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University Daily Kansan Monday, Jan. 18, 1965
Winston Churchill: Man of the Century
(Editor's Note: Sir Winston Churchill, 90, lies near death as a result of a coronary thrombosis suffered last week. The following is a historical evaluation of the great statesman's career.)
Almost one year ago Sir Winston Churchill announced that he would not run again for a seat in the House of Commons. The announcement was expected; nevertheless it created a stir, for it meant that the end of a great career was at hand.
WINSTON LEONARD Spencer Churchill was born Nov. 30, 1874, the son of Lord Randolph Churchill and his American bride, Jennie Jerome. By his own admission he was a troublesome boy and he early displayed the uncommon self-assurance and an obstinate and arrogant nature that later was to become a Churchill trademark.
At seven he was sent to St. James School; at 12 he entered Harrow. At both schools he was by far the worst student. He rebelled frequently against the discipline—once even smashing the headmaster's hat—much to the delight of his fellow classmates.
"That lad couldn't have gone through Harrow," a contemporary remarked. "He must have gone under it."
HIS FATHER THOUGHT Winston was untalented and it seemed that only the military remained. Winston finally passed the entrance examinations to Sandhurst, Britain's military school, on the third try.
"At Sandhurst I had a new start," he said. It was true and it showed. Entering at the bottom of his class, he was graduated eighth in a class of 150.
AFTER LEAVING THE army, Churchill ran for a seat in the House of Commons, but lost by 1,300 votes. Later in the year of 1899 he went to South Africa to cover the Boer War for the Morning Post. His subsequent capture by the Boers and his later escape won him fame and attention on two continents. Churchill returned, the most famous young man in England, and immediately won a seat in Parliament after a hard fight in his old district.
He was commissioned a lieutenant and saw his first action in Cuba as a war correspondent for the Daily Graphic. At Sandhurst he had had no training in guerrilla warfare, yet Churchill grasped its fundamental character in only three days as was evidenced in his dispatches.
In parliament he was one of the hardest workers for his party. But he broke with the Tories over the issue of free trade and in May of 1904 he switched to the Liberal party, which named him Under-Secretary for the Colonies when they won control of Parliament in 1906.
Winston Churchill was a young man on top of the world. It was time he took a wife. In 1908 he married Clementine Hozier. "Clemmie" was perfect for Winston, and some have called the marriage "one of the greatest of the century."
Moving to the Admiralty in 1911, he began the great shipbuilding programs of 1912-1914. Due to his foresight England commanded the seas from the outset.
During the war Churchill displayed his versatility. He pioneered developments in naval aviation; he saw the possibility of launching planes from the decks of battleships and British planes were the first to carry machine guns and to launch torpedoes from the air.
A PLAN TO KNOCK OUT Turkey and open a supply line to Russia was conceived by Churchill and, except for bad luck and bungling, it would have shortened the war and perhaps won it. Clement Attlee called it "the only imaginative strategic concept of the war."
But Churchill became a scapegoat. The Conservatives demanded, as a price for their support in Parliament which the Liberals desperately needed, the removal of Churchill. His party reluctantly agreed and turned him out. Unable to stand the inactivity, he went to France and was given command of a battalion of the Sixth Royal Scots Fusilers. He kept both his men and the villagers in a constant state of activity and excitement before he was called back to England.
Winston Churchill
Then came a period in his life that was known as the wilderness years. He turned to writing for a living and earned $100,000 a year from newspapers and magazines. During that time he wrote a monumental four-volume biography of the Duke of Marlborough.
When the Germans overran Poland in September 1939, Churchill was placed back into his old position in the Admiralty by Prime Minister Chamberlain.
After the Nazis attacked Norway in 1940, Leo Amery rose in Parliament and repeated to Chamberlain the injunction of Oliver Cromwell: "You have sat too long here for any good that
Twice defeated for a Parliament seat, he was becoming discouraged when old friends persuaded the Tory party to forgive his earlier defection and take him back into the party in 1924. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin named him Chancellor of the Exchequer, the number two post in the government.
Lloyd George, a longtime friend, named Churchill to the Ministry of Munitions at considerable political risk to himself in the last years of the war. There Churchill aided the development of armored motorcars for the trench warfare in France. It was a project he had pioneered and he saw "Winston's Follies" become a decisive factor in the last days of the war.
BY 1922 THE MOOD IN Britain had changed and the Liberals and Churchill went down to defeat. The enforced vacation from government gave him time to write The World Crisis, his four-volume history of the war.
At the end of his five-year period of service he agreed with his critics that he was the worst Chancellor of the Exchequer there ever was. So in 1929 he left office again, but retained his seat in Parliament, hopeful that some day he would become Prime Minister.
you are doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!" Winston Churchill had realized his dream; he was in power after 40 years in Parliament.
On May 13 he made his first speech as Prime Minister to the Parliament. He began: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toll, tears and sweat" and finished with "You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: it is victory at all costs, victory in spite of terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be..."
