Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) is best known for his
leadership as Prime Minister of Great Britain during the Second
World War, but it should be remembered that this period of heroism
was the high point of a long and varied career in British politics.
He was elected to the House of Commons in 1900 and was to continue
as a member of the House for 64 years, holding every major Cabinet
post except the Foreign Ministry and ascending to the office of
Prime Minister twice. This extensive political experience produced
deep and often underappreciated reflection on political
matters.
Churchill led his people in a desperate battle, but his
leadership was not unreasoned or incoherent--it could not have been
successful if it were. Churchill himself stressed that effective
leadership depends upon consistent and coherent thought:
Those who are possessed of a definite body of doctrine and of
deeply rooted convictions upon it will be in a much better position
to deal with the shifts and surprises of daily affairs than those
who are merely taking short views, and indulging their natural
impulses as they are evoked by what they read from day to day.[1]
Churchill's own convictions flowed from the Anglo-American
constitutionalism of which he was so proud and devoted an heir. His
attachment to the principles of political freedom guided his
decisions and was the heart of his profound ability to inspire
through speech. This attachment was not merely instinctive or
inherited; it was the product of reason and experience.
Churchill reflected broadly and deeply on the political issues
of his own day in both the domestic and international spheres.
Indeed, it is indicative of his comprehensive understanding that he
never lost sight of the connections between those spheres. In the
1920s and '30s in particular, Churchill surveyed with unease the
collectivist trends that were sapping the internal strength of his
own country and threatening to create instability abroad. He
opposed such programs, whether originating on the Left or on the
Right of the political spectrum in Britain, as destructive of
freedom. It was Churchill's great desire as a statesman to make his
country worthy of the tasks set before it, to enable it to overcome
the perils it faced within as well as without; but he also wanted
to ensure that other nations would not surrender the blessings of
liberty. It is well worth the effort to examine his thoughts on
these matters, both for his diagnosis of political ills and for his
prescriptions for political health.
Looking at Churchill's political thought as a whole, we see a
statesman in agreement with America's first principles and a
staunch defender of individual liberty, Anglo-American
constitutionalism, and limited government in Britain and worldwide.
Churchill's ideas on these matters stemmed from his explicit
agreement with the crucial statements of these principles by the
American Founders.
Because scholars have paid so much attention to the working
relationship between Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt in
matters of foreign policy, we tend to assume that they were
entirely agreed on domestic policy. But by viewing Churchill's
thoughts on America as shown through the great issue of the
day--the New Deal--we see that Churchill was an opponent of FDR's
centralized administrative philosophy of government and that his
opposition was grounded in a recurrence to our founding
principles.
A Unity of Spirit
At a time when America was undergoing significant political
change due to the Great Depression and FDR's New Deal, Churchill
had much to say about political change in the United States. It was
Churchill's view that, while the governing forms of the United
States and Britain differ, the governing principles are the same:
Both countries were built upon principles of freedom.
He humorously pointed to this idea when speaking to a joint
session of Congress as the United States entered the Second World
War in December of 1941. Alluding to the fact that his mother was
American, Churchill joked that it was only an accident of birth
that had placed him in the legislative assembly across the Atlantic
rather than in Washington D.C.: "By the way, I cannot help
reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother
British, instead of the other way round, I might have got here on
my own." After all, what substantive differences were there between
the two assemblies? Both were animated by essentially the same
principles, and both strove for essentially the same ends:
Therefore I have been in full harmony all my life with the tides
which have flowed on both sides of the Atlantic against privilege
and monopoly, and I have steered confidently towards the Gettysburg
ideal of "government of the people by the people for the people."
In my country, as in yours, public men are proud to be the servants
of the State and would be ashamed to be its masters.[2]
Of course, there were certain "historical incidents," as
Churchill writes, that had led to the political separation of the
two countries--such as the unpleasantness of a revolutionary war.
Churchill titles the chapter in his multi-volume History of the
English Speaking Peoples dealing with the lead up to the War of
Independence "The Quarrel with America." He might have titled it
"Unfortunate Misunderstandings." This was a family quarrel--a
quarrel in which harsh things were said and done but which, in
Churchill's view, must ultimately be healed and forgotten within
the far more powerful ties of common blood. He viewed even the
Declaration of Independence from England as in perfect harmony with
British political principles.[3] Indeed, he argued that the
Declaration belonged not to America alone but to all of the
children of the English common law: "The Declaration is not only an
American document. It follows on the Magna Charta and the Bill of
Rights as the third great title deed on which the liberties of the
English-speaking peoples are founded."[4]
Churchill never tired of stressing this essential political
harmony, making many references to Anglo-American action,
especially during the Second World War, incorporating the political
and legal doctrines of the two nations and underscoring the common
traditions and goals of the two peoples.[5] But he did not emphasize
Anglo-American similarities only during the hour of peril, when
American aid was so necessary to the survival of Britain. He
continued to do so even after the war. Speaking to the American Bar
Association in 1957, for example, Churchill made much of the
similarities in law between the two countries, maintaining that,
though they were somewhat different in form, they were united in
principle:
In the main, Law and Equity stand in the forefront of the moral
forces which our two countries have in common, and rank with our
common language in that store of bonds of unity on which I firmly
believe our life and destiny depend.... Last week you visited
Runnymede. There was the foundation, on which you have placed a
monument. It has often been pointed out that the 5th and 14th
Amendments of the American Constitution are an echo of the Magna
Charta.... National governments may indeed obtain sweeping
emergency powers for the sake of protecting the community in times
of war or other perils. These will temporarily curtail or suspend
the freedom of ordinary men and women, but special powers must be
granted by the elected representatives of those same people by
Congress or by Parliament, as the case may be.
