WINSTON CHURCHILL’S: ADDRESS TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES

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PRIME MINSTER WINSTON CHURCHILL’S ADDRESS TO THE CONGRESS OF
THE UNITED STATES – DECEMBER 26,1941
BY: WINSTON S. CHURCHILL

OF THE UNITED STATES
December 26, 1941
[British Library of Information.] Members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives of the United States, I feel
greatly honored that you should have thus 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. I wish indeed that my mother, whose memory I cherish,
across the vale of years, could have been here to see. By the way, I cannot help reflecting
that if my father had been American and my mother British instead of the other way
around, I might have got here on my own. In that case this would not have been the first
time you would have heard my voice. In that case I should not have needed any
invitation. But if I had it is hardly likely that it would have been unanimous. So perhaps
things are better as they are.
I may confess, however, that I do not feel quite like a fish out of water in a legislative
assembly where English is spoken. I am a child of the House of Commons. I was brought
up in my father’s house to believe in democracy. “Trust the people.”…