WINSTON CHURCHILL An Informal Study of Greatness by Robert L. Taylor

Winston Churchill: An Informal Study of Greatness by Robert L. Taylor

QUOTES FOR DISCUSSION

The last of the great statesmen, Winston Churchill, a man of multiple genius, will be devotedly remembered as one of the most exasperating figures of history. For seventy-seven years he has flashed over the public scene, a beckoning, outsized diamond in a trumpery world. Before moments of British crisis, he has been so uniformly right that his incandescent prescience has itself become a burden to his colleagues and to his countrymen at large. Though frequently tossed aside, Churchill has never permitted himself the luxury of humility. He inherited superior gifts of impatience.

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Lord Randolph Churchill, a brilliant, impetuous fellow, a once established a high-water mark of nonchalance by hiring a waiter to listen to the end of an anecdote by a club bore. The son is no less reluctant to be harried by prolixity. During one interminable debate in the House of Commons, when a speaker was presenting a dramatic list of statistics on Brussel sprouts, Churchill observed an aged member, toward the read, desperately leaning forward with an old-fashioned ear trumpet. In an voice clearly audible over the House, Churchill said to Anthony Eden, “Who is that idiot denying himself his natural advantages?” He was chided by the Speaker, but without visible effect.  By now, Churchill has developed an immunity to censure.

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As a rule, when Churchill needs new attire he sends his butler-valet, William Greenshields, who has been with him for years, down the street, any street, to buy something off a rack. According to Brendan Bracken, his closest friend and adviser, Churchill never inquires whether these spot acquisitions cost five pounds or fifty but slips them on with abstracted docility and proceeds to whatever function is at hand. Happily so unerring is Greenshields’ judgment that the master thus outfitted always looks faultlessly groomed.

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In former days, when wars arose from individual causes, from the policy of a Minister or the passion of a King, when they were fought by small regular armies of professional soldiers, and when their course was retarded by the difficulties of communication and supply, it was possible to limit the liabilities of the combatants. But now, when mighty populations are impelled against each other, each individual embittered and inflamed – when the resources of science and civilization sweep away everything that might mitigate their fury, a European war can only end in the ruin of the vanquished and the scarcely less fatal commercial dislocation and exhaustion of the conquerors. Democracy is more vindictive than Cabinets. The wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings.” (House of Commons, 1901)

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This precocious warning, in 19091, or more than a decade before the sad, opening salvos of the first great “people’s war,” set a level of prediction beneath which Churchill has never fallen. His has been the voice of intelligent criticism, imperial Britain’s conscience, the court of last appeal in time of danger. His friends feel that he was born with an urge to improve and protect. At Harrow, the selct boys’ school from which he was graduated well toward the bottom, he was regarded as interesting, but a monumental nuisance.

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Churchill’s high intelligence is coupled to a memory of uncanny brilliance. The two qualities, so neatly supplementary, make it possible for him to adjudge the probably shape of the future in the light of what he remembers, and interprets, of the past. Whereas intellect is a gift from the gods, memory can be trained; however, Churchill’s powers of recollection, like his father’s approach the abnormal. On a bet one time at the Carlton Club, Lord Randolph read a whole page of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and recited it verbatim. His son is no less endowed. As a schoolboy, Churchill once memorized 1200 lines of Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rom and rattled them off at a brisk gallop in class, t the amazement of his instruct and to the exhausted boredom of his fellows.

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…the Lord Lieutenant and his wife…however successful their attempts to cajole, conciliate, and entertain – though out of their private means they may have spent money like water – in a week all is forgotten.

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As others have noted, the Irish have ever been wanting in gratitude for the many fine things Englad has tried to do for them. They have taken, and still take, the baffling view that they would prefer to do things for themselves.

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He continued to make and lose fortunes as his family, in the gaudy French capital, rang up social triumphs never before equaled by Americans in Europe. Jerome’s eventual death, as the age of seventy-four, was of more than routine interest. He had attended a circus, in London, and listened indignantly to the strong man’s offer of fifty pounds to anybody in the house who could stay five minutes with him in the ring. Jerome was walking with a cane at the time, but he hobbled up, removed his cutaway, hung his cane on the ropes, and beat the giant senseless. Not long afterward he fell dead of a heart attack. The doctors suggested that he might have strained himself. His daughter Jennie’s introduction to Lord Randolph Churchill at a ball abroad a cruiser anchored off Cowes in August 1873, was no new sort of experience for the girl. She had only recently been taken boating by Napoleon III. Like most Americans, she had democratic instincts, and she made the descent from emperor to lord gracefully. Lord Randolph was said to have remarked to a friend directly after the meeting, “There is my future wife.” She was greatly sought after, the confidante of such notables as the Princess Metternich, the Duck de Persigny, and the Duc de Praslin.

