the garden I saw a new brick building and remarked that it had not
been there before. “No,” Randolph explained. “Father just built it.”
“You mean, had it built?” I asked. “Oh no, built it with his own
hands.” I had heard about Mr. Churchill’s bricklaying but had no idea
it extended to building whole houses. This one I found was his studio.
He had laid every brick in the building, and evidently was expert as
a professional. He particularly likes difficult jobs such as arches
and corners and curves. The Brick-layers Union at one time admitted
him to membership, but later called in his card on instructions from
the central office which objected to the Union’s accepting a Tory
politician as a member! This brick house, however, was not built by
any honorary bricklayer. If Mr. Churchill ever falls upon evil times
it may serve to recommend him for employment. While Churchill, without
having to do so and merely as a hobby, became a qualified artisan in
the building trades, Hitler could not even out of dire necessity keep
a job in the building trades. Churchill might earn a living also as a
painter. The studio walls were hung from top to bottom with the product
of his brush, signed Charles Morin. There were landscapes, seascapes,
and every variety of scene, many of them recording vacations on the
French Riviera, his favorite resort. Presently we joined Mr. Churchill
swimming in the outdoor pool he had also personally constructed. Later
he played cards with his wife. Six-pack bezique was the game. Guests
had tea on the lawn in the shade of the trees.
These were the last peaceful days before the hurricane which it
is fashionable to say will sweep away all that comfortable, easy,
country-home England. I do not believe it will do anything of the
kind. The war will certainly leave little of parasitic England. The
vast accumulations of inherited wealth are being swept now into the
hopper of war. It will no longer be possible for Francis Williams
to declare that eighty per cent of the wealth of England belongs to
six per cent of the population, and that nearly half of the national
income goes to ten percent of the people. But Churchill’s type of good
living, country house and all, will not disappear, for it is based upon
his own labors, as we could see demonstrated before our eyes. After
the card game Mr. Churchill went upstairs to his workroom and about
an hour later came down with the manuscript of a 1,500-word article
for the _Daily Telegraph_ which he had just dictated. I read it with
professional envy, for in only a few minutes he had produced one of
his characteristic gems, informative, learned, witty, for which he
would receive a remuneration about equivalent to the annual income of
an average American newspaperman. He frequently surpasses this feat in
economizing time. He used to write many of his newspaper articles on
the way up to London in his automobile, dictating to his secretary.
Churchill has now by act of Parliament completely dictatorial powers
and can order any British citizen to perform any service or can
confiscate any property, but he has yet to be criticized for ruling
arbitrarily. He hates silly questions and will walk away from a bore,
or cut a hypocrite down with an epigram. Whisky, he believes, is a boon
to mankind, and he has never been the worse, but often the better for
it. The two men he most abhors in our time are Hitler and Trotzky, both
teetotalers. He is a gourmand, that is to say a man with a sensitive
taste in food who likes a lot of it. Once he was in ill health and
went to a noted specialist who, contrary to the fashion of the day and
despite the patient’s well-upholstered body, advised him to eat more
food. He follows the prescription enthusiastically.
One night, about eighteen months before the war, traveling from
London to Paris, I had the good luck to be on the same train with Mr.
Churchill. After he had finished his work he invited me to join him.
All the way from London to Dover he had dictated to a secretary who
was to return to London. This is the way he works, incessantly, never
wasting a moment. Our train was run onto a massive ferryboat, a new
system of crossing the Channel and this was Mr. Churchill’s first
experience of it. It was bitterly cold. Mr. Churchill wore a heavy
fur-lined coat. We started to explore the ferryboat. Word got about
among the crew that Winston Churchill was aboard, and speedily men
gathered to salute him and mention their service in the Royal Naval
Volunteer Reserve, which he organized. The Captain invited us to the
bridge. Steaming out of Dover harbor with an icy wind cutting our
faces, we listened as the Captain pointed out the lights of two wrecks
near the harbor and ventured the opinion that “You, Sir, I believe
ordered those ships sunk to block the harbor entrance to submarines?”
Mr. Churchill believed the skipper was right.
With unflagging energy Mr. Churchill led the way about the ship from
the bridge to the hold, stopping now and then to exchange a few
sentences with his admirers. Churchill had been out of the government
then for many years, but he remained the best-known figure in the
realm and one could measure his popularity by the reception he received
on the ferryboat. Toward midnight we climbed to the smoking room where
Mr. Churchill as a nightcap consumed a large platter of thick slices
of rare roast beef with the appetite of John Bull. As I watched him I
thought to myself that this is the way he deals with life, he devours
it. When during the quiet period of the war he made an intensive
inspection of the French and British positions and the Maginot line,
French officers were astonished at his ability to sit up with his hosts
studying and discussing the problems of war and probably a hundred
other things, including certainly the dry vintage champagne he likes
so well, and then appear again a few hours later at dawn for a hearty
breakfast with cigar! No Frenchmen and few of any other nationality
smoke cigars for breakfast, but Mr. Churchill finds them invigorating.
