2011 | Richard M. Langworth

Churchill’s Life Today: December 7th Quotes

7 December 2011 Comments 0 Comments

7 December 1936 (House of Commons): “May I ask my Rt. Hon. Friend [Prime Minister Baldwin] whether he could give us an assurance that no irrevocable step… [Hon. Members: “No!”] …that no irrevocable step will be taken before the House has received a full statement, not only upon the personal but upon the constitutional issues involved. May I ask him to bear in mind that these issues are not merely personal to the present occupant of the Throne, but that they affect the entire Constitution.” [Hon. Members: “Speech,” and “Sit down!”]

Churchill lost carefully built political capital by rising to defend Edward VIII, who was facing abdication over his insistence on marrying Wallis Simpson, a divorced American.…

“Americans will do the right thing….”

20 November 2011 Comments 11 Comments

Congress dedicates a new Churchill bust, and NPR rightly corrects a famous Churchill misquotation.

Politics Before Country, 1936-2011, Part 4

9 October 2011 Comments 2 Comments

continued from Part 3…

America and the other great democracies confront no mighty superpower, like Britain did in 1936. Yet we face problems which, long simmering, may indeed result in a wreckage similar to what might have befallen the world, had Churchill’s Britain, and its Commonwealth, not stood alone against Hitler, until, as he put it, “those who hitherto had been half blind were half ready.” The clearest declaration of Churchill’s character and principle I have ever read came in July 1936, at the height of the rearmament debate, Churchill told Parliament:

I would endure with patience the roar of exultation that would go up when I was proved wrong, because it would lift a load off my heart and off the hearts of many Members.…