Some words to remember in uncertain times
In the course of discussing a piece by Ron Radosh on George Bush, Scott Johnson quotes the remarkable eulogy of Neville Chamberlain delivered by Winston Churchill in the House of Commons in 1940, words as applicable to Churchill himself as to Chamberlain:
In paying a tribute of respect and of regard to an eminent man who has been taken from us, no one is obliged to alter the opinions which he has formed or expressed upon issues which have become a part of history; but at the Lychgate we may all pass our own conduct and our own judgments under a searching review. It is not given to human beings, happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable, to foresee or to predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events.
In one phase men seem to have been right, in another they seem to have been wrong. Then again, a few years later, when the perspective of time has lengthened, all stands in a different setting. There is a new proportion. There is another scale of values. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. What is the worth of all this?…
The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honour.
At the beginning of the war, Churchill said, “we may be sure that the task which we have freely accepted is one not beyond the compass and the strength of the British Empire and the French Republic.” It was only a few months later that France fell and the remarkable British retreat from Dunkirk was commemorated by Churchill. And then only several years until the great victory — after which Churchill was promptly voted out of office in a landslide.