June 27, 2013

ACTION THIS DAY: FINEST HOUR 132, AUTUMN 2006

BY MICHAEL MCMENAMIN

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125 YEARS AGO:
Autumn 1881 • Age 6
“A man of such unscrupulousness”

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The Irish situation was not improving. Charles Stewart Parnell, the great advocate of Home Rule, publicly said he intended to obstruct the implementation of Gladstone’s Land Act. In October, Gladstone accused Parnell of “standing between the living and the dead, not, like Aaron, to stay the plague, but to spread it.” He added ominously that “the resources of civilization are not exhausted.”

True to his word, a few days later Gladstone had Parnell arrested and sent to Kilmainham jail. Ireland erupted in violence with murders, maiming of cattle and widespread boycotting of landlords. Lord Randolph Churchill eagerly added fuel to the fire in a speech on 1 December 1881 attacking the ruling Liberal (“Radical”) Party.

You are no doubt aware of a curious fact in natural history—that there is an animal more useful than picturesque, generally to be found in our farmyards, which cannot swim. Owing to its ungraceful conformation, whenever it is called upon to swim, it cuts its own throat with its feet; and the spectacle of the Radical party attempting to govern reminds me irresistibly of that animal trying to swim. The Radical party are prevented from governing by what they are pleased to call their principles; and in the act of government they commit suicide.

Gladstone’s private secretary, Edward Hamilton, wrote of Randolph:

It is sickening to think that a man of such unscrupulousness and with such utter want of seriousness should be coming to the front in politics and would on the formation of a Tory govt. be entrusted with governing the country The Tories are bad enough as regards majors but they are worse as regards men.”

100 YEARS AGO:
Autumn 1906 • Age 31
“The papers willfully misrepresent in the interests of the Republican Party”

Churchill and his brother Jack came to the financial assistance of their mother’s new husband, George Cornwallis-West, who had lost £8000 to an unscrupulous solicitor. George was estranged from his family, but his brother-in-law, the Duke of Westminster, sent Winston £3000 on George’s behalf, swearing WSC to confidentiality Churchill passed the money over on 18 October and wrote the Duke explaining how he had carried out the transaction:

George knows perfectly well the £3000 is a sum far greater than I could spare to help him out of any embarrassment however grave, so that I had to practice a pious fraud in order to prevent his guessing or inquiring too closely about the source whence this money was derived. I therefore impressed upon him that in no circumstances was he to speak to Sir Ernest Cassel about the matter; & I am satisfied that he is persuaded that in some sort of way Cassel has come to his assistance, & that he has no suspicions that you were in any way concerned.

In the event, the Duke released Churchill from his confidence on 14 December 1906 and asked him to take the initiative in patching things up between him and his brother-in-law, which Churchill promptly did.

Through his American mentor, Bourke Cockran, Churchill was following the state elections in New York. The Republicans controlled the New York governorship and the state legislature in 1906. There had been scandals for the past two years in the insurance and banking departments and, in an interesting sidelight, Cockran had criticized William Jerome, Lady Randolph’s first cousin and a crusading New York District Attorney, for failing to prosecute criminals in the insurance scandals. Jerome, Cockran charged, had merely dealt with those individuals who came forward and confessed. He did nothing to investigate those who did not come forward.

Churchill made reference to this in a letter to his mother on 29 September, 1906 while he was on holiday in Siena. The Democratic
Convention had concluded on 24 September and it is apparent that Cockran had sent Churchill a report, because Churchill is remarkably well informed on New York politics and specifically makes reference to William Jerome’s attacks on Hearst and his supporters like Cockran. Churchill clearly sides with Cockran and the Democrats, not the Republicans and his Jerome relative:

The situation in New York is most interesting.B. Cockran is working for Hearst, &c Jerome denounces him and all his backers as ‘a gang of disreputable crooks.’ The papers willfully misrepresent the situation in the interests of the Republican Party. I don’t pretend to know; but I have a sort of feeling that the Democrats will sweep the board in spite of everything & that Hearst will be Governor. This is a piece of quite gratuitous prophesying, & vy likely you will be able to rebuke me for it when the result is known.

Hearst narrowly lost the election but Cockran was reelected to Congress in November, 1906. He and Anne Ide were married on 15 November at the St. Regis Hotel in New York. Cockran and Anne then set off on their honeymoon, an extended tour of Europe, which included a stop in England and a visit with Churchill after Cockran and his wife had met Churchill’s mother Jennie in Monte Carlo.

