H.L. Mencken is famous for his smackdowns of politicians and ridicule of government and of much of American culture. But he also offered sage advice for citizens judging officialdom itching for carnage.

On May 9, 1939, The Baltimore Sun published Mencken's essay on "The Art of Selling War." This piece, included in the Second Mencken Chrestomathy published in 1995, deserves a far higher position in the Mencken and antiwar pantheon.

In words that are painfully relevant for today's news, Mencken warned, "The fact that all the polls run heavily against American participation in the threatening European war is not to be taken seriously." Mencken continued:

"Wars are not made by common folks, scratching for livings in the heat of the day, they are made by demagogues infesting palaces…The very unpopularity of war makes people ready to believe, when they suddenly confront it, that it has been thrust upon them…because their own demagogues have been pretending, all the while, to be trying to prevent it."