Political Quotes

“Madam President, in the 1930s there was a looming threat from Germany to the peace of Europe and to the existence of England. That threat was real, and there were multiple signs. There was data. But there were very few people who wanted to do anything about it because it would have caused disruption--economic and personal disruption. There was one politician in England who understood this threat, understood its dangers, and understood that if gone unmet it would engulf his country into a destructive and potentially catastrophic war. Of course, that politician was Winston Churchill. He saw the danger based upon data--the size of the German air force, the building of munitions, the invasion of other smaller countries, the expansion of Germany and their armed forces. He was ignored and ridiculed by his own party and by the leadership of his own party, but he kept talking. He kept raising this issue. He kept trying to raise and awaken the people of England. It was a very difficult task. In fact, our own great President John F. Kennedy wrote his thesis as a student about this period in English history, and the title was very provocative and forward-thinking: ``Why England Slept.'' Churchill tried to wake them up. Had he been heeded, World War II could have been avoided. There were multiple times when Hitler could have been stopped by the slightest bit of resistance on the part of the European powers. Instead, the war came, and 5 years later 55 million people had died.…”