He is seldom without one in his waking hours.
The last time I visited him he received me at about 9:30 A.M. in the
upper bedroom at Number Ten Downing Street. The Prime Minister was
sitting up in bed, cigar in mouth, hard at work with a kind of bed desk
in front of him to hold his papers, and pinned within easy reaching
distance on the wall a rack for various colored folders to hold
documents of different urgencies. This man who might justly be called
the most industrious human being on earth, is a believer in the maxim
of Mark Twain who did most of his voluminous writing in bed: “A man’s a
fool who runs when he can stand still, or stands when he can sit down,
or sits when he can lie down.”
For serious writing Mr. Churchill requires the stimulus of striding up
and down, but he finds that for reading and working over state papers
and for dictating letters and memoranda, there is no more efficient
position than sitting up in bed. To sleep Mr. Churchill does not
necessarily require a bed, for such are his powers of endurance that
now in his sixty-seventh year he frequently when on tours of inspection
takes his night’s rest in his automobile. I remember saying good-by to
him one afternoon before the Admiralty and as he was climbing into his
car to drive to one of the great naval ports, his aide-de-camp asked
him where he would spend the night. Mr. Churchill replied, “In the car
driving back.” No Prime Minister has ever moved about his constituency
so much, so tirelessly, and so dangerously as Mr. Churchill who travels
day and night by blackout and under bombardment. He manages the total
war effort of the Empire, but as he has repeatedly emphasized, the
war will be won or lost in the British Isles, and inside this mighty
fortress the Prime Minister gives the major part of his attention to
his duties as Commander in Chief. He is incessantly on inspection.
Like the Captain of an old-time castle under siege, he roams from
battlement to battlement, from the South of England to the North of
Scotland, viewing the coast defenses, visiting naval stations, driving
the newest tanks, witnessing test flights of the latest warplanes,
cheering the R.A.F., the troops, the civilian population, sharing their
dangers, striding through the dust of bombs, and always everywhere
comprehending instantly, offering suggestions, giving the orders of the
expert he is in every branch of defense. It is sometimes forgotten that
if Hitler is indeed the Marshal in Chief of the German war machine,
so is Churchill of the British war machine, and if Hitler has proved
a military leader of intuitive genius, Churchill has incomparably
more experience and scientific education in war, and certainly no
less imagination than Hitler even in the narrow field of strictly
military affairs. Hitler had four years of the last war as a private
and corporal; has read military history; since he became Chancellor
has had the counsel of the Prussian General Staff; and now has had two
years’ experience of war. Churchill’s military education began with
the exacting instruction of Sandhurst and for practical experience in
old-fashioned combat he witnessed or took part in the Boer War, the
River War in India, civil war in Cuba, and the Sudan campaign. In the
first World War he helped direct the struggle from one of its most
important posts, the Admiralty, conceived the tank and numerous other
new devices of war, fought in France as a colonel, and all the while
before and since, studied and wrote about war until he became one of
its foremost historians. These experiences and studies are those of a
Doctor of Philosophy compared to Hitler’s grammar school course. In the
long run, granting all of Hitler’s genius, I am convinced Churchill,
given the tools, will win--but not without America.
You may object that it seems absurd to compare favorably the military
abilities of a commander of forces which have constantly been on the
defensive with those of the chief of troops so far ever victorious. But
the war is a long way from its end, and before that goal is reached,
the military qualifications of Churchill may prove their superiority
over Hitler’s. Churchill has not yet had the opportunity to show
what he can do as a war leader pitted with equal weapons against the
enemy, because the war machine he inherited from the feeble hands
of Chamberlain was for a long time capable of nothing but defense.
Meanwhile as the British plus American war machine is growing, it
is encouraging to remember that Churchill with his background of
forty years of war, study of war and leadership in war, his youthful
inventive mind and eager imagination, is capable of taking everything
the Germans have devised or used successfully, and improving it until
with the eventually superior resources he will command, victory will be
certain, provided always that the United States enters the war in time.
