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The son of Jennie Jerome of New York City, American in his directness but otherwise British as bully beef, last week spoke in a crescendo of confidence. Winston Churchill's blood is half American but when it begins to boil, a chemistry of ancient loyalties makes it all British—exultant, proud, superior, unbeatable even in defeat. Members of Parliament, their war nerves crying for a tonic, cheered as the Prime Minister bucked them with sentence after bracing sentence.
In the Distinguished Strangers' Gallery Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy and U. S. naval and military observers waited for something they thought the son of Jennie Jerome might say. On he went about casualties, about Britain's "amphibious power," about bravery in the air and production for it; he sneered at the Nazis and poured scorn on the men of Vichy. The speech worked towards its climax. Ambassador Kennedy and his aides leaned forward.
"Some months ago," said Winston Churchill, "we came to the conclusion that the interests of the United States and of the British Empire both required that the United States should have facilities for the naval and air defense of the Western Hemisphere. . . .
"Presently we learned that anxiety was also felt in the United States about the air and naval defense of their Atlantic seaboard, and President Roosevelt has made it clear that he would like to discuss with us and with the Dominion of Canada and with Newfoundland the development of American naval and air facilities. . . .
"His Majesty's Government is entirely willing to accord defense facilities to the United States on a 99-year leasehold basis. . . .
"The British Empire and the United States will have to be somewhat mixed up together in some of their affairs for mutual and general advantage. For my own part, looking out upon the future, I do not view the process with any misgivings. No one can stop it. Like the Mississippi, it just keeps rolling along. Let it roll. Let it roll on in full flood, inexorable, irresistible, to broader lands and better days."
Neighbors. OF Man River flows south, but last week, both before & after this eloquent torrent, U. S. thoughts, good will and anxiety flowed north. For in the Dominion of Canada the future was stirring like an unborn baby. There were twinges in Canada last week of old confusions and new self-consciousness. The inescapable duality in Canada's international relationships—tied to the British Empire by heartstrings, to the U. S. by social propinquity and economics—was in the mind of every Canadian.
The occasion for last week's stirrings was the new collaboration in defense with the U. S. arranged at Ogdensburg, N. Y. by Franklin Roosevelt and Canada's Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. The arrangement itself was greeted in Canada with delight. Canadians like the U. S. They have to: The Dominion of Canada is vast but inhabited Canada amounts to a corridor, nowhere much wider than 200 miles, which lies snug against 3,000 miles of U. S. border.