Churchill has a profound historical sense and the thought of himself as a part of the broad stream of the British people, flowing from the distant past into the limitless future, is never absent from his speaking and writing. He is never just Churchill, he is Churchill of British history, of the Marlboroughs, but now more than ever Churchill of the British people, with whom he has established a community of feeling seldom equaled in the relationship of leader to people. It has always been Hitler’s boast that “I am Germany!” An Italian journalist thinking to jibe at England during the tormented months of the Blitz said mockingly that the British Isles seemed to be inhabited by “forty million Churchills.” He was right, for under Churchill’s leadership the entire population has become animated with his courage and he is England to the same degree and by the same psychological process as Hitler is Germany. Hitler obtained his ascendancy over the German people by expressing their hitherto largely unconscious aspirations, for revenge, aggression, expansion, and conquest. At the height of the British people’s peril they turned spontaneously and unanimously to Churchill whom Providence seemed to have reserved for this critical hour, and they entrusted to him the fulfillment of their aspirations to beat off the enemy, save their families, and win victory. I was there and for four months watched the British people and in particular the eight million Londoners endure the anxiety of expected invasion and the full blast of the greatest attack ever made on a civilian population in history and I know that their faith in Churchill was a most important factor in their endurance. Every Londoner thought as the bombs fell, “Churchill is there; he can’t be beaten; we can’t be beaten.” Churchill “became” England. This is the experience that has elevated him above himself, fulfilled his character, made him great. Today Churchill’s every faculty of soul, mind, and body is devoted to the service of the British Commonwealth. Today every soul and resource in the German Commonwealth is devoted to the service of Hitler.
Churchill actively directs the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force but his love is the Navy. One can tell from his speeches how frequently his mind dwells upon it. It remains his favorite branch of the services, despite the noble tribute he has paid the R.A.F. He reserves for it words such as he would use otherwise only to describe Old England herself. “Amphibious” is the term he likes best to define the power of Britain in arms. His conviction of the paramount importance of the Fleet was thus dramatically expressed: “On them, as we conceived, floated the might, majesty, dominion and power of the British Empire. All our long history built up century after century, all our great affairs in every part of the globe, all the means of livelihood and safety of our faithful, industrious, active population depended upon them. Open the seacocks and let them sink beneath the surface and in a few minutes, half an hour at the most—the whole outlook of the world would be changed. The British Empire would dissolve like a dream; each isolated community struggling forward by itself; the central power of union broken; mighty provinces, whole Empires in themselves, drifting helplessly out of control, and falling a prey to strangers; and Europe after one sudden convulsion passing into the iron grip and rule of the Teuton and of all that the Teutonic system meant. There would only be left far off across the Atlantic, unarmed, unready and as yet uninstructed America, to maintain single-handed law and freedom among men.” That was written about the Royal Navy mobilized for war in August 1914 but with what melancholy accuracy it reflects the situation of today, except that this time the Teutonic might is such that Europe has already had its one sudden convulsion and has passed under the rule of a Teutonic system far grimmer than anything the Hohenzollerns would have imposed. And once again, after a score of years of warning, America still finds herself “unarmed, unready and as yet uninstructed,” dependent now for her very life upon the continued existence of that Navy which Churchill apostrophizes.
Now of course the war takes all of Churchill’s time, but in normal circumstances he has an enormous number of interests and activities. He concentrates fiercely upon each in turn, and everything he does he does at least well, some things he does excellently, and some he does superlatively. Fighting, speaking, writing, eating, drinking, sleeping, smoking, all are the source of intense satisfaction. He relishes every moment in his life. This war was made for him, because fighting is life itself to Churchill. In the last war he was a subordinate and could not thoroughly enjoy the fight when others checked his combat plans. Now he is unchecked by anybody except the British people, and they have shown they are only too glad to let him savor to the full what are to him the joys of responsibility in the greatest fight with the greatest consequences in the memory of mankind. Before the war the most exciting form of conflict was politics, about which Churchill once said, “Politics are almost as exciting as war and quite as dangerous.” He takes the keenest pleasure in writing, but he would always give up his work on a book to go back into politics, as he did when this war began.
He was just finishing his monumental History of the English Speaking Peoples when he was called to the Admiralty. I understand the History is to be in several volumes, but despite its size Churchill wrote the whole thing in a year, dictating thousands of words a day. He had worked on it, gathering material for many years, and such is the organization of his mind and so precise and comprehensive is his memory than when he once began he was able to dictate it almost as fast as he could talk. I have heard that the publisher has already set the book up but is waiting presumably for the end of the war to release it.
