Churchill’s pursuit of wider recognition, speaker’s fees, book royalties, and the other income a speaking tour could generate at the turn of the twentieth-century took him to more cities in about a month than most Americans had visited in their lifetimes. In the process, he provided copy for reporters and rich intellectual talks and entertainment for tens of thousands of Americans, who by and large formed favorable judgments of the British aristocrat who told tales of bravery and forgave-thine-enemy. As he moved through America, he stored in his copious memory his impressions of the rich, varied nature of American social and economic life, and of the hundreds of Americans he met. He would remain in contact with many during the long absence from America that would result from climbing what one of his predecessors had called the greasy pole of British politics.
On December 11, Churchill was in Philadelphia, speaking to “A concourse of something like three thousand people… gathered in a spacious and magnificent theatre,”1 the Academy of Music. The ads had promised “romantic adventures From London to Ladysmith, including story [sic] of capture and escape.”2
A news story on December 5, 1900, intended to arouse interest in Churchill’s upcoming lecture, proclaimed:
As yet we have had no public lecture on the Boer War and the personal interest in the man who comes to tell us the story and his high standing in his own country make the occasion of great interest. Added to this is the fact that the proceeds of the lecture are to go to a very deserving charity. The managers of ‘The Haven of Rest,’ a proposed home for women who have been discharged from prison, have arranged with Major Pond for this lecture, believing the public interest in the subject, as well as the charity, will be conducive of splendid results.3
As he had done on his British lecture tour earlier, and would continue on his 1929 tour, Churchill managed to meet and to get prominent local and national leaders to introduce him, those he could presumably use for his expanding network of friends and notables. He also deployed the PowerPoint of his day, what Churchill dubbed “a “magic lantern,” which he had used during his first foray into lecturing in Britain.4 It is described by two of his biographers: “Churchill’s speech on the tour was illustrated with photographic slides projected by a kerosene lamp. The photographs included pictures of Boer cavalrymen and General Kruger,5 as well as of the armored train that the Boers had attacked and the school in which he had been held prisoner.6 In Chicago, the press advertised that there would be 100 slides from photographs taken by Churchill.7 Seats were advertised as “at the box office from .50 to $1.50.”8 At still another venue, Chicago’s Kenwood Club, the widely read Chicago Tribune reported that the “largest crowd ever assembled was present and it was in thorough sympathy with the speaker.”9
On December 12, a Wednesday, Cockran gave a dinner party before Churchill’s talk at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel’s Grand Ballroom. The New York Times described the audience as “fashionable,” the headline read CHURCHILL’S DEBUT: NEW YORK’S ‘FOUR HUNDRED’ GREET HIM AT THE WALDORF, and the grand ballroom “crowded to the doors.”10 Mark Twain, who had joined the press crew interviewing Churchill a few days earlier, introduced the young Churchill, perhaps at the instigation of “the literati of New York.”11 This, again, might reflect Jennie’s international reach. She had met Twain in London, where she “loved the spirited fun of the literary world… [and] particularly enjoyed meeting visiting American authors.”12 She and the American humorist most likely hit it off then, perhaps an added reason this leading anti-imperialist author would consider introducing a leading British imperialist.
Twain began his introduction of “an honored friend of mine” by saying that he disagreed with the British involvement in South Africa just as he disagreed with his own government’s involvement in the Philippines. He regarded both interventions as “sins.”13 He concluded his introduction, “Mr. Churchill by his father is an Englishman, by his mother he is an American, no doubt a blend that makes the perfect man. We are now on the friendliest terms with England… we have always been kin… and now we are kin in sin [imperialism]…. The harmony is perfect—like Mr. Churchill himself, whom I now have the honor to present to you.”14
Later, Churchill wrote of Twain’s introduction: “…my opening lecture in New York was under the auspices of Mark Twain himself. I was thrilled by this famous companion of my youth.15 He was now very old16 and [had]… a most delightful style of conversation. Of course, we argued about the war. After some interchanges, I found myself beaten back to the citadel, ‘My [sic] country right or wrong.’ ”17
“Churchill took advantage of his meetings with Mark Twain to have him sign all the volumes of The Writings of Mark Twain, the edition was limited to 1,000. All twenty-five—save Volume 12—survive to this day.”18
In Washington, Cockran had arranged for Churchill to meet a New York Republican senator, Chauncey Depew, who, as noted earlier, was reported to have been among those who met Winston on the dock when he arrived in New York. Depew had been a friend of Jennie’s when Randolph was alive, and remained so even after the senator had refused her request for a contribution to her hospital ship, the Maine.
