Churchill on Churchill

Outline and Description

1. Scene 1. Churchill The Orator
   1. Selected World War II speeches
2. Scene 2. Churchill The Sage
   1. One-liners reflecting reflecting Churchill's wisdom
3. Scene 3. Churchill The Humorist
   1. Interesting anecdotes and witty remarks
4. Scene 4. Churchill The Prophet
   1. Instances of uncanny insight into the future

INTRODUCTION

As the audience enters, a lectern with several network microphones is visible downstage-right in a pool of light surrounded by darkness. Music (“Britannia”) is soft.

N: Welcome to Churchill on Churchill--a drama honoring the memory of Winston Spencer Churchill. Churchill was a “Renaissance Man”--not just a great speaker and statesman, but an innovator, artist, writer, athlete, stonemason, and soldier. He was a man of thought as well as action. His leadership during World War II was perhaps the greatest single contributing factor in preserving the free world. Some of us believe him to be “the largest human being of our time,” truly: “The Man of the Twentieth Century!” With his “We shall fight on the beaches” speech:

In the aftermath of the miraculous deliverance of the British army in June (1940) at Dunkirk, Churchill inspired the House of Commons to thunderous ovation. Members--many with tears in their eyes--stood pounding the benches in front of them when Churchill delivered his defiant words. One member who heard him was the author Harold Nicholson, who wrote to his wife, Vita Sackville-West, that they were “the most magnificent words ever heard in the English language.” When President Roosevelt heard the words on radio, he said to his aid Harry Hopkins, “As long as that old bastard is in charge, Britain will never surrender.” After hearing this address on the radio, the president of the neutral United States decided to send needed military aid to Britain. ^[1]

In the following drama, Churchill's genius is revealed through his exceptional ability as a speaker, his wit, his wisdom, and his uncanny insight into the future. Selected quotations extracted from his World War II speeches, amusing anecdotes, opinions, and predictions will be delivered. In that order then, the presentation will consist of Churchill the Orator, Churchill the Humorist, Churchill the Sage, and Churchill the Prophet.

^[1]James C Humes, The Wit and Wisdom of Winston Churchill. New York: HarperCollins,1994, p.119

SCENE I--THE ORATOR

When the lights come back, WSC is standing at the lectern with his 'puckish' grin, his small black rimmed glasses pulled down on his nose. He makes his famous “V-for victory” sign with his right hand.

WSC:(November 12, 1939-Broadcast address after ten weeks of the war.) We are at war, and we are going to persevere in making war, until the other side have had enough of it.

WSC: (May13,1940-Speech to House of Commons on becoming Prime Minister.) I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.

You ask what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war,by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.

You ask what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory-- victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

WSC: (June4,1940- House of Commons after evacuation of Dunkerque.)
Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of the Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

WSC: (June 18, 1940--House of Commons on the war situation.)
The Battle of France is over. I expect that the battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”

WSC: (July 14, 1940-Broadcast three weeks after the fall of France.)
Today is the fourteenth of July, the national festival of France... I proclaim my faith that some of us will live to see a fourteenth of July when a liberated France will once again rejoice in her greatness and in her glory, and once again stand forward as the champion of the freedom and the rights of man. When that day dawns, as dawn it will, the soul of France will turn with comprehension and with kindness to those Frenchmen and Frenchwomen, wherever they may be, who in the darkest hour did not despair of the Republic.

This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers not only in this island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be recorded. This is a war of the unknown warriors; but let all strive without failing in faith or in duty, and the dark curse of Hitler will be lifted from our age.

WSC: (August 20,1940-House of Commons reviewing first year of war.)
The gratitude of every home in our island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen, who, undaunted by the odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the world war by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

WSC: (September 11, 1940-broadcast following fire-bombing of London.)
This wicked little man has now resolved to try to break our famous island race by a process of indiscriminate slaughter and destruction. What he has done is to kindle a fire in British hearts, here and all over the world, which will burn with a steady and consuming flame until the last vestiges of Nazi tyranny have been burnt out of Europe, and until the Old World--and the New--can join hands to rebuild the temples of man's freedom and man's honour(sic.), upon foundations that will not soon or easily be overthrown.