They do not belong to the State or Government as a right. Their
exercise needs vigilant scrutiny, and their grant may be swiftly
withdrawn. This terrible twentieth century has exposed both our
communities to grim experiences, and both have emerged restored and
guarded. They have come back to us safe and sure. I speak, of
course, as a layman on legal topics, but I believe that our
differences are more apparent than real, and are the result of
geographical and other physical conditions rather than any true
division of principle.[6]
Churchill was not engaging in sentimental reflection when he
gave such speeches. The unity of principle he pointed to was, and
always had been in his view, the basis for unity of action.
In 1946, Churchill delivered what is perhaps his most famous
post-war speech at Fulton, Missouri. In what is usually called the
"Iron Curtain" speech, Churchill insisted that Anglo-American unity
was the foundation of any hope for future peace:
I come to the crux of what I have travelled here to say. Neither
the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world
organization will be gained without what I have called the
fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples. This means a
special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire
and the United States.[7]
Churchill believed that what he called the "union of the English
speaking peoples" was the bedrock of healthy international
relations, and he continued to stress such similarities because the
task for which American help was needed was larger than an
individual war. It was the task of guiding the world toward healthy
political arrangements conducive to a stable world peace.
The similarities Churchill cites are meant to show that in these
two countries, so closely linked by language, legal theory, and
cultural heritage, the principle of freedom had received its
fullest practical expression. But with that blessing of freedom
came the duty of the Anglo-American partnership to share its
political treasures with the world:
But we must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great
principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint
inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna
Charta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and
the English common law find their most famous expression in the
American Declaration of Independence.[8]
Churchill was never hesitant to proclaim the benefits of the
Anglo-American political tradition, which he often touted as a
blueprint for other nations:
All this means that the people of any country have the right,
and should have the power by constitutional action, by free
unfettered elections, with secret ballot, to choose or change the
character or form of government under which they dwell; that
freedom of speech and thought should reign; that courts of justice,
independent of the executive, unbiased by any party, should
administer laws which have received the broad assent of large
majorities or are consecrated by time and custom. Here are the
title deeds of freedom which should lie in every cottage home. Here
is the message of the British and American peoples to mankind.[9]
"What Good's a Constitution?"
In The Age of Roosevelt, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., quotes
Churchill's 1936 article "What Good's a Constitution?"[10]
introducing the former Prime Minister as "an eminent English
observer." Unfortunately, Schlesinger quotes the article in such a
way as to give a false impression of Churchill's message.
Schlesinger quotes from only the last few paragraphs, giving the
very strong impression that Churchill fully supported Roosevelt's
views of the Constitution and the need to overcome the Supreme
Court's opposition to the policies of the New Deal. Schlesinger
quotes Churchill writing, "This is an age in which the citizen
requires more, and not less, legal protection in the exercise of
his rights and liberties." Given the context of the work and
chapter in which it occurs, the reader quite naturally takes away
the impression that Churchill means it in the same way as FDR and
the other New Dealers meant it--that the conditions of modern
industrial society, especially the concentration of economic power
in large corporations, required a much greater degree of
governmental intervention and control to secure the liberties of
the common man.
But this is not Churchill's meaning. In fact, when one reads the
entire article, it becomes clear that he means quite the
opposite--that liberty is best protected by the established
boundaries of the constitutional order. "The rigidity of the
Constitution of the United States is the shield of the common man,"
writes Churchill. Here, too, Schlesinger misleads the reader by
rendering it as "The Constitution, he said, was 'the shield of the
common man.'"[11] The surreptitious substitution of "was"
for "is" serves the New Deal understanding that the Constitution
was no longer an adequate framework for meeting the challenges of
American life and economic crisis.