Today his prewar books, as My Early Days, are reprinted and have become best sellers. Even his prewar newspaper articles are eagerly dragged out, and reprinted both here and in England to sell at high prices. His books have been phenomenally successful and his income from them, from journalism, and from lectures has been for most of his life considerably higher than the $50,000 a year he receives as Prime Minister. It was always a financial sacrifice for him to go into office despite the comparatively liberal salaries of British ministers. He has no interest in money. His earnings have been large ever since he was a war correspondent in South Africa, but he has spent money as fast as it came, on his estate, his family, and on good living. One of his best American friends, Bernard Baruch, once tried to instruct him in the art of stock exchange speculation but nothing came of it. Churchill had for it the interest he has for everything in life, and wanted to learn it, but he lacked the indispensable requirement for amassing a fortune, namely an overwhelming desire to make money. The power given by the possession of money is so paltry compared with political power that none of the great statesmen, or even the wicked dictators, have exhibited any interest in it. What use has Hitler for money? I doubt that he has touched any for years.
Until this war began it was power that appealed to Churchill more than anything else in the world. It is ironical that now he possesses it to a greater degree than he could ever have dreamed of, power for its own sake he no longer wants. But that has not lessened his aesthetic capacity to enjoy it. No stress of war, nor the imminence of awful danger, can prevent him from enjoying the power of his spoken or written word. You can feel his artistic satisfaction as you hear him in the House of Commons, delivering on a desperate day passages calculated not only to encourage, guide, and inspire, but to excite admiration for their felicity.
We American correspondents in London used regularly to attend the House every time Churchill spoke, although none of us need have done so, since the speeches were delivered into our offices almost instantaneously by ticker. We wanted to hear him in person not only for the stirring drama of it but because as journalists we wished to listen to the greatest living master of our craft. The trouble of attending Parliament was considerable, for the old House, now in ruins, was too small to accommodate even the Members if they all attended, and the foreign press was allotted so few seats it was necessary to apply days in advance to get a place. The narrow seats with too little space for knees and feet were uncomfortable, the acoustics poor, but the view from our gallery was perfect.
There sits the government, the bald head of Mr. Churchill shining among the Members with unmistakable authority. The benches are nearly empty until the time draws near for the Prime Minister to speak; a few minutes before he rises the House is jammed with Members sitting even on the foot of the Speaker’s dais. The Prime Minister rises. There is dead silence as Mr. Churchill lays before him a sheaf of what are technically called notes, as it is prohibited in the House for any member, even the Prime Minister, to read a speech. This rule is presumably to prevent a member from using a speech written by someone else. The familiar Washington ghost writers would have little employment in Westminster. Mr. Churchill would have about as much use for one as Shakespeare would have had. Mr. Churchill’s “notes” are in fact his completely written speech which he has memorized by rereading the final copy quickly on the way to the House. He has worked on this speech for several hours a day for eight days, writing, rewriting, until he finally has it typed on sheets half the size of standard typewriter paper. Thereafter he never looks at it. He has it before him, and he automatically turns the pages, but his delivery is perfectly extemporaneous, and you would imagine as you sat there watching and listening that those incomparable phrases were conceived at the moment, and to the satisfaction of hearing them is added the illusion of being present at their creation. Mr. Churchill himself insists he cannot speak well impromptu and I have heard that his son Randolph, recently seated in Parliament, is considered a better offhand speaker than his father.
It is an extraordinary coincidence that this greatest orator of modern times should have an impediment of speech similar, we may imagine, to that of the greatest orator of ancient times, Demosthenes. Churchill has almost overcome the impediment. His delivery is not what we would consider the best. He depends not at all on gesture. Now and then he pauses to glance over the top of his spectacles with defiance or curiosity. His stance is determined, not graceful. For the most part he stands quietly in the same spot, and only moves a step backward or forward when he wishes to emphasize a passage. His voice is sonorous, strong, not the golden voice of a William Jennings Bryan, but also not the vulgar guttural of Hitler. Yet when Churchill speaks of Hitler there comes into his tone a note that promises to meet all the Nazi’s brutality and pay interest. Churchill’s voice is ideally adapted to the radio and the millions of Americans who listen to him on the air have heard him at his best. Many have exclaimed at his accent that he does not talk like an Englishman. His is the accent of Sandhurst, Britain’s West Point, which is nearer the American way of speaking than the curious upper-class cockney affected by some graduates of Oxford and Cambridge.
I do not know why Mr. Churchill avoids as much as possible making extemporaneous speeches, unless it is his passion for perfection, because as a conversationalist he is without superior and he has few peers. One of them was his intimate friend, Lord Birkenhead, whose power of expression was almost on a par with Churchill’s, as I had the opportunity to observe once in Berlin when the then most brilliant lawyer in England attended a luncheon of the Anglo-American Press Association and dazzled us with his talk. I remember the answer he gave when someone asked what he thought of Mussolini. “Mussolini,” he remarked, “bestrides Italy like a Colossus, but to judge a rider one must consider the kind of horse he rides.”