January 17, 2009

BY  DAL NEWFIELD
Finest Hour 17, January-February 1971

In early 1900, 25-year-old Lt. W.L.S. Churchill foresaw that Salisbury would take advantage of the general good feeling engendered by the victories over the Boers at Ladysmith, Pretoria, and, particularly, Mafeking, and would call an election. He resigned his commission and hurried home. Oldham, the scene of his first political defeat, now gave the hero of the Pretoria escape a triumphant welcome and he decided to stand there.

Elections were not held all on one day at that time, the voting being spread over weeks. Oldham was rugged and bitter. Every candidate of the 4 were to receive between 12,000 and 13,000 votes, WSC won one of two seats by about 200 votes, coming in 2nd. Nevertheless, his victory was seized upon by the Conservatives and he was asked to speak at meeting after meeting. He felt, at 26, that he had ‘arrived.’

But M.P.’s received no salary or expenses, and Churchill, having decided to make politics his career, knew he had to see to his finances. His first 5 books (Malakand, Savrola, River War, London to Ladysmith and Hamilton’s March) and his ten-months salary from the Morning Post for his Boer War articles, had enabled him to bank some £4,000, an impressive sum for a young man in the days when a pound had 6 or 7 times the purchasing power and when there was practically no income tax.

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He embarked on a lecture tour that took him over much of England, earning from £275 per lecture, very respectable even by today’s standards. In November his share of the lecture receipts approached £3,800 and he was able to bank over £4,500. He sailed for USA, where an agent had told him he could make £10,000 in a month.

He landed in NY on December 8 and went to Washington where he was guest of Sen. Chauncey Depew and met Pres. McKinley. Back in New York he was guest of Bourke Cockran, then on to Albany to dine with Gov. (V-P elect) Theodore Roosevelt. To introduce his speech in NY was Mark Twain, nearing the end of his life but tremendously popular.  Said Twain, “Mr. Churchill by his father is an Englishman, by his mother he is an American, no doubt a blend that makes a perfect man.’ Twain had published a limited edition of WRITINGS OF MARK TWAIN and he autographed all 25 volumes in WSC’s set. In one he wrote, “To be good is noble; to teach others how to be good is nobler, and no trouble.”

But the American tour was disappointing. Most Americans were inclined to sympathize with the Boers and hundreds of thousands of newly-come Irish were actively hostile. Excepting Boston, where WSC was introduced by Winston Churchill, the novelist, the financial returns were meager. He crossed into Canada, but excepting Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa, the audiences were disappointing; and in these 3 cities his agent had ‘sold’ the lectures. the Toronto lecture was sold for £100, but the ticket sales amounted to £450 and WSC’s share came to only £70.  But he cleared some £1600 and, when he returned to England, he was proud to boast to his mother that he now had almost £10,000 banked and need never worry about money again(!).