When read from the beginning, it becomes clear that Churchill's
article is much less favorable to the New Deal understanding than
Schlesinger admits. Churchill begins his discussion of
constitutionalism by suggesting that one must first consider "the
fundamental issue": "Does he value the State above the citizen, or
the citizen above the State? Does a government exist for the
individual, or do individuals exist for the government?" Churchill
writes that the world is deeply divided on this question, but that
some nations--namely, Russia, Germany, and Italy--have definitely
chosen "to subordinate the citizen or subject to the life of the
State." All of these states have adopted in peacetime a level of
subordination of the individual proper only to a time of war and
seek to direct their national life permanently on that basis. What
these states have in common, Churchill notes, is the doctrine of
socialism, which argues that economic crises are "only another form
of war," which justifies governmental controls. Churchill strongly
rejects the comparison of economic crisis to wartime conditions:
"One of the greatest reasons for avoiding war is that it is
destructive to liberty. But we must not be led into adopting for
ourselves the evils of war in time of peace upon any pretext
whatever."
Churchill was to combat this tendency personally during the 1945
election. The government of Great Britain had assumed many extra
controls during the war. But, Churchill warned in his campaign
against the challenge of the Labour party, if Britain allowed the
socialists to gain power, the government's grip on the individual
citizen, far from being loosed again, would grow ever tighter:
Look how even today they hunger for controls of every kind, as
if these were delectable foods instead of war-time inflictions and
monstrosities. There is to be one State to which all are to be
obedient in every act of their lives. This State is to be the
arch-employer, the arch-planner, the arch-administrator and ruler,
and the arch-caucus-boss.[12]
Of course, this economic-crisis-as-war language was frequently
employed by the New Dealers, including FDR himself.[13]
Churchill notes that socialism grafts itself onto nationalism
and the particular features of the nations it has infected. In
Germany, the Weimar regime was destroyed and Hitler was propelled
to power through national patriotism, tradition, and pride combined
with discontent about inequalities of wealth. In Russia, the
program of Communism was buttressed by national sentiment and
imperialist aspirations. The next country Churchill mentions, in a
shift that must be shocking to those who wish to read the article
as simply a pro-New Deal argument, is the United States, which he
says has experienced developments similar to those inspired by
socialism in the dictatorships:
In the United States, also, economic crisis has led to an
extension of the activities of the executive and to the pillorying,
by irresponsible agitators, of certain groups and sections of the
population as enemies of the rest. There have been efforts to exalt
the power of the central government and to limit the rights of
individuals.
The combinations at work in the United States, however, are
different. Passions and economic jealousies have been unleashed,
but they have formed combinations not with imperial ambition or
twisted racial pride, but with a sense of public duty and the
desire for national prosperity. However, the result, Churchill
warns, can be just as dangerous: "It is when passions and
cupidities are thus unleashed and, at the same time, the sense of
public duty rides high in the hearts of all men and women of good
will that the handcuffs can be slipped upon the citizens and they
can be brought into entire subjugation to the executive
government."
After describing trends in Germany, Russia, Italy, and the
United States, Churchill writes, "I take the opposite view." He had
always rejected any policy or propaganda that would use crisis to
extend the power of the state as subverting individual liberty and
perverting the purpose of government:
I hold that governments are meant to be, and must remain, the
servants of the citizens; that states and federations only come
into existence and can only be justified by preserving the "life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in the homes and families of
individuals. The true right and power rest in the individual. He
gives of his right and power to the State, expecting and requiring
thereby in return to receive certain advantages and guarantees.
When one has once defined government in terms of its purpose, a
test has been introduced by which to judge the goodness and
legitimacy of the government. Churchill gives the tests by which he
judges the civilization of any community:
What is the degree of freedom possessed by the citizen or
subject? Can he think, speak and act freely under well-established,
well-known laws? Can he criticize the executive government? Can he
sue the State if it has infringed his rights? Are there also great
processes for changing the law to meet new conditions?
Churchill judges Great Britain and the United States to be in
the forefront of civilized communities according to these
standards. This status is due only in part, Churchill writes, to
"the good sense and watchfulness of our citizens." A vital support
for freedom also lies in the Independence of the courts:
In both our countries the character of the judiciary is a vital
factor in the maintenance of the rights and liberties of the
individual citizen. Our judges extend impartially to all men
protection, not only against wrongs committed by private persons,
but also against the arbitrary acts of public authority. The
Independence of the courts is, to all of us, the guarantee of
freedom and the equal rule of law.
In other words, the safeguard is to be found in a structural
feature of both the American and British constitutional
arrangements. The Independence of the judiciary, while at times
productive of frustration and inconvenience to those trying to
implement legislative programs or governmental action, must
nonetheless be maintained: "It must, therefore, be the first
concern of the citizens of a free country to preserve and maintain
the Independence of the courts of justice, however inconvenient
that Independence may be, on occasion, to the government of the
day."
These remarks hardly appear sympathetic to FDR's frustration
with the Supreme Court's repeated striking down of New Deal
programs as unconstitutional and his active search for ways to
limit the powers of the Court. Later in the article, Churchill
refers to the various means that were being considered to
accomplish this, including a proposal to introduce a retirement age
of 70 for justices. This proposal was not ultimately successful,
but Churchill presciently notes that the real challenge may be yet
to come. A year after Churchill wrote this piece, FDR famously
tried to "pack" the Court with justices more subservient to his
political will.
