Part 16

Churchill has a profound historical sense and the thought of himself as a part of the broad stream of the British people, flowing from the distant past into the limitless future, is never absent from his speaking and writing. He is never just Churchill, he is Churchill of British history, of the Marlboroughs, but now more than ever Churchill of the British people, with whom he has established a community of feeling seldom equaled in the relationship of leader to people. It has always been Hitler’s boast that “I _am_ Germany!” An Italian journalist thinking to jibe at England during the tormented months of the Blitz said mockingly that the British Isles seemed to be inhabited by “forty million Churchills.” He was right, for under Churchill’s leadership the entire population has become animated with his courage and he _is_ England to the same degree and by the same psychological process as Hitler _is_ Germany. Hitler obtained his ascendancy over the German people by expressing their hitherto largely unconscious aspirations, for revenge, aggression, expansion, and conquest. At the height of the British people’s peril they turned spontaneously and unanimously to Churchill whom Providence seemed to have reserved for this critical hour, and they entrusted to him the fulfillment of their aspirations to beat off the enemy, save their families, and win victory. I was there and for four months watched the British people and in particular the eight million Londoners endure the anxiety of expected invasion and the full blast of the greatest attack ever made on a civilian population in history and I know that their faith in Churchill was a most important factor in their endurance. Every Londoner thought as the bombs fell, “Churchill is there; he can’t be beaten; we can’t be beaten.” Churchill “became” England. This is the experience that has elevated him above himself, fulfilled his character, made him great. Today Churchill’s every faculty of soul, mind, and body is devoted to the service of the British Commonwealth. Today every soul and resource in the German Commonwealth is devoted to the service of Hitler.

Churchill actively directs the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force but his love is the Navy. One can tell from his speeches how frequently his mind dwells upon it. It remains his favorite branch of the services, despite the noble tribute he has paid the R.A.F. He reserves for it words such as he would use otherwise only to describe Old England herself. “Amphibious” is the term he likes best to define the power of Britain in arms. His conviction of the paramount importance of the Fleet was thus dramatically expressed: “On them, as we conceived, floated the might, majesty, dominion and power of the British Empire. All our long history built up century after century, all our great affairs in every part of the globe, all the means of livelihood and safety of our faithful, industrious, active population depended upon them. Open the seacocks and let them sink beneath the surface and in a few minutes, half an hour at the most--the whole outlook of the world would be changed. The British Empire would dissolve like a dream; each isolated community struggling forward by itself; the central power of union broken; mighty provinces, whole Empires in themselves, drifting helplessly out of control, and falling a prey to strangers; and Europe after one sudden convulsion passing into the iron grip and rule of the Teuton and of all that the Teutonic system meant. There would only be left far off across the Atlantic, unarmed, unready and as yet uninstructed America, to maintain single-handed law and freedom among men.” That was written about the Royal Navy mobilized for war in August 1914 but with what melancholy accuracy it reflects the situation of today, except that this time the Teutonic might is such that Europe has already had its one sudden convulsion and has passed under the rule of a Teutonic system far grimmer than anything the Hohenzollerns would have imposed. And once again, after a score of years of warning, America still finds herself “unarmed, unready and as yet uninstructed,” dependent now for her very life upon the continued existence of that Navy which Churchill apostrophizes.

Now of course the war takes all of Churchill’s time, but in normal circumstances he has an enormous number of interests and activities. He concentrates fiercely upon each in turn, and everything he does he does at least well, some things he does excellently, and some he does superlatively. Fighting, speaking, writing, eating, drinking, sleeping, smoking, all are the source of intense satisfaction. He relishes every moment in his life. This war was made for him, because fighting is life itself to Churchill. In the last war he was a subordinate and could not thoroughly enjoy the fight when others checked his combat plans. Now he is unchecked by anybody except the British people, and they have shown they are only too glad to let him savor to the full what are to him the joys of responsibility in the greatest fight with the greatest consequences in the memory of mankind. Before the war the most exciting form of conflict was politics, about which Churchill once said, “Politics are almost as exciting as war and quite as dangerous.” He takes the keenest pleasure in writing, but he would always give up his work on a book to go back into politics, as he did when this war began.

