June 10, 2013

FINEST HOUR 134, SPRING 2007

BY MICHAEL McMENAMIN AND CURT ZOLLER

ABSTRACT
“WHAT HAD the great American politician and orator ever have seen in the brash young cavalry lieutenant of 1895? Churchill smiled. More than his own father had seen—that much was certain! But if Winston had striven throughout his iife to prove his father wrong about him, that wasn’t the case with Cockran. Churchill had striven to prove Cockran right”

EDITOR’S NOTE

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2025 International Churchill Conference

Becoming Winston Churchill: The Untold Story of Young Winston and His American Mentor, by two longtime contributors to Finest Hour, will soon be available through the Churchill Centre Book Club. It explores Young Winston Churchill’s coming of age between 1895-1908 “through the prism” of Bourke Cockran—who, in the Paris spring of 1895, had an affair with Churchill’s mother, and thereafter befriended her son.

Uniquely, this book contains the full text of all available Churchill-Cockran correspondence. It also contains, at the beginning of each chapter, fictional passages which, as Churchill’s granddaughter Celia Sandys writes in the book’s foreword, “are clearly very close to the facts. By using this device to describe the relationships between Winston, Jennie and Cockran, the authors bring to life events of a bygone era which eventually determined the course of the 20th century.”

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Chartwell, Kent Winter, 1954

Winston Spencer Churchill stepped away from the stand-up desk in his study and walked to the window. Cigar in one hand, a weak whisky and water in the other, the eighty-year-old Prime Minister looked out over the snow-covered Weald of Kent. To him it was the most beautiful view in the world, and he often turned to it often for inspiration, or to gather his thoughts.

He had been revising a speech to The State University of New York, which had awarded Churchill an honorary Doctorate of Law. He would accept in absentia.

After all, the only “degree” he had was from Sandhurst, which had not provided the liberal education he would have received at university. But this was an honour from America, and he rarely turned down any recognition from the land of his mother’s birth: the country which helped him save the world from Hitler. It had been nearly sixty years since he had first stepped on American shores.

Churchill could see it still in his mind’s eye: the incomparable New York City skyline. The Statue of Liberty. The incredible energy which seemed to rise out of Manhattan’s bedrock. And then he had seen the tall, sturdy figure of Bourke Cockran on the quay—the great Irish-American politician and friend of his mother and two aunts, easily recognized from their description.

No other man looked like Bourke Cockran, Aunt Leonie had told him, and she had been right. What his mother and aunts had not prepared him for, however, was Cockran’s magnetic countenance, the breadth of his knowledge, the originality of expression, the brilliance of his mind. And, of course, the voice! Difficult to describe even now, but Churchill had always wished he had a voice like Cockran’s. Alas, it was not to be no matter how hard or long he practiced.

Churchill wondered. Whatever had Cockran seen in that young cavalry lieutenant all those years ago? More than his own father had seen—that much was certain! If Churchill had striven throughout his life to accomplish things that proved his father wrong about him, that wasn’t the case with Cockran. No, Churchill had striven to prove Cockran right, to live up to the older man’s high opinion—oft expressed—of what a glittering career he believed the young Winston would have. Churchill rarely reflected on America without thinking of his old friend.

Though he’d known the last three American presidents very well, none compared to Cockran, whom so few now remembered. Churchill could not erase from his mind a conversation he’d recently had with the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee in the last American election. Decent fellow. Governor from one of those states in the middle of the country. He had asked a question many who met Churchill asked: “Upon whom did you base your oratorical style?”

Churchill had answered as he always did: “Your great American statesman, Bourke Cockran.

Adlai Stevenson had been surprised. Most were. They expected to hear him say that his father had inspired him. Lord Randolph had indeed—but not as an orator.

Thinking to give the governor a treat, Churchill began quoting at length from his two favorite Cockran speeches, which he had memorized nearly sixty years ago. The first was in 1896 at Madison Square Garden, where Bourke had opposed his own party on the issue of free silver—the inflationist proposal for unlimited silver coinage —drawing a larger crowd than his party’s presidential nominee, William Jennings Bryan. Then he quoted Cockran’s 1903 speech on Free Trade to the Liberal Club in London—after which the Liberals had attempted, unsuccessfully, to persuade Bourke to leave America and stand for Parliament in Great Britain.
Churchill shook his great head at the memory of Stevenson’s reaction: a blank stare. Clearly he simply didn’t know who Bourke Cockran was.

“America’s greatest orator,” they had called him from the mid-1880s until his premature death at age 69 in 1923: a close friend and adviser to Presidents Grover Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt. It was sad, Churchill thought, that even educated Americans had such short memories.

Churchill had never possessed much regard for the Republican Party in America. For most of the 20th century it had been protectionist to its core, something the free-trader Churchill could not countenance. But if the most recent Democratic nominee did not even know the name of his party’s most eloquent champion of Free Trade and individual liberty, perhaps it was not so bad that Ike had defeated him If only Ike had chosen a more qualified Secretary of State. Churchill smiled. “Dull, duller, Dulles.” One of his better lines. The cabinet certainly thought it funny. A pity he could never use it in public.