In 1894, Depew had lent his private railway car to Jennie when she and her then-husband, a very ill Randolph, traveled across the United States. And in 1908, when the press announced the engagement of Clementine Hozier to Winston Churchill, Senator Depew wrote from Lucerne to Churchill that the engagement will be “of first interest to friends everywhere and the public on both sides of the Atlantic.”19
Senator Depew arranged to take Churchill to the White House to introduce him to President William McKinley. Churchill wrote to his mother that the president “considerably impressed”20 him. It was the first sitting American president Churchill met, the first of many that he would know and work with over the coming decades.
Senator Depew, who was famous for having said “speech-making is a tonic to me,”21 forced the audience to endure a long-winded introduction to Churchill, prompting the press to headline its report of Churchill’s talk on the Boer War, “The Hon. C. M. Depew: Bore.” The Senator did inform the audience that Churchill was so ill that his doctor had advised, “You must not let him speak,” prompting a member of the audience to shout out, “Well, you are not letting him, are you?”22
On December 14, the only date he was scheduled to lecture in Washington, Winston, fortified by medication, wrote his mother that “a good doctor gave me some medicine which had the effect of driving my [102°F] temperature down…”23 and he proceeded as planned with the lecture, recovering quickly. A reporter observed that Churchill spoke in a “jerky, hesitating way,” which might have been due to his illness.24 This would not be the last time he would insist that his temperature be checked when he felt ill, recover almost instantly even if it proved to be elevated, and then would go on with his plans.
Churchill continued to expand his list of acquaintances in America. In Fall River, Massachusetts, a prosperous mill town at the time, Churchill was received at the “fine” home of the Honorable John S. Brayton, along with 200 guests. It was a festive occasion, with the house decorated for Christmas with Virginia holly and mistletoe. Brayton, then seventy-eight, a pillar of the community, and president of the Old Colony Historical Society, introduced Churchill. A light lunch was served and the Orpheus orchestra “rendered music,” while Mr. Brayton’s daughter served as hostess.25
Churchill also had to be pleased with the favorable reviews his lectures were receiving. Reviews mattered. They reached a larger audience than the lectures themselves, including many people in Britain. They cemented his image as a hero and orator and, in Britain, as a man of consequence on the international stage. A Massachusetts newspaper reported that Churchill’s talk “[was] full of wit and his manner was as frank as a schoolboy’s.”26
In Springfield, where he spoke at the famous Gilmore Court Square Theatre,27 it was said “his humor was worthy of Mark Twain,”28 which would have been especially pleasing to this fan of Twain’s humor. The Chicago Tribune quipped, “To many he introduced what they had never heard before, real British humor.”29 In Indianapolis, the press reported on his “charming presence.”30 Notices in Cincinnati were not unambiguously favorable. The Enquirer described his “winning ways” but went on to say, “The young man from South Africa is awkward in his gestures and English in his accent to the point of unintelligibility at times.”31
The Hartford Courant, which a day earlier had opined that none of Churchill’s slides were very good,32 added its criticism: “Mr. Winston Churchill made no more a social stir here than he had elsewhere. The greatest token of his bravery was that he—a man of poor address and impediment of speech—should venture on the lecture platform. Nor were his stereopticon views attractive.”33 A view the reporter had earlier shared with his readers. Churchill did not limit his lectures to charming tales, pictures, and displays of wit. He spiced up his talks with briefings on the progress of the still-ongoing war. The Star Tribune reported him advising his audience, “We have taken about 10,000 prisoners which left them with about 30,000 in all. Their losses in battle, killed and wounded… and about the same number are under parole in the towns which we are holding. These numbers… allow the Boers but very few men over 8,000 with which to continue their rebellious operations.”34
These briefings took on special weight because Churchill, a soldier and strategist, was able to provide detailed, knowledgeable descriptions of the various battles. After his escape from the Pretoria jail, he had rejoined his regiment as it began the battle for Spion Kop. As the Star Tribune reported: “His description of this [the battle] was graphic, and he gave a reason that… has not been generally known as to why the British were unable to hold their advantageous position…. It was because the engineers in building the trenches failed to locate the edge of the table land and dug the trenches a least 100 yards from the edge, thus giving the Burghers [citizen-soldiers, conscript between the ages of sixteen and sixty] a firm piece of ground to fight upon.”35
