CHURCHILL AND HITLER

Evening Star, Issue 23693, 28 September 1940, Page 6

CHURCHILL AND HITLER

AN AMERICAN CONTRAST Miss Dorothy Thompson (one of America’s lending broadcasters, and the vrife of Mr Sinclair Lewis, novelist), in a recorded taJk from Montreal broadcast by the said that sha thought that we might expect that tha ■whole force of German propaganda in the immediate future would be concentrated on trying to break down Britain by removing her leadership. “ In this struggle,’* she said, “ as in all great struggles, nations do becoma embodied in the persons of tbe men who lead them. In a poetic sense—-I might say in a Shakespearean sense—rb really is "a struggle between Hitler and Churchiii, for, if Hitler has made himself the incorporation of Germany, Churchill really is the incorporation of Britain. These two men are tbe very symbols of the struggle going on m the world. If we can detach ourselves for a moment from all the pain of 'this struggle and look at these two men _wa see one of those heroic dramas whioa literature can never approximate. ' “On the one side is the furious, unhappy, frustrated, and fanatic figura who has climbed to unprecedented! power on the piled up bodies of millions of men, carried and pushed upward by revolutionary forces supported by vase hordes of youth crying destruction to the whole past of civilised men. Their, upward surge in Germany was accompanied by the wailing and the groans of those honest men of peace who once lived in Germany, too, hut were seized; in their homes or on the streets and huled into concentration camps or the barracks of the gangs, there to be beaten insensible with steel rods or forced upon their knees to kiss a hated hooked cross. That is what Germany did to pacifists long before the war' began.” . , . She said that not in generations baa such words of passionate love and! measured indignation fallen from tb» lips of an English statesman as Churchill uttered in the series of speeches* called, “ While England slept.” And while he spoke to them—while he spoke mostly to unheeding ears—the shadow was lengthening, and finally loomed so tall and menacing that all the world could see. And then, when itowas over them with the full darkness of its horror and destruction, the people of England—the common people of Englandlifted Churchill on their hands, crying; “Speak, and fight for us.” ’ (Referring to a speech made by Hitler in which he said that it caused him paia to think that he should be chosen by destiny to deal the death blow to the British Empire, she said that it well might cause him pain. This ancient structure, cemented with blood, was an incredibly delicate and ■ exquisite mechanism held together lightly now by imponderable elements of credit and prestige, experience and skill, written and unwritten law, codes_ and habits; this remarkable and artistic thing, tha British Empire—part Empire, part Commonwealth— was_ the only worldwide organisation in existence; the world equaliser and holder of tiio equilibrium—the only world-wide stabilising force for law and order on this planet. If Hitler- brought it down, the planet, would rock with an earthquake such as it had never known. They in the United States would shake with that earthquake, and so would Germany. v' ' ' , , .. When Mr Churchill spoke, she said,brave men’s hearts everywhere rush out to him. “ There are no neutral hearts —except those that have stopped heating, have gone into neutral. There are no neutral prayers., For our hearts and our prayers—many of , our hearts and our prayers in America, in tha United States, say, ‘God -give you strength; God bless you.’_ May you liva to cultivate your garden in a free world liberated from terror and persecution, from war and fear.” ■