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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
American writers on peace and against war
Sinclair Lewis: Selections on war
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Sinclair Lewis
From It Can’t Happen Here (1935)
“What this country needs is Discipline! Peace is a great dream, but maybe sometimes it’s only a pipe dream! I’m not so sure – now this will shock you, but I want you to listen to one woman who will tell you the unadulterated hard truth instead of a lot of sentimental taffy, and I’m not sure but that we need to be in a real war again, in order to learn Discipline! We don’t want all this highbrow intellectuality, all this book-learning. That’s good enough in its way, but isn’t it, after all, just a nice toy for grownups? No, what we all of us must have, if this great land is going to go on maintaining its high position among the Congress of Nations, is Discipline – Will Power – Character!”
She turned prettily then toward General Edgeways and laughed:
“You’ve been telling us about how to secure peace, but come on, now, General – just among us Rotarians and Rotary Anns – ‘fess up! With your great experience, don’t you honest, cross-your-heart, think that perhaps – just maybe – when a country has gone money-mad, like all our labor unions and workmen, with their propaganda to hoist income taxes, so that the thrifty and industrious have to pay for the shiftless ne’er-do-weels, then maybe, to save their lazy souls and get some iron into them, a war might be a good thing? Come on, now, tell your real middle name, Mong General!”
Dramatically she sat down, and the sound of clapping filled the room like a cloud of downy feathers. The crowd bellowed, “Come on, General! Stand up!” and “She’s called your bluff – what you got?” or just a tolerant, “Attaboy, Gen!”
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