When considering the political situation in America and Britain,
Churchill argued, "The question we are discussing is whether a
fixed constitution is a bulwark or a fetter." Churchill is not
hesitant to proclaim his own opinion on the matter: "From what I
have written it is plain that I incline to the side of those who
would regard it as a bulwark, and that I rank the citizen higher
than the State, and regard the State as useful only in so far as it
preserves his inherent rights."
The article now becomes exclusively a comparison between Great
Britain and the United States: "And here is the point at which we
may consider and contrast the constitutions of our respective
countries." It is very difficult, he writes, for those in England
to comprehend the kind of governmental deadlock that has been
reached in the United States. That major bills affecting the whole
life of the people could be passed through Parliament only to be
struck down and nullified by a court of law would be beyond
imagination. The British parliamentary system does not have a court
empowered with judicial review of legislative acts. If Crown and
Parliament unite, the law of the land has been given with final
authority. The unwritten British Constitution thus has a potential
for great flexibility: "There is no limit to the powers of Crown
and Parliament. Even the gravest changes in our Constitution can in
theory be carried out by simple majority votes in both Houses and
the consequential assent of the Crown."
The situation in the United States is much different.
Limitations on the power of government to prevent the concentration
of power in a few hands were central to the American Founding;
hence the separation of powers and the carefully crafted
interaction of the branches of government. The judiciary was to be
independent, but whether the Supreme Court would have a veto over
legislation passed by Congress was a matter of debate among the
Framers. While the actual language of the Constitution gives no
specific grant of such a power, the idea was advanced and became
entrenched as an implied power very early in the life of the
Republic.[14] The power of judicial review gives the
Court an authoritative voice and, in theory if not always in
practice, binds the other branches of government to the
Constitution.
This system provides the opportunity for a conflict between the
American branches of government that is quite remarkable from
Churchill's point of view:
But we now watch the workings of a written Constitution enforced
by a Supreme Court according to the letter of the law, under which
anyone may bring a test case challenging not merely the
interpretation of a law, but the law itself, and if the Court
decides for the appellant, be he only an owner of a few chickens,[15]
the whole action of the Legislature and the Executive becomes to
that extent null and void.
"American citizens or jurists, in their turn," Churchill writes,
"gaze with wonder at our great British democracy expressing itself
with plenary powers through a Government and a Parliament
controlled only by the fluctuating currents of public opinion." He
then goes on to describe the features of parliamentary government
that differ from the American system: that there is no separation
between the Executive and the Legislature, the Government depends
for its continuance on the approval of the House of Commons, the
ministers of the Government are chosen from the majority party in
the legislative body, and Parliament can extend or contract its own
duration apart from the statutory limit. The Framers of the
American Constitution were, of course, distrustful of these
arrangements as being inadequate to restrain the government within
its proper bounds.
Churchill recognizes and understands the American hesitancy to
approve such arrangements and so asserts that British people are
satisfied that governmental power will not be abused: "Yet all
classes and all parties have a deep, underlying conviction that
these vast, flexible powers will not be abused, that the spirit of
our unwritten Constitution will be respected at every stage." To
explain how this conviction is justified, Churchill describes the
particular features of British History, politics, and society that
make the arrangement workable, citing the beginnings of party
politics in Britain, respect for law and constitutional usage, the
stability of a permanent civil service, and the attachment of
popular opinion to the unwritten constitution.
Up to this point, the reader may take it that Churchill simply
believes that the British system is better and that the United
States would be better off to adopt it in order to avoid clashes
between the branches. But this is not the case. Churchill
recognizes that the situation in the U.S. is different from that of
Britain. The size and complexity of the United States makes the
flexibility of the British constitutional arrangement impractical
and unwise: "the participants of so vast a federation have the
right to effectual guarantees upon the fundamental laws, and that
these should not be easily changed to suit a particular emergency
or fraction of the country." This principle, Churchill recognizes,
is at the heart of the American Union:
The founders of the Union, although its corpus was then so much
smaller, realized this with profound conviction. They did not think
it possible to entrust legislation for so diverse a community and
enormous an area to a simple majority. They were as well acquainted
with the follies and intolerance of parliaments as with the
oppression of princes. "To control the powers and conduct of the
legislature," said a leading member of the Convention of 1787, "by
an overruling constitution was an improvement in the science and
practice of government reserved to the American States."[16]
Churchill does not think that the organizational principle of
federalism safeguarded by a fixed constitution has reached the end
of its usefulness: "All the great names of American history can be
invoked behind this principle. Why should it be considered
obsolete?" In fact, whatever may be thought of the principle by the
New Dealers, federalism was at the heart of the success of the
American regime: "It may well be that this very quality of
rigidity, which is today thought to be so galling, has been a prime
factor in founding the greatness of the United States." Churchill
has praised the British system, but he admits that if it were
expanded beyond the bounds of Britain for the governance of the
Empire with all of its diversity, that system would fail. It is
only the principle of federalism that has allowed the Empire to
continue:
In this small island of Britain we make laws for ourselves. But
if we had again attempted to apply this flexibility and freedom to
the British Empire, and to frame an Imperial Constitution to make
laws for the whole body, it would have been broken to pieces.