WSC: (October 21, 1940-- Broadcast to the people of France.)
We are waiting for the long-promised invasion. So are the fishes. “Goodnight then: sleep to gather strength for the morning. For the morning will come. Brightly will it shine on the brave and true, kindly upon all who suffer for the cause, glorious upon the tombs of heroes. Thus will shine the dawn.”

Vive la France!

Long live also the forward march of the common people in all lands towards their just and full inheritance and towards the broader and fuller age.

WSC: (February 9, 1941-Broadcast address on the war situation and acknowledging greetings from President Roosevelt.)
“Put your confidence in us. Give us your faith and your blessing, and, under Providence, all will be well. We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle, nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.”

WSC: (June 22,1941-Broadcast address on the invasion of Russia.)
At four o'clock this morning Hitler attacked and invaded Russia...

Without declaration of war, without even an ultimatum, German bombs rained down from the air upon the Russian cities, the German troops violated the frontiers...So now this bloodthirsty guttersnipe must launch his mechanized armies upon new fields of slaughter, pillage and destruction. Poor as are the Russian peasants, workmen and soldiers, he must steal from them their daily bread; he must devour their harvests; he must rob them of the oil which drives their ploughs...

Any man or State who fights on against Nazidom will have our aid. Ane any man or State who marches with Hitler is our foe. We shall give whatever help we can to Russia and the Russian people.

WSC: (July 14, 1941-Speech at the London County Council after a review of the Civil Defence Services.)
We ask now favours of the enemy. We seek from them no compunction. On the contrary...the people of London with one voice would say to Hitler: 'We will have no truce or parley with you or the grisly gang who work your wicked will. You do your worst--and we will do our best'

WSC: (July 20, 1941-Message to the peoples of Europe.)
The V sign is the symbol of the unconquerable will of the occupied territories, and a portent of the fate awaiting the Nazi tyranny. So long as the peoples of Europe continue to refuse all collaboration with the invader, it is sure that his cause will perish and that Europe will be liberated.

WSC: (August 24, 1941-Broadcast following the meeting with President Roosevelt “somewhere in the Atlantic.”)
The meeting was symbolic. That is its prime importance. It symbolizes in a form and manner which everyone can understand in every land and in every clime, the deep underlying unities which stir and at decisive moments rule the English-speaking peoples throughout the world...This was a meeting which marks for ever in the pages of history the taking-up by the English-speaking nations, amid all this peril, tumult and confusion, of the guidance of the fortunes of the broad toiling masses in all the continents; and our loyal effort without any clog of selfish interest to lead them forward out of the miseries into which they have been plunged back to the broad highroad of freedom and justice.

WSC:(December 8,1941-Speech to the House of Commons following Japan's attack on Hawaii and Asia.)
Now that the issue is joined in the most direct manner, it only remains for the two great democracies to face their task with whatever strength God may give them...We have no reason to doubt the justice of our cause or that our strength and will-power will be sufficient to sustain it. We have at least four-fifths of the population of the globe upon our side. We are responsible for their safety and for their future. In the past we have had a light which flickered, in the present we have a light which flames, and in the future there will be a light which shines over all the land and sea.

WSC: (December 30, 1941-Speech to the Canadian Senate and House of Commons on the war situation.)
We did not make this war, we did not seek it. We did all we could to avoid it...We went so far at times in trying to avoid it as to be almost destroyed by it when it broke upon us. But that dangerous corner has been turned...The peoples of the British Empire...are a tough and hardy lot. We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.

WSC: (November 10,1942-Speech at Lord Mayor's Day Luncheon at the Mansion House, London.)
Rommel's army has been defeated. It has been routed. It has been very largely destroyed as a fighting force...Now this is not the end It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

For ourselves we have no wish but to see France free and strong, with her Empire gathered round her and with Alsace-Lorraine restored. We covet no French possession; we have no acquisitive appetites or ambitions in North Africa or any other part of the world. We have not entered this war for profit or expansion, but only for honour and to do our duty in defending the right.

