Kathy Presents Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here

 Carla's Email: Paper bag players all, bring your lunch to our April 8 meeting at Joanna Reisman’s lovely home at noon. Our hostess will provide desserts and beverages. And more treats to follow, with Kathy Sullivan’s always engaging presentation, this time on Sinclair Lewis.
      As usual, members please tell Joanna if you can’t attend; associate members, please reply to her if you can’t attend. Best, Carla

Frances' Minutes Ten members met in Joanna’s living room. It was the third time in the 2025-26 term that Joanna has hosted; we appreciate her willingness to fill in when the scheduled hostess had a conflict. Our plans were upset several times this year by illness or accidents, ours or our families.

 It was a brown bag lunch; Joanna supplied a tableful of cookies & cakes.

 Vice-president Jacquie called the meeting to order at 1 PM. President Laura was traveling in China.

 Lori gave the treasurer’s report:  $413.12. A hefty sum for us, owing to the payment of our $20 annual dues.

 Carla announced that she would now become an associate member.

 We discussed the upcoming year’s schedule. With only 13 full members, our 2026-27 term will fall short of presentations to go from September to May. Jacquie suggested one of our meetings be a short story reading; we’ve done that several times, and it’s been a success.  Sharon suggested we might consider a play reading. We need new members, we will all think about likely candidates. 

 In the past several years, we have donated children’s books to Family Services of Yonkers. Connie reported that for several reasons – a new director, other donations – Family Services no longer needs books. She suggested that we make an annual book donation to the Children’s Village library.

 At 1 PM Kathy’s presentation on Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here began.

It was all too painfully relevant to current politics. The slow slide to fascism described in the 1939 novel parallels the direction Trump is marching the US towards.

Lewis’s unacknowledged contributor was his wife, Dorothy Thompson. She was a newspaper correspondent, reporting from Germany and Italy, in the 30’s. Her observations were an immense help to his fictional account of the demise of American democracy.  She wrote:

 “No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument for expressing the Incorporated National Will.”

 The novel opens with the Ladies’ Dinner of the local Rotary Club. We meet the honored guest, General Bridgeway, who says “the US only wants to be left alone” but less he be thought a pacifist, the general stresses that the US must arm itself for peace. Mrs Gimmitch, known for her opposition to women’s suffrage, says we need discipline, character and will.

 Doremus Jessup, the editor of the local newspaper, observes, ironically, that we could cure the evils of democracy with the evils of fascism.

Sinclair Lewis writes from Doremus’ point of view. He is the believer in American democracy, watching its collapse. After the Rotarian dinner, at a dinner with friends at the local minister’s home, Doremus predicts what will happen, in a flippant manner, as if he doesn’t believe it could happen in the US.

 Kathy divided the narrative into 3 sections: pre-election; fascism takes hold; persecution and resistance.

First: pre-election is Doremus’ observations of the unease taking hold of Americans, of the opinions people like Mrs Gimmitch and General Bridgeway hold. The way is being subtly prepared for the overturning of democracy. The time is the 1930’s, when Hitler, Mussolini and Franco are consolidating power.

 Second: fascism takes hold details the unlikely rise of Buzz Windrip. He’s supported by the League of Forgotten Men, supposedly 50 million strong—the impoverished, war veterans, the dispossessed (recall the Dust Bowl started in 1930). He promises every American $5000. He writes a book, outlining his 15 point policy for making America strong again. We alternated reading Windrip’s policy and Doremus’ rebuttal.

Third: persecution and resistance begins after the election of Windrip as president. He forms a paramilitary group, the Minute Men, as his private army. Concentration camps are established; arbitrary arrests of perceived government enemies are common. There is no longer a rule of law nor of justice.

 It Can’t Happen Here was actually a question Lewis was asking: could it happen here?

 Respectfully submitted,

Frances Greenberg
Recording Secretary