Winston S. Churchill Archives - Page 55 of 64

Churchill on Socialism

14 July 2015

This quotation is now going around the web, broadly attributed to Churchill. Is it accurate? “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” —M.S. via email.

It is more or less correct, but it’s a truncated version of two separate comments, run together to make them more interesting (in the eye of the drafter).

“Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” —Perth, Scotland, 28 May 1948, in Churchill, Europe Unite: Speeches 1947 & 1948 (London: Cassell, 1950), 347.…

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Churchill on July 4, 1918

4 July 2015

Happy 4th from Hillsdale College.

“The Third Great Title-Deed of Anglo-American Liberties”

Winston S. Churchill, Liberty Day Meeting, Central Hall, Westminster, July 4, 1918. Excerpted from Robert Rhodes James, Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, 8 vols. (New York: Bowker, 1974), III 2613-16.

I move that the following resolution be cabled from the meeting as a greeting to the President and people of the United States of America: This meeting of the Anglo-Saxon Fellowship assembled in London on the 4th of July, 1918, sends to the President and people of the United States their heartfelt greetings on the 142nd anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence.…

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Winston Churchill: Not Much to Say Today?

28 June 2015

Every turn of events has its unique features. Understanding them, and applying principles to them today, is still the challenge. The challenge for leaders today is to judge whether discretion should take priority over boldness, whether diplomacy is a feasible option, and when and where to deploy a bluff. In these areas, Churchill’s experience is an invaluable guide, because human nature is unchanging.

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Churchill, Troops and Strikers (2): Llanelli, 1911

27 May 2015

Llanelli in Context

Llanelli and the Railway Strike: concluded from Part 1…

Throughout the August 1911 railway strike, troops stood by. Their orders were to interfere only against threats to public security. But there was another reason why anxiety ran high at that time. A few weeks earlier, the Germans had sent a gunboat to Agadir, French Morocco. Rumors of war with Germany were rampant. David Lloyd George said the Agadir Crisis was a threat to peace. The Germans, he warned, “would not hesitate to use the [strike] paralysis,,,to attack Britain.” Paul Addison, in Churchill on the Home Front, described the public mood.…

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Churchill, Troops & Strikers (1)

26 May 2015

This is a time when we often question the actions of police forces. In America, governors occasionally call in the National Guard during riotous protests. Local residents are always the main victims of such events. Churchill’s experience with strikers is worthy of study, his magnanimity worthy of reflection.

Did WSC Send Troops Against Strikers?

For a century it has been part of socialist demonology that Churchill sent troops to attack strikers during a 1910 miners’ work stoppage in Tonypandy, Wales. In 1967 an Oxford undergraduate wrote that Churchill faced down strikers with tanks. This was very prescient of him, since tanks didn’t exist in 1910.…

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Churchillnomics: The “Stricken Field”

18 May 2015

Young Winston Churchill’s second speech in Parliament was a bravura performance taking up his father’s theme for economy in the budget.

In Churchill in His Own Words (p 45) I date this quotation 12 May 1901 and cite Churchill’s Mr. Brodrick’s Army, his 1903 volume of speeches (facsimile edition, Sacramento: Churchilliana Company, 1977), 16:

Wise words, Sir, stand the test of time, and I am very glad the House has allowed me, after an interval of fifteen years, to raise the tattered flag I found lying on a stricken field.

The “tattered flag” was Lord Randolph Churchill’s campaign for economy in the late 1880s.…

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“Rats in a Hole”: Churchill’s Apology

12 May 2015

Imagine if the President of the United States declared, “We will dig out terrorists ‘like rats in a hole.” Many would applaud and think maybe they had misjudged him. Or would they?

A colleague sends an exchange in the House of Commons on 7 March 1916. “Colonel Churchill,” recently returned from the Front but still a Member of Parliament, was speaking about the naval war with Germany. British naval planners must provide, Churchill was saying,

against what will be a continually increasing element of the unknown. I must also just point out another argument which shows that, great as were the anxieties with which we were faced in the first four months of the War, they have not by any means been removed, or, indeed, sensibly diminished by the course of events.…

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Churchill and Professor Lindemann, Lord Cherwell

4 May 2015

I reviewed the 1940-45 visitors books at Chequers. I was struck by how often Lord Cherwell (Frederick Lindemann) was there—far more than family and staff. He visited more than Bracken and Beaverbrook, or the Chiefs of Staff. What do you make of him? What’s best to read on him? —A.R., London

Most frequent visitor

After the death of the F.E. Smith, the first Lord Birkenhead, Frederick Lindemann, Lord Cherwell (1886-1957) was probably Churchill’s closest friend. His signature is also the most frequent in the visitors book at Chartwell, where it appears 86 times, more than anyone else (Brendan Bracken only 31, although visitors usually signed only when staying overnight, and Bracken frequently returned to London).…

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Churchill’s Average Voter

28 April 2015

(Or: “Churchillian Drift,” Part 1,398….)

On the eve of the British General Election, Metro UK declares: “Winston Churchill said the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

This is alas a reappearance of an ever-popular red-herring quote that Churchill never said.

Churchill had thoughtful critiques of democracy. See in particular his essay on “Mass Effects in Modern Life” in his book, Thoughts and Adventures. But he also had more respect for the average voter than this non-quote suggests. In the House of Commons on 31 October 1944 he said:

At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper [we still vote that way in New Hampshire]—no amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of that point.…

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Dardanelles-Gallipoli Centenary

25 April 2015

The original idea for forcing the Dardanaelles was not proposed by Churchill, who initially doubted it. His First Sea Lord, Fisher, who later deserted him, at first supported it. Churchill was First Lord not “Lord” of the Admiralty; Prime Minister Asquith was not at that time a Lord. The landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula were not originally part of the plan.

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