"It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis

[cynatnite]

I just started reading this and I can't tell you how weird it is to read much of what's been discussed that's happening to this country. Here is a small passage. Keep in mind this was written in 1935.

"The answer to that," suggested Doremus Jessup, "if Mr. Falck will forgive me, is 'the hell it can't!' Why, there's no country in the world that can get more hysterical--yes, or more obsequious!--than America. Look how Huey Long became absolute monarch over Louisiana, and how the Right Honorable Mr. Senator Berzelius Windrip owns his State. Listen to Bishop Prang and Father Coughlin on the radio--divine oracles, to millions. Remember how casually most Americans have accepted Tammany grafting and Chicago gangs and the crookedness of so many of President Harding's appointees? Could Hitler's bunch, or Windrip's, be worse? Remember the Kuklux Klan? Remember our war hysteria, when we called sauerkraut 'Liberty cabbage' and somebody actually proposed calling German measles 'Liberty measles'? And wartime censorship of honest papers? Bad as Russia!"

"Remember our kissing the--well, the feet of Billy Sunday, the million-dollar evangelist, and of Aimée McPherson, who swam from the Pacific Ocean clear into the Arizona desert and got away with it? Remember Voliva and Mother Eddy? . . . Remember our Red scares and our Catholic scares, when all well-informed people knew that the O.G.P.U. were hiding out in Oskaloosa, and the Republicans campaigning against Al Smith told the Carolina mountaineers that if Al won the Pope would illegitimatize their children? Remember Tom Heflin and Tom Dixon? Remember when the hick legislators in certain states, in obedience to William Jennings Bryan, who learned his biology from his pious old grandma, set up shop as scientific experts and made the whole world laugh itself sick by forbidding the teaching of evolution? . . . Remember the Kentucky night-riders? Remember how trainloads of people have gone to enjoy lynchings? Not happen here? Prohibition--shooting down people just because they might be transporting liquor--no, that couldn't happen in America! Why, where in all history has there ever been a people so ripe for a dictatorship as ours! We're ready to start on a Children's Crusade--only of adults--right now, and the Right Reverend Abbots Windrip and Prang are all ready to lead it!"

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301001h.html

This doesn't sound much different than today.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. Hey! I'm only on page 20

no spoilers, kay? :hi:

[devilgrrl]

2. Chilling isn't it...

I also had to keep reminding myself that the book was written in 1935. Freaked me out! :scared:

[oldtime dfl_er]

3. I just got mine in the mail!

Planning to start it tomorrow!

Please sign our guestbook: www.ThankYouRFK.com

[Pachamama]

4. Great book...a must read! n/t

[cynatnite]

5. Powerful reading and I can't stop.

It's damn good. Jessup is going to be one of the most memorable characters I've ever read. I'm reading online, but I'm going to buy the book. I'll read it again.

So much of the rhetoric in this book is relevant to today. I can't recommend it enough.

[libnnc]

6. gonna buy it tomorrow...

thanks for reminding me.

[tenshi816]

7. One thing that struck me reading it

is just exactly how easy it would be for America to become a complete fascist state before the populace caught on to it, and by the time they did it would be too late.

[Kurovski]

8. K&R.(nt)

[Minnesota Libra]

9. I've got to read this - it sounds very good, thanks for the link nt

[FloridaPat]

10. Same here. Thanks

[RhodaGrits]

11. Kerry had it in his book stack on his desk...

during an interview while campaigning. There was some discussion here and I read it then. It is powerful, frightening and is a "must read".

[Roland99]

12. This seems to get posted every couple of months or so. Love it every time!

:D

[Pab Sungenis]

13. Does anyone know if the copyright has expired?

If the book is now in the Public Domain, I think a new stage adaptation, brought up to date, is more than called for.

[mcscajun]

17. Sinclair Lewis died in 1951, so yes, "It Can't Happen Here"

is in public domain.

It's definitely time.

[unblock]

14. "liberty measles"!

:rofl:

[atommom]

15. It is a great read. Buzz Windrip seems far too familiar.

The main difference between his world and ours is that he hammered his agenda through faster.

[FSogol]

16. Excellent book. I think Sinclar spelled Buzz wrong.

It should end with a -sh.