do-wells ever to exist. How’s this for a chorus line of ineptitude: Andrew Johnson, Ulysses Grant, Rutherford Haynes, James Garfield, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland Part Deux (when you have a harmless mediocrity, stick with it!) and William McKinley. From 1865 to the turn of the 20^th century, America was "blessed" with the longest, unbroken string of know-nothings and do-nothings the American Big Top (recently, it has come to be known as "The White House") has ever seen - 1976 to 2008 notwithstanding.

We were, for all practical purposes, college kids: we were living off our parent’s loot and without a care in the world. It was the 1960s without all that Viet Nam angst or the bugaboo of the Cold War. If it felt good, American did it. If it might feel good, America tried it. It was good times and those stuffy Europeans - once our role models for culture, fashion and literature - pulled up their stakes and began streaming across the Atlantic in droves to the new "Promised Land." Heck, even the French begrudgingly (the French were always that way) recognized that we deserved a table at supper. They faked admiration and sent us a statue that beckoned to people everywhere to come join the party. And the invitations were accepted by millions of the "tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to be free." From China and Japan to all of Europe, people heard and believed the propaganda: the streets of America were paved with gold, the fountains poured beer and anyone who worked hard could succeed. In the first decade of the 20^th century (1901-1910), nearly 9 million people immigrated to America. With land aplenty and jobs abounding, the natives scarcely noticed the invasion. Or they were too drunk to care.

Then, something tragic occurred. Another in string of benign do-nothings went and got himself shot. When McKinley was assassinated in 1901, it marked the end of the go-along-to-get-along days. When Teddy Roosevelt assumed the Presidency, he sent the band home, poured out the beer bottles and convinced America that they needed to grow up and stop sitting on the back row. America’s rightful place, according to Teddy, was charging up San Juan Hill - guns blazing - where ever there was a hill to charge up. Americans began to believe their own hype. The partying was over and it was America’s time to be adults.

With that brief history of the first 150 or so years of the United States behind us, it is time to introduce the two stars of this little excursion down memory lane. As I mentioned early on, when we young and stupid and even when we were hard-partying teenagers, we didn’t need critics. We didn’t take ourselves too seriously so why should anyone feel the need to do it for us? When we flew headlong into the 20^th century and adulthood, we became more solemn, more sober and expected everyone else in the world to stop taking us for granted. It is in times like those that gadfly larva hatch. When we take ourselves seriously the time is ripe for someone to knock us off our high horse.

We have had two - and, in my opinion, only two - such men in our history. Chronologically, they overlapped. One laid siege to American pomposity, primarily, around the turn of the 20^th century; the other took up the ramparts a couple of decades into the 1900s. Both relied on a brilliant mind, a caustic wit and a writing style that brought their criticisms down to the eyes and ears of all - from the day laborer to the university elite. Even though they blew holes in all our grand institutions and most loved them for it. Many hated them and reviled them for the same thing.

But, after all, that is what they wanted. I will take separate articles to examine them individually and, finally, reflect upon what a grand service they gave to their fellow citizens and to their country. In their honor, I will do this without a serious thought in my head. Along the way, we may see the application of their humor and brutal honesty to our modern times. If that happens, so much the better. I am sure you will agree, there is much troubling America today and, with a little daring-do, we just might see how old wine tastes from a new bottle.

I am sure that our two venerable crackpots would have a great deal to say to us. And, since no one seems to be able to say it now days without getting arrested, boycotted or hung by the P.C. police, this is our only alternative. Clearly, the job of "National Pesterer" has been vacant for far too long. Maybe we can dust off and put a shine on some old words from two old dead men who can’t be arrested and see if they can teach us anything.

I am guessing that they can. So, allow me to conjure: Let the ageless wisdom of those passed on to where thought and memory adjourn light our hearts and our minds!

Amen!