"About the Voyage I Made . . ."

Winston Churchill told the world and the world hung on his words. With the scene laid by his conference with a friend "at sea," with his audience in both hemispheres worked up to a pitch of curiosity, the leading man made an entrance at the climax of an act, and played his scene triumphantly.

Throughout his entire 40 years of public utterance Winston Churchill was seldom in better form than this week in his radio speech to the world. His timing was matchless. He rang all the changes of political oratory. He slipped in sly asides that made listeners guffaw; he made them cry with his exhortation to the fallen nations. Now he lashed Britain's enemies with the splendor of Elizabethan arrogance; now he hissed at them in a way remindful of an old-time dime-novel hero polishing off the villain in the last chapter.

Taking full advantage of public curiosity he cast his whole speech in the form of an account of his trip to meet the President. It was a great deal more than that--an exposition of Anglo-American policy, an excoriation of the Axis, an appeal for world support--but in every line of it he held his listeners in suspense as to what more he might reveal about the conference.

Travelog: He began confidingly:

"I thought you would like me to tell you something about the voyage which I made across the ocean to meet our great friend the President of the United States.

". . . In a spacious, landlocked bay which reminded me of the west coast of Scotland, powerful American warships, protected by strong flotillas and far-ranging aircraft, awaited our arrival and, as it were, stretched a hand out to help us in. . . .

"And there for three days I spent my time in company, and I think I may say, in comradeship with Mr. Roosevelt, while all the time the chiefs of staff and naval and military commanders, both of the British Empire and of the United States, sat together in continual council.

"This meeting was bound to be important because of the important forces . . . which are at the disposal of these two major groupings of the human family. . . ." In mid-eloquence he paused to mention "the quiet bay, somewhere in the Atlantic, where misty sunshine plays on great ships which carry the White Ensign or the Stars and Stripes." And he ended with a crowning Homeric touch, describing his return:

"Some American destroyers, who were carrying mails to the United States Marines in Iceland, happened to be going the same way, too, so we made a goodly company at sea together; and when we were right out in mid-passage one afternoon a noble sight broke in view. We overtook one of the convoys which carry munitions and supplies of the New World to sustain the champions of freedom in the Old.

"The whole horizon seemed filled with ships. Seventy or eighty ships of all kinds and sizes arrayed in fourteen lines, each of which could have been drawn with a ruler; hardly a wisp of smoke, not a straggler, but all bristling with cannon and other precautions on which I will not dwell. . . .

"And then I felt that hard and terrible and long-drawn-out as this struggle may be, we shall not be denied the strength to do our duty to the end."

Invective. Between such bits the Prime Minister tucked in not only an account of U.S. relations with Japan and what he and the President meant by their eight points, but for sheer joy of it he tore Hitler to pieces:

"Here is a devil who in the mere spasms of his pride and lust for domination can condemn two or three millions--perhaps it may be many more--of human beings to speedy and violent death. . . . Ah, but this time it was not so easy. . . . For the first time Nazi blood has flowed in fearful flood. Perhaps a million and a half, perhaps two millions of Nazi cannon fodder have bit the dust on the endless plains of Russia. . . .

"The aggressor is surprised, startled, staggered. For the first time in his experience, mass murder has become unprofitable. He retaliates by the most frightful cruelties. . . . Famine and pestilence have yet to follow in the bloody ruts of Hitler's tanks. We are in the presence of a crime without a name."

Call to the Conquered. Few orators since Demosthenes have evoked the emotional quality of the Prime Minister's great exhortation to the conquered. "Do not despair, brave Norwegians: your land shall be cleansed, not only from the invader but from the filthy Quislings who are his tools.

"Be sure of yourselves, Czechs: your independence shall be restored.

"Poles! The heroism of your people standing up to the cruel oppressors, the courage of your soldiers, sailors, airmen shall not be forgotten. Your country shall live again and resume its rightful part in the new organization of Europe.

"Lift up your heads, gallant Frenchmen. Not all the infamies of Darlan and Laval shall stand between you and the restoraion of your birthright.

"Tough, stout-hearted Dutch, Belgians, Luxemburgers! Tormented, mishandled, shamefully castaway peoples of Yugoslavia! Glorious Greece, now subjected to the crowning insult of rule by the Italian jackanapes! Yield not an inch. Keep your souls clean from all contact with the Nazis. Make them feel, even in their hour of brutish triumph, that they are the moral outcasts of mankind. Help is coming. Mighty forces are arming in your behalf. Have faith. Have hope. Deliverance is sure."

Croaked Isolationist Senator Burton Kendall Wheeler: "The speech was designed to frighten the United States into the idea that we have got to get into the war now or else Hitler will get us."

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