Although we have a free, flexible Constitution at the centre and
for the centre of the Empire, nothing is more rigid than the
established practice--namely, that we claim no powers to interfere
with the affairs of its self-governing component parts. No Supreme
Court is needed to enforce this rule. We have learned the lessons
of the past too well.
Churchill's position is that the United States, a political
union with a complexity analogous to the Empire, requires both
federalism in order to function properly and the Supreme Court to
enforce the principle, especially in time of crisis.
A perusal of Roosevelt's speeches will readily show that he was
impatient with those like Churchill who would oppose an evolving
interpretation of the Constitution that would permit the federal
government to take an increasingly active role in the life of the
states. In his Annual Message to the Congress in 1937, for example,
Roosevelt called for an "enlightened view" of the Constitution:
"Difficulties have grown out of its interpretation but rightly
considered, it can be used as an instrument of progress, and not as
a device for the prevention of action."[17]
The language of constitutional flexibility was the common
parlance of the New Deal from the beginning, but Churchill gives a
negative interpretation of such language:
And here we must note a dangerous misuse of terminology. "Taking
the rigidity out of the American Constitution" means, and is
intended to mean, new gigantic accessions of power to the
dominating centre of government and giving it the means to make new
fundamental laws enforceable upon all American citizens.
Churchill defends the "rigidity" of the American Constitution as
a safeguard of freedom rather than seeing it as an obstacle to the
political programs of the New Deal.
We are now in a position to put into context the portion of the
article that Schlesinger quotes:
But that rigidity ought not to be interpreted by pedants. In
England we continually give new interpretation to the archaic
language of our fundamental institutions, and this is no new thing
in the United States. The judiciary have obligations which go
beyond expounding the mere matter of the law. The Constitution must
be made to work.
A true interpretation, however, of the British or the American
Constitution is certainly not a chop-logic or pedantic
interpretation. So august a body as the Supreme Court in dealing
with law must also deal with the life of the United States, and
words, however solemn, are only true when they preserve their vital
relationship to facts. It would certainly be a great disaster, not
only to the American Republic but to the whole world, if a violent
collision should take place between the large majority of the
American people and the great instrument of government which has so
long presided over their expanding fortunes.[18]
These remarks appear to express Churchill's sympathy with
Roosevelt's desire to ensure that the changing circumstances of
modern life do not cut any citizens off from the means of
prosperity and happiness, but they do not retract anything that
Churchill wrote in the bulk of this same article or the warnings
conveyed therein. Moreover, they occur at the end of his arguments
in a section which Churchill sets off from the preceding: "Now, at
the end of these reflections, I must strike a minor and different
note." Schlesinger does not provide the larger context of these
remarks and so gives the reader a mistaken impression that
Churchill was in complete agreement with FDR's approach to the
issues of federalism and the role of the Supreme Court.
Freedom and Tyranny
Churchill's 1937 essay "This Age of Government by Great
Dictators" is a meditation on political change. It is an essay of
sweeping historical breadth, telling a tale that begins with early
European History, where kings were granted a power sufficient to
remedy the defects of an earlier, chaotic age and were elevated to
an almost godlike status. While this was an improvement on anarchy,
the accidents of individual birth and character were unstable
foundations on which to risk the fortunes of nations: "At one
period Pericles or Augustus, at another Draco or Caligula!"
Once society was set on a firm footing, various kinds of
constitutions were invented to restrain the excesses of kings. This
idea took special hold in Britain:
[T]his doctrine of averaging risks by means of constitutions,
and of keeping kings without returning to anarchy, became deeply
ingrained in the people of a small island amid the northern mists
who seemed to have a genius for common sense. Out of it arose by
many painful processes the famous English Parliamentary system and
constitutional monarchy.
Pomp and power were separated, and power underwent division and
subdivision, ensuring the rule of law rather than whim. These ideas
spread across the globe to the great benefit of mankind; the
political forms and institutions to which they gave rise varied,
but the fundamental conceptions remained the root from which
civilization flourished and spread:
The English conception, wrought by the island nobility from the
Magna Charta to the age of Anne, spread over wide portions of the
globe. The forms were often varied, but the idea was the same.
Sometimes, as in the United States, through historical incidents,
an elected functionary replaced the hereditary king, but the idea
of the separation of powers between the executive, the assemblies
and the courts of law widely spread throughout the world in what we
must regard as the great days of the nineteenth century.[19]
The point of "This Age of Government by Great Dictators" is to
convey a warning. The story Churchill tells does not end with the
"great days of the nineteenth century" in which the continued
progress of the world seemed assured. It was just when the
progressive faith was at its greatest, when the illusion of mastery
over the fortunes of man had taken on its most vibrant hues, that
hopes failed: "Then came terrible wars shattering great empires,
laying nations low, sweeping away old institutions and ideas with a
scourge of molten steel."