He was just finishing his monumental _History of the English Speaking Peoples_ when he was called to the Admiralty. I understand the _History_ is to be in several volumes, but despite its size Churchill wrote the whole thing in a year, dictating thousands of words a day. He had worked on it, gathering material for many years, and such is the organization of his mind and so precise and comprehensive is his memory than when he once began he was able to dictate it almost as fast as he could talk. I have heard that the publisher has already set the book up but is waiting presumably for the end of the war to release it.

Today his prewar books, as _My Early Days_, are reprinted and have become best sellers. Even his prewar newspaper articles are eagerly dragged out, and reprinted both here and in England to sell at high prices. His books have been phenomenally successful and his income from them, from journalism, and from lectures has been for most of his life considerably higher than the $50,000 a year he receives as Prime Minister. It was always a financial sacrifice for him to go into office despite the comparatively liberal salaries of British ministers. He has no interest in money. His earnings have been large ever since he was a war correspondent in South Africa, but he has spent money as fast as it came, on his estate, his family, and on good living. One of his best American friends, Bernard Baruch, once tried to instruct him in the art of stock exchange speculation but nothing came of it. Churchill had for it the interest he has for everything in life, and wanted to learn it, but he lacked the indispensable requirement for amassing a fortune, namely an overwhelming desire to make money. The power given by the possession of money is so paltry compared with political power that none of the great statesmen, or even the wicked dictators, have exhibited any interest in it. What use has Hitler for money? I doubt that he has touched any for years.

Until this war began it was power that appealed to Churchill more than anything else in the world. It is ironical that now he possesses it to a greater degree than he could ever have dreamed of, power for its own sake he no longer wants. But that has not lessened his aesthetic capacity to enjoy it. No stress of war, nor the imminence of awful danger, can prevent him from enjoying the power of his spoken or written word. You can feel his artistic satisfaction as you hear him in the House of Commons, delivering on a desperate day passages calculated not only to encourage, guide, and inspire, but to excite admiration for their felicity.

We American correspondents in London used regularly to attend the House every time Churchill spoke, although none of us need have done so, since the speeches were delivered into our offices almost instantaneously by ticker. We wanted to hear him in person not only for the stirring drama of it but because as journalists we wished to listen to the greatest living master of our craft. The trouble of attending Parliament was considerable, for the old House, now in ruins, was too small to accommodate even the Members if they all attended, and the foreign press was allotted so few seats it was necessary to apply days in advance to get a place. The narrow seats with too little space for knees and feet were uncomfortable, the acoustics poor, but the view from our gallery was perfect.

There sits the government, the bald head of Mr. Churchill shining among the Members with unmistakable authority. The benches are nearly empty until the time draws near for the Prime Minister to speak; a few minutes before he rises the House is jammed with Members sitting even on the foot of the Speaker’s dais. The Prime Minister rises. There is dead silence as Mr. Churchill lays before him a sheaf of what are technically called notes, as it is prohibited in the House for any member, even the Prime Minister, to read a speech. This rule is presumably to prevent a member from using a speech written by someone else. The familiar Washington ghost writers would have little employment in Westminster. Mr. Churchill would have about as much use for one as Shakespeare would have had. Mr. Churchill’s “notes” are in fact his completely written speech which he has memorized by rereading the final copy quickly on the way to the House. He has worked on this speech for several hours a day for eight days, writing, rewriting, until he finally has it typed on sheets half the size of standard typewriter paper. Thereafter he never looks at it. He has it before him, and he automatically turns the pages, but his delivery is perfectly extemporaneous, and you would imagine as you sat there watching and listening that those incomparable phrases were conceived at the moment, and to the satisfaction of hearing them is added the illusion of being present at their creation. Mr. Churchill himself insists he cannot speak well impromptu and I have heard that his son Randolph, recently seated in Parliament, is considered a better offhand speaker than his father.

