It Can’t Happen Here

To Doremus Jessup’s horror, the Corpos accuse an innocent local newspaperman of publishing the New Underground pamphlets and send him to the concentration camp. Emma Jessup doesn’t understand why Doremus bothers to criticize the authorities, but she’s glad that Lorinda Pike left town (since Pike’s “wild crazy ideas” are a bad influence on Doremus). Still, Emma is annoyed at Doremus’s irregular schedule, new working-class friends, and obsession with politics. Like her grandson David, Emma quite enjoys watching the Minute Men march through town.

Just as predicted, Dewey Haik takes over as Secretary of 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.)

Meanwhile, the Corpos start earnestly pursuing the New Underground. Doremus Jessup notes a Corpo spy repeatedly striking up conversations with him, and he starts taking extra precautions whenever he visits Buck Titus. One day, he notices Shad Ledue following him on his route to Titus’s house. When Dan Wilgus arrives, he reports that Aras Dilley was prowling around outside the house in disguise. Jessup, Wilgus, Titus, and Father Perefixe dismantle their secret printing press, and John Pollikop drives it to Truman Webb’s house before dawn. The next day, Julian Falck invites Shad Ledue and Emil Staubmeyer over to play poker at Buck Titus’s house—they look all over for pamphlets but can’t find any evidence.

Over the next several days, Doremus Jessup notices the same spy following him, and he tells Truman Webb to stop printing pamphlets for the time being. Jessup struggles to sleep, and for the first time in years, he yearns for Emma. On the Fourth of July, the Jessup family attends the Minute Men’s grand parade. That evening, a huge car drives through the thunderstorm up to the family’s porch. Five Minute Men jump out and enter the house. Their leader, an Ensign, smacks Jessup in the face and arrests him. They tear through his books and find a pamphlet that he has been writing, then drive him to the courthouse, where they stick him in the back of a truck with Buck Titus, Truman Webb, and Dan Wilgus.

The men are all in too much pain to really hold a conversation. After a three-hour ride, they get out at the old Dartmouth campus—the District Three central offices. Jessup remembers that Francis Tasbrough is the Commissioner now, and he briefly feels relieved. The Minute Men lead Jessup to an old classroom, where he immediately falls asleep on a stiff wooden bed. When he wakes up, the Minute Men hand him coffee and bread, then lead him outside and taunt him for being a newspaper editor. One of the Minute Men thinks it’s funny to ask Jessup how he writes, bring over a piece of paper, and stick Jessup’s nose in it.

The Minute Men throw Jessup into a cell with several other prisoners, including Buck Titus, who has a deep gash on his forehead. For an hour, the cell’s guard whips Jessup whenever he slouches. The Minute Men lead Buck Titus away, and Jessup hears him scream through the wall. Then, it’s Jessup’s turn. He expects to be meeting Frank Tasbrough, but instead, it’s the Ensign who arrested him yesterday. The Ensign declares that Jessup is a communist and sentences him to “twenty-five lashes—and the oil.”

The Minute Men drag Jessup to a foul-smelling basement, pour castor oil down his throat, tear off his clothes, lay him face-down on a bloodstained table, and start to whip him with a metal rod. He falls unconscious, and when he wakes up, he’s lying on the floor, covered in his own diarrhea (from the castor oil). For the next three nights, the Minute Men repeatedly wake him up, demand to know if he’s a communist, and beat him when he says no. By day, the Ensign continues questioning him—he even declares that Buck Titus has confessed everything, but Jessup knows that this is a lie. During his half-hour exercise walks in the yard, Jessup sees Buck Titus and Dan Wilgus (whose nose is crushed, and who looks partially paralyzed). In the morning, the guards tell him that Wilgus has hanged himself.

Then, Jessup goes to an old English classroom for his trial. The judge isn’t Francis Tasbrough, but Effingham Swan—who is reading the pamphlet Jessup wrote, detailing his crimes. But Francis Tasbrough is present—he testifies that Jessup opposes the government because he’s jealous about not receiving a political office. Shad Ledue testifies that Jessup tried to recruit him into a plot to assassinate Judge Swan. Ultimately, Swan sentences Jessup to a minimum of 17 years in the concentration camp, plus execution if he tries to escape—and 20 more lashes and more castor oil, effective immediately.