It Can’t Happen Here

It Can’t Happen Here

by

Sinclair Lewis

John Sullivan Reek is the stodgy career politician, yes-man, and ex-governor who becomes the Commissioner of District Three in the Northeastern Province. He implements Windrip and Dewey Haik’s agenda by censoring journalists, opening the Trianon concentration camp, and running corrupt schemes with Shad Ledue. Eventually, Reek becomes anxious and afraid because he realizes that his colleagues will throw him under the bus for their own professional advancement. Sure enough, when Effingham Swan becomes the Provincial Commissioner, he immediately fires, arrests, and imprisons Reek.
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John Sullivan Reek Character Timeline in It Can’t Happen Here

The timeline below shows where the character John Sullivan Reek appears in It Can’t Happen Here. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 16
Morality and Resistance Theme Icon
Political Communication and Mass Media Theme Icon
Colonel Dewey Haik becomes commissioner of the Northeastern Province, while the slick ex-governor John Sullivan Reek becomes the commissioner of District Three. Reek orders all of the district’s journalists to meet... (full context)
American Fascism Theme Icon
Political Communication and Mass Media Theme Icon
At the conference, Commissioner Reek announces that all journalists should contact the government directly for all news, rather than asking... (full context)
Chapter 22
American Fascism Theme Icon
...the government. The punishment will be execution or imprisonment in the regime’s new concentration camps. John Sullivan Reek and Shad Ledue open a concentration camp at Trianon, an old girls’ school near Fort... (full context)
Chapter 25
American Fascism Theme Icon
Liberalism and Tolerance Theme Icon
...years. So, Jessup drives to Hanover and personally tells the “pale and hesitant and frightened” Commissioner Reek that he wants to quit. Reek agrees—he even offers to hire Jessup on the newspaper... (full context)
Chapter 26
American Fascism Theme Icon
Morality and Resistance Theme Icon
...and Mrs. Candy’s cousin get evidence on the granite scam that Tasbrough, Shad Ledue, and Commissioner Reek are running together. (full context)
Chapter 29
American Fascism Theme Icon
Morality and Resistance Theme Icon
...Secretary of War Osceola Luthorne with Provincial Commissioner Dewey Haik, who will be replaced by John Sullivan Reek . Tasbrough might be getting Reek’s job as District Commissioner, and he wants Jessup’s support.... (full context)
Chapter 30
American Fascism Theme Icon
Liberalism and Tolerance Theme Icon
...War, while Francis Tasbrough becomes the District Commissioner. However, the new Provincial Commissioner is not John Sullivan Reek , but rather Judge Effingham Swan. (Swan immediately—but courteously—arrests Reek and several assistant commissioners.) (full context)