Perhaps most important, he became convinced that his natural tendency toward magnanimity, a virtue that would be called into play many times in his life, can be a tool with which to persuade or at least placate opponents. He demonstrated a willingness to give credit to the enemy where due. This was of particular importance in American venues with large Dutch populations sympathetic to the Boers. As the Minneapolis Journal reported, “His audiences have been quite equally divided in sentiment and the fact that the lecturer was able to satisfy both widely separated parties speaks well for his impartiality…. All through the lecture there was not a disparaging remark as to the ability, honesty, or character of the Boers. The speaker had nothing but praise for their fighting abilities.”36
In Springfield, Massachusetts, when he flashed a picture of a Boer fighter on the screen to dead silence from the audience, he had urged, “I think you might give him a clap. He is the most formidable fighting animal in the world…. There is no animosity in England against the Boer.”37
The sterling quality of the lectures was not matched by Pond’s arrangements. Several of the prominent people Pond had advertised as “patrons” of some of the talks “have written to the press repudiating any connexion [sic] with Mr. Churchill,” reported the Westminster Gazette.38 These included New York mayor Van Wyck, the president of Princeton University,39 William Dean Howells,40 and Edward Van Ness of Princeton.41
Churchill was appalled: “…my agent, without my knowledge, printed, without their consent, the names of several prominent pro-Boers as forming of the reception committee.”42 Apologies were accepted. Pond responded that “These three people are the only ones who protested out of the whole seventy-five and I have issued another circular leaving their names off.”43
But Pond did include himself and his family in some of the private sessions to which Churchill was invited. For example, in Chicago, on January 13, the press reported on “Churchill’s first experience with the American noonday dinner, the party sitting down at 1:30 o’clock in the afternoon. Included as guests were Major Pond, O. W. Pond, and Miss Josie Pond” at the home of George R. Peck, a well-known railroad attorney and president of the American Bar Association from 1905 to 1906, another important figure in Chicago. Peck and Pond were childhood friends and Peck had been eagerly awaiting Churchill’s visit.44
Irritating to Churchill were disappointing audiences and revenues at some of the stops on his tour. He complained in letters to his mother: “First of all the interest is not what Maj [sic] Pond made out… my tour had not come up to my expectations….”45
To cite only one example: in Baltimore, the audience numbered a few hundred in a hall with a capacity of 5,000.46 In one town he arrived to discover that no public lecture had been arranged and that Pond had “hired [him] out for £40 to perform at an evening Party in a private house—like a conjuror. Several times I have harangued in local theatres to almost empty benches. I have been horribly vulgarized by the odious advertisements Pond and Myrmidons47 think it necessary to circulate—and only my cynical vein has helped me to go on.”48
In still another letter to his mother, he again complained: “I dislike the vulgar and offensive advertisements Pond has circulated everywhere, but which I suppose are calculated to suit the temperament of the public. And I shall be glad to get back again onto British territory….”49
Churchill was also reasonably angered at the less-than-expected revenue from each venue. In one letter he detailed the exact amount he received for the first ten lectures, naming the city and the amount. He earned the largest fees in New York City (£150), and Philadelphia (£120), and the lowest in Hartford (£10), and the average he worked out as £50 per lecture. “The profits are small compared to England.”50
On a more substantive issue, he faced what he called “strong pro-Boer feeling” among some in his audiences, “fomented against me,” Churchill believed, “by the leaders of the Dutch, particularly in New York.”51 “Vociferous opposition” was also voiced in Chicago, in which the foreign-born Irish population stood at its all-time peak of 72,912.52 Churchill, who knew enough about American history and had had too many discussions with Cockran about issues that touched the nerves of Dutch and Irish ethnic populations to be surprised at these attitudes, mixed humor with magnanimity to placate the opposition. He told a few “jokes against myself” and paid tribute to the courage and humanity of the Boers.53 But he conceded the pro-Boers “went away unconverted.”54 He had better results with the Irish, who became “rowdy in Chicago.” Churchill responded by extolling the fighting qualities of the Dublin Fusiliers, at which point “The audience fell silent and then cheered wildly, giving no more grief to the speaker.”55
All in all, he wrote his mother, “I get on very well with the audiences over here….”56 Good thing, given the future course of world events.