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Accustomed to the freedom of France, Lady Randolph thought England straight-laced and dull.

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A young lady never went driving by herself, and feminine smoking was entirely out of bounds.

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All in all, Lady Randolph was vastly pleased when the Duke accepted his appointment in Ireland and the family moved to Dublin. Later she came to love England and lived on there the rest of her life.

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Authority acted on Churchill like magnesium on water.  Nannies, governesses, and nurses followed one another in pretty rapid succession. One day, learning that a new warden -somewhat younger and stronger - was expected, he followed the only course possible to a boy of such spirit; he borrowed a donkey and ran away.  It was bad judgement, however, for he had not taken the precaution of learning to ride. He felt off on his head and suffered a concussion which healed. Happily, both for Churchill and the countryside, he was at last provided with a nurse of real ability, a Mrs. Everest, who took him in hand with great tact. It was the beginning of a relationship that was to play an influential part in his life. Mrs. Everest encouraged him at innocous pursuits, such as collecting lead soldiers. The military passion of the first Marlboro long latent in the line, suddenly sprang to life in the child. He was attracted immediately to the fascinating game of war, and has had a good deal to do with it ever since.

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"Would you like to go into the army?" Churchill replied affirmatively, and the father said the matter would be arranged. Some years afterward, Lord Randolph confided to a friend that he had considered his son a little retarded and thought that the army might be an easy solution all around.

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Churchill and Shaw maintained a curious friendship on a basis of high cerebral sparring. Before one of his opening nights, Shaw sent Churchill a pair of tickets, with a note saying, "Come to my play and bring a friend, if you have a friend." Churchill returned the tickets with the message, "I'm busy for the opening, but I'll come on the second night, if there is a second night."

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In 1880 the Churchill family’s political world took a great fall. Disraeli, the English-Jewish Prime Minister, the leader of the Tory Party, was defeated by Gladstone, the Liberal, of whom Winston Churchill was later to write, “[He] was a very dangerous man who went around rousing people up, lashing them into fury so that they voted against the Conservatives and turned my grandfather out of his place as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.” The Churchills had affection and respect for Disraeli, but they cared nothing at all for Gladstone.

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Mrs. Everest played a role in his young life not unlike that of Peggotty in David Copperfield’s. She was devoted and faithful and had anecdotal relatives in interesting places. Whereas Copperfield journeyed to Yarmouth to hear Peggotty’s brother talk of the sea, Churchill went to Ventnor to hear Mrs. Everest’s brother-in-law talk about jail. He had been a prison warden.

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Lord Randolph became the most beloved man in England, far better known than his father.

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Only infrequently was he encouraged to play with other children; his manners, tastes, recreations, his thinking in general were shaped by his scrutiny of the thrilling adult drama being performed so close at hand. For most children this would have meant a disastrous start in life, and even Churchill was often miserable. “Al the great men of my acquaintance are the products of unhappy childhoods,” he was to remark long afterward.

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Randolph under full steam was a rich and rewarding entertainment, no matter what the circumstances. Churchill stood silently, reloading his shotgun and committing to memory various crushers in the high-sounding blasphemy. A short while later, his father unexpectedly descended to apologize. “Do remember things do not always go right with me,” he told his son. “my every action is misjudged and every word distorted. So make some allowances.” Then, for a great change, he talked in what Churchill has described in his book A Roving Commission as a “wonderful and captivating manner” about school, the Army, “and the grown-up life which lay beyond.” It was to prove virtually the sole occasion when the boy and Lord Randolph ever chatter on terms of father-and-son intimacy.

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…wrote the British historian Guedalla; “and in default of a more solid destiny he became the Peter Pan of politics.” The son’s enduring youth had fortunately been coupled to balance and self-control, but it has familiar facets. A few years ago, H.G. Wells wrote of Winston, “There are times when the evil spirit comes upon him and then I can only think of his as an intractable little boy, a mischievous, dangerous little boy, a knee-worthy little boy. Only by thinking of him in that way can I go on liking him.”

