I know the press only
too well. Almost all editors hide away
in spider-dens, men without thoughts of Family or Public Interest or the humble
delights of jaunts out-of-doors, plotting how they can put over their lies, and
advance their own positions and fill their greedy pocketbooks by calumniating
Statesmen who have given their all for the common good and who are vulnerable
because they stand out in the fierce Light that beats around the Throne.
Zero Hour, Berzelius Windrip.
[1]
Sinclair Lewis, It Can’t Happen Here,
preface by Robert Bothwell (Oakville, ON: Rock’s Mill Press, 2016), p. 60. Zero
Hour is the fictitious work written by the imaginary populist and demagogue,
Buzz Windrip (somewhat resembling Huey Long), in the book written by Sinclair
Lewis, in 1935, where he suggests that fascism might even reach the highest office of
the United States, as it already did in Germany and Italy at the time. Of particular note here is Windrip’s attack
on freedom of the so-called establishment press.