The 20th century did not live up to the promise of progress. The
world now learned (or re-learned what had been forgotten) that
political change does not necessarily follow any consistent
direction. The 19th century thinkers had pinned their hopes on the
spread of democratic institutions and principles, believing that,
once built, their temples would stand forever; but their mistake
was soon to be revealed. Churchill points out that democratic
regimes are as subject to degradation as any other because they,
like other political forms, carry their own dangers with them:
Democracy has been defined as "the association of us all in the
leadership of the best." In practice it does not always work this
way. Vast masses of people were invested with the decisive right to
vote, while at the same time they had very little leisure to study
the questions upon which they must pronounce; and an enormous
apparatus for feeding them with propaganda, catchwords and slogans
came simultaneously into existence.
Democratic regimes, because they demand the participation of
their citizens, demand responsibility from their citizens. When
responsibilities are shirked, either because conditions are not
favorable to duty or through laziness, the control of the people
will become an illusion and, eventually, not even the illusion will
remain. Flatterers will sway the people. Demagogues will convince
them to surrender their power for safety or comfort. Propagandists
will play on their fears. Tyrants will be born:
Alike in fear of anarchy and in vague hopes of future comforts a
very large proportion of Europe have yielded themselves to
dictatorship. Nations which had either driven out or confined
within constitutional limits the old careful kingships of the past,
made haste to rally in the parades and processions of a set of
violent, wrathful, resourceful, domineering figures cast up by the
bloody surge of war and its cruel lacerating recoil. We have
entered the age of the dictators.[20]
Thus, the 20th century witnessed a regression in political
terms. Nations were again subject to lords, but their new masters
wielded power many times greater than the ancient kings. The reader
recognizes the spirit of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, but
Churchill's warning is for those who have not yet fallen under the
yoke of such men, for those countries which imagine themselves
immune from such a transformation, including Britain. He warns that
whatever political victories may have been won, the danger of
tyranny is never finally removed.
"Roosevelt from Afar"
The common political heritage shared by America and Great
Britain was the basis for Churchill's appeal for aid from the
United States in the early years of the Second World War. The
initial success of that appeal had much to do with a personal
relationship. Churchill worked very hard at strengthening the bonds
with the leader of Britain's greatest ally, and the working
friendship between Churchill and President Roosevelt has rightly
received a great deal of scholarly attention. But have Churchill's
criticisms of FDR been lost or ignored in the shadow of their
wartime partnership? The two had their disagreements, even over the
conduct of the war, and they certainly did not see eye to eye on
dealing with the Soviets with regard to post-war arrangements.
Less well-known and almost completely ignored are Churchill's
comments on the political, economic, and social policies Roosevelt
pursued in the New Deal. Churchill's critique of the New Deal
reflects a concern that even regimes built on the principles of
freedom can become corrupted and lose their way. Writing in a
period in which dictatorships were thriving, he pointed out that
the United States was not immune to the political degradation that
was affecting much of the rest of the world. He warned America, in
a lesson equally apt today, that the moment of social and economic
crisis is also the moment of political danger.
In "Roosevelt from Afar,"[21] Churchill expresses
sympathy with and admiration for Roosevelt's desire to deliver his
people from the economic problems that had plagued America since
the Great Depression, but the essay has another purpose as well, as
he wrote to the editor of Collier's: to warn against the
possible ill-effects that New Deal programs might bring about. "I
have tried to strike a note of warning while at the same time
expressing my sincere sympathy with the great effort the President
is making," Churchill writes.
This article was a difficult undertaking. For a statesman to
remark on the domestic policies and personalities of another
country without exciting resentment or even wrath requires
diplomatic skill. We can therefore believe that Churchill was very
careful in his writing. We know that he went so far as to leave
final judgment to the American editor: "if there are any phrases
which you think would cause offence...you are quite at liberty to
soften or excise them without reference to me."[22] Yet despite his
caution, "Roosevelt from Afar" does manage to convey serious
warnings about America's Depression-era economic and social
policies.
Churchill begins by describing the severe economic crisis
affecting America and the world, and he expresses admiration for
Roosevelt's willingness to take up the challenge:
Although the policies of President Roosevelt are conceived in
many respects from a narrow view of American self-interest, the
courage, the power and the scale of his effort must enlist the
ardent sympathy of every country, and his success could not fail to
lift the whole world forward into the sunlight of an easier and
more genial age.
