A dictatorship cannot take hold in America today. This country, as yet, cannot
be ruled—but it can explode. It can blow up into the helpless rage and blind
violence of a civil war. It cannot be cowed into submission, passivity,
malevolence, resignation. It cannot be “pushed around.” Defiance, not
obedience, is the American’s answer to overbearing authority. The nation that
ran an underground railroad to help human beings escape from slavery, or began
drinking on principle in the face of Prohibition, will not say “Yes, sir,” to
the enforcers of ration coupons and cereal prices. Not yet.