One oddity of the trip was a meeting arranged by Pond with another Winston Churchill. In My Early Life, Churchill wrote: “I became conscious of the fact that there was another Winston Churchill who also wrote books; apparently, he wrote novels, and very good novels… I received from many quarters congratulations on my skills as a writer of fiction…. Gradually I realized that there was ‘another Richmond in the field,’ luckily on the other side of the Atlantic.”57
Churchill knew his Shakespeare: the reference to Richmond is from Richard III (act 5, scene 4); Richmond became the future King Henry VII. Churchill, of course, was referring to the multiple “Richmonds” who were thought to have taken the field in the play Richard III, most of whom were defeated, but one victor became King Henry VII. Churchill undoubtedly identified with the victor.
On June 7, 1899, the touring Churchill addressed the novelist Churchill: “Mr. Winston Churchill presents his compliments to Mr. Winston Churchill, and begs to draw his attention to a matter which concerns them both.”58
On December 16, in Boston, Winston Churchill the British member of Parliament finally met his namesake after much confusion with mail deliveries to Winston Churchill, the American novelist. The British Churchill did notice that “some confusion… persisted; all my mails were sent to his address and the bill for the dinner [given by the novelist] came in to me. I need not say that both these errors were speedily redressed.”59
The British Churchill was introduced at his lecture by the American Winston Churchill. They had agreed to differentiate themselves. The British Churchill would use the middle initial S. (for Spencer) and the American novelist would not use any middle initial.60
In early October, Lord Rosebery61 had written to Churchill congratulating him on winning a seat in Parliament. He was writing “as a friend, and as a friend of your father’s” and in a PS Lord Rosebery wrote, “MP will now distinguish you from your American twin.”62
A cordial agreement between two men, an American citizen and a British subject of roughly the same age, a tiny instance of creating a unity of the English-speaking peoples, a goal on a grander scale as the British Churchill developed his network. Cordiality, however, was not Theodore Roosevelt’s preferred approach to this situation. In a letter from Africa to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, he referred to the novelist, “I mean of course OUR Winston Churchill, Winston Churchill, THE GENTLEMAN [sic].”63
On December 17 Churchill chose as the title for his lecture at Boston’s64 Tremont Temple “The War As I Saw It,” according to one paper, with others stating the title as “Lord Roberts’s [of Kandahar] March from Ladysmith to Pretoria.” A guard of honor formed for this talk, described by Churchill as “50 gentlemen of the British Veterans’ Corps in uniforms with their Crimean and [Indian] Mutiny medals glittering….”65 There was a bugle salute and welcoming by “a large committee of prominent residents of Boston who will occupy seats on the platform with [Churchill].”66
Here are some of the Boston Globe headlines quoting Churchill: “Valor of Boers, Best fighters in the World, No rancor toward them… among British.”67 Responding to the warm applause, Churchill turned to the American flag on the stage and said, “There is no one in this room who has a greater respect for that flag than the humble individual to whom you, of the city that gave birth to the idea of a ‘tea party,’ have so kindly listened. I am proud that I am the natural product of an Anglo-American alliance; not political but stronger and more sacred, an alliance of heart to heart.”68
After the talk he and the “Boston” Churchill went to supper at the Somerset Club, a private members club that waived its membership rules for this party. The Baltimore Sun—covering the speech in Boston because the public and therefore press interest in the young British “warrior” extended beyond the cities in which he was speaking—reported that the “Englishman’s valet… had fixed up his master’s lip, where a Boston barber had hacked it early in the morning and then dressed the youthful member of Parliament in a suit of gray.”69
On January 18 it was Minneapolis, where he demonstrated his usual interest in meeting local fans. The press reported that he met with “everyone who called” during his long period here, from Friday morning, January 18, to Sunday evening, January 20.”70 One of his most interesting callers was James C. Young, a Minneapolis industrialist and bibliophile, known as the King of Books.71 Mr. Young bet Churchill that because of the accession of Edward VII (one of the more famous of Jennie’s admirers) to the throne, the British Empire would be “substantially reduced” over the next decade.72 There is no record of who was declared the winner and whether payment was ever made.