Let me, however, make this clear, in case there should be any mistake about it in any quarter. We mean to hold our own. I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire. ... Here we are, and here we stand, a veritable rock of salvation in the drifting world.

WSC: (February 3, 1943-Speech to the Eighth Army at Tripoli congratulating on its victories in Africa.)
After the war when a man is asked what he did it will be quite sufficient for him to say, 'I marched and fought with the Desert Army.' And when history is written and all the facts are known your feats will gleam and glow and will be a source of song and story long after we who are gathered here have passed away.

WSC: (June 30,1943-Speech at the Guildhall, London upon receiving the freedom of the city.)
We seek no profit, we covet no territory or aggrandisement.(sic) We expect no reward and we will accept no compromise. It is on that footing that we wish to be judged, first in our own consciences and afterwards by posterity.

We the United Nations, demand from the Nazi, Fascist, and Japanese tyrannies unconditional surrender. By this we mean that their will-power to resist must be completely broken, and that they must yield themselves absolutely to our justice and mercy. It also means that we must take all those far-sighted measures which are necessary to prevent the world from being again convulsed, wrecked and blackened by their calculated plots and ferocious aggression.

WSC: (June6,1944-Report to the House of Commons on the D-Day landings.)
So far the commanders who are engaged report that everything is proceeding according to plan. And what a plan! This vast operation is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever taken place. It involves tides, wind, waves, visibility, both from the air and from the sea standpoint, and the combined employment of land, air and sea forces in the highest degree of intimacy and in contact with conditions which could not and cannot be fully foreseen.

WSC: (April 17, 1945-Speech to the Hopuse of Commons on the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.)

I conceived an admiration for him as a statesman, a man of affairs, and a war leader. I felt the utmost confidence in his upright, inspiring character and outlook, and a personal regard--affection I must say--for him beyond my power to express...It is, indeed, a loss, a bitter loss to humanity that those heart-beats are stilled for ever.

WSC: (May 8, 1945-Speech from a balcony in the Ministry of Health to crowds in Whitrehall on V-E Day.)

This is your victory! It is the victory of the cause of freedom in every land. In our long history we have never seen a greater day than this. Everyone, man, or woman, has done their best. Everyone has tried. Neither the long years, nor the dangers, nor the fierce attacks of the enemy, have in any way weakened the independent resolve of the British nation. God bless you all.

WSC: (August 16, 1945-Speech in the house of Commons following the surrender of Japan, his first major speech as leader of the Opposition.)

The bomb brought peace, but men alone can keep that peace, and henceforth they will keep it under penalties which threaten the survival not only of civilization but of humanity itself.

The morrow of such a victory as we have gained is a splendid moment both in our small lives and in our great history. It is time not only of rejoicing but even more of resolve. When we look back on all the perils through which we have passed and at the mighty foes we have laid low and all the dark and deadly designs we have frustrated, why should we fear for our future? We have come safely through the worst.

CURTAIN

SCENE II--THE SAGE

(Music “God Save The Queen” moderate,then soft)As the curtain opens WSC--with cigar, white cap and frock, paints and brushes--is seated in front of his easel halfway downstage and stage left of center facing half profile stage right in a pool of light surrounded by darkness.

+ Dogs look up to you, cats look down on you. Give me a pig. He just looks you in the eye and treats you as an equal.

+ In my belief you cannot deal with the most serious things in the world unless you also understand the most amusing.

+ Happy are the painters for they shall not be lonely. Light and colour, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end, or almost to the end, of the day.

+ Art is to beauty what honor is to honesty.

+ Without tradition art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation it is a corpse.

+ The cultivation of a hobby and new forms of interest is a policy of first importance...to be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies.

+ We have had a leisured class. It has vanished. Now we must think of the leisured masses.

