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


bpoctQl Correspondent Evening Ltdptf
LONDON, June 20,
The Government OF Great Britain Is being
run by little club, every member OF whlGn
calls him by his first namo-From weekly
II would be a misfortune for the coun,
unused In this crisis.-From many daily
Tho most brilliant man In England
Think what he has made us sufrer-Fre-
The boys in the air want him.-occ"-
He'd do anything TO get back into the
llmelighL-Nasty remark
AND so on could I'LL a column with
-. 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 GallipolL
Winston Churchill, the man who has always
played for all or nothing, and VINO now
even at this moment when his career seems
blackened out in the darkest pages ot the
war, may be about 10 play for doubles or
quits. For he Is not yet quits with his
country, nor his country with him.
He is still n young man, forty-three'
and he Is not yet Prime Minister Inc
war which might have made him seems 10
have ruined MIN. But l am not sure Nh"'
the end has como for this man whose every
word shines and sparltles, whose every ac-
ton is Oh the grand scale, and who knows
what he wants. lie has thrown over one
party I'm his time; he Is dscreditcd lot
the moment with another. / have heard II
said that he will always be true 10 one
party, and that party as James Russell
Lowell said Of lesser politician, himseh.
There is malice I'm the phrase but 1t IN
dlcatcs, IN spite Of itself, the aboundihg
self-confdcncc, 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 ne
was once master OF the British imagination
because he had an American energy,
abounding and daring and dangerous, added
10 the audacity which came from his great
father, the grand manner, the trick of com
polling attention
Everything he had done until the war
broke out was profit to him. At the age OF
twenty-three he was famous historian, lor
his record Of The River War, Kitchener's
Soudan campaign, is a model of historical
narrative, and the downright defiance OF
Kitchener in II is another Instance OF his
bravery. At the age of twenty-five he had
fought in Cuba with the Spanish forcesh
in the Tirah expedition, with the Maitland
Field Force on the northwest frontier OF
India, in the Soudan, and with Butler and
Roberts through the Boer War lie 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
tilery to capture n group OF murderers In
the heart OF London and has sent a 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 a novelist, biographer, an orator. He
looks for perfection in everything; he wants
always to be not only where the band is
playing no wants to conduct the best band
in the land. 1 quote ragtime; somehow Mr.,
Churchill is not alien to the spirit Of our
country.