Looking out at the snow, Churchill decided it was time once more to remind his American cousins of Bourke Cockran: the man to whom, he once told his cousin, he owed the best things in his career.

Churchill took another sip of his whisky, placed the tumbler on his stand-up desk, switched on the intercom and called for one of two secretaries who were constantly on duty. When she arrived, he handed her a marked up copy of his speech.

“There and there,” he said, pointing to red marks he had made on the draft. “I want you to insert what I am about to dictate.” She sat on the edge of her chair, pad and pencil poised as Churchill began to speak.

“I remember when I first came over here in 1895 I was a guest of your great lawyer and orator, Mr. Bourke Cockran. I was only a young cavalry subaltern but he poured out all his wealth of mind and eloquence to me. Some of his sentences are deeply rooted in my mind. ‘The earth,’ he said, ‘is a generous mother. She will produce in plentiful abundance food for all her children if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and in peace.’ I used to repeat it so frequently on British platforms that I had to give it a holiday. But now today it seems to come back with new pregnancy and force, for never was the choice between blessing and cursing more vehemently presented to the human race.”

Churchill paused. “That’s the first part. Did you get that all?” She nodded. Churchill began to speak again. “There was another thing Bourke Cockran used to say to me. I cannot remember his actual words, but they amounted to this: ‘In a society where there is democratic tolerance and freedom under the law, many kinds of evils will crop up, but give them a little time and they usually breed their own cure.’ I do not see any reason to doubt the truth of that….

“You must not indeed think I am talking politics. I make it a rule never to meddle in internal or party politics of any friendly country. It’s hard enough to understand the party politics of your own! Still, I remain, as I have said, a strong supporter of the principles which Mr. Bourke Cockran inculcated into me on my youthful visit before most of you were born.

“Pray read that back to me,” Churchill went on. The young woman did. It sounded right. He dismissed her and walked back to the window. Sixty years, he thought ….in that time the world had been turned upside down. Twice. Still, he could see it all as if it were yesterday…

New York City 9 November 1895

Bourke Cockran felt a chill wind whip in from the Hudson River and pulled the collar of his Chesterfield higher around his neck. The sky was gray and a light mist was falling as he watched two tugboats nudge the Cunard liner RMS Etruria aside the pier. She was a big ship, well over 500 feet long, with two stacks and three tall masts sporting no sails. A far cry from the SS England, which had brought him to America over twenty years earlier, with only a single stack and a full complement of sails.

Ten minutes later the gangplank was down, and first class passengers were beginning to disembark. He thought he would recognize Winston because Jennie had shown him a photograph of her son when they were in Paris.

Jennie…Paris. Had their love affair really been six months ago? He shook his head. In May, after their mother’s death, he had agreed to accompany the three Jerome sisters back to America along with their mother’s body; Clara’s husband was already there, and John Leslie could not spare the time to accompany his wife Leonie.

Cockran had been surprised when Jennie, at the last minute, begged off. It had surprised her sisters as well when she told them she was not returning to America.

At first, Cockran had feared that it was because of him, but Leonie had assured him this was not true. She said he had done wonders to revive Jennie’s spirits after the death of Randolph, and that returning to America on such a sad occasion might undo all the good Cockran had done. Cockran had been encouraged, and had continued to hope that he still had a chance with Jennie, notwithstanding some of the spirited arguments between them.

Cockran had never met a woman like Jennie Churchill. In fact, the only one to compare was his own Rhoda; but she had known little of politics, and could not have cared less. Jennie professed not to care about politics, but her familiarity with all the issues of the day, and the personalities behind them, belied that notion.

Upon returning to America, Cockran had spent some time researching the career and and reading the speeches of Jennie’s late husband, for whatever insight that might afford him in wooing her. Randolph had been quick enough in debate, and had possessed a withering tongue; but he appeared to Cockran to be more of an opportunist than a principled statesman.

Lord Randolph’s speeches on Ireland alone convinced Cockran of that. In the late 1870s, Randolph had showed remarkable empathy for the situation in Ireland when he attacked Gladstone’s proposal to suspend Irish civil liberties, including habeas corpus. In doing so, Randolph had isolated himself from his own Conservative Party, and Cockran had admired what he thought was Randolph’s political courage.

But once he read that infamous incitement to resistance in 1886—”Ulster will fight; Ulster will be right”—when Lord Randolph had opposed any Home Rule for Ireland that included Protestant Ulster, Bourke found he had less respect for him. Pure politics. Opportunism. An election was coming, and Randolph had played the “Orange card” to attract the Liberal Unionists who opposed Home Rule. To Cockran, he was no better than a Tammany Hall hack dancing to Boss Croker’s music—something Cockran had never done.