+ By material well-being, I mean not only abundance but a degree of leisure for the masses such as has never been before in our mortal struggle for life.

+ Learn all you can about the history of the past, for how else can one even make a guess what is going to happen in the future?

+ The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

+ The first duty of a university is to teach wisdom not a trade; character not technicalities.

+ The more the opportunities of university education in any country are used, the brighter and healthier will the life of that country become.

+ The university education is the guide to the reading of a lifetime.

+ The most important thing about education is appetite.

+ There is a great deal of difference between the tired man who wants a book to read and the alert man who wants to read a book.

+ There is a good saying that when a new book appears one should always read an old one.

+ Short words are best and old words when short are best of all.

+ Official jargon can be used to destroy any kind of human contact or even thought itself.

+ It is not possible to draw a hard-and-fast line between individualism and collectivism. You cannot draw it either in theory or in practice. No man can be a collectivist alone or and individualist alone. He must be both...Collectively we light our streets and supply ourselves with water. But we do not make love collectively and the ladies do not marry us collectively.

+ Individualism offers an infinitely graduated and infinitely varied system of records for genius, for enterprise, for exertion, for industry, for faithfulness, for thrift. Socialism destroys all this.

+ Socialism is one of the oldest and most often expounded delusions and fallacies which this world has ever been afflicted by. It consists not merely in a general leveling of mankind, but in keeping them level once they have been beaten down.

+ The vice of capitalism is that it stands for the unequal sharing of blessings; whereas the virtue of socialism is that it stands for the equal sharing of misery.

+ Is it better to have equality at the price of poverty or well-being at the price of inequality?

+ The Socialists aim at the maximum of regulations and the Conservatives aim at the minimum.

+ The more man's choice is free, the more likely it is to be wise and fruitful not only to the chosen but to the community in which he dwells.

+ “Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” (WSC, Perth, Scotland, 25 May 1948)

+ The difference between our outlook and the Socialist outlook is the difference between the ladder and the queue. We are for the ladder. Let all try to their best to climb. They are for the queue.

+ If you destroy a free market, you create a black market.

+ There are two ways of securing cooperation in human action. You get cooperation by controls or you can get it by comprehension.

+ Criticism in the body politic is like pain in the human body. It is not pleasant but where would the body be without it?

+ National unity does not mean national unanimity.

+ An appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile hoping it will eat him last.

+ Appeasement in itself may be good or bad according to circumstances. Appeasement from strength is magnanimous and noble and might be the surest and perhaps the only road to world peace.

+ There are many cases where the United Nations have failed. Hungary is in my mind. Justice cannot be a hit-or-miss system. We cannot be content with an arrangement where our system of international laws applies only to those who are willing to keep them.

+ We shape our dwellings and afterwards our dwellings shape us.

+ Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities...because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

+ The only way a man can remain consistent amid changing circumstances is to change with them while preserving the same dominating purpose.

+ If you travel the earth, you will find it is largely divided into two classes of people--people who say “I wonder why such and such is not done” and people who say “Now who is going to prevent me from doing that thing?”

+ To act by half-measures, with a lack of conviction miscalled “caution,” is to run the greatest risks and lose the prize.

+ To try to be safe everywhere is to be strong nowhere.

+ Real leaders of men do not come forward offering to lead they show the way, and when it has been found to lead to victory they accept as a matter of course the allegiance of those who have followed.

+ I have never accepted what many...have kindly said, namely that I inspired the nation...It was the nation and the race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion's heart.

+ It is always dangerous for soldiers, sailors or armies to play at politics.

+ Humanity, not legality, must be our guide.

+ Logic, like science, must be the servant and not the master if man.

+ Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.

+ There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society, are created, strengthened and maintained.

+ Our future is in our hands. Our lives are what we choose to make them.

+ When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened

SCENE III--THE HUMORIST

As the curtain opens WSC--in robe and slippers--with pen and notebook, is sitting at his desk, slightly down from middlestage center, facing quarter left in a pool of light surrounded by darkness. He is coddling a brandy snifter.

