Month: April 2016

Thatcher to Congress, 1985: Worth Remembering

Thatcher to Congress, 1985: Worth Remembering

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.’”…

Read More Read More

“Boneless Wonder” vs. “Dodgy Dave”

“Boneless Wonder” vs. “Dodgy Dave”

"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

Read More Read More

Bombing Japan: Churchill’s View

Bombing Japan: Churchill’s View

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.…

Read More Read More

Senator Cruz: Minor Misquote, Major Misinterpretation

Senator Cruz: Minor Misquote, Major Misinterpretation

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.”…

Read More Read More

National Winston Churchill Day 2016

National Winston Churchill Day 2016

Nation­al Day of Cel­e­bra­tion: April 9th?

Pub­lished 9 April 2016 by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project

Why does the Unit­ed States des­ig­nate April 9th as Nation­al Churchill Day? Why not, for exam­ple, May 10th? That was the day in 1940 when, with lib­er­ty in retreat, he became Britain’s prime min­is­ter, sure that he knew a good deal about it all, cer­tain he would not fail, impa­tient for the morning….

But April 9th has a cer­tain nation­al sig­nif­i­cance for Amer­i­cans. That was the day, in 1963, when Pres­i­dent Kennedy pro­claimed Sir Win­ston an hon­orary cit­i­zen of the Unit­ed States.…

Read More Read More

RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks

Links on this page may earn commissions.