It is an extraordinary coincidence that this greatest orator of modern times should have an impediment of speech similar, we may imagine, to that of the greatest orator of ancient times, Demosthenes. Churchill has almost overcome the impediment. His delivery is not what we would consider the best. He depends not at all on gesture. Now and then he pauses to glance over the top of his spectacles with defiance or curiosity. His stance is determined, not graceful. For the most part he stands quietly in the same spot, and only moves a step backward or forward when he wishes to emphasize a passage. His voice is sonorous, strong, not the golden voice of a William Jennings Bryan, but also not the vulgar guttural of Hitler. Yet when Churchill speaks of Hitler there comes into his tone a note that promises to meet all the Nazi’s brutality and pay interest. Churchill’s voice is ideally adapted to the radio and the millions of Americans who listen to him on the air have heard him at his best. Many have exclaimed at his accent that he does not talk like an Englishman. His is the accent of Sandhurst, Britain’s West Point, which is nearer the American way of speaking than the curious upper-class cockney affected by some graduates of Oxford and Cambridge.

I do not know why Mr. Churchill avoids as much as possible making extemporaneous speeches, unless it is his passion for perfection, because as a conversationalist he is without superior and he has few peers. One of them was his intimate friend, Lord Birkenhead, whose power of expression was almost on a par with Churchill’s, as I had the opportunity to observe once in Berlin when the then most brilliant lawyer in England attended a luncheon of the Anglo-American Press Association and dazzled us with his talk. I remember the answer he gave when someone asked what he thought of Mussolini. “Mussolini,” he remarked, “bestrides Italy like a Colossus, but to judge a rider one must consider the kind of horse he rides.”

I have listened to Mr. Churchill talk at the dinner table and he is as brilliant there as he is in the House of Commons. His conversational style has the same classical quality of his writing and public speaking. Every sentence is rounded and balanced; none is left incomplete, and I should think that ninety-five per cent of everything he says in talking with his friends could be taken down by a stenographer and reproduced without changing a syllable. At the same time there is no studied effect and the listeners have not the feeling they are attending a recitation or declamation. They are transported back to the time when, either in Ancient Greece or in eighteenth century Europe, men cultivated the art of speaking and especially of conversation. Who knows what effect it will have upon English education and English habits of conversation to have had as a Prime Minister during the war a master of the word such as appears only seldom in centuries. The oratory of Churchill must already have influenced the language standards of the English-speaking world, even though imperceptibly, for it is impossible that so many millions should have listened to him and read his speeches without having their taste improved. As a contrast it is interesting to observe what the effect has already been upon the German language to have had the apostle of illiteracy as the head of the German Reich for eight years; the language of Goethe and Heine has been supplanted deliberately by a coarse vulgarization of German chosen for its appeal to the lowest instincts of the population.

Churchill attracted much attention when in a memorandum to all government offices he asked for a more effective and economic use of the English language in official communications and demanded the abandonment of the jargon currently in use by bureaucrats. He can be colloquial. The first time I met Mr. Churchill was at a luncheon given by Lady Colefax, who has done more to help American correspondents in London than almost anyone there. Present were Mr. Churchill, J. L. Garvin, the crusty, brilliant editor of the _Observer_ and one-time editor of the _Encyclopaedia Brittanica_, Somerset Maugham, Mrs. Simpson, not yet the wife of Edward, Harold Nicolson, Peter Fleming, Jan Masaryk, and a number of others. The conversation was almost exclusively between Churchill and Garvin, and well it might be, for Garvin is one of the few who can talk on anything like equal terms with the master, and indeed on this occasion Garvin practically talked Churchill silent. It was just two years before the war, but the topic was even then the position of Russia, and Garvin exclaimed, “Do you mean to say you would throw in your lot with the Bolsheviks?” The Churchillian reply was, “I mean just that, old cock!” with a remark to the effect that when one had to face an enemy like Germany it would be only common sense to try for the help of any ally no matter how distasteful otherwise.