WSC: There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.

WSC: (I cannot indeed swear to the accuracy of the following quotations; but all have been attributed to me in print and, therefore, I feel it cricket for me to share them with you this evening):

WSC: Although present on the occasion(of my birth) I have no clear recollection of the events leading up to it.

WSC: When I was younger I made it a rule never to take strong drink before lunch. It is now my rule never to do so before breakfast.

WSC: I neither want it (brandy) nor need it but I think it pretty hazardous to interfere with the ineradicable habit of a lifetime...Good cognac is like a women. Do not assault it. Coddle it and warm it in your hands before you sip it.

WSC: All I can say is that I have taken more out of alcohol (,,,) than alcohol has taken out of me..

WSC: (After drinks, I bumped into Labourite, Bessie Braddock, she angrily exclaimed: “Winston, you are drunk, and what's more, you are disgustingly drunk.” I replied):And I might say, Mrs, Braddock, you are ugly, and what's more, disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow,I shall be sober.

WSC: (When I was a young man, asked about a recent dinner party, I said):...it would have been splendid...if the wine had been as cold as the soup, the beef as rare as the service, the brandy as old as the fish, and the maid as willing as the Duchess.

WSC: (There was a newspaper report that a teen-age girl had been propositioned in Hyde Park by a seventy-five year old man in below-zero weather):hmm... Seventy-five!...and below zero!..It makes you proud to be an Englishman.

WSC: The nose (English)bulldog has been slanted backward that he can breathe without letting go.

WSC: Lady Astor pouring coffee, once said to me, “Winston, if I were your wife, I'd put poison in your coffee.” I replied):“Nancy, if I were your husband, I'd drink it.”

WSC: (With reference to criticism): I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught...Eating my words has never given me indigestion...Although always prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it should be postponed.

WSC: (Civil Servants...humph!): No longer servants, no longer civil.

WSC: (An opponent of mine can best be described as): one of those orators who, before they get up, do not know what they are going to say; when they are speaking , do not know what they are saying; and when they have sat down, do not know what they have said.

WSC: (A political candidate): is asked to stand, he wants to sit, he is expected to lie.

WSC: A bad politician is one you disagree with.

WSC: (Socialism) is government of the duds, by the duds and for the duds.

WSC:(Edwin Scrimgeour, one of my socialist opponents);... was a Prohibitionist, possessed of all the virtues I despise and none of the sins I admire.

WSC: (Ramsay Macdonald (Socialist leader, 1922-1924 and prime minister, 1930-1932, had): the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought...(He was) the greatest living master of falling without hurting himself.

WSC: (Clement Atlee, Socialist Party leader and prime minister, 1943-1951 was): a modest man with much to be modest about.

WSC: “If you wanted nothing done, Arthur Balfour(Conservative Party leader, prime minister, 1902--1905 and foreign secretary 1916-1922): was the best man for the task. There was no equal to him.”

WSC: Charles De Gaulle...“thinks he is Joan of Arc, and the trouble is that my bishops won't let me burn him...He looks like a female Llama who has just been surprised in her bath.”

WSC: (John Foster Dulles, U.S. Secretary of State, 1953-1959): was “Dull, duller, Dulles.”

WSC: It is a very fine thing to refuse an invitation, but it is a good thing to wait until you get it first.

WSC: It is a nuizenza to have the fluenza.

WSC: Golf is like chasing a quinine pill around a pasture.

WSC: Of course, I am an egotist. Where do you get if you aren't?

WSC: To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

WSC: A fanatic is one who won't change his mind and won't (or can't) change the subject.

WSC: Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.

WSC: On my first visit to the White House, President Roosevelt paid me a surprise visit and found me completely naked from my morning bath. FDR immediately put his wheelchair into reverse and started to leave, but I stopped him, saying: “Pray enter. His Majesty's First Minister has nothing to hide from the president of the United States.”

