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. What does it mat­ter who gets exposed or dis­com­fit­ed? If the coun­try is safe, who cares for indi­vid­ual politi­cians, in or out of office?

That ring­ing dec­la­ra­tion demon­strates Churchill’s devo­tion to prin­ci­ple and to his nation, regard­less of poll rat­ings or unpopularity—characteristics some in Con­gress also demon­strate, from time to time.

They may be struck also by cer­tain ear­li­er Churchill remarks in 1928, which serve as a warn­ing against inac­tion in the face of the obvi­ous, by any nation’s lead­ers today. They were writ­ten by Churchill to Lord Beaver­brook, after he had read Beaverbrook’s book about World War I, Politi­cians and the War. They were meant in no invid­i­ous sense, but only, I think, in sorrow:

Think of all these people—decent, edu­cat­ed, the sto­ry of the past laid out before them—What to avoid—what to do etc.—patriotic, loy­al, clean—trying their utmost—What a ghast­ly mud­dle they made of it! Unteach­able from infan­cy to tomb—There is the first and main char­ac­ter­is­tic of mankind.

Worth heed­ing too are Churchill’s words to the Roy­al Soci­ety of St. George on 24 April 1933, which are ever­green: “We ought to rejoice at the respon­si­bil­i­ties with which des­tiny has hon­oured us, and be proud that we are guardians of our coun­try in an age when her life is at stake.”