But Cockran was looking forward to meeting Jennie’s son. If he had half the ambition and brains of his mother, then he might have a bright future in politics, brighter even than his father’s. The question was, what kind of politician would he be? Jennie’s son would have political courage, of that he was certain. But what about Lord Randolph’s son? He didn’t know.

The Irish statesman had often wished for a son but the Good Lord obviously had other plans. In time, he knew, they would be revealed. Cockran hoped that Winston would be amused and entertained by what hehad planned for him during his time in New York. He was determined to do everything in his power to insure that Winston made a favorable report to his mother of his hospitality. A dinner party tonight was only the beginning: an assembly of the leading lawyers of the New York City Bar and Judiciary.

At Cockran’s suggestion, Judge Ingraham had agreed to invite Churchill to attend a sensational society murder trial over which he was presiding. On Wednesday, Cockran had arranged with the Commandant of West Point for Churchill and his traveling companion to visit the American equivalent of Sandhurst.

Cockran watched the first passengers walk down the Etrurids gangplank. Standing a good head taller than most of the people around him, he spotted his two charges, Lieutenants Churchill and Barnes, when they were halfway down the gangplank. He recognized Winston from the photograph: a trim, good-looking, sandy-haired youth, maybe five and a half feet, give or take an inch or two. The dark-haired lad beside him must be Reggie Barnes.

“Winston Churchill! Over here!” Cockran’s voice easily carried over the crowd and Churchill acknowledged it with a wave. Moments later, the three were together. “Delighted to meet you, Mr. Cockran,” Churchill said, as he introduced Reggie Barnes. “Please, call me Bourke,” Cockran said as he directed a porter to follow them with the Englishmen’s baggage. “I have a carriage waiting for us.”
London April 1896

Winston Churchill pushed back from his writing desk, where he had been drafting a new article, and lit one of the succulent Havana cigars he had brought back with him from his adventure in Cuba. He and Barnes had enjoyed a ripping good time, both in New York and in roaming “the Pearl of the Antilles.” It was a shame he had not been able to come up with enough to write a book about his Cuban adventure, but there simply wasn’t a story there. One needed a beginning, a middle, and an end, with a dashing young hero—himself of course—in the thick of things.

Still, Winston was pleased with the initial literary output afforded him by Cuba. Five letters from the field for the Daily Graphic had been well received. And £5 for each of the five reports was equal to a month’s allowance from his Mamma—a tidy sum. Upon his return to England, the Saturday Review had commissioned three articles, further advancing the cause of the Churchill name and bank account. The first two articles had been well received, and now he was working on the third.

Churchill’s current dilemma was to find a way to repeat his journalistic success. He was scheduled to leave for India at the end of the summer. India… No thing was happening there! No newspaper would hire him to file dispatches from such a tranquil land where trouble did not loom on the horizon.

But Egypt? South Africa? Trouble did loom there. He and Bourke had talked about it earlier in the year, when the older man had called to his attention the fact that the majority of the British population in the Transvaal paid 90 percent of the taxes yet had no representation in the Boer Parliament. Bourke had reminded Churchill that the American as well as the French Revolution had arisen from just such unfair and inequitable taxation.

Cockran’s conversations with Churchill, initially in New York and then in London, had opened a new world: Economics. It moved everything. Cockran had brought to life what Winston had only read about in Fawcett and Lecky. It certainly explained Cuba. As he wrote for the Daily Graphic, “There is no doubt the island has been overtaxed in a monstrous manner for a considerable period. So much money is drawn from the country every year that industries are paralyzed and development is impossible.”

Churchill again picked up Cockran’s letter, impressed by the man’s prophecy. It was the economic condition of Cuba, not the passions on either side, that would dictate the outcome of the rebellion. Sugar and tobacco were all the wealth which Cuba possessed, and those industries had been destroyed by the rebels. Soon, famine would follow and when that happened, Cockran had written, America would have to act. Cockran would be pleased by what Churchill had written about Cuba in his final Saturday Review article.

As for Ireland, however, nothing Winston could say or write would meet with his friend’s approval. Cockran’s case was persuasive and Churchill had imagined the rich timbre of the older man’s voice as he read the copy of the speech Cockran had sent him on Irish Home Rule. He was rather pleased with the reply he had posted to Cockran earlier today. He’d used Cockran’s own logic: Economics.

How would Cockran reply to his having used the example of Scotland as a country whose wealth increased after its union with England? Why should Ireland be any different, now that England has recognized the sins of the past and has done its best to correct them?

“Everything that can be done to alleviate distress and heal the wounds of the past is done—and done in spite of rhetorical attempts to keep them open” was how he had phrased it in his letter to Cockran. Let him reply to that, he thought.

Churchill hoped Cockran would return soon to England. There were more things than Ireland that he wanted to discuss, especially Bourke’s view that Churchill “would take a commanding position in public life at the first opportunity which arose.” Churchill already knew he would. But he couldn’t wait to hear why Cockran thought so as well.