WSC: George Bernard Shaw once wired me: “Am reserving two tickets for you on opening night of my new play. Come bring a friend--if you have one.” I wired him right back with: “Impossible for me to attend first performance.. Would like to attend second night--if there is one.”

WSC: My idea of a good dinner is first to have good food, then discuss good food, and after this good food has been elaborately discussed, to discuss a good topic--with myself as the chief conversationalist.

WSC: If this be a world of vice and woe, I'll take the vice and you take the woe.

WSC: Smoking cigars is like a falling in love; first you are attracted to its shape; you stay with it for its flavor; and you must always remember never, never, let the flame go out.

SCENE IV THE PROPHET

Churchill reminisces at one of his favorite sites for contemplation--the lake at Chartwell. He is sitting slightly upstage center with his back to the audience (Yes,again in a pool of light surrounded by darkness).

N: Scene IV--Churchill the Prophet:

WSC:(According to my former schoolmate, Sir Murland Evans, in the year 1892 when I was 16 years old, I told him): I can see vast changes coming over a now peaceful world; great upheavals, terrible struggles; wars such as one cannot imagine; and I tell you London will be in danger--London will be attacked and I shall be very prominent in the defence ...The country will be subjected somehow to a tremendous invasion...I shall be in command of the defenses ...and I shall save London and the Empire from Disaster.

(WSC,book in hand, turns slowly to face the audience.)
WSC: (In November 23, 1932 in the house of commons I warned):Now the demand is that Germany should be allowed to rearm...Do not let His Majesty's Government believe that all that Germany is asking for is equal status...All these bands of sturdy Teutonic youths, marching through the streets and roads of Germany, with the light of desire in their eyes to suffer for their Fatherland, when thy have the weapons, believe me thy will ask for the return of lost territories and lost colonies.

WSC: (In February, 1938, at the end of my speech deploring Anthony Eden's departure from the Foreign Office, I said): I predict that the day will come at some point or other, on some issue or other, when you will have to make a stand, and I pray to God that when that day comes we may not find, through an unwise foreign policy, we may have to make that stand alone.

WSC: (In September 1938-- when Prime Minister Chamberlain returned from his Munich meeting with Hitler announcing “We have achieved peace in our time.”-- I again warned):
“ ...we have passed an awful milestone in our history when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged and the terrible words have for the time being pronounced against the Western democracies: Thou are weighed in the balance and found wanting.” And do not suppose this is the end. This is the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of the bitter cup, which will be proffered to us year by year, unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we rise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.

WSC: (On becoming prime minister on May 10, 1940, I wrote):
I cannot conceal from the reader of this truthful account that as I went to bed at about 3 a.m.,I was conscious of a profound sense of relief. At last I had the authority to give directions over the whole scene. I felt as if I were walking with Destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial...I thought I knew a good deal about it all, and I was sure I should not fail.

WSC: (When I spoke on August 16, 1945 to the House of Commons following the surrender of Japan, I cautioned):
The morrow of such a victory as we have gained is a splendid moment both in our small lives and in our great history. It is a time not only of rejoicing but even more of resolve. When we look back on all the perils through which we have passed and at the mighty foes we have laid low and all the dark and deadly designs we have frustrated, why should we fear for our future.

The bomb brought peace, but man alone can keep that peace, and henceforth they will keep it under penalties which threaten the survival, not only of civilization but of humanity itself.

WSC: Sinews of Peace(My so-called 'Iron Curtain' speech March 5, 1946--Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri included):
“We welcome Russia to her rightful place among the leading nations of the world. We welcome her flag upon the seas. Above all we welcome constant, frequent and growing contacts between the Russian people and our own people on both sides of the Atlantic. It is my duty, however, for I am sure you would wish me to state the facts as I see them to you, to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe.” (And these are facts:) “From Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe--Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all of these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone--Greece with its immortal glories--is free to decide its future at an election under British, American and French Observation.”...“The Dark Ages may return--the Stone Age may return on the gleaming wings of science; and what might now shower immeasurable material blessings upon mankind may even bring about its total destruction.”

