1942 USA / DEFENCE: World War II: Winston Churchill speech to US Senate

Date: 8th January 1942

Location: WASHINGTON D.C, U.S.A.

Source: Reuters Historical News Collection: BRITISH PARAMOUNT NEWSREEL (REUTERS)

USA: Washington DC:

GV White House...IN ROLL NO.10748

INT.

Long side view pose shot Harry Hopkins.

Commander Thompson and Capt. Reardall standing, Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister and war leader) and US President F.D.Roosevelt seated at table.

Semi Front View of same 5.

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CU Churchill with police escort on way to Congress.

GV mass crowd cheering.

General Front View Churchill on dais and applause - Churchill speaks.

GTV Members of Congress applauding.

LTV Churchill speaking.

Semi front view Churchill speaking.

Long Front View Churchill speaking.

GTV Members of Congress applauding.

Long Front View Churchill speaking.

GTV Members of Congress applauding and cheering.

Long Front view Churchill gets up, bows and smiles to applauding and cheering Congress.

Winston Churchill speech to Senate SOT

"Members of the Senate and of the House of Representative of the United States. I feel greatly honoured that you should have invited me to enter the United States Senate Chamber and address the representatives of both branches of Congress. The fact that my American forebears have, for so many generations played their part in the life of the United States and that here I am, an Englishman, welcomed in your midst, makes this experience one of the most moving and thrilling in my life, which is already long and has not been entirely uneventful.

"(Many people have been astonished that Japan should in a single day have plunged into war against the United States and the British Empire...It becomes still more difficult to reconcile Japan's action with prudence and sanity.

"((What kind of people do they think we are? Is it possible that they do not realise we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?)) (Prolonged cheers.)

"((Twice in a single generation the catastrophe of world war has fallen upon us. Twice in our lifetime has the long arm of fate reached across the ocean to bring the United States into the forefront of the battle itself. If we had kept together after the last war, if we had taken common measures for our safety, then this renewal of the curse need never have fallen upon us.)(Cheers.)

"((Five or six years ago it would have been easy, without shedding a drop of blood, for the United States and Great Britain to have insisted on the fulfilment of the disarmament clauses of the Treaties which Germany signed after the Great War, and that also would have been the opportunity for assuring to the Germans those materials, those raw materials, which we declared in the Atlantic Charter should not be denied to any nation, victor or vanquished.

"That chance has passed. It is gone. Prodigious hammer strokes have been needed to bring us together today. If you will allow me to use other language, I will say that he must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below of which we have the honour to be faithful servants.

"It is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of the future. Still, I avow my hope and faith, sure and inviolate, that in the days to come the British and American peoples will, for their own safety and for the good of all, walk together in majesty, in justice and in peace." (Loud Cheers.)

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