April 2016 - Richard M. Langworth

Thatcher to Congress, 1985: Worth Remembering

28 April 2016 Comments 0 Comments

Margaret Thatcher, in her thoughtful and prescient remarks, posted by the Hillsdale College Churchill Project, reached back into history to recall how far the English-Speaking Peoples have come since victory in World War II, and how much remained to accomplish. Like Churchill, Lady Thatcher would be pleased that for the most part, they met the tests before them, in his words, with “a stern sentiment of impartial justice, and above all the love of personal freedom, or as Kipling put it: ‘Leave to live by no man’s leave underneath the law.’”…

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“Boneless Wonder” vs. “Dodgy Dave”

20 April 2016 Comments 0 Comments

"I remember when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum’s circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the programme which I most desired to see was the one described as 'The Boneless Wonder.' My parents judged that that spectacle would be too revolting and demoralising for my youthful eyes, and I have waited 50 years to see the Boneless Wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench." —WSC, 1931

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Bombing Japan: Churchill’s View

19 April 2016 Comments 4 Comments

Scott Johnson of Powerline (“Why We Dropped the Bomb,” 13 April) kindly links an old column of his quoting an old one of mine with reference to President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima and the atom bombing of Japan.

Johnson links a lecture by Professor Williamson Murray, which is worth considering, along with Paul Fussell’s classic essay in The New Republic, “Thank God for the Atom Bomb,” which makes you think, though some consider it a rant. Fussell wrote:

John Kenneth Galbraith is persuaded that the Japanese would have surrendered surely by November without an invasion.…

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cruz churchill — Ted Cruz (L). Maybe if he’d smoke a cigar? (Daily Telegraph)

Senator Cruz: Minor Misquote, Major Misinterpretation

16 April 2016 Comments 1 Comment

Ted Cruz, speaking on 5 April, “sparked an outcry” by misquoting Churchill: “If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, Cruz intoned, “we risk the future.”

The London Daily Telegraph reported: The references drew a swift—and fierce—reaction from social media.” Social media is not a likely place to contemplate the fine points of history. It wasn’t in this case, as you can read in the newspaper article.

What Cruz said was “…risk the future.” For Churchill it was more than risk. In his “Finest Hour” speech, 18 June 1940, Churchill told Parliament: “If we open a quarrel between the past and the present we shall find that we have lost the future.”…

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