HIS GREAT SPEECHES followed one another rapidly. It was not their eloquence alone that held and thrilled people. In Churchill the people recognized the will and purpose, and perhaps even the conscience of the western world.
On June 18 France fell and he called for the united effort of the British people who stood next in Hitler's path: "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'"
The English people held and Hitler abandoned Operation Sea Lion—the invasion of England. The German bombing of London even died out by the following spring due to the stubborn resistance of the British people and their leader.
the disease it had become, but the demands of the war dictated co-operation.
On June 22, 1941, Germany invaded Russia and Churchill, in a speech that night, welcomed Russia into the fight against the Nazis, despite his continuing distrust of the Communists. With a unique sense of history he had sensed the appeal communism would have and he hated
RUSSIA'S ADVENT INTO the war changed the world picture and in August of that year President Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to meet off the Newfoundland coast. Churchill brought with him the original draft of the Atlantic Charter mostly his own composition.
Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December and brought the U.S. into the war. Churchill was greatly pleased. "To have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. Our history would not come to an end." And on a visit to the U.S. to discuss the war effort, Churchill, with the bulldog face and the black cigar, quickly won the hearts of the American people.
At this point in the war there was indecision as how to conduct the European front. The Americans favored a landing on the European coast. Churchill held out for Operation Torch—a campaign in North Africa. It was adopted finally by the Allies as the best solution. It became the turning point of the war.
THROUGHOUT THE LONG war years Churchill bore the brunt of the war effort. He worked tirelessly and, though older than Roosevelt or Stalin, he traveled to meet with them often. It became his burden to insure the co-operation of Stalin. It was over the role of Russia that Churchill and Roosevelt disagreed most. Roosevelt, flattered by the wily Russian, wanted to go easy with Stalin. Churchill urged a sterner approach to the Russians and history seems to bear his position out. Sterner measures might have prevented much of the Soviet expansion in the Baltic and Eastern Europe at the end of the war, although Churchill must assume partial responsibility for the final consequences.
The Russians were allowed to strike toward Vienna and Prague while the Allies concentrated on Berlin, the prime military target. Churchill had favored the Allies grabbing as much territory east and north of Berlin as possible and holding it until the Russians lived up to their promises.
VE-DAY CAME ON MAY 8, 1945. The Allies were victorious. Everywhere in Britain people relaxed for the first time in a decade. Eleven weeks later the world sat shocked as Churchill was cast from office following a Labor party victory in the elections.
He was crushed, but gamely led the opposition during the next five years. In foreign affairs he was still the most influential voice in Britain, perhaps even the world. In a speech at Fulton, Mo., in 1946, he became the first to recognize the existence of the Cold War and coined the term "Iron Curtain" to apply to the new threat in Europe. The Iron Curtain speech was met with indignation on both sides of the Atlantic, but the next few years saw the promulgation of the Marshall Plan and the founding of NATO.
Churchill again turned to history and wrote his six-volume history of World War II—a total
of more than a million and a half words. Sometimes he dictated 8,000 or 9,000 words a day to a huge relay of researchers and secretaries. The history, translated into 18 languages, won him a Nobel Prize for Literature.
IN OCTOBER, 1951, the Conservatives regained power. Churchill was back as Prime Minister. In April, 1953, Queen Elizabeth II knighted Churchill with the Order of the Garter, an honor he had refused at the war's end.
The greatest question was: "When will he turn the reins of his party over to a younger man?" Asked if he were considering retirement, he graffly replied: "Not until I am a great deal worse and the empire a great deal better." But on April 4, 1955, Sir Winston stepped down as Prime Minister, though retaining his seat in the House of Commons.
In 1963 President Kennedy proclaimed Sir Winston Churchill the first honorary citizen of the United States.
"A child of the House of Commons," read the proclamation, "he became in time its father. By adding his name to our rolls, we mean to honor him—but his acceptance honors us far more. For no statement or proclamation can enrich his name—the name Sir Winston Churchill is already legend."
LAST JULY A HUSHED House of Commons paid a last tribute to their departing comrade. Harold Macmillan came closest to the mood of the House when he said:
"The life we are honoring today is unique. The oldest among us can recall nothing to compare with him, and the younger ones among you, however long you live, will never see the like again.
"If I were to try to sum up his whole character, I can think of no words more appropriate than those which he himself has written:
IN WAR: RESOLUTION
In Defeat: Defiance
In Victory: Magnanimity In Peace: Good Will."
Sir Winston Churchill will go down as the "Man of the Century." Seldom has the world seen so versatile, so talented a man. He has been soldier, orator, statesman, author and a painter with talent enough to paint for a living. This man gave to the world wisdom, leadership and courage in a century of crisis that may well be one of the great turning points in the history of man.
FOR THAT Sir Winston becomes a legend in our own time.
—Rick Mabbutt
Dailij Hansan
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EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Jim Langford and Rick
Mabbutt ... Co-Editorial Editors