Romantic Randolph

Not a single college debating society in the U. S. is taken seriously by public, press or politicians; but when a young Briton makes a brilliant maiden speech before the Oxford Union the whole Empire knows of it next morning, and cases are not few in which such a speech has made the young man's whole career--witness the late Marquess Curzon of Keddleston.

Jammed to suffocation last week was the Union's rather dingy hall, as there rose to make his maiden speech, a youth (18 years) of pink and white complexion, a nervous but determined fledgling, Randolph Churchill.

Pink-and-White's Grandfather was Lord Randolph Churchill, august, romantic and trenchant, one of the greatest fighting orators the House of Commons ever knew. He it was who introduced U. S. blood into the great house of Churchill by marrying Jenny Jerome of New York. Today the father of pink-and-white is the Conservative party's spearhead in debate, scathing, reckless, romantic Winston Churchill, last year Chancellor of the Exchequer. And all are, of course, descendants of that ruthless and super-successful general, John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough. Stage-fright might well grip anyone expected to get up and talk like either Lord Randolph or "Winnie," but the boy seemed only a little nervous, launched boldly into a slashing philippic against the Labor Government's "weak" policy in Egypt (TIME, Aug. 19).

"Egypt's interests demand as strongly as our own," cried Pink-and-White, "that the British forces should not be withdrawn from Egypt! . . . Under British control Egypt has attained order and well-being greater than it has known for 2,000 years . . . duty of protecting the Egyptians . . . guard them against the inevitable tyranny of the Pashas!" Verdict: Pink-and-White has a tongue of talent, should prove a useful "regular" to the conservatives, seems to be the exact antithesis of Oliver Baldwin (son of Conservative leader Stanley Baldwin) who has grown a beard, turned Socialist.

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