In 1956 Mencken could look back on a long and distinguished career that
included years at the top of his profession, the publication of three
volumes of memoirs, and a steady stream of journalism that made him
loved and hated, sometimes by the same person. For Minority Report, he
read through his notebooks, extracting those pieces he thought most
true, most pertinent, most precise, or most likely to blow the dust out
of a reader's brain.