Bourke Cockran Archives - Richard M. Langworth

John Churchill First Duke of Marlborough (mounted in red coat) at the Battle of Blenheim, 1704. (Painting by John Wootton, 1682-1764, National Army Museum, public domain)

Churchill’s Inspirations Bedizen the Pages of History

13 April 2020 Comments 3 Comments

Excerpted from “Which Historical and Contemporary Figures were Churchill’s Inspirations?” Written for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project, February 2020. For Hillsdale’s complete text and illustrations, please click here.

We are often asked which historical and contemporary personages most influenced Winston Churchill’s thought and statesmanship. One is right to start with Lord Randolph Churchill, Napoleon, Clemenceau and Marlborough. The classics open another avenue. Readers can find pithy remarks by Churchill on many of the following figures in Churchill by Himself.

Lord Randolph Churchill

His father was the first of young Winston’s political inspirations, and the subject of his first biography.…

Churchill and Free Trade: That was Then, This is Now

27 April 2019 Comments 1 Comment

On Free Trade and tariffs

The Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer penned an interesting article on trade: “Trump girds for War with EU.” I sent it around to colleagues, praising it for properly attributing an alleged Churchill quote:

No one doubts that Trump is gearing up to launch a tariff battle with the European Union. For one thing, he is set to sign a deal ending the trade battle with China, and would not be fighting a two-front war should he take on Europe which, he tweeted last week, “has taken advantage of the U.S.…

Cockran: A Great Contemporary

22 November 2016 Comments 1 Comment

Q: How important was Congressman Bourke Cockran’s influence on the young Churchill?

A: Very. The late Curt Zoller was the first to write in depth about Bourke Cockran. This man played a vital but little understood role in forming young Churchill’s political philosophy. In 1895, Zoller wrote, when young Churchill traveled to New York on his way to Cuba,

…he was greeted by William Bourke Cockran, a New York lawyer, U.S. congressman, friend of his mother’s and of his American relatives. Winston’s Aunt Clara was married to Moreton Frewen. (The peripatetic “Mortal Ruin” would later badly edit Churchill’s first book, Story of the Malakand Field Force.)…