It Can't Happen Here

by Sinclair Lewis

Let me put together certain separated phrases out of the sixth chapter of Jeremiah, which seem to have been prophetically written for this hour of desperate crisis in America: “‘Oh ye children of Benjamin, gather yourselves together to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem. . .. Prepare ye war. . .arise and let us go up at noon. Woe unto us! for the day goeth away, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out. Arise, and let us go by night and let us destroy her palaces. . .. I am full of the fury of the Lord; I am weary with holding it in; I will pour it out upon the children abroad, and upon the assembly of young men together; for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is full of days. . .. I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of this land, saith the Lord. For from the least of them even unto the greatest, every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest, every one dealeth falsely. . .saying Peace, Peace, when there is no Peace!’ “So spake the Book, of old. . .. But it was spoken also to America, of 1936!