Safeguarding the Arts
Please verify a Churchill story/quotation during his defense of his budget in front of the House of Commons while London was being bombed. A Member questioned Churchill’s increase in the arts budget while Britain was fighting for her life. Churchill’s supposedly responded that he could justify the increase “to remind us what we are fighting for.” —K.L., Chicago.
This alleged quotation was raised some few years ago in the Village Voice and is all over the web, but it is not among Churchill’s 15 million published words in speeches, papers, letters, articles or books.
It was reprised recently by actor Kevin Spacey to Chris Matthews of MSNBC, though the Youtube post actually corrects the misquote with a textual overlay.…
