Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-07-09
CHURCHILL
THE BRILLIANT
The Anglo-American Firebrand
Still Criticizes the British
Military Strategy
BY GILBERT VIVIAN SELDES
Special Correspondent Evening Ledger
TnNnnN Tuup %


LONDON, June 90.
The Government Of Great Britain is being
eShs Sm By By6 his G2R rs GTSnS name GST wc"Ey
paper. e., a., .,,u-
wgd be ,1sh sf9T'S9s were f9T Sowed Ss o SSTR 90
unused in this crsis.-From many daily
Tho most brilliant man in England -oc-
Think what he has made us suffer.-Fre-
TThS boys IL the air want hIm'--oce'-
He'd do anything to get back into the
llmelight-Nasty remark
AND so on. could lll a column with
n these varying descriptions Of man
who is still, despite everything, one OF the
most fascinating figures in contemporary
England. VIII you have three guesses?
It Is Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
the hero Of the Sidney street murders and
the tragic figure who stands behind the
disasters Of Antwerp and OF Galllpoh'
Winston Churchill, the man who has always
played for all or nothing and who now
even at this moment when his career seems
blackencd out I'm the darkest pages OF the
war. may be about TO play for doubles or
quits. For he Is not yet quits with MS
country nor his country with him.
He is stll a young man, forty-three'
and he Is not yet Prime Minister. Inc
war which might have made him seems TO
have ruined him. But l am not sure that
the end has come for this man whose every
word shines and sparlSles, whose every ac-
ton is on the grand scale, and who KNOWS
what he wants lie has thrown over one
party I'm his time; he Is dscredited FOR
the moment with another ! have heard II
said that he will always be true 70 one
party and that party, as James kussell
Lowell said of a lesser politician, himself
There is malice in the phrase; but II IN
dicates, in spite Of itself, the abounding
self-conndcnce, the extraordinary faith and
let us say, honor which Mr.. Churchill brings
into his politics
An American Englishman
II is not on record that Mr.. Churchill
thanks God every day for his American
descent but he certainly realizes that he
was once master of the British imagination
because he had an American energy,
aboundng and daring and dangerous aducu
to the audaCity which came from ms great
father the grand manner the trlck OF COM
pelling attention.
Everything he had done until the war
broke out was profit TO him. At the age or
twenty-three he was a famous historian TOT
his record Of The River War, kitcheners
SOudan campaign, is model or hlstorlcal
narrative, and the downright defiance OF
Kitchener in 1t is another instance OF his
bravery At the age Of twenty-five he had
fought in Cuba with the Spanish forcesl,
in the Tirah expedition, with the Malakand
Field Force on the northwest frontier OF
India, in the Soudan, and with Butler ana
Roberts through the Boer War He had
been captured, had escaped-his enemies
insist that he broke parole from Pretoria.
The fact is, at least, that he lived through
Spion Kop and was with the relieving col
umn when it entered Ladysmith.
lie has been Home Secretary and presi-
dent Of the Board of Trade and First Lord
of the Admiralty. He is soldier and sailor
too, by that token He has summoned ar
tllery to capture n group Of murderers in
tho heart Of London and has sent mission
to Antwerp which could not have saved an
anthill from the Germans. He has thrown
the military over half England to check
railway strike and he participates In the
guilt Of the Dardanelles. He is something
of novelist, a biographer, an orator. He
looks for perfection in everything; he wants
always to be not only where the band is
playing, he wants to conduct the best band
in the land. I quote ragtime; somehow Mr..
Churchill is not allen to the spirit Of our
country.