It Can’t Happen Here

It Can’t Happen Here

by

Sinclair Lewis

Lee Sarason is Buzz Windrip’s campaign manager, Secretary of State, and closest friend. He writes Windrip’s campaign songs and autobiography, Zero Hour, and then essentially runs the government from behind the scenes, since he is the leader of both the Minute Men and the Corpos. At the end of Windrip’s first year in office, in December 1937, Sarason works with Dewey Haik to overthrow Windrip and install himself as president. He immediately starts a war with Mexico—but then Dewey Haik murders him and takes over the presidency for himself. Sarason’s scheming during the campaign shows how the charismatic outward-facing persona of fascists like Buzz Windrip is really just a cover for brutal, selfish schemes to gain as much power as possible. Importantly, Sarason is a former journalist and news editor, which reflects Sinclair Lewis’s belief that the mass media’s power to manipulate public opinion is part of what makes fascism possible in the first place. Meanwhile, Sarason’s time in the government shows that, as a political system, fascism is ultimately based on nothing more than power and loyalty—in it, a small club of elites tries to amass total political power by convincing the public that it’s for their own benefit. Finally, Sarason’s coup against Windrip shows how systems built on this basis tend to collapse because they encourage leaders to undermine each other and destabilize the whole government.

Lee Sarason Quotes in It Can’t Happen Here

The It Can’t Happen Here quotes below are all either spoken by Lee Sarason or refer to Lee Sarason. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
American Fascism Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

No one, even among the Washington correspondents, seemed to know precisely how much of a part in Senator Windrip’s career was taken by his secretary, Lee Sarason. When Windrip had first seized power in his state, Sarason had been managing editor of the most widely circulated paper in all that part of the country. Sarason’s genesis was and remained a mystery.

[…]

He had been variously a Socialist and an anarchist. Even in 1936 there were rich people who asserted that Sarason was “too radical,” but actually he had lost his trust (if any) in the masses during the hoggish nationalism after the war; and he believed now only in resolute control by a small oligarchy. In this he was a Hitler, a Mussolini.

Related Characters: Doremus Jessup/William Barton Dobbs, Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, Lee Sarason
Page Number: 28-29
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

Before six, the President had proclaimed that a state of martial law existed during the “present crisis,” and more than a hundred Congressmen had been arrested by Minute Men, on direct orders from the President. The Congressmen who were hotheaded enough to resist were cynically charged with “inciting to riot”; they who went quietly were not charged at all. It was blandly explained to the agitated press by Lee Sarason that these latter quiet lads had been so threatened by “irresponsible and seditious elements” that they were merely being safeguarded. Sarason did not use the phrase “protective arrest,” which might have suggested things.

Related Characters: Doremus Jessup/William Barton Dobbs, Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, Lee Sarason
Page Number: 135-136
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35 Quotes

In his two years of dictatorship, Berzelius Windrip daily became more a miser of power. He continued to tell himself that his main ambition was to make all citizens healthy, in purse and mind, and that if he was brutal it was only toward fools and reactionaries who wanted the old clumsy systems. But after eighteen months of Presidency he was angry that Mexico and Canada and South America (obviously his own property, by manifest destiny) should curtly answer his curt diplomatic notes and show no helpfulness about becoming part of his inevitable empire.

And daily he wanted louder, more convincing Yeses from everybody about him. How could he carry on his heartbreaking labor if nobody ever encouraged him? he demanded.

Related Characters: Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, Oscar “Shad” Ledue, Lee Sarason, Effingham Swan
Page Number: 340
Explanation and Analysis:

Secretary of the Treasury Skittle and Attorney General Porkwood shook their heads, but Secretary of War Haik and Secretary of Education Macgoblin agreed with Sarason high-mindedly. Once, pointed out the learned Macgoblin, governments had merely let themselves slide into a war, thanking Providence for having provided a conflict as a febrifuge against internal discontent, but of course, in this age of deliberate, planned propaganda, a really modern government like theirs must figure out what brand of war they had to sell and plan the selling-campaign consciously. Now, as for him, he would be willing to leave the whole set-up to the advertising genius of Brother Sarason.

“No, no, no!” cried Windrip. “We’re not ready for a war! Of course, we’ll take Mexico some day. It’s our destiny to control it and Christianize it. But I’m scared that your darn scheme might work just opposite to what you say.”