75 YEARS AGO:
Autumn 1931 • Age 56
“Words are useless…”

The new all-party government addressed the economic crisis in September 1931 by raising income taxes as well as taxes on tobacco, beer, and petrol. Churchill opposed these increases but, surprisingly not (and for the first time in his career) proposed increasing tariffs and abandoning Free Trade. He was joined in this by other lifelong Free Traders like the Liberal Walter Runciman, Labour’s Arthur Anderson, and another lifelong Liberal Free Trader, Sir John Simon.

In October, Parliament was dissolved and a new election scheduled when more than 200 Labour Members of Parliament rejected Prime Minister MacDonald’s call for national unity. As a consequence, the Conservatives won a major victory, 473 seats, while Labour lost 52 seats, reducing them to 236. Notwithstanding, Ramsay MacDonald remained Prime Minister and Churchill remained in the wilderness, without government office or influence.

On 2 November The Eastern Front, final volume of Churchill’s The World Crisis, was published. Owing to the political situation, it received less publicity than its predecessors. The next day, Churchill wrote to his son Randolph which called to mind letters he had received from his own father:

I am ready to pay £100 on account of yr gambling losses in election majorities. But as I told you, I will only do this if it is necessary for yr well-being. If you feel yrself able to keep a magnificent motor car & chauffeur at a rate wh must be £700 or £800 a year, you are surely able to pay yr debts of honour yrself. Unless & until you give proof of yr need by ridding yrself of this gross extravagance you have no right to look for aid from me: nor I to bestow it….I grieve more than is worth setting down to see you with so many gifts & so much good treatment from the world leading the life of a selfish exploiter, borrowing & spending every shilling you can lay yr hands upon, & ever-increasing the lavish folly of yr way. But words are useless.

50 YEARS AGO:
Autumn 1956 • Age 81
“I would never have dared stop”

The Suez crisis continued during the autumn of 1956. In a letter to her husband in August, Clementine Churchill had expressed doubt about America’s initial declared support for the Anglo-French position: “I am afraid she will hang fire in the background.” Sure enough, in October U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles began publicly to back away from France and Britain in the quarrel over Nasser’s nationalizing of the Suez Canal. Sir Norman Brook wrote Churchill on 4 October:

Our best hope of bringing Nasser to his senses was to preserve a firm front among the Western Powers—and particularly between the United States, France and ourselves. I fear that during the last week or so, the Western position has been seriously weakened by public statements made in the United States.

Suez moved to the Security Council of the United Nations where the Russians vetoed a compromise worked out between the United States, Britain and France.

On 20 October while still holiday in the South of France, Churchill suffered a stroke and flew back to Britain on the 28th. On the 29th, Israeli forces attacked Egypt and quickly overran the Egyptian army, while Anglo-French forces “temporarily” occupied the Suez Canal.

Britain and France had acted unilaterally without prior consultation with the United States. On 5 November, Churchill issued a public statement supporting the government and expressing confidence “that our American friends will come to realize that, not for the first time, we have acted independently for the common good.” Under American pressure, however, Britain and France agreed the next day to a cease fire and, subsequently, an eventual withdrawal of the Anglo-French forces.

Churchill’s former private secretary, Jock Colville, dined with him on 20 November and they discussed the Suez situation:

“I then said to him: ‘If you had been Prime Minister would you have done this?’ And he said to me: ‘I would never have dared, and if I had dared, I would never have dared stop.'”

Relations between Britain and the United States were at a low ebb at that point and Colville suggested to Churchill that he write a personal letter to President Eisenhower, reminding him that the enemy were the Russians and not the British.

Churchill asked Colville to prepare a first draft, which he did and the letter was in due course sent to Eisenhower.

In his reply, Eisenhower agreed that “the Soviets are the real enemy of the Western World” but criticized France and Britain for their unilateral action without prior consultation “in violation of the basic principles by which this great combination of nations can be held together. Nothing saddens me more than the thought that I and my old friends of years have met a problem concerning which we do not see eye-to-eye. I shall never be happy until our old-time closeness has been restored.”

On 26 November The New World, the second volume of Churchill’s History of the English Speaking Peoples, was published. 

 

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