Churchill describes Roosevelt's challenges as he arrived at
America's highest office at the moment of crisis: "He arrived at
the summit of the greatest economic community in the world at the
moment of its extreme embarrassment. Everybody had lost faith in
everything." The United States was gripped by desperation. It was a
moment of both opportunity and danger. Great or terrible things
might be done: "We must never forget that this was the basis from
which he started. Supreme power in the Ruler, and a clutching
anxiety of scores of millions who demanded and awaited orders."
Roosevelt chose to seize direction of the whole scene, and "[s]ince
then there has been no lack of orders," writes Churchill. (That is
certainly true, given that Roosevelt issued an extraordinary number
of executive orders--more than all of his successors through Bill
Clinton combined.)
Using a word that must be shocking to Roosevelt apologists,
Churchill notes that the President aspired to a very high degree of
control: "Although the Dictatorship is veiled by constitutional
forms, it is none the less effective. Great things have been done,
and greater attempted."[23] But Churchill is very careful to
attribute any of Roosevelt's possible excesses to misguided
followers rather than to Roosevelt himself. "[T]he President has
need to be on his guard," he writes; "[t]o a foreign eye it seems
that forces are gathering under his shield which at a certain stage
may thrust him into the background and take the lead themselves. If
that misfortune were to occur, we should see the not-unfamiliar
spectacle of a leader running after his followers to pull them
back."[24]
These, however, are the forces that Roosevelt deliberately set
loose and encouraged. While Churchill describes them as dangers to
"President Roosevelt's valiant and heroic experiments," it is clear
from the essay, as well as from the History of the New Deal, that
these are in fact dangers arising from those very experiments.
The Trade Unionism Threat
The first great danger Churchill addresses is the rise of trade
unionism. Once again, he begins by praising Roosevelt for his
attempt to reduce unemployment by shortening working hours and thus
to spread employment more evenly through the working class:
Thus the Roosevelt adventure claims sympathy and admiration from
all of those in England, and in foreign countries, who are
convinced that the fixing of a universal measure of value based not
upon the rarity or plenty of any single commodity, but conforming
to the advancing powers of mankind, is the supreme achievement
which at this time lies before the intellect of Man.
But this remark is immediately followed by a warning: "[V]ery
considerable misgivings must necessarily arise when a campaign to
attack the monetary problem becomes intermingled with, and hampered
by, the elaborate processes of social reform and the struggles of
class warfare."[25]
Great Britain had much experience with trade unionism, as had
Churchill himself. As President of the Board of Trade, Home
Secretary, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Churchill had been
involved in shaping government policy toward labor disputes and
strikes. The General Strike of 1925-1926, and its political
implications in particular, had given Churchill strong negative
views on the subject:
[Labor unionism] has introduced a narrowing element into our
public life. It has been a keenly-felt impediment to our productive
and competitive power. It has become the main foundation of the
socialist party, which has ruled the State greatly to its
disadvantage, and will assuredly do so again. It reached a climax
in a general strike, which if it had been successful would have
subverted the Parliamentary constitution of our island.
On the other hand, Churchill was willing to admit that the trade
unions in Britain had become a stable force in the industrial
development of Britain and were, in any case, much better for
society than "communist-agitated and totally unorganized labour
discontent."[26]
Churchill's warning for Roosevelt and America consists in the
observation that the development of trade unionism in Britain
occurred over a period of some 50 years, allowing time for economic
adjustments and the abatement of immediate passions. The New Deal
aimed at greatly accelerating this process, which he said posed
real dangers: "But when one sees an attempt made within the space
of a few months to lift American trade unionism by great heaves and
bounds to the position so slowly built up--and even then with much
pain and loss--in Great Britain, we cannot help feeling grave
doubts."[27] The conflicts involved in such a
transformation, he warns, could "result in a general crippling of
that enterprise and flexibility upon which not only the wealth, but
the happiness of modern communities depends."
Nor was this transformation occurring through a careful
balancing of the interests of employers, labor, and society as a
whole; rather, it was occurring through accelerated government
intervention:
Our trade unions have grown to manhood and power amid an
enormous network of counter-checks and consequential corrections;
and to raise American trade unionism from its previous condition to
industrial sovereignty by a few sweeping decrees may easily
confront both the trade unions and the United States with problems
which for the time being will be at once paralyzing and
insoluble.[28]
Yet such sweeping decrees are exactly what characterized the New
Deal under Roosevelt, as illustrated by the compulsory unionism of
the National Industrial Recovery Act (1933) and the National Labor
Relations Act (1935).
Redistribution
The second great danger involved in Roosevelt's experiments is
"the disposition to hunt down rich men as if they were noxious
beasts." Churchill notes that this is "a very attractive sport" and
one common to societies plagued with economic woes. But economic
redistribution through penalties on the wealthy does not benefit a
society in the long run because it drains the wellsprings of
economic development:
The millionaire or multi-millionaire is a highly economic
animal. He sucks up with sponge-like efficiency from all quarters.
In this process, far from depriving ordinary people of their
earnings, he launches enterprise and carries it through, raises
values, and he expands that credit without which on a vast scale no
fuller economic life can be opened to the millions. To hunt wealth
is not to capture commonwealth.