4. WAR AIMS
Q. _What are Britain’s war aims?_
A. We Americans may still find it interesting to inquire “What are
they fighting for?” but if we stood in the midst of the ruins of
Westminster Abbey or the House of Commons, it would not occur to us
to ask the question. Mr. Churchill has joined President Roosevelt
in a formal statement, the so-called Atlantic Charter, but it seems
to me that he has twice expressed himself far more eloquently and
accurately than he did in the Eight Points. In those dread days when
despair touched nearly every soul but his, and he had just accepted the
responsibility of leading his country at the moment of its greatest
peril, Mr. Churchill said: “You ask what is our policy? I say: It is
to wage war by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the
strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny
never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime.
That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word:
Victory! Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory
however long and hard the way may be; for without victory there is no
survival.”
Simple survival does not seem enough for some comfortably situated
critics in this country sheltered by British resistance, but that is
only because it is so difficult for those who have not experienced
the near threat of death to understand what life means. Mr. Churchill
expressed the irritation at such questions that must seize anyone
who has witnessed the effect of Hitler’s terrible force when in a
discussion of Poland he exclaimed: “What a frightful fate has overtaken
Poland! Here was a community of nearly thirty-five millions of people
with all the organization of a modern government and all the traditions
of an ancient state, which in a few weeks was dashed out of civilized
existence to become an incoherent multitude of tortured and starving
men, women and children, ground beneath the heel of two rival forms of
withering and blasting tyranny. Although the fate of Poland stares them
in the face, there are thoughtless dilettanti or purblind worldlings
who sometimes ask us: ‘What is it that Britain is fighting for?’ To
this I answer, ‘If we left off fighting you would soon find out.’”
Q. _I understand that, but after victory, what? That won’t be the
end of the world; after we win we shall have a lot to do. What was
the meaning of the Churchill-Roosevelt meeting and their eight-point
declaration?_
A. The meeting and its published result, which Churchill calls the
Atlantic Charter, made an interesting commentary and answer to the
demand for a statement of war aims. Its first importance lay in the
fact of the meeting of the two men; its second importance lay in the
confidential discussion of ways and means of beating Hitler; its
third importance was a statement of war aims. I have not been able
to understand why the statement was labeled in this country as an
American statement, as though the President had imposed it upon the
Prime Minister, or as though the principal ideas contained in it
were characterized more by American unselfishness than by British
hardheadedness. It may very well be that Churchill was reluctant to
make any statement of war aims at all, but now that it has been made it
seems to me to be hardheaded, and frankly Churchillian and not at all
the sort of statement that American liberals had been discussing.
Q. _Why not; is there anything not liberal in the statement?_
A. Not to my way of thinking, but the average liberal argued there
should be a statement of war aims in order first of all to impress
the good German people that we are kindly disposed toward them and if
they knew how well we intended to treat them after they were defeated
they would give up now. What is the sense of the Atlantic Charter? Its
chief meaning is that the main war aim and peace aim is to make the
world safe against Germany. It names two ways of accomplishing this
aim: A. By destruction of the Nazi power and disarmament of Germany
and her allies. B. By restoration of the nations now enslaved. Does
this constitute an encouragement for the Germans to give up? Hardly.
Churchill and Roosevelt were too clear-sighted and too candid to
fall in with the argument that the German people could be fooled by
a dishonest statement of war aims. They knew that the Germans are
bound to realize if they lose this war they will be worse off than
if they win. War is Hell, but much more hellish for the defeated
side. It is untrue that war never settles anything. It always settles
something, whether for a short time, as for the twenty years following
the uncompleted war of 1914-1918, or forever as the Third Punic War.
The Germans know this better than almost any other people. But now
they have had a crushingly frank statement of basic British-American
war aims: abolition of German military power. This time they cannot
complain they have been deceived.
Q. _Wasn’t that true of Wilson’s Fourteen Points? Weren’t they a
frank statement to the Germans of the terms they could expect if they
surrendered?_
A. No. In the first place, one great difference between Wilson’s
Fourteen Points and the Eight Points of the Atlantic Charter is that
Wilson acted alone, and issued his Fourteen Points to the world in
January 1918, without consulting Britain or France, so that when the
Germans in October finally in the extremity of defeat accepted them,
Britain and France were not bound by them at all. In the second place,
the Fourteen Points declared there should be general disarmament, and
not just a one-sided German disarmament, so that when as a matter of
common prudence, the British and French insisted upon and obtained
German disarmament ahead of their own, the Germans protested they had
been betrayed by Wilson particularly and by the Allies in general.
Hitler based his campaign for power in Germany largely upon his
complaint that Germany had never been fairly beaten on the battlefield,
but had been betrayed by the Fourteen Points. Now it is hard to see how
any future Hitler can raise again such a complaint since the Germans
are now given fair warning that when they are beaten their present
government will be abolished, and their arms will be taken from them
while the British and Americans keep their arms intact. This is a
refreshing example of common-sense honesty. It seems almost as though
Churchill’s and Roosevelt’s clear-sighted candor might finally brush
away the mists of false feeling and thinking which have obscured our
view of the war and of our own interests.
Q. _You have named what might be called a negative side of the Atlantic
Charter as being its most important side._
A. It is, if you call it negative to aim to destroy the power which has
torn the whole world apart.
Q. _Yes, but after that power is destroyed, or rendered impotent, what
are we or the British going to do to consolidate the gains of victory?
How are we going to be better off?_
A. If you think we are going to be better off, or could be better off
than we were before 1939, the answer is that we cannot be because
no matter which side wins the world as a whole is going to be very
much worse off for a long time than it was before the war began. We
are not offered the choice now of fighting in order to improve our
present position. Our choice is, either to fight and save something
of our most precious spiritual as well as material possessions; or
not to fight and lose everything. The world as a whole is bound to be
materially much poorer after this war no matter who is victor, although
the United States ought to come out of it in better condition than any
other country. Think of the immense demolition which has been wrought
and is now being wrought in Europe. Just to name a few of the cities
which have been bombarded and have suffered varying degrees of damage
is to compile a roll of casualties never equaled: London, Manchester,
Liverpool, Portsmouth, Southampton, Plymouth, Coventry; Berlin,
Hamburg, Bremen, Cologne, Duisburg, Essen, Dortmund; Warsaw; Belgrade;
Leningrad, Moscow, Minsk, Smolensk, Odessa, Kiev; Alexandria; Nanking,
Hankow, Chungking. From China to Egypt and from England to Central
Russia, fire and high explosives have blasted scars it will take a
century to heal.
The diversion of billions of man-hours from productive work to the
making of war supplies, the loss of lives, and the dislocation of
millions of human existences, and of the whole world economy, will
impoverish us all for a certain length of time. Happily there are
reasons for believing the United States will suffer less than almost
any other part of the human family, provided only that we enter the
war soon enough to ensure the defeat of the Nazi power and do not
wait to face that power alone. We must keep one thing firmly in mind,
that though our condition may be poor if we are victorious, it will
be definitely better than if we are defeated, and though we may lack
in goods and comforts as a result of our participation in the war, we
shall be far richer and easier in body, mind, and soul after hard-won
victory than if we attempted to purchase from the conquering Nazis a
humiliating security.
Q. _Why should the United States, as you suggested, come out of the war
in a better economic condition than the others?_
A. First, because if we enter the war in time to have any Allies, we
shall probably be physically undamaged. That is, as long as the British
Isles, our foremost fortress, persists in its resistance it is not
likely that we shall suffer any important injuries by air bombardment
or otherwise. You can see how important this factor is if you consider
the condition of the cities of England now, and how much money, labor,
and time it will take to restore them. Second, the economic structure
of the United States can more easily be transferred back from war to
peace production than most countries. After this war there will be an
increase in the private use of airplanes comparable to the increase
in automobile ownership after the first successful Ford. Our warplane
production can be easily switched to the production of private planes,
and many observers would not be surprised to see American private plane
production go into six figures and then into seven.
The United States, as the most self-contained of the belligerent
powers, at the end of the war will have everything necessary to resume
its own economic progress and to help the world recover.
Europe will be starving and desperately in need of our agricultural
products, our cotton, and of almost everything else we produce. If
we wish decisively to influence the organization of the world, one
powerful lever will be our economic power after the war, our ability
if we like, to finance the reconstruction of Europe. With wisdom and
far-sight in control of our administration we ought to be able to put
back into circulation some of our monstrous hoard of gold, for our
own good as well as that of the world. Sometimes when one succumbs
to optimism, it seems possible that there may come after this war a
marvelous opportunity to reshape the affairs of mankind into a happier
pattern. We shall have an opportunity such as we have never had before,
not even after the last war, to make our hopes and aspirations
practically effective, but only of course if we enter the war in time.
There is a fourth reason why we should be economically or financially
better off at the end of this war than at the end of the last one:
we now have no war-debt problem. Who will deny now that everyone
would have been better off after the last war if international debts,
including reparations, had been canceled all around. This aspect of
the Lend-Lease program may go down in history as Roosevelt’s cleverest
device.