The Most Important Churchill Speech You've Never Heard

On this episode of Our American Stories, only weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Prime Minister Winston Churchill made an all-important stop in the United States to meet with President Roosevelt and address Congress about the difficult road ahead. He knew better than anyone what that path looked like—he had been walking it alone for some time.

Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:25):
And we continue with our American stories, and we love
to tell stories about history. And as always, all of
our history stories are brought to us by the great
folks at Hillsdale College, where you can go to learn
all the good things in life, all the beautiful things
in life. And if you can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale
will come to you with their free and terrific online courses.

(00:45):
Go to Hillsdale dot edu. That's Hillsdale dot edu. Winston
Churchill made sixteen visits to America in his lifetime. He
traveled here as a soldier, a tourist, and a lecturer.
With the late Prime Minister's visit to America in nineteen
forty one as a wartime leader was his most important.
The story of that trip back in the winter of

(01:06):
nineteen forty one and the speech to Congress the day
after Christmas is worth telling. It revealed a lot about
not just Churchill's status as a statesman, but as a salesman.
The day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Churchill,
who just turned sixty seven, packed his bags and headed
for the United States. It will be the most important

(01:29):
sales trip of his life, and perhaps the most important
sale of the twentieth century. As doctor Larry Arne of
Hillsdale College said in his speech, there, with the fall
of France, Britain stood alone, decisively inferior in military power
to the Nazis. The only thing that could save it
was the English Channel, an entry into the war by

(01:50):
the United States. No one understood that stark reality better
than Churchill. It was why he was on a boat
crossing the Atlantic so soon after America's darkest hours. His
plan strengthen relations with President Roosevelt, Congress, and the American
public and prepare them for the exigencies of an extended

(02:11):
and difficult war. It was a long trip of ten
days through cold, storm tossed sees. It was a dangerous
one too. U boats filled the Atlantic. There were serious
concerns about Churchill's safety, but he was not deterred. This
was the work that could not be done on a phone.
Churchill's boat docked in Norfolk, Virginia, just two weeks after

(02:32):
the attack on Pearl Harbor. He flew to National Airport
in Washington, d C. Where President Roosevelt himself greeted him.
The two would bond over a few days of drinking
and smoking while Churchill prepared his remarkable speech, which portions
of which you're about to hear. Here is how things

(02:52):
started the day after Christmas in nineteen forty one. Here
is then Prime Minister Winston.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
The fact that my American warbeards have, for so many
generations played their part in the life of the United States,
that here I am an Englishman welcomed in your midst
made this experience one of the most moving and thrilling

(03:28):
in my life, which is already long and has not
been entirely uneventful. I wish, I wish, indeed that my mother,
who's that memory I cherish across the vale of years.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
Could have been here to see.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
And Churchill's mother, of course, born in Brooklyn. Churchill then
made clear that our countries were connected by much more
than a common lengthguage.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
I may confess, however, that I do not feel quite
like a fish out of water in a legislative assembly
where English is spoken. I am a child of the
House of Commons. I was brought up in my father's
house to believe in democracy, trust the people. Therefore, I

(04:25):
have been in full harmony all my life with the
tides which.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Have flowed on both sides of the Atlantic.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Against privilege and monopoly, and I have stirred confidently towards.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
The Gettysburg idea.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
The government of the people, by the people, or the people.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
He then addressed our very best angels more certain about
the true character of America than many of our own leaders.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Nay, the United States have been attack and set upon
by three most powerfully armed dictator states. The greatest military
power in Europe, the greatest military power in Asia, Japan, Germany,
and Italy have all declared and are making war upon you,

(05:24):
And a quarrel is open, which can only end in
their overthrow or years. But here in Washington, in these
memorable days, I have found an Olympian fortitude which, far
from being based upon complacency, is only the mass of

(05:48):
an inflexible.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
Purpose and the proof of a sure.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Well grounded confidence in the final outcome.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
The speech then took a tough turn, as Churchill war
Congress and the American people through the difficulties of the
task ahead and the nature of our enemies, calling them
wicked men that will stop at nothing that violence or
treachery can suggest. Churchill then spoke of the rough path
forward and invoked scripture. To close this part of the speech,

(06:21):
no one knew better than Churchill that there was a
great spiritual battle ahead.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Some people may be stoppled or moment curly depressed, when,
like your President, I speak of a long and a
hard war. Our peoples would rather know the truth, so
bur though it be. And after all, when we are

(06:49):
doing the nobleedge work in the world, not only defending
our hearts and homes, but the cause of freedom in
every land, the question of whether deliverance comes in nineteen
forty two, or nineteen forty three or nineteen forty four
falls into its proper place in the grand purportance of

(07:13):
human history. Sure I am that this day now we
are the masters of our faith, that the task which
has set us is not above our strength, that its
pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
As long as we have faith.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
In our course and an unconquerable will power, salvation will
not be denied us.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Churchill closed out his speech to the American people by
invoking the spiritual dimension of the battle one last time
and the common values the two great allies England and
America shared.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Allow me to use other language, I will say that
He must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see
that some great purpose and design is being worked out
here below, of which we have the honor to be

(08:20):
the faithful servant. It is not given to us to
peer into the mysteries of the future. Still, I avow
my hope and faith, sure and in violate, that in
the days to come, the British and American people will,

(08:41):
for their own safety and for the good of all,
walk together in majesty, in justice, and in peed.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Churchill responded to the roaring crowd by flashing the V
for victory sign that would become his signature gesture. On
New Year's Day, Roosevelt and Churchill visited nearby Mount Vernon
to lay a wreath on the tomb of our nation's
first president in one of our greatest warriors, George Washington.
On January fourteenth, nineteen forty two, after nearly a month

(09:19):
away from home, Churchill left for war torn London with
one of his greatest victories. The late Churchill biographer, Sir
Martin Gilbert, was at Hillsdale College in two thousand and
six and said these words, it would take the new
World the United States to rescue the old and emerge

(09:40):
as the defenders of freedom. The story of Churchill's nineteen
forty one Christmas Time speech has always brought to us
by the folks at Hillsdale College. All of our history
stories here on, our American stories.