Our ‘solemn responsibility’ on Thanksgiving
\ Editorial Board November 25 at 8:29 PM
“IT CAN’T Happen Here” was a novel by the popular writer Sinclair Lewis published 80 years ago, during a time of deep troubles and with a presidential campaign looming. The title spoke to the fears of many Americans (and to the misguided hopes of some) that this country, its economy still deeply depressed, large numbers of its people suffering, might turn to a strongman of the kind who seemed to be getting things done in other places — a Hitler, Mussolini or Stalin. In the novel, such a man appears on the scene and soon rises toward the top: a U.S. senator named Berzelius Windrip.
Windrip is the classic demagogue, appealing to base racial and ethnic prejudices, blaming the country’s problems on various villains (Jews, blacks, foreigners, the media), making unkeepable promises ($5,000 cash for every citizen) and forming a militia, a sort of national goon squad known as the Minute Men, to deal with the opposition. With help from some radio preachers, he wrests the Democratic nomination from the incumbent, Franklin D. Roosevelt, wins the presidency and proceeds to establish a dictatorship that marginalizes minorities, confines women to domestic duties, ruthlessly suppresses dissent (with concentration camps being established for troublesome elements) and invades Mexico (“It’s our destiny to control it and Christianize it,” observes President Windrip).
In real life, of course, a Berzelius Windrip didn’t win in 1936, nor did his like even figure in the presidential election. Roosevelt was reelected that November (his Republican opponent was a moderate Kansan named Alf Landon) and a few weeks later issued a proclamation of the kind that not many people read but that still provides us an annual measure of reassurance, somewhat in the spirit of “our flag was still there” after a long and difficult night.
“The observance of a day of general thanksgiving by all the people is a practice peculiarly our own,” FDR said, “hallowed by usage in the days before we were a Nation and sanctioned through succeeding years. Having safely passed through troubled waters, it is our right to express our gratitude that Divine Providence has vouchsafed us wisdom and courage to overcome adversity. Our free institutions have been maintained with no abatement of our faith in them. In our relations with other peoples we stand not aloof but make resolute effort to promote international friendship and, by the avoidance of discord, to further world peace, prosperity, and happiness.
“Coupled with our grateful acknowledgment of the blessings it has been our high privilege to enjoy, we have a deepening sense of our solemn responsibility to assure for ourselves and our descendants a future more abundant in faith and in security.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/our-solemn-responsibility/2015/11/25/08cb18da-9391-11e5-8aa0-5d0946560a97_story.html
