January 17, 2004

Tributes Paid Sir Winston by the Canadian Press

Following are excerpts from editorials in representative Canadian newspapers on the death of Sir Winston Churchill:

Toronto Globe and Mail: Sir Winston Churchill goes now to take up his residence in history. His friends will pay him tribute with flowers, with tears, with pomp and with circumstance, but most of all with a floodtide of words. Which is as it should be. For words were his greatest weapon.

Montreal Gazette: …Sir Winston Churchill will be borne to his grave as the deliverer of his nation, and of all to whom freedom of life was precious. This is the honor bestowed upon him for his part in history. But history will recede. New generations will arise that knew him not. What, then, will be his claim upon them? The answer is simple and deep. For his vaster and enduring claim upon mankind is for the example of fortitude that he set.

Saint John Telegraph- Journal: Few men down through the centuries have left such an impression on the events of their age. He was more than the invincible leader of his country in its time of direct peril — he was the ringing voice of freedom rallying men of valor everywhere in the common cause…

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Halifax Chronicle: – Herald: We cannot think of Winston Churchill today in terms of the soldier, the statesman, the great parliamentarian, author, orator, artist, wit. He was all these, and more. He was a renaissance man, a Leonardo da Vinci of our times, a man larger than the normal, mortal run.

Moncton Times: The lion heart is stilled, the indomitable spirit dead. But, “if the British Commonwealth and Empire last for a thousands years, men will still say “this was their finest citizen.” Winston Churchill will not be forgotten.

Toronto Telegram: He marches today in the glittering procession of history. He marches erect, strong and determined. Probably no man in history has come closer to the attainment of immortality than this great commoner. The elements of his personality and his character contrived to achieve this.

Montreal Le Devoir: National heroes are legion: Much more rare are the great men whose action equally benefits the world and their country. If he belongs to Great Britain, Churchill also belongs to the world and in particular to the Western world.

Montreal-Matin: …The man who won the war of free men is no more. Hero of the century, he leaves it at a time when great men are rare. The void will not be filled…

Red Deer Advocate: His was the voice that echoed through the noise of falling masonry as the bombs tore the heart out of London and Liverpool. He was the beacon that guided the free world across the storm-tossed sea that threatened to engulf democracy. Now the light has finally gone out.

Vancouver Province: Consummate showman he was, but this was more than showmanship Master of words he was, but this was more than mastery of words. This was the ancient iron of England embodied in tough English flesh. He was Britain…one thing is sure: It is with courage that he walks, with that dogged stumpy step of his, to meet the unknown.

Ottawa Journal: We mourn and think of him as the supreme architect of victory when freedom was under siege and no man knew where salvation lay. We grieve for the unchained political genius who gave us in awesome storm the gift of his courage.

Ottawa Citizen: His words carried such force that they became deeds in themselves. His deeds in the service of freedom can never be forgotten. No one can question his incomparable achievement: That he was ready to provide exactly the right kind of leadership at exactly the moment when it was most desperately needed.

London Free Press: What was mortal of Sir Winston Churchill is dead…It was given to him, as to no other man, to make history and to write it. Generations still unborn will hear and read of this almost legendary Englishman who was soldier and statesman, author and orator, artist and humanitarian.

Montreal Metro-Express: Churchill was, during the darkest moment of contemporary history, the rock upon which the wave of Hitlerite fascism broke itself…Had it not been for this rallying point, this raised flag facing the hordes of the wehrmacht which smashed all frontiers, we might today be living under the “aryan social order.”