WSC: (1946,at the Hague): I see no reason why..there should not ultimately arise the United States of Europe.

WSC: (The same year in Zurich): We must build a kind of United States of Europe...In this urgent work France and Germany must work together.

WSC: (1948, in my book, The Gathering Storm I wrote): There can hardly ever have been a war more easy to prevent than this second Armageddon...Britain , France, and the United States have only to repeat the same well-meaning, short-sighted behavior towards the new problems which in singular resemblance confront us today to bring about a third convulsion from which none may live to tell the tale.

WSC:(In my last speech to the House of Commons, on March,1955, referring to the nuclear deterrent, I ended with):...The day may dawn when fair play, love for one's fellow-man, respect for justice and freedom, will enable tormented generations to march forth serene and triumphant from the hideous epoch in which we have to dwell. Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair.

CURTAIN

REFERENCES

“A Man of Destiny Winston S. Churchill.” Waukesha, Wisconsin:

Country Beautiful Foundation, Inc., in association with Encyclopedia Enterprises, Inc., New York.

“The Immortal Words of WINSTON CHURCHILL--Memorable Excerpts From His Famous Wartime Speeches.” Philadelphia: Curtis Circulation, The Curtis Publishing Company, 1965.

“The Speeches of Winston Churchill.” The Speeches Collection, MPI Home Video, 1990.

Gilbert, Martin. CHURCHILL, A Life. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1991.

_______________. In Search of Churchill. London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994.

Humes, James. The Wit & Wisdom of Winston Churchill. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994.

Langworth, Richard, ed. Finest Hour. Hopkinton, N.H. 1992-present. Quarterly journal of the International Churchill Societies.

Rodgers, Judith. World Leaders Past & Present--Winston Churchill.New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986.

THE INTERNATIONAL CHURCHILL SOCIETIES*

Founded in 1968 and active on three continents, the International Churchill Societies are five independent, nonprofit educational organizations which work together, in m the words of their charter, “to keep the memory green and the record accurate,” so that future generations will never forget Sir Winston Churchill's contributions to the political philosophy, culture, and literature of the English-speaking peoples. ICS/USA is now creating a Churchill Center for the Study of Statecraft in Washington, D.C.. Aside from its educational and research functions, the Churchill Center aims to create a computerized index to everything Churchill wrote and spoke, a quantum leap forward for Churchill scholars.

Friends of ICS are from all walks of life--academics, statesmen, students, professionals, nonprofessionals, collectors, bibliophiles, teachers--interested in some aspect of Churchill and his career, not merely in Churchill as symbol of victory of war, but as a symbol of culture, humor, principle, optimism, pride in country, and faith in Western civilization.

The society's quarterly journal, Finest Hour, often touches on Churchill's political philosophy and its relevance to problems of the present. Society members unite not to worship Churchill but to study his myriad experience, as a sure guide to our own cultural and national lives--and in particular, they study the wit and wisdom which enabled him to survive the storms that have rocked our troubled century. ICS has done much to preserve our memory of Churchill, promoting publications of a dozen long-forgotten Churchill books and itself publishing numerous books and monographs, including forgotten works by Churchill himself, which are usually sent free to current members.

By becoming a member of the Churchill Societies, you not only assist in the pursuit of these worthy goals, but open an avenue of personal contact with like-minded people through many local chapters and national or international events.
ICS Australia ICS United Kingdom
8 Regnans Avenue 29 High Street Endeavour Hills, Victoria Shoreham, Seven Oaks
Australia 3802 Kent, England TN4 7TD
ICS Canada ICS United States
130 Collingsbrook Boulevard 1847 Stonewood Drive Agincourt, Ontario, Canada M1W 1M7 Baton Rouge, LA 17847
ICS New Zealand
5 Basilton Close
Bucklands Beach
Auckland, New Zealand

*Humes, James. The Wit & Wisdom of Winston Churchill. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994.PP

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