Town Hall, Beer Hall

One evening last week, before a subdued Birmingham audience who were prepared both to clap (unhysterically) and heckle (politely), Neville Chamberlain stepped apologetically to a microphone, cleared his throat and fidgeted with his prepared speech. It was the last of a series of quiet Cabinet statements (and understatements) of Britain's case. The reedy voice began: "My Lord Mayor, my lords, ladies and gentlemen. . . ." Quietly it proceeded, in the well-considered, nicely balanced classical oratory without which no Briton could become a politician and no politician move a Briton: "I don't think there can be doubt in the mind of any reasonable man or woman. . . . I might say . . . I pause one moment to consider. . . . And here I speak not only for this country but for the whole empire. . . ."

"MY GERMAN COMRADES!" screamed another voice, 675 miles away. In the Munich Hofbraeuhaus, that very evening, Adolf Hitler was celebrating the twentieth birthday of the Nazi Party by shouting a speech to 2,000 cheering, stamping, whistling, wild-eyed admirers.

Twenty years before, cried Adolf Hitler, he had come back from the front, a common soldier, at peace but hating peace, "a very small man without political influence." In the two decades since then, "the German nation has regained confidence in itself. . . . Neither in a military nor an economic way can Germany be defeated." He had given Germany back to Germans. At any unveiling or launching before Naziism, "there was nothing but high hats and no people. Today there is nothing but people and no high hats." He had tried to give Germans peace, but his enemies--"a lot of zeros . . . these old, toothless men''--had desired a war.

God is on Germany's side, he said. God had spared him right here in Munich when another of these beloved beerhalls had been bombed three months ago. "It is remarkable that I am still here. I don't know how many politicians in the democratic nations could come back to the old comrades after 20 years."

Over in the Birmingham town hall Neville Chamberlain's hearers were something a good deal more than "old comrades" of 20 years' standing. They were the people who had given him his start as a statesman 30 years ago, with whom he had spent his boyhood and youth, who had respected and feared and loved his great father decades before that--"to whom," as the Prime Minister said, "I owe my political education and without whose unfailing support, I might say without whose hereditary support, I should not be occupying the place that I am today."

This made the good burghers of Birmingham glow. But before he had finished, Neville Chamberlain had struck pride in the hearts of many another Briton. First of all he praised Britain's sea heroes, the patient men on patrol, riskers in convoy, victors at the River Plate, raiders of the Altmark. Warmly he lauded the Air Force; women who have lost their loves and sons, who fight with knitting needles and save every scrap; eager men who could not wait to be drafted; civil servants burning themselves and midnight oil; employers taking on unfamiliar chores; laborers sweeping away the concessions they had won in years of picket and strike; farmers, plowing shorthanded, clerks lending their savings, children leaving their homes.

Then he spoke to the neutrals. To the weak ones, fearing Germany and Russia, he said that Britain's war desire is "that the small nations of Europe shall henceforth live in security, free from the constant threat of aggression." To the strong ones, anxious to stay out of this war and eliminate future ones, he looked toward a new, disarmed, mutually trusting body of nations. And here he spoke to the U. S. This new order could not be molded by England and France alone. To achieve the dream, "other nations must come in and help us."

Meanwhile the war must be won. "Until we are satisfied that freedom is safe, we will continue to do battle with all our soul and with all our strength."

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