This visit to Minneapolis, a booming industrial center at the time (flour milling, logging, and railroads) included a stay at the West Hotel, the city’s first truly grand hotel, where the 1892 Republican National Convention had been held. The hotel had 407 luxuriously furnished rooms and 140 baths, one of which had been assigned to the famous young war hero from Britain, most likely at his insistence. It was a luxury to which he would quickly adapt, even when interrupted by pressmen. Churchill had scarcely settled into his room when there was a knock at the door. A reporter from the Minneapolis Tribune had arrived to interview him, interrupting his bath preparations—or, in the parlance of the time, before he had “completed his toilet.” Another reporter wrote: “When seen by the Tribune, he had not completed his toilet and had humorously intimated that he had been in hopes of being prepared before running the gauntlet of his associates in the newspaper world.”73
In Minneapolis, the Journal reported his “frequent flashes of humor.”74 The Minneapolis Star Tribune went one step further, writing, “If any person… went there last night, thinking they would hear the story of the war told in a plain uninteresting way, because of the prevalent opinion that most Englishmen are devoid of a sense of humor, that person was agreeably disappointed. Throughout the lecture the speaker’s remarks were tempered with bright sayings uttered in a clever and original way.”75
Churchill spent Christmas with the governor-general of Canada, Lord Minto, and his wife, Lady Minto. He withdrew his threat to discontinue his tour because of Pond’s unsatisfactory performance, resumed his tour on December 26, lecturing in Montreal and other Canadian cities. But the relationship between agent and star speaker had so soured that Churchill hired his own lawyer and responded to Pond’s accusations in the press with his own strongly worded answers. Pond, in turn, told the Toronto Daily Star, “[my] lecturer is a genius, but an excitable genius in regard to money… [although now a young man] when he is prime minister he will know more.”76 And in a letter to his mother, Churchill vividly characterized Pond as “a vulgar Yankee impresario.”77
Despite Churchill’s unhappiness with aspects of his American tour, Churchill-as-lecturer had reason for some satisfaction. He had earned some money, more in Britain than in America, but still enough in America to have prevented any financial loss from the American visit, which had its nonfinancial rewards then and in the future. His takings from the British tour were £3,773 2s 7d, while the American tour only netted him £1,600. A huge financial disappointment.78
However, Churchill had learned a great deal: how to leaven a talk with humor; how to use slides to retain and heighten audience interest; how to use self-deprecating humor; how to give audiences a sense that they were receiving news not readily or as immediately available to others. And he learned to deflect audiences’ anger in the interest of getting his point across. He had learned about parts of the United States that few visiting Britons had gotten to see. He had found a way to accomplish his financial and reputational goals in peacetime. He had become wiser in the commercial aspects of the life he was then leading. He had become internationally known as a skilled author and lecturer, his talents appreciated in wider audiences in several countries, which included the press, the financial sector, and social elites. Crucially, he made important British and American additions to the American network on which he would increasingly rely. He generously met with audience members who sought private conversations.
His last lecture in the United States was on January 31, 1901, at 8:15 P.M. at New York’s venerable Carnegie Hall. The ad in the New York Times listed him as “War Correspondent, Author, Soldier, Lecturer, and the Youngest Member of the British Parliament.” The talk would be “illustrated with 100 stereopticon pictures taken from photographs of the scenes of Mr. Churchill’s exploits in South Africa.” Boxes in the lower tiers were available for $12 and could be bought at the Hall or at Major Pond’s business offices. The cheapest seats cost 50 cents.79 This was a venue to which he would return in early 1932.
Churchill spent Friday, February 1, with Bourke Cockran. The following day he set sail for home. He would not return to America for twenty-eight years, during which time he rose to ministerial ranks in government, participated in organizing Britain’s efforts in the Great War, returned to the front lines of that major conflict with the risks that entailed—all the while adding to and polishing his connections to his new American contacts, with correspondence and meetings with visiting Americans in London as well. Not only politicians and men of business, but authors such as Mark Twain, the other Winston Churchill, Richard Harding Davis,80 and Booth Tarkington, whom he met in Indianapolis at a “stag supper at the University Club” after his lecture.81
Because the British press reported widely on the US tour of the famously named war hero and rising politician, Churchill’s American tour had the ancillary effect of increasing his exposure in Britain as well as in the United States. He returned to Britain battle-hardened in the ways of American audiences and promoters. The Times in London reported: “Mr. Winston Churchill… carries back as a result of his tour many American dollars and much American sympathy and regards. He finds American feeling as a whole most friendly to England; he has himself done much to strengthen that friendly feeling.”82 The South Wales Echo reported that “his effort was as brilliantly successful as his best friend could have wished. His audience… numbered over 2,000…”83 And the Runcorn Guardian, in Cheshire, England, quoted Churchill, having some fun, “…the chief characteristic of the English-speaking people… is that they wash, and wash at regular periods. England and America are divided by a great ocean of salt water, but united by an eternal bathtub of soap and water.”84
The time was coming when he would find the unifying factors more crucial than amusing, and the divisions more dangerous. Meanwhile, it was back to Britain.