March 12, 2015

In June, Ramsay MacDonald resigned as Prime Minister and was succeeded by Stanley Baldwin. Churchill cabled his son,”Reconstruction purely conventional,” meaning that he would not be brought in from the wilderness.

He attempted to establish, for Defense, a Conservative back-bench “ginger group,” similar to what had existed during the India Bill controversy. He accepted an invitation to join a Parliamentary sub-committee on Defense, conditional on being free to particpate in Parliamentary and public discussion. Mussolini rattled some sabres at Abyssinia and broke off negotiations with Britain and France. Churchill was incensed, and pressed for strengthening the Mediterranean fleet and collective action by the Allies.

The death of Huey Long at the hands of an assassin gave him hope that an abrupt end awaited others. “The Louisiana Dictator has met his fate. ‘Sic semper tyrannis’ which means so perish all who do the like again. This was the most clownish of the Dictator tribe. Let us hope that more serious tyrants will also lose their sway.”

The great orator also had time to reflect on one of his greatest gifts. “At sixty, I am altering my method of speaking, largely under Randolph’s tuition, and now talk to the House of Commons with garrulous unpremeditated flow. They seem delighted. But what a mystery the act of public speaking is! It all consists of my (mature) judgment of assembling three or four absolutely sound arguments and putting these in the most conversational manner possible. There is apparently nothing in the literary effect I have sought for 40 Years!”