It Can't Happen Here

Attempting to find some spiritual comfort, Jessup goes to both Universalist and Episcopal church services, but finds himself irritated at their self-satisfied expressions of superior goodness. Instead, he leaves and goes to see Lorinda Pike—whom he has been having an affair with for some time—at the Beulah Valley Tavern, a boarding house and tea room she co-owns.

Lorinda frets that Windrip will reverse the women’s struggle back to the 1600s, while Jessup frets that Windrip will end free speech and the free press. Jessup confides to her that he’s worried about what Windrip’s administration might do to journalists and that he’s been thinking about fleeing to Canada. Pike convinces him to stay. Jessup realizes that he has found in Pike the inner strength he’s been searching for. Jessup confides that he is fond of Emma, but wishes he could be with Lorinda, as Emma’s lack of interest in politics irritates him. Sissy, one of Jessup’s daughters, arrives at the Tavern and the three have tea together.

While pacing around, Jessup discovers Shad Ledue hiding in the bushes outside, and goes out to confront him. Ledue pretends to be fixing his motorcycle; Jessup orders him to drive his car home, along with the motorcycle, and that he will travel with Sissy. On the ride home, Sissy candidly suggests that Jessup and Pike have become lovers due to their similar passion for politics, and that a relationship with Pike would quell Jessup’s mute sadness. Jessup angrily rejects the suggestion and is shocked by Sissy’s modern views on sex and marriage. He realizes that she is no longer his little girl, and that she no longer needs to be protected.

Upon arriving home, Jessup angrily fires Shad Ledue, who reveals that he’s quitting anyways to become the secretary for the chapter of The League of Forgotten Men in Fort Beulah. Two weeks later, Ledue demands a payment of $200; when Jessup refuses, his paper immediately begins to lose circulation.

On January 6, 1937–two weeks before the inauguration–Windrip announces his cabinet. Sarason is to be made Secretary of State and the High Marshall of the Minute Men. Bishop Prang turns down a position. Dr. Macgoblin is made Secretary of Education. At Sarason’s suggestion, Windrip appoints his political enemies to posts abroad.

Immediately after the inauguration, Windrip begins to implement authoritarian rule. He orders that the Minute Men become a formal part of the armed forces and demands that Congress pass a bill that would: 1) cede all responsibility for legislation and place it in the hands of the executive branch; and 2) make the Supreme Court incapable of blocking anything he might do. After less than thirty minutes of debate, both the Senate and House refuse; in response, Windrip declares martial law. Over 100 congressmen are arrested by the Minute Men; those who resist are charged with inciting a riot and those who don’t are euphemistically placed under “protective arrest.”

Riots break out across America and a mob (including many Windrip supporters) march on the jail where the congress people are imprisoned. The jail is defended by the army, police, and Minute Men. As the mob starts to overwhelm the guards, Windrip delivers a message via loudspeaker where he tells the guards that they are, “ever since yesterday noon, the highest lords of the land—the aristocracy—the makers of the new America of freedom and justice. Boys! I need you!” (139). The Minute Men then open fire upon the crowd, stabbing any survivors in the back as they flee. With the bulk of Congress in jail, the vice-president declares quorum and passes the bill, ending checks and balances and vesting all power in Windrip and his cabinet.

Bishop Prang, dismayed by the violence, attempts to go on the radio, but find that Sarason has forbidden access to the airwaves. Instead, Prang flies to Washington. After a meeting in the White House, Prang is jailed. Prang’s hometown supporters travel en masse, along with a number of reporters, to Washington. However, they are told that because of their “treason,” Prang has gone insane and is locked in a government-run mental health facility. The supporters are forced to go home, and Prang is never seen again.

Eight days after his inauguration, Windrip issues a proclamation declaring a “temporary” state of crisis as he supposedly rescues the country from secret enemies.

It’s now late February, five weeks after the inauguration. The strikes and riots around the country have been bloodily suppressed by the Minute Men, and Congress and the Supreme Court have been reduced to puppets of the regime. Already there is a considerable amount of patronage and graft, with Windrip supporters and the Minute Men rewarded handsomely. Windrip also announces that the existence of independent states will be ended and replaced with eight provinces. The regime claims this is to reduce government waste, but critics charge it is simply a measure to further centralize power. Citizens resent this change even more than the neutering of Congress and the Supreme Court; all dissent is put down by the Minute Men.

By March, the promised $5,000 per year has still not materialized. Jessup criticizes the government, but not too harshly, telling his readers to wait and see as he doesn’t think the upheaval will last: “It can't happen here, said even [Jessup]—even now” (145).

Jessup, along with the other editors of newspapers, is summoned to a meeting with John Sullivan Reek, who is appointed the District Commissioner of the area that includes Fort Beulah. Jessup finds that Reek has chosen a university for his headquarters, which is now filled with Minute Men. Reek tells the editors that the country’s enemies are misrepresenting the news, and that from now on they should get the news from him instead. Reek then introduces Shad Ledue as one of his subordinates. Ledue warns Jessup to behave himself.

This chapter takes place between June and August. Windrip and his regime continue to consolidate and centralize power. The Minute Men now number 562,000 members and are paid even more generously, with the rank-and-file members tending to be young farmers, former factory employees, and former criminals. Sarason convinces Windrip that education can be used to increase patriotism and nationalism, and every college and university is ordered to have its own battalion of Minute Men, with military exercises now counting as course credit.

In August, Windrip orders The League of Forgotten Men to disband, claiming they have accomplished their task. He also terminates the existence of all political parties save his own: The American Corporate State and Patriotic Party. Sarason reorganizes all work and employment along corporate lines, modelling it on Italy’s fascist regime. Occupations are divided into six classes, Labor Unions are replaced by government-controlled syndicates, and government-controlled employer syndicates are formed. Sarason is given complete control over the syndicates and orders that strikes and lockouts are strictly forbidden. Partisans of the regime are now called Corporatists, or “Corpos” for short.

While Corpos continue to promise a $5,000 gift to every family, Windrip entrusts management of the “surly and dissatisfied poor” to the Minute Men (158). The unemployed are forced into massive Minute Men-run labor camps, with Windrip then declaring unemployment to be at 0%. At the labor camps, workers are forced to work for $1 per day, but pay 70 to 90 cents for room and board. As the unemployed are immediately forced into labor camps, most businesses fire their employees in order to re-hire from the labor camps. Dissent in the labor camps is kept to a minimum as the poor white workers are happy they can look down upon African-Americans and Jews, as “every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on” (159).

As time goes on, the Corpos mention the $5,000 promise less and less, and economic mismanagement begins to negatively impact the country. Exports of American goods stop completely, and inflation benefits only the largest companies. Jews are forced to pay massive bribes or have their businesses seized; Minute Men beat or arrest anyone they wish. The bourgeois resistance increasingly flees to Canada, where they publish journalism detailing the regime’s misdeeds. In response, the regime closes the borders.

Walt Trowbridge is kept under Minute Men guard at his ranch in South Dakota. On July 4, he organizes a fireworks show for his guards, offering them alcohol. A Canadian plane uses the distraction to quietly land. Soldiers capture the Minute Men guards. Trowbridge takes the soldiers and his collections of documents to Canada, where he begins publishing “A Lance for Democracy,” which reveals crimes committed by the regime. By the winter, Trowbridge has formed an organization called the “New Underground,” which helps smuggle dissidents into Canada.