American idols

Over Sinclair Lewis en Dorothy Thompson lees je slechts weinig tegenwoordig.
Lewis vroeg Thompson bij hun eerste ontmoeting in 1928 ten huwelijk hoewel hij, enigszins onhandig, al getrouwd was. (De film “Woman of the Year,” 1942 met Spencer Tracy en Katharine Hepburn –voor de hoofdrolspelers de ontmoeting met de liefde van hun leven– was een satire gebaseerd op Dorothy Thompson’s naam en faam.)
Sinclair Lewis was de eerste Amerikaan die de Nobelprijs voor literatuur kreeg.
Dorothy Thompson was de eerste Amerikaanse journalist die, in 1934, Hitler-Duitsland moest verlaten. Zij informeerde miljoenen Amerikaanse radioluisteraars over de zaak van Herschel Grynszpan, de moordenaar van Ernst vom Rath in de Duitse ambassade in Parijs. Deze moordaanslag was een van de smoezen die gebruikt werd om de Kristallnacht te beginnen.
Hier is Thompson op 3 september 1939 te horen over de inval van Duitsland in Polen in 1939.

In 1942 scheidden Lewis en Thompson.
Sinclair Lewis stierf in 1951 in Rome, aan de gevolgen van een leven van onmatig alcoholgebruik.
Dorothy Thompson- die in haar leven slechts één keer niet republikeins stemde!!- stierf in 1961.

Van de man twee en van de vrouw wat meer citaten die ook in deze eeuw enige betekenis hebben behouden:

“There are two insults no human being will endure: that he has no sense of humor, and that he has never known trouble”

“When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.”

Van Thompson:

“For, believe it or not, there are such things in the world as morality, as law, as conscience, as a noble concept of humanity, which, once awake, are stronger than all ideologies.”

“No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument [of] the Incorporated National Will. … When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American. (—) But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of ‘O.K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!'”

“Security for all, aggression for none ? that is the fundamental thesis of the United Nations. But to make this thesis real one sovereign right ? the right to wage aggressive war ? must be banned by all nations, and an international power must exist to see that the ban is observed. ?It does not require a `world government? beyond one single world law: a law against aggression and preparation for aggression.”

“I don?t want to emphasize American unity if America is unified around a bad idea.”

“I know now that there are things for which I am prepared to die. I am willing to die for political freedom; for the right to give my loyalty to ideals above a nation and above a class; for the right to teach my child what I think to be the truth; for the right to explore such knowledge as my brains can penetrate; for the right to love where my mind and heart admire, without reference to some dictator’s code to tell me what the national canons on the matter are; for the right to work with others of like mind; for a society that seems to me becoming to the dignity of the human race.”