It Can’t Happen Here

In Zero Hour, Windrip quotes a passage from II Kings in the Hebrew Bible, in which a messenger from the invading Neo-Assyrian Empire tells the people of Jerusalem that the Empire will help them survive by taking them to a land of abundance. The chapter begins with Shad Ledue establishing County B’s local government in Fort Beulah. He takes over the old county courthouse and hires Emil Staubmeyer as the Assistant County Commissioner for the Beulah region. Doremus Jessup realizes that he’ll get to see the Windrip administration up close.

The Minute Men are growing, as its members now receive salaries on top of their almost limitless “expense money.” Thousands of National Guard members and Great War veterans are signing up, and Lee Sarason is creating Minute Men battalions at every college in the nation. Still, most new recruits are down-and-out farmers, factory workers, and criminals. The Minute Men start calling Windrip “the Chief” and assembling to sing their poorly written new anthem, “Buzz and Buzz.”

Then, crisis strikes: someone realizes that the Soviet emblem is actually a five-pointed star, just like the Minute Men’s. The Minute Men order every member to propose a new emblem. They end up choosing Lee Sarason’s proposal: a ship’s wheel, which symbolizes the government, the automotive industry, and the Rotary Club. Sarason proudly announces that the wheel also resembles the Nazis’ swastika and the KKK’s triangle logo. “Buzz and Buzz” is rewritten to name the steering wheel instead of the star.

Windrip declares that the League of Forgotten Men is no longer needed, since it is already victorious. So, he dissolves it. He also dissolves all political parties except his own, the American Corporate State and Patriotic Party. Lee Sarason creates the “Corporate State” based on Mussolini’s Italy: the economy is divided into six industries, each industry chooses worker and employer representatives, and these representatives elect the National Council of Corporations, which sets all business-related policy. Of course, President Windrip appoints Lee Sarason as the National Council’s permanent chairman. Sarason gets the deciding vote over all policy and absolute power to ban anyone unfit from the Council. The Council also bans all labor strikes.

Windrip’s Corporatist supporters call themselves “Corpos,” but their enemies call them “Corpses.” They promise that as soon as they can find the money, they will give every family $5,000. In the meantime, the Minute Men take all unemployed people to labor camps and hire them out to private companies for a dollar a day. The government announces that it has miraculously ended unemployment. The companies fire all their higher-paid employees, who quickly join the camps and retake their old jobs at the new dollar-a-day rate. Of course, room and board at the camps costs them 70-90 cents per day. While some of these workers are frustrated to have lost their homes, cars, and bathrooms, the daily announcements from Windrip’s administration make them feel better by reminding them that they’re helping build a whole new world, and that they’re superior to Jewish and Black people.

While the government’s $5,000 promise eventually fades away, it does fulfill its other promises, like inflation: wages triple, while prices rise by far more than triple. Scared by the price increases, foreign countries stop importing American food. But big business owners double their wealth by immediately paying off their debts and refusing to raise wages.

The government also fulfills its promises to minority groups. Minute Men massacre Black people in the South, leading to riots. Jewish people are required to pay double for hotels, stock trade commissions, and bribes to government inspectors. In Fort Beulah, the patriotic Louis Rotenstern gets to keep his shop as long as he charges Minute Men a fraction of the official price. But the Jewish merchant Harry Kindermann loses all his business. He ends up selling sausages on the street and living in a shack, where his wife dies of pneumonia.

After all of the unemployed go to labor camps, social workers have nothing to do. So, the government hires them in the camps to identify everyone who opposes the Minute Men and Corpos. Any social workers who object to this work get sent to jail, or to the Minute Men’s private concentration camps. Around the country, local Minute Men also get free rein to arrest and torture anyone they want. Dissidents who can afford to flee start leaving for Canada, Mexico, and Europe, where they begin publishing anti-government magazines. The government seriously tightens border security to stop these “lying counter revolutionists.”

Twelve Minute Men guard Walt Trowbridge, who is settling into a dull retirement at his South Dakota ranch. On the Fourth of July, Trowbridge invites his guards to join in the fireworks and beer. They do, and while they nap after the festivities, a plane full of soldiers quietly lands on the ranch. The soldiers handcuff the Minute Men and then fly Trowbridge to safety in Canada. Trowbridge starts an opposition newspaper, and Doremus Jessup and thousands of other dissidents start smuggling copies down into the U.S. By the end of the year, Trowbridge has set up a “New Underground” to help thousands of Americans escape to Canada.