Moreover, the rich man is elusive prey. It will take time and
determined effort to finally bring him to bay and wrench his wealth
from him. Until then, it will be squirreled away for protection and
so will not be spurring enterprise. The chase may be exciting, but
the returns are poor, Churchill argues:
But meanwhile great constructions have crumbled to the ground.
Confidence is shaken and enterprise chilled, and the unemployed
queue up at the soup-kitchens or march out to the public works with
ever growing expense to the taxpayer and nothing more appetizing to
take home to their families than the leg or the wing of what was
once a millionaire.... It is indispensable to the wealth of nations
and to the wage and life standards of labour, that capital and
credit should be honoured and cherished partners in the economic
system.
Churchill notes that there is some justification for the anger
of the American people against their great leaders of finance but
cautions against indulging anger at the cost of destructive
economic policy. Given that some abuses exist, the question becomes
how to resolve them: "The important question is whether American
democracy can clear up scandals and punish improprieties without
losing its head, and without injuring the vital impulses of
economic enterprise and organization."[29]
Churchill places this American dilemma in a broader context by
pointing out that the U.S. is not the first country to deal with
the question of whether "it is better to have equality at the price
of poverty, or well-being at the price of inequality." Churchill
lamented the drift toward socialist policies in his own country in
the 1920s (and, as pointed out earlier, again in the 1940s),
pointing out that these schemes produced little but economic
disaster.[30] He did favor government action to ease
the pains of the poor in modern industrial society, however.
Indeed, his political career is marked by a great concern for
social justice, a concern which is echoed in his cautious
admiration of FDR.
Ultimately, however, Churchill held that free markets should be
allowed to operate without centralized, bureaucratic controls
destroying the principle of competition that is the mainspring of
economic health.[31] The capitalist system can create
concentrations of wealth, since free competition results in
inequalities of property, but the removal of reward for investment
and risk will stultify economic development and ultimately harm
society as a whole.
Throughout his discussion of the economic choices America faces,
Churchill refers to "the Russian alternative"--the nationalization
of production, distribution, credit, and exchange to cure the
abuses and inequities of the capitalist system. While this is not a
choice Churchill recommends, other countries have made it, and it
was an option. "It is, however, irrational," he argues, to take a
middle ground between the two systems and "to tear down or cripple
the capitalist system without having the fortitude of spirit and
ruthlessness of action to create a new communist system."
Furthermore, Churchill believed that the American people would
never willingly accept the "dull brutish servitude of Russia,"
though he also believed that a nation can slide into doctrines it
would not accept wholesale with open eyes. Choices can sometimes be
clearer to outside observers, and Churchill warns that America
should not weight the scales against capitalism:
There it seems to foreign observers, lies the big choice of the
United States at the present time. If the capitalist system is to
continue, with its rights of private property, with its pillars of
rent, interest and profit, and the sanctity of contracts recognized
and enforced by the State, then it must be given a fair chance.
This means that government should not make it impossible for
private business to thrive by suppressing free-market competition:
"There are elements of contrivance, of housekeeping, and of taking
risks which are essential to all profitable activity. If these are
destroyed the capitalist system fails, and some other system must
be substituted."
Given the regulatory activities of the National Recovery
Administration, increases in taxes on successful businesses,
frequent anti-trust lawsuits, and FDR's anti-business rhetoric,
Churchill's words can only be read as a rebuke to the New Deal
approach to reining in "the vital impulses of economic enterprise
and organization."[32]
Conclusion
Churchill's critique of the New Deal does not, of course,
nullify his admiration for FDR, especially as it developed through
what is known as the special relationship in the Second World War.
While they had their disagreements, Churchill's gratitude toward
Roosevelt was immense. Speaking in the House of Commons a few days
after Roosevelt's death, he expressed that gratitude not only for
himself, but for Britain and for Europe as a whole: "For us, it
remains only to say that in Franklin Roosevelt there died the
greatest American friend we have ever known, and the greatest
champion of freedom who has ever brought help and comfort from the
new world to the old."[33]
The critique does, however, have importance. Written in the
context of worldwide collectivist trends which were destructive of
freedom, it reveals his opposition to the philosophy of the New
Deal as equally dangerous to political and economic liberty.
Churchill thought seriously about not only the unity of spirit
between Great Britain and the United States, but the ways in which
both countries were subject to the dangers of abandoning the
supports of law and liberty in times of crisis. Britain and the
United States were bound together in the defense of freedom, and
Churchill knew that freedom must be guarded internally as well as
externally.
Justin D. Lyons is an Associate
Professor in the Department of History and Political Science and an
Adjunct Fellow in the John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs at
Ashland University. He began his study of Churchill with his
dissertation, "Building the Temple of Peace: The Statesmanship of
Winston Churchill," and is working on a book-length study of
Churchill as a political thinker.