Transcript
Narrator/Documentary Announcer (0:11)
Nineteen years have passed, and once again, in silence, the nation observes the Day of Remembrance. The Home Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, and his under secretary, Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd, receive their Majesties on their arrival at the Clive Steppes. And once again, the Cenotaph is the central focus of the Empire's remembrance. Although a new king comes out to face the simple monument, the scene is the same as it always has been, but it has lost nothing in impressiveness with the passing of time. Once again, the King's act of homage is the symbol of the homage of his people. The music fades away and remembrance is united in the common silence around the common memorial. But this year it isn't quite the same. The silence is marred by an incident. A man breaks through the guard of honor just on the left of the Cenotaph and rushes towards the King. The police seize him and drag him away. We show this brief scene again so that you can see the incident more clearly, just on the left of the Cenotaph. And while the nation remembers the million dead, it is well too that we should not forget those living, the men who 20 years after, bear the scars of Europe's tragic mistakes. For them there can be no compensation for the toll on their health and streng. A few moments after the silence, His Majesty the King walks along Whitehall to lay a second wreath at the foot of the memorial to Earl Haig, which was unveiled the day before. And then, for the 19th time, the great pilgrimage begins.
Historian/Commentator (2:35)
Lifted the nations of the world with high levels of vision and achievement, upon which the great war for democracy and right this fallen won. Although the stimulating memories of that happy time of triumph, however marked and embittered for us by the shameful fact that when victory was won, won be it remember chiefly by the indomitable spirit, ungrudging, psychopathic, incomparable soldiers we turned our backs upon our associates refused to bear any responsible part in the administration of peace, or the term and permanent establishment of resolve to war, one that took parallel cost of life and pleasure and withdrew. It was sudden and selfish isolation, which is deeply ignoble for it manifestly cowardly and dishonorable. This must always be a source of deep mortification to us. And we should inevitably be forced by the moral obligations of freedom and honor to retrieve that fatal error and assume once more the role of cour of self respect and helpfulness, which every true American must wish to believe to be the true part of a true part in the affairs of the world. That we should thus have done a great wrong to civilization. And one of the most critical turning points in the history of mankind is the more to be deplored. Because every anxious fear that has fallen has made the exceeding need for such services as we might learn more and more manifest and more and more pressing as demoralizing circumstances which we might have controlled have gone from bad to worse. Until now, as if to furnish a sort of sinister climax, France and Italy between them and made waste paper paper. The Treaty of Versailles and the whole field of international relationships is in perilous confusion. The affairs of the world can be set straight only by the firmest and most determined exhibition of the will to believe and make the light the right prevailing. The present situation of affairs in the world affords us an opportunity to retrieve us and to render mankind the impossible service of proving that there is at least one great and powerful nation which can put aside programs of passing for interest and devote itself practicing and establishing the highest ideals of 50% and the consistent means resulted standards of consciousness of rights. The only way in which we can show our true appreciation of the significance of our history today is by resolving to put health interest away.