Sorry this one is so long. Believe it or not, I have tried to be
concise.
Last year, a respected friend of mine
mentioned that she was reading a book titled It Can’t Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis. She recommended it, so I read it. Even then I was amazed at parallels between
this book, published in October 1935, and current events. As time has gone by, I have only become even
more amazed, and frightened. Clifton
Fadiman wrote in a review when the book was published, “This is a book that all
Americans should read to help save the country from impending political
failures and potential tyrannies.”
The plot of the book revolves around the
actions and reactions of Doremus Jessup, a newspaper editor from Vermont, and
his family and neighbors. So if you
decide to read the book, my exposition of the situation portrayed won’t be too
much of a spoiler. But I have been
wanting and wanting to share this.
In the fictitious Presidential election
of 1936, one of the candidates is a man named Berzelius Windrip. The U.S. is still in the grip of the
Depression, and Windrip campaigns on a platform to create more economic
security. “He had thoroughly tested (but unspecified)
plans to make all wages very high and the prices of everything produced by
these same highly paid workers very low; that he was 100 per cent for Labor,
but 100 per cent against all strikes; and that he was in favor of the United
States so arming itself, so preparing to produce its own coffee, sugar,
perfumes, tweeds, and nickel instead of importing them, that it could defy the
World . . . and maybe, if that World was so impertinent as to defy America in
turn, take it over and run it properly.” He is supported by a group called the
“League of Forgotten Men.”
The one main
difference between Windrip and a certain Presidential candidate I was concerned
about last year is that Windrip had been a politician for many years before
running for President. He was a U.S.
Senator at the time of the book. Earlier
he had been the power behind the throne in his home state (never specified),
controlling a series of governors rather than running for the office
himself. Under his influence, the state
militia was quadrupled in size and the State University was the first in the
country to offer a course in Russian!
His opinion of the media was expressed in the words, “I know the Press
only too well . . . plotting how they can put over their lies.”
Windrip’s campaign was managed by Lee
Sarason, described as his “satanic secretary” who “believed now only in
resolute control by a small oligarchy.” Windrip also formed a “marching club” of men wearing military-type uniforms
and calling themselves Minute Men.
Windrip was elected by: most of the mortgaged farmers; most of the
white-collar workers who had been unemployed for 3 years, or 4, or 5; most of
those on relief, wanting more relief; most of suburbanites not able to make
their installment payments on electric washing machines; and the remnant of the
Ku Klux Klan.
Immediately after his inauguration,
Windrip proposed a measure allowing the President to govern by executive action
with the legislature having only an advisory role and the judiciary no role at
all. When his measure was roundly
defeated by Congress, Windrip sent his Minute Men to arrest a good number of
Congressmen. He also arrested prominent
religious leaders who thereafter disappeared from public view. When a troop of Minute Men were reluctant to
arrest a convent of nuns, Windrip sent another troop to arrest those rebellious
M.M.s and had 1 in every 3 executed to enforce discipline.
He appointed to his cabinet: Secretary of State – his former secretary Lee
Sarason, who also took the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Minute Men;
Secretary of the Treasury – Webster R. Skittle, president of a St. Louis bank,
who had once been indicted on a charge of defrauding the government on his
income tax, but he had been acquitted, more or less; Secretary of War – Colonel
Osceola Luthorne, whose title came from his position on the honorary staff of the
Governor of Tennessee, and a friend and fellow campaigner of Windrip.
He then declared martial law, although
only for the duration of the “crisis.”
All of this happened in the first 8 days
of his administration.
“Despite strikes and riots all over the
country, bloodily put down by the Minute Men, Windrip’s power in Washington was
maintained. The most liberal four
members of the Supreme Court resigned and were replaced by surprisingly unknown
lawyers who called President Windrip by his first name. A number of Congressmen were still being
‘protected’ in the DC jail; others had seen the blinding light forever shed by
the goddess Reason and happily returned to the Capitol.”
He then proceeded to reorganize the
nation into 8 administrative provinces, each with districts, counties, and
townships. Doremus was now living in the
Northeast Province, District 3, County B, township of Beulah, and over him were
a provincial commissioner, a district commissioner, a county commissioner, and
assistant commissioner for Beulah, all appointed by Windrip, with their Minute
Men guards and emergency military judges.
Most of the National Guard was taken
into the Minute Men. As unemployment
continued to be serious, the M.M. was paying well and their numbers and power
grew and grew.
By August, the League of Forgotten Men
was disbanded along with all political parties except the American Corporate
State and Patriotic Party. Labor camps
were established for confinement of criminals, rebels, and various undesirable
minorities. Inmates were sent out to
work for $1 a day, which allowed employers to fire the workers who had to be
paid real wages. Many of whom ended up
in the labor camps.
That may be enough, although it is not
the end by a long shot (go read the book).
Am I overreacting to find this book frightening? Let me tell you – when I read that Trump
might increase the Border Patrol by 5,000 and immigration officers by 10,000,
what immediately came to my mind was Windrip’s Minute Men.
All I hope is that people of good will
-- in reality, not in a novel – really can “save the country from impending
political failures and potential tyrannies.”
Thanks for “listening.” Comments
always welcome.