Related Characters: Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip (speaker), Dewey Haik, Dr. Hector Macgoblin, Senator Porkwood, Lee Sarason, Webster R. Skittle
Page Number: 347
Explanation and Analysis:

They planned, these idealists, to correct, as quickly as might be, the errors of brutality and crookedness among officials. They saw arising a Corpo art, a Corpo learning, profound and real, divested of the traditional snobbishness of the old-time universities, valiant with youth, and only the more beautiful in that it was “useful.” They were convinced that Corpoism was Communism cleansed of foreign domination and the violence and indignity of mob dictatorship; Monarchism with the chosen hero of the people for monarch; Fascism without grasping and selfish leaders; freedom with order and discipline; Traditional America without its waste and provincial cockiness.

Related Characters: Doremus Jessup/William Barton Dobbs, Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, Lee Sarason
Page Number: 351
Explanation and Analysis:
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Lee Sarason Quotes in It Can’t Happen Here

The It Can’t Happen Here quotes below are all either spoken by Lee Sarason or refer to Lee Sarason. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
American Fascism Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

No one, even among the Washington correspondents, seemed to know precisely how much of a part in Senator Windrip’s career was taken by his secretary, Lee Sarason. When Windrip had first seized power in his state, Sarason had been managing editor of the most widely circulated paper in all that part of the country. Sarason’s genesis was and remained a mystery.

[…]

He had been variously a Socialist and an anarchist. Even in 1936 there were rich people who asserted that Sarason was “too radical,” but actually he had lost his trust (if any) in the masses during the hoggish nationalism after the war; and he believed now only in resolute control by a small oligarchy. In this he was a Hitler, a Mussolini.

Related Characters: Doremus Jessup/William Barton Dobbs, Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, Lee Sarason
Page Number: 28-29
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

Before six, the President had proclaimed that a state of martial law existed during the “present crisis,” and more than a hundred Congressmen had been arrested by Minute Men, on direct orders from the President. The Congressmen who were hotheaded enough to resist were cynically charged with “inciting to riot”; they who went quietly were not charged at all. It was blandly explained to the agitated press by Lee Sarason that these latter quiet lads had been so threatened by “irresponsible and seditious elements” that they were merely being safeguarded. Sarason did not use the phrase “protective arrest,” which might have suggested things.

Related Characters: Doremus Jessup/William Barton Dobbs, Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, Lee Sarason
Page Number: 135-136
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35 Quotes

In his two years of dictatorship, Berzelius Windrip daily became more a miser of power. He continued to tell himself that his main ambition was to make all citizens healthy, in purse and mind, and that if he was brutal it was only toward fools and reactionaries who wanted the old clumsy systems. But after eighteen months of Presidency he was angry that Mexico and Canada and South America (obviously his own property, by manifest destiny) should curtly answer his curt diplomatic notes and show no helpfulness about becoming part of his inevitable empire.

And daily he wanted louder, more convincing Yeses from everybody about him. How could he carry on his heartbreaking labor if nobody ever encouraged him? he demanded.

Related Characters: Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, Oscar “Shad” Ledue, Lee Sarason, Effingham Swan
Page Number: 340
Explanation and Analysis:

Secretary of the Treasury Skittle and Attorney General Porkwood shook their heads, but Secretary of War Haik and Secretary of Education Macgoblin agreed with Sarason high-mindedly. Once, pointed out the learned Macgoblin, governments had merely let themselves slide into a war, thanking Providence for having provided a conflict as a febrifuge against internal discontent, but of course, in this age of deliberate, planned propaganda, a really modern government like theirs must figure out what brand of war they had to sell and plan the selling-campaign consciously. Now, as for him, he would be willing to leave the whole set-up to the advertising genius of Brother Sarason.

“No, no, no!” cried Windrip. “We’re not ready for a war! Of course, we’ll take Mexico some day. It’s our destiny to control it and Christianize it. But I’m scared that your darn scheme might work just opposite to what you say.”

Related Characters: Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip (speaker), Dewey Haik, Dr. Hector Macgoblin, Senator Porkwood, Lee Sarason, Webster R. Skittle
Page Number: 347
Explanation and Analysis:

They planned, these idealists, to correct, as quickly as might be, the errors of brutality and crookedness among officials. They saw arising a Corpo art, a Corpo learning, profound and real, divested of the traditional snobbishness of the old-time universities, valiant with youth, and only the more beautiful in that it was “useful.” They were convinced that Corpoism was Communism cleansed of foreign domination and the violence and indignity of mob dictatorship; Monarchism with the chosen hero of the people for monarch; Fascism without grasping and selfish leaders; freedom with order and discipline; Traditional America without its waste and provincial cockiness.

Related Characters: Doremus Jessup/William Barton Dobbs, Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, Lee Sarason
Page Number: 351
Explanation and Analysis: