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WINSTON CHURCHILL (1874–1965)Winston Churchill had a long career in and out of the British government. He served in many governmental positions, including first lord of the admiralty (the political head of the British navy) from 1911 to 1915 and, at the outbreak of World War II, from September 1939 to May 1940. He was prime minister from May 1940 until July 1945 (during World War II) and, again, from 1951 to 1955. For further information about his personal and professional life, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston....
During such a lengthy political career, Churchill, of course, made some mistakes, especially in his earlier years. In my view, his greatest governmental achievements were during his tenure as prime minister in World War II. After the war, he wrote a six-volume work titled The Second World War, in which, among other things, he detailed his speech and actions as prime minister. A journalist and historian during his years outside of government, Churchill quoted from many primary sources (including his own written memoranda and communications) in this multivolume classic.
I read the entire six volumes of Churchill's The Second World War in paperback during the 1970s. I am currently rereading portions of it on Kindle. It is an excellent work, showing in detail how Churchill thought and acted as first lord of the admiralty and, later, prime minister during the war. I have always been struck with the clarity, brilliance, and historical accuracy of Churchill's prose as well as his illuminating explanations of the reasons for his decisions and actions.
The day after Churchill died on January 24, 1965, political science professor Leo Strauss said the following in a class on political philosophy at the University of Chicago:
The death of Churchill is a healthy reminder to academic students of political science of their limitations, the limitations of their craft.Winston Churchill was controversial in his time and remains controversial today. His stance on British colonialism was never accepted by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, his friend and international colleague during World War II, and is not generally accepted today. Many of his decisions during his long career as a British governmental official have been questioned. However this may be, I think Strauss’s above-quoted statement about Churchill’s response to Hitler is entirely correct.
The tyrant [Hitler] stood at the pinnacle of his power [in 1940, when Churchill became prime minister]. The contrast between the indomitable and magnanimous statesman and the insane tyrant—this spectacle in its clear simplicity was one of the greatest lessons which men can learn, at any time. No less enlightening is the lesson conveyed by Churchill’s failure, which is too great to be called tragedy. I mean the fact that Churchill’s heroic action on behalf of human freedom against Hitler only contributed, through no fault of Churchill’s, to increasing the threat to freedom which is posed by Stalin or his successors. Churchill did the utmost that a man could do to counter that threat—publicly and most visibly in Greece and [in his 1946 Iron Curtain speech] in Fulton, Missouri. Not a whit less important than his deeds and speeches are his writings, above all his Marlborough, the greatest historical work written in our century, an inexhaustible mine of political wisdom and understanding which should be required reading for every student of political science.
The death of Churchill reminds us of the limitations of our craft and therewith of our duty. We have no higher duty and no more pressing duty than to remind ourselves and our students of political greatness, greatness, human greatness, of the peaks of human excellence. For we are supposed to train ourselves and others in seeing things as they are, and this means above all in seeing their greatness and their misery, their excellence and their vileness, their nobility and their baseness, and therefore never to mistake mediocrity, however brilliant, for true greatness. In our age this duty demands of us in the first place that we liberate ourselves from the supposition that value statements cannot be factual statements. (Leo Strauss, Leo Strauss on Political Philosophy: Responding to the Challenge of Positivism and Historicism [The Leo Strauss Transcript Series] [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018], 123 [editorial notes omitted], Kindle)
What may be the unabridged text of "Marlborough: His Life and Times" is available on Kindle in four "volumes." I read it the early 1970s, and it made a lasting impression. I think an abridged paperback was published as a tie-in to the television series "The First Churchills," which is why I am uncertain about the text of the Kindle edition.
Ian wrote: "What may be the unabridged text of "Marlborough: His Life and Times" is available on Kindle in four "volumes." I read it the early 1970s, and it made a lasting impression. I think an abridged paper..."I've had an unabridged print edition since 2003 but have only read a few pages of it. I now prefer Kindle editions, which at my age are easier to read. I recently downloaded the first volume of Marlborough on Kindle, and it is identical to the unbridged first volume of the print edition. I believe that the Kindle editions of the other three volumes are also identical to the unabridged print editions, as they are all part of the same series. I have begun reading volume 1 on Kindle and will proceed with volumes 2, 3, and 4 thereafter. I look forward to it!
To All: the Kindle editions of the four volumes of this work can be accessed and downloaded at https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks... (first four items). Volume 4 is $20.00. The other three are less than $20.00.
Not quite certain where to mention this scoundrel below. Supposedly he forms some of the basis for the fascinating "Man Without a Country" (fictitious Officer Philip Nolan, penned by writer Edward Hale).
In any case, what an unpleasant and odious person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement...
Feliks wrote: "Not quite certain where to mention this scoundrel below. Supposedly he forms some of the basis for the fascinating "Man Without a Country" (fictitious Officer Philip Nolan, penned by writer Edwar..."
Clement Vallandigham is discussed by Eric Foner and other American historians.
Hi AlanJust curious. Any opinion on Wendell Wilkie?
re: msg #7 More names from America's political past. I wonder --how many here --other than AEJ & trusty sidekick Mimi--recall these famous figures?
I myself am only dimly aware of several of them from my own haphazard reading.
Frex: Chicago's controversial Mayor Daly, was well before my time. But what about:
Al Smith (before any of our times)
Howard K. Smith (journalist)
Hubert Humphrey
Van Amberg
Alan Cranston
John V. Tunney
Sam Yorty (famous mayor of Los Angeles)
Jesse M. Unruh
Bill Stout
Ed Muskie
Thomas Eagleton
David Brinkley (journalist)
Tom Snyder (journalist)
Eric Sevareid (journalist)
Tip O'Neill
Sen. Robert Byrd
Dean Rusk
Mo Udall
Anyone care to reminisce? Of course, everyone knows who George McGovern was. But what often amazes me are all these other names who never made it big. All the "running-mates", and whatnot. Jack Kemp, and the like.
Did you ever love or hate any of these men?
Something else which strikes me is this: 'consequences sprang from' (what these leaders did) in a much more real sense than it does today. In the internet era, merely an image can send voters this-way-or-that-way. Modern leaders don't have 'war records' anymore. No one has a 'birthplace', or a 'boyhood'. Image is everything.
It shows how old I am that I remember most of these people from the time when they were famous or relatively famous. Hubert H. Humphrey (HHH) , one of my all-time heroes, was my senator in Minnesota when I grew up there. I saw him in person on multiple occasions. He was one of a kind. My sister once had a conversation with HHH in person at a gas station in the Twin Cities (Minnesota) area when they accidentally met while filling their cars with gas. His great tragedy was becoming vice president (under President Lyndon Johnson) during the height of the Vietnam War (long story).When I was a college and grad student in Chicago during the 1960s, Richard J. Daley (the original) was mayor and effective dictator of that city. I saw him in person on one occasion at a Democratic dinner that I attended (as an observer, in the balcony with a friend who was heavily involved in politics). This was, I think, in the late spring or early summer of 1966. The keynote speaker at the dinner was Senator Edward Kennedy. When the dinner started, my friend whispered to me that Daley had deliberately not yet shown up in person but would wait until after Kennedy began to speak to show that his (Daley's) applause when he arrived was greater than the applause that greeted Kennedy. Sure enough, that was exactly what happened.
Daley was, needless to say, one of my anti-heroes. Another friend worked in a campaign in support of a person who was trying to defeat the Daley machine's candidate in Hyde Park (the location of the University of Chicago where both my friend and I were students). My friend was going door-to-door on a bicycle to knock on people's doors. When, on one occasion, he returned to his bike, he found that both wheels had been punctured.
Those were (not) the days. Like today's era, the 1960s were tragic but not in the totally bizarre way of today's dominant political political leader, Donald J. Trump and his authoritarian MAGA movement. Even Mayor Daley was sane and, in his own way, very smart. He was extremely rational about means and sometimes (but certainly not always) ends. HHH was rational about ends (he was a pioneer of the civil rights movement) but fumbled on the means, though that was not entirely his fault.
There are some good biographies of HHH, including but not limited to, Carl Solberg's Hubert Humphrey: A Biography, which I read in 2007.
Another fascinating political figure of that era was Adlai Stevenson III. I worked in his campaign for Illinois state treasurer in 1966 and met him in person, along with others, at his office in downtown Chicago. I remember him saying at that time that his most unhappy years were the years he spent as a Harvard student. See the Wikipedia article on him at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adlai_S....Adlai III was, of course, the son of the famous Adlai Stevenson II, who was twice defeated by Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in the presidential campaigns of 1952 and 1956. During the 1952 campaign, Adlai II gave a speech in my small, rural Minnesota town. My mother (who was a lifetime Republican but was somewhat open-minded about politics) took my sister and me (who were young kids) to the airport to see Adlai II arrive. When his airplane arrived (this was before jet airplanes were prominent) at the small airport, my mother took us kids out to the tarmac to greet Adlai II as he exited the plane. This was long before extensive security would have prevented such a thing. As he walked down the airplane's steps, he saw my sister and me (about thirty feet or so away), waved, smiled, and said "Hi kids!" Needless to say, that is an indelible memory.
I am trying to remember whether 1952 or 1956 was the first time I watched a presidential nominating convention on TV. Wikipedia says that the first presidential convention to be televised was in 1952, but I'm not sure that my family yet had a TV at that time (we were among the last families in our small town to acquire a TV, though my father was a prominent small business owner, later city council member, in the town). I distinctly remember watching either or both of the 1950s presidential conventions on TV, though, of course, I got little out of them at that very young age. (Note: After some further thought, I'm pretty sure I saw both the 1952 and 1956 Democratic conventions on TV, though in snippets that I hardly understood. I really did not become politically aware until the late 1950s. )
Great stuff, Alan. Glad to hear you recollect some of this history. Very interesting!BTW, regarding Mayor Daley --ever heard this great folk song? It's from Steve Goodman, (native of Illinois, I believe).
Richard J. Daley was the Mayor of our town
'til that cold day in December when
They laid him in the ground
He was always known as the working man's pal
That's 'cause he grew up in Bridgeport
And he studied law at De La Salle
He was first elected Mayor in 1955
When half the people here tonight
Were not as yеt alive
When it came to building tall buildings
No job was too tough
Daley built McCormick Place twice
'cuz once was not enough
When John Kennedy wanted to be President
He knew what to do
He called up Mayor Daley
Because he was Irish too
There never was another man who could
Inspire more love or hate
If you were in the park and it was 1968
It would be funny if Heaven was
Just like the Eleventh Ward
Where you have to 'know the right people'
To receive your just reward
Richard J. Daley was the Mayor of our town
But when he died, no suitable replacement
could be found ...
Great song, though I was not aware of it until now. Thanks for the quote.
This topic discusses political leadership—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Since it addresses both ethical and political aspects of political leadership, I am placing it in the “Both Political and Ethical Philosophy” folder. A related topic in the “Ethics” folder is titled “Ethics and Politics”. That thread is broader than the current topic, which focuses more on individual political leaders.
I begin by noting that I have discussed political leadership at some length in Chapter 6 (“Political Ethics”) of my book Reason and Human Ethics (a PDF replica of which is online at https://www.academia.edu/107899091/Re...). In that chapter, I discuss the political leadership and ethics of Dionysius I and II (the tyrants of ancient Syracuse), Dion (the student of Plato who overthrew Dionysius II and attempted to establish a polity based on equal laws and rational rule before he was assassinated; see also my 1971 A.M. essay titled “The Teaching of Plato’s Seventh Letter” at https://www.academia.edu/22999496/The...), Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Vladimir Putin, U.S. President George W. Bush, U.S. President Donald J. Trump, and U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
My book The First American Founder: Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience addresses, inter alia, the leadership qualities of the seventeenth-century founder of the settlement of Providence in what became the colony and later state of Rhode Island: it contrasts Roger Williams’s commitment to and actions on behalf of church-state separation and freedom of conscience with the thought and actions of the theocratic leaders of colonial Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. See also the topic (in the present Goodreads group) “Roger Williams (ca. 1603-1683) and Seventeenth-Century Rhode Island Government”.