Churchill’s My Early Life, Part Six

Summary

Hillsdale Dialogues: Churchill’s My Early Life, Part Six

Podcast: Hillsdale Dialogues
Host: Hugh Hewitt
Guest: Dr. Larry P. Arnn, President of Hillsdale College
Date: April 28, 2025
Chapter Discussed: Chapter 16, "I Leave the Army"

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Overview

In this episode, Hugh Hewitt and Dr. Larry Arnn continue their deep dive into Winston Churchill’s autobiography, My Early Life, focusing on Chapter 16. The discussion covers Churchill's transition from military to political and literary endeavors, his reflections on early adult life, and key themes such as oratory, ambition, and the value of education versus experience. The conversation weaves Churchill's anecdotes with broader reflections on political life, learning, and character.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Portrayals of Young Churchill (01:10–03:04)

• Media Depictions: Hugh asks if Churchill’s adventurous early life has ever been properly dramatized. Dr. Arnn references the series Young Winston’s Wars starring Simon Ward, describing it as capturing Churchill’s “sense of humor and his sense of adventure” (01:56).

  "My early life is a great place to start because you get a sense of his character." — Dr. Arnn (02:38)

The “Living Skin Graft” Anecdote (03:04–04:32)

• Vivid Memories: Churchill details a harrowing experience giving a skin graft to an injured friend, Molyneux, describing it as an “ordeal.”

  "He calls it an ordeal." — Hugh Hewitt (04:18)

• Later Correspondence: Churchill and Molyneux jokingly correspond years later