May 8, 2015

Finest Hour 111, Summer 2001

Page 42

Abstracts by Chris Hanger

Hostetler, Michael J.: “The Enigmatic Ends of Rhetoric: Churchill’s Fulton Address as Great Art and Failed Persuasion,” Quarterly Journal of Speech, 83:416-28 (1997).

Those who study speech techniques describe Churchill’s “Sinews of Peace” speech at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri in 1946 as a masterpiece of rhetoric and metaphor, citing the theatrical “Iron Curtain” metaphor. However, most scholars overlook other powerful metaphorical examples that link dangers and challenges confronting the world, which are contained in its title. Churchill’s virtuoso use of language and the power of speech bind several metaphors into a comprehensive argument.

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The title of the speech is itself a metaphorical use of muscle and its anatomic relation, both in terms of layers and as a binding together of related structures. The word “sinew” means “tendon”: that part of the musculature that permits muscles to be attached to bone. Reference to the singular also permits examination of individual “strengths,” while plural usage denotes strength, energy, or the main or chief supporting force of something. Churchill uses these to examine common “sinews” between Great Britain and the United States: allies averse to war, sharing a common language, cultural connection, religious heritage, common law, love of liberty and peace. Churchill argues that such common attributes of law and liberty should be extended to the world community.

Simply to call the speech a warning on the dangers of Communism largely ignores its encompassing aspects: the construct of arguments in favor of fraternal and world collaboration. For example, Churchill uses “sinew” to describe an interrelation between common history and support for a peacekeeping mechanism, the United Nations. Churchill’s use of the metaphor adds force to the argument. Proper placement of essential elements, building one upon the other, describes the framework of the argument: the importance the community of nations must attach to the hopes for success of the UN.

Churchill further metaphorically describes support and promotion of the United Nations as the “building of a temple,” not by architects and planners but by craftsmen, friends, and partners mutually working toward a common goal. Metaphorically, the UN is the “temple of peace.”

Two primary threats exist to the world’s people: war and tyranny. By use of religious metaphor, Churchill argues that the UN must be founded not on shifting sands or quagmires, but upon rock. A third global threat is poverty. Churchill contends that if these two primary threats cease, the third may be overcome. Economic and technological advancement will, he states, pave the way for an “age of plenty,” yet another “sinew” binding the English-speaking peoples into a fraternal association. He then cements these metaphors with the “Iron Curtain” metaphor to suggest the need for unity of purpose.

The speech masterfully blends the art of language with argument. Although Churchill’s call for “fraternal association” was rejected, more exists in the speech to suggest that when viewed in its totality, we “recapture a vision of the whole of rhetoric’s complex art.”

Hurwitz, David Lyon, “Churchill and Palestine,” Judaism, 44(1): 3-32, Winter 1995.

Less than a year later after the British occupation of Palestine ended, Winston Churchill visited the area with the purpose of settling Middle East issues regarding the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Appointed Colonial Secretary in February 1921, Churchill had long supported a Jewish state. His early experience came from prominent Jewish leaders in Manchester, one of his early constituencies. In a letter written in 1908, he expressed “full sympathy…with their aspirations of establishing a Jewish homeland….The restoration to them of a centre of true racial and political integrity would be a tremendous event in the history of the world….Jerusalem must be the only goal.”

Churchill played an important part in determining the boundaries of Palestine. A natural Arab-Jewish boundary was the River Jordan, with Jewish settlements permitted west of the river and Arabs to the east. As eventually concluded, the area subject to Jewish development comprised only 23 percent of the total Palestine territory envisioned under the League of Nations Palestine Mandate, and the Balfour Declaration (which seemed to indicate that the British government favored a Jewish national homeland).

Militant Arabs argued that Jewish immigration should be stopped and support for a national home for the Jews should be ended. Churchill flatly refused, stating that it was not within his authority as Colonial Secretary, and that he would not block Jewish settlements in the area even if he could. He insisted that Arabs “…must live on terms of cordiality and fraternity.”

Significant opposition to the Balfour Declaration came from prominent English Jews who wished for a more “universalist” view of Judaism without consideration of a geographic homeland. They feared eventual exclusion from lands and countries in which many had built their lives, had prospered and, in the case of England, had become titled. Opposition also came from the Colonial and Foreign Offices, and the British military. Churchill believed that current unrest was being fomented to force Britain to disavow the Balfour Declaration of support for a Jewish homeland. He argued that if not honored, future commitments of the British government would be worthless. He stated that Britain was going to honor the Declaration because it was essentially fair, and contained sufficient safeguards for Jews and Arabs alike.

Churchill emphasized the economic benefits of development of hydroelectric power, industry and settlement that Jewish immigration would bring to the area. He urged the House of Commons to support the proposed Mandate of Palestine, which eventually passed the House and was approved by the League of Nations.

Problems of immigration quotas to Palestine, violence, and uncertainty of the future remain with us. It was an unfortunate twist of history that in late 1922 Churchill lost his Cabinet position, and even his seat in Parliament. However, his contributions to the formation of modern Israel remain.