What Kind of a People Do They Think We Are? Two Historic Speeches ...
London, Printed by St Clements Press (1940), Ltd. ('Reprinted from "The Daily Telegraph" and "Morning Post"'), [1942] (first state, without the price printed at the foot of the first page).
Quarto, 8 pages.
Title-wrappers (originally saddle-stapled, with the staples now removed); outer pages slightly foxed and lightly marked (with trifling rust marks near the staple holes); an excellent copy.
The speeches are '(1) To the members of Both Houses of the United States Congress at Washington on December 26th, 1941 and (2) To the members of the Senate and of the House of Commons at Ottawa on December 30th, 1941'. In the days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, bringing neutral United States into the Second World War, Churchill made the dangerous voyage 'to meet the President of the United States and to arrange with him all that mapping out of our military plans and have all those intimate meetings of the high officers of the armed services in both countries which are indispensable to the successful prosecution of the war'. His speech at Ottawa was one of heartfelt thanks: 'We are most grateful for all that you have done in the common cause, and we know that you are resolved to do whatever more is possible as the need arises and as opportunity serves'. It also contained the following famous lines regarding the French generals who 'told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet: "In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken". Some chicken! (Loud laughter and cheers.) Some neck! (Renewed and prolonged laughter.)'. Woods A86.
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