We can see from Churchill’s policy of helping Russia since the German attack how consistent he has remained. On the day after the Russians marched into Poland--and horrified the world of fellow travelers and caused all except party-liners and a few foresighted realists to draw back in aversion from this manifestation of Red Imperialism--I had a talk with Mr. Churchill, who had been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty a fortnight before. I asked him whether, since Great Britain had guaranteed the territory of Poland against aggression and had gone to war with Germany because of the German attack on Poland, one could now consider that Great Britain was at war with Russia since the Russians also had attacked Poland? I am not at liberty to quote him, but he gave the answer in public a fortnight later when after the fall of Warsaw he declared: “We could have wished that the Russian Armies should be standing on their present line as the friends and allies of Poland instead of as invaders. _But that the Russian armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace...._ I can not forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”

Thus early and late Churchill maintained that it was desirable to attempt to bring Russia into arms as an ally against the Germans, and he was one of the few men in Britain who could advocate such a policy without being suspected of sympathizing with the Bolsheviks. Only Finland shook his resolution to do nothing to alienate the Russians and it is interesting now to recall his words uttered in the midst of the Russian assault on Finland: “Only Finland, superb, nay, sublime in the jaws of peril--Finland shows what free men can do. The service rendered by Finland to mankind is magnificent. They have exposed for all the world to see, the military incapacity of the Red Army and of the Red Air Force. Many illusions about Soviet Russia have been dispelled in these few fierce weeks of fighting in the Arctic Circle. Everyone can see how Communism rots the soul of a nation; how it makes it abject and hungry in peace and proves it base and abominable in war.”

His reaction of sympathy with the people of Finland fighting against “servitude worse than death” is only one of countless examples that could be named of the little-appreciated fact that he is an extremely sensitive man. His gruff way sometimes conceals it, but there is not a man in public life anywhere who feels the miseries of this stricken world with more compassion than Churchill. When eighteen months after these caustic remarks about the Communist regime, Russia was attacked and Mr. Churchill expressed his sympathy with the Russian people, it is certain he meant it, although it was good politics too. Incidentally I am convinced that one of the reasons why he is loath to discuss detailed plans for what a victorious Britain would like the postwar world to be, is the problem of Russia. Certainly the vast majority of British people would like to see the Bolshevik government replaced by some democratic regime.

I am sure one reason for Churchill’s aversion to Bolshevism is his strong family feeling, and his repugnance for the Communist attempt to subordinate the family, if not to abolish it, as was originally attempted in the Soviet Union. For his family in the past, his noble and famous ancestors, he has profound respect and a feeling of proud affectionate gratitude which has led him to devote a good part of his literary labors to the biography of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, and to the massive life of the Duke of Marlborough. To his present family, his wife Clementine, his daughters Sarah, Diana, and Mary, and his son Randolph, he devotes more time and attention than most men with a fraction of his responsibilities. Randolph’s marriage to the beautiful Pamela Digby was a delight to Mr. Churchill. It represented the only chance of the perpetuation of the Churchill name, and when Winston Spencer, the first grandchild to bear his name was born, he became the favorite member of the dynasty.

Churchill’s aversions are just as strong and notable as his predilections. They might be listed, without order: Hitler, Mussolini, Trotzky, Nazism, Communism, the New Deal, Prohibition, hypocrisy, cruelty, thick soup, bores, mediocrity, cowardice, stupidity, sentimentality, bigotry, muddling, proletarianism, poor English, poor food, poor anything except poor people. He is intolerant of anything but the best. He is the perfect exemplar of a gentleman who never offends anyone except intentionally. His manners to his friends are of an old-fashioned courtliness. When he bids a guest farewell Mr. Churchill comes to the driveway to see him off with a handshake and a Godspeed. His manners to his enemies are savage and the lash of his tongue is feared from Berlin to Whitehall. He can be wounding to a colleague who has failed to meet requirements. One Cabinet Minister complained that when Churchill dismissed him he “kicked me out as though I had been a servant.” As the war wears on and the duties of office become heavier, his patience has frayed and the single criticism one can frequently hear is that he has become short-tempered. He is particularly intolerant of Parliamentary inquiries which would require the Government to reveal facts of military value to the enemy. Constantly, naive Members ask such questions, and if Mr. Churchill chooses personally to reply he frequently makes his answer blister. Yet there has never been a Prime Minister with a more meticulous regard for the rights, functions, and ceremonies of Parliament than Mr. Churchill. This regard is such that he has sometimes been criticized for delaying

## action until all forms are duly complied with by Parliament.