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Anglo-american unity a speech on receiving an honorary degree at Harvard University heard
in Britain by shortwave radio. September the six 1943.
The last time I attended a ceremony of this character was in the spring of 1941, when,
as Chancellor of Bristol University, I conferred a degree upon the United States Ambassador,
Mr. Winant, and in absentia upon President Conant, our President, who is here today and
presiding over this ceremony. Here now, today, I am once again in academic
groves - groves is, I believe, the right word - where knowledge is garnered, where learning
is stimulated, where virtues are inculcated and thought encouraged. Here, in the broad
United States, with a respectable ocean on either side of us, we can look out upon the
world in all its wonder and in all its woe. But what is this that I discern as I pass
through your streets, as I look round this great company? I see uniforms on every side.
I understand that nearly the whole energies of the University have been drawn into the
preparation of American youth for the battlefield. For this purpose all classes and courses have
been transformed, and even the most sacred vacations have been swept away in a round-the-year
and almost round-the-clock drive to make warriors and technicians for the fighting fronts. Twice
in my lifetime the long arm of destiny has reached across the oceans and involved the
entire life and manhood of the United States in a deadly struggle. There was no use in
saying "We don't want it; we won't have it; our forebears left Europe to avoid these quarrels;
we have founded a new world which has no contact with the old. "There was no use in that. The
long arm reaches out remorselessly, and every one's existence, environment, and outlook
undergo a swift and irresistible change. The people of the United States cannot escape
world responsibility. Although we live in a period so tumultuous that little can be
predicted, we may be quite sure that this process will be intensified with every forward
step the United States make in wealth and in power. Not only are the responsibilities
of this great Republic growing, but the world over which they range is itself contracting
in relation to our powers of locomotion at a positively alarming rate.
We have learned to fly. What prodigious changes are involved in that new accomplishment! Man
has parted company with his trusty friend the horse and has sailed into the azure with
the eagles, eagles being represented by the infernal (loud laughter) - I mean internal
-combustion engine. Where, then, are those broad oceans, those vast staring deserts?
They are shrinking beneath our very eyes. Even elderly Parliamentarians like myself
are forced to acquire a high degree of mobility. But to the youth of America, as to the youth
of all the Britains, I say "You cannot stop." There is no halting-place at this point. We
have now reached a stage in the journey where there can be no pause. We must go on. It must
be world anarchy or world order. Throughout all this ordeal and struggle which
is characteristic of our age, you will find in the British Commonwealth and Empire good
comrades to whom you are united by other ties besides those of State policy and public need.
To a large extent, they are the ties of blood and history. Naturally I, a child of both
worlds, am conscious of these. Law, language, literature - these are considerable
factors. Common conceptions of what is right and decent, a marked regard for fair play,
especially to the weak and poor, a stern sentiment of impartial justice, and above all the love
of personal freedom, or as Kipling put it: "Leave to live by no man's leave, underneath
the law" - these are common conceptions on both-sides of the ocean among the English-speaking
peoples. We hold to these conceptions as strongly as you do.
At the present time we have in continual vigorous action the British and United States Combined
Chiefs of Staff Committee, which works immediately under the President and myself as representative
of the British War Cabinet. This committee, with its elaborate organisation of Staff officers
of every grade, disposes of all our resources and, in practice, uses British and American
troops, ships, aircraft, and munitions just as if they were the resources of a single
State or nation. This is a wonderful system. There was nothing
like it in the last war. There never has been anything like it between two allies. It is
reproduced in an even more tightly-knit form at General Eisenhower's headquarters in the
Mediterranean, where everything is completely intermingled and soldiers are ordered into
battle by the Supreme Commander or his deputy, General Alexander, without the slightest regard
to whether they are British, American, or Canadian, but simply in accordance with the
fighting need. Now in my opinion it would be a most foolish
and improvident act on the part of our two Governments, or either of them, to break up
this smooth-running and immensely powerful machinery the moment the war is over. For
our own safety, as well as for the security of the rest of the world, we are bound to 00:08:50,610 --> 00:08:55,560 keep it working and in running order after the war - probably for a good many years,
not only until we have set up some world arrangement to keep the peace, but until we know that
it is an arrangement which will really give us that protection we must have from danger
and aggression, a protection we have already had to seek across two vast world wars.
The great Bismarck - for there were once great men in Germany - is said to have observed
towards the close of his life that the most potent factor in human society at the end
of the nineteenth century was the fact that the British and American peoples spoke the
same language. That was a pregnant saying. Certainly it has
enabled us to wage war together with an intimacy and harmony never before achieved among allies.
This gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance, and it may well some day become
the foundation of a common citizenship. I like to think of British and Americans moving
about freely over each other's wide estates with hardly a sense of being foreigners to
one another. But I do not see why we should not try to spread our common language even
more widely throughout the globe and, without seeking selfish advantage over any, possess
ourselves of this invaluable amenity and birthright. Some months ago I persuaded the British Cabinet
to set up a committee of Ministers to study and report upon Basic English.
What was my delight when, the other evening, quite unexpectedly, I heard the President
of the United States suddenly speak of the merits of Basic English, and is it not a coincidence
that, with all this in mind, I should arrive at Harvard, in fulfilment of the long-dated
invitations to receive this degree, with which president Conant has honoured me?
The Harvard Commission on English Language Studies is distinguished both for its research
and its practical work, particularly in introducing the use of Basic English in Latin America;
and this Commission, your Commission, is now, I am told, working with secondary schools
in Boston on the use of Basic English in teaching the main language to American children and
in teaching it to foreigners preparing for citizenship.
Gentlemen, I make you my compliments. I do not wish to exaggerate, but you are the head-stream
of what might well be a mighty fertilising and health-giving river. It would certainly
be a grand convenience for us all to be able to move freely about the world - as we shall
be able to do more freely than ever before as the science of the world develops - be
able to move freely about the world, and be able to find everywhere a medium, albeit primitive,
of intercourse and understanding. Might it not also be an advantage to many races, and
an aid to the building-up of our new structure for preserving peace?
All these are great possibilities, and I say: "Let us go into this together. Let us have
another Boston Tea Party about it." Let us go forward as with other matters and
other measures similar in aim and effect - let us go forward in malice to none and good will
to all. Such plans offer far better prizes than taking away other people's provinces
or lands or grinding them down in exploitation. The empires of the future are the empires
of the mind. We have learned from hard experience that
stronger, more efficient, more rigorous world institutions must be created to preserve peace
and to forestall the causes of future wars. In this task the strongest victorious nations
must be combined, and also those who have borne the burden and heat of the day and suffered
under the flail of adversity; and, in this task, this creative task, there are some who
say: "Let us have a world council and under it regional or continental councils," and
there are others who prefer a somewhat different organisation.
All these matters weigh with us now in spite of the war, which none can say has reached
its climax, which is perhaps entering for us, British and Americans, upon its most severe
and costly phase. But I am here to tell you that, whatever form your system of world security
may take, however the nations are grouped and ranged, whatever derogations are made
from national sovereignty for the sake of the larger synthesis, nothing will work soundly
or for long without the united effort of the British and American peoples.
Let us rise to the full level of our duty and of our opportunity, and let us thank God
for the spiritual rewards He has granted for all forms of valiant and faithful service.