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Churchill’s early school days have no counterpart in the annals of great men. Neither in fact nor in fiction is there to be found precisely that quality of volcanic rebellion which characterized nearly all his actions. Penrod Schofield’s departures were the accidental by-products of abstraction, and Tom Sawyer was a serious researchist. Whatever Churchill did (and he accomplished wonders) he did on purpose.

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“The figures were tied into all sorts of tangles and did things to one another which it was extremely difficult to forecast with complete accuracy,” Churchill later wrote in his memoirs. Like many another, he complained that it was not any use being “nearly right.” “In some cases these figures got into debt with one another; you had to borrow one or carry one, and afterwards you had to pay back the one you had borrowed. These complication cast a steadily gathering shadow over my daily life. They took away from one all the interesting things one wanted to do in the nursery or in the garden. They made increasing inroad upon one’s leisure. One could hardly get time to do any of the things one wanted to do. They became a general worry and preoccupation. More especially was this true when we descended into a dismal bog called ‘sums.’ There appeared to be no limit to these. When one sum was done, there was always another. Just as soon as I managed to tackle a particular class of these afflictions, some other much more variegated type was thrust upon me.”

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In the newcomer’s second month at the establishment, a visitor to the school, at recess, noticed a small red-haired boy running at full tilt in wide circles, spurred on by an under-instructor. “Who on earth is that?” inquired the visitor, and the head master replied,” Why, that’s young Churchill- it’s the only way we can keep him quiet.”

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The child took an abnormal dislike to Latin, viewing the subject as a piece of calculated persecution on the part of the authorities. He has preserved minutes of a session in which he catechized his unfortunate Latin teacher. The point under discussion was the vocative case in the noun mensa, meaning table or “O table,” in this case.
“What does “o table mean?” inquired Churchill.

“Mensa, O table, is the vocative case,” said the teacher.
“But why “O table?”
“O table- you would use that in addressing a table, in invoking a table. You would use it in speaking to a table.”

“But I never do,” replied Churchill.

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His mechanical ideas were so elaborate that nothing short of a professional company of great resources could have brought the production off. In this period, he had begun to read a good many plays, as well as novels and poetry. While Churchill reacted rather dangerously to the effort of other people to educate him, he was not averse to undertaking the assignment himself. He read King Solomon’s Mines and found it entertaining, though no more expert than his rewrote job on The Smuggler.

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He read Treasure Island and was enchanted; he has gone through it nearly every year since then. In 1950, while making a critical speaking tour by train, he sequestered himself in one of the private coaches and left word he was not to be disturbed; he was preparing to “polish up” his remarks. When an important cablegram was delivered to the train, Gerald O’Brien, the Conservative public relations officer, tiptoes in to Churchill’s compartment. The great man was preparing for the political crisis by reading Treasure Island; the book was opened to the inspiriting fight at the stockade, when Silver’s group was routed. O’Brien dropped the cablegram and fled, while Churchill glared crossly, looking a little like a frustrated pirate himself.

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He later wrote of [C.H.P] Mayo, “he convinced me that Mathematics was not a hopeless bog of nonsense, and that there were meanings and rhythms behind the comical hieroglyphics; and that I was not incapable of catching glimpses of some of these. Of course what I call Mathematics is only what the Civil Service Commissioners expected you to know to pass a very rudimentary examination.” Moriarty was greatly beloved by the whole school; he more than anyone else was responsible for easing the traditional class tensions.

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For the Army test, he and the others knew they would be required to dreaw from memory a map of some country. The night before, he put all the maps of his atlas into a hat, then he withdrew one, which proved to be New Zealand, and set about learning it. The next day, the first question asked him was to draw a map of New Zealand. His memory was in well-oiled shape; he filled it in with such specificity, including streams of a dozen yard’s breadth and whistle stops on the narrow-gauge railroad, that Moriarty never quite got over it. “This is what is called at Monet Carlo an en plein, and I ought to have been paid thirty-five times my stake,” Churchill said afterward.

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At Harrow, the boys walk past the authorities in single file and themselves announce their names. At Churchill’s first roll call, his family and a number of other visitors were present. For reasons of scholastic deficiency and other considerations, he had been placed last in line. The visitors were astonished to see the son of Lord Randolph pacing along in this ignominious position, but his demeanor effectively took the curse off it. “He was totally unconcerned and in fact seemed to suggest that I was the post of honor,” said a man who was there.

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Churchill himself is a heckler of unparalleled talent. His disagreements take a rich variety of forms. Sir William Joynson-Hicks, once defeated by Churchill, was making a speech before Commons and noticed him, on the bench of the Opposition, shaking his head in such vigorous style that attention was distracted from the address. “I see my right honorable friend shaking his head,” cried Joynson-Hicks in exasperation. “I wish to remind him that I am only expressing my own opinion.”

“And I wish to remind the speaker that I am only shaking my own head,” replied Churchill.

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Although Churchill has always been impatient with mulishness, he conceived a genuine respect for Chamberlain. On one occasion early in 1939, according to Beverley Baxter, a well-known Member of Parliament, he even spoke out against a group of young Tories who had (at last) voiced disgust with Chamberlain’s weak attitude. “It’s all very well for those young fellows,” said Churchill to Baxter, “but it’s Chamberlain who has to press the button. It’s a terrible thing at a time like this to be the one man who has to decide whether the button must be pressed or not.”

All too late, Britain awoke to the fact that Churchill, again, had been right from the start. His ten years of unheeded prophecy were drawing to a close.

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As the memorable message went out to all units of the fleet, by radio, blinker, and signal flags – “Winston is back” – he arranged his affairs for an extended visit in London. One of his friends says that he moved with calmness and a hint of anticipation. Ever practical, he included several boxes of cigars and a revolver in his luggage. Perhaps because of the gay times in India and the Sudan, Churchill has always seen war as carrying the hopeful chance of personal encounter. “If it comes to hand-to-hand combat,” he said referring to the revolver, “I mean to get on or two before they finish me.”

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One of the stewards has said, “Of all the men I ever met, the Prime Minister was the hardest worker. We couldn’t get him to stay in the sleeper. He only took cat naps, then he would come down the aisle wearing his bathrobe and smoking a cigar, and get to work on his papers.”

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Churchill’s reason for needing a body guard again were stated succinctly when they reached home: “Some Frenchmen told me a bunch of spies were planning to assassinate me. I was going down to see the Duke of Windsor in Southern France, but I gave it up. Now, I can look after myself in the daytime, but I can’t have them springing on me when I’m asleep. Do you wish to borrow a gun?” [Sergeant, not Detective, his former body guard] Thompson and Churchill did considerable bickering about what kind of weapon was best to carry. The detective had the reasonable notion that he qualified as an expert on the use of firearms. Churchill felt qualified too.” And indeed,” Thompson says, “Mr. Churchill is in fact a first-class shot.”

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However, he did complain, amidst the privacy of his British associates, that Roosevelt seemed to him an unusually talkative man. “He tries to monopolize the conversation,” explained the Prime Minister. Roosevelt had an identical view of Churchill. At one war conference, the President remarked to James Byrnes that it would be wonderful if Churchill could refrain from making long speeches, adding that they “hold up business.” Byrnes agreed absently and suggested that they were, nevertheless, pretty good speeches. Roosevelt laughed and said, “Winston doesn’t make any other kind.”

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As to the claims of the left and right, certain conclusions are now possible in the light of the seven years since 1945. Collectivism has had several bad seasons. The Russian system has become at least ostensibly (and even noisily) unpopular with Americans who formerly cherished it deeply; also British Socialism has demonstrated its incapacity to survive without fiscal support from the hated capitalist whom it hopes eventually to socialize. This gives rise to an interesting question. In the words of the unpartisan Viennese economist, Dr. Karl Fuerbringer (translated by H. Howard Thurston), “If socialism, a scheme of mediocrities rather than men of proven ability, is financially unworkable, what happens when the United States is at last socialized by confiscatory income taxes and strangulation of industry in the British Manner? With a capitalist nation to produce wealth, civilization may expect chaos.”

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In an age of increasing moral decay, when it is considered backward in a few circles to be steadfastly married, it is  heartening to know that Churchill, in his backward way, has never as much as lifted an eyebrow at any woman besides his wife. He is undoubtedly the least flirtatious of history’s important men. The fact is that his anger over any kind of moral laxness borders on a complex. An anecdote from the days when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer has to do with Lady Houston’s going to him with a voluntary payment of a million and a half pounds as death duties on her husband’s estate. When she had written the check, she offered her cheek and said, “Now that I’ve done it don’t you think that I deserve a _____”

“A pat on the back?” cried Churchill with alarm, and giving her a masculine whack, he beat a hasty retreat.

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