It Can’t Happen Here Characters

Perley Beecroft is the Southern planter and ex-governor whom Buzz Windrip chooses as his vice president because he is posh and unthreatening. When Windrip starts to feud with Lee Sarason, Beecroft quits the vice presidency, joins Walt Trowbridge’s resistance in Montreal, and befriends Doremus Jessup.

Medary Cole is a Fort Beulah miller and the president of the local Rotary Club. A pitiful conformist, he enthusiastically supports Buzz Windrip because everyone around him does, too.

Emmanuel Coon is the major general who Buzz Windrip appoints as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. Coon is a true believer in Windrip, so after Lee Sarason overthrows the government, he turns against the government and leads an organized military rebellion from Minnesota.

“Mr. Dimick” is the alter ego of the spy who recruits Doremus Jessup into the New Underground and helps coordinate the Fort Beulah cell’s activities with the leadership in Montreal.

The Ensign is a cruel Minute Man who arrests Doremus Jessup and takes him to the Trianon concentration camp.

Foolish is the Jessup family’s loyal mutt.

Mungo Kitterick is Doremus Jessup’s lawyer. When recommending his services to Lorinda Pike, Jessup describes him as meticulous but unintelligent. He eventually joins the New Underground.

Owen J. Peaseley is the cowardly president of Isaiah College, and later the Director of Education and head of the book-burning committee for John Sullivan Reek’s district government.

Senator Porkwood is a loyal member of Buzz Windrip’s inner circle, and later his Attorney General. Porkwood is a boring, respected liberal, and his participation gives Windrip’s campaign an air of legitimacy.

Raymond Pridewell is a grouchy, prudent Fort Beulah hardware dealer who loses his shop and gets imprisoned at Trianon after personally insulting Shad Ledue.

The actual U.S. president in 1936, Franklin D. Roosevelt, loses the Democratic nomination to Buzz Windrip in It Can’t Happen Here and runs for reelection as an independent instead. He loses, and after the inauguration, Windrip offers him the ambassadorship to Liberia as a practical joke.

Willy Schmidt is a respected biologist who Hector Macgoblin decides to visit one evening—and then murders in a drunken rage, along with the Rabbi Vincent de Verez.

Webster R. Skittle is the corrupt banker who Buzz Windrip appoints as Secretary of the Treasury.

Stoyt is a young, sadistic Minute Men squad leader at the Trianon concentration camp. He embodies the Windrip administration’s cruel spirit because he enjoys treating the prisoners as violently as possible—for instance, he takes delight in executing Henry Veeder and attacking the elderly Rev. Mr. Flack.

Francis Tasbrough’s arrogant son Malcolm is one of Sissy Jessup’s two love interests, along with Julian Falck. However, Sissy stops seeing Malcolm after he becomes a fervent Windrip supporter and joins the Minute Men.

“Snake” Tizra is a vicious gangster, truck driver, and friend of Shad Ledue who joins the Minute Men and eventually becomes the Trianon concentration camp’s superintendent. He is far crueler than his predecessor, Captain Cowlick.

Vincent de Verez is the respected scholar, Rabbi, and Jewish community leader who Hector Macgoblin murders in New York, along with Willy Schmidt.

Pete Vutong is a poor French Canadian farmer who joins the New Underground in Fort Beulah.

Truman Webb is a farmer who helps run the Fort Beulah New Underground out of his old farmhouse. His abolitionist grandfather helped people escape slavery in the same house, as part of the original Underground Railroad. He ends up in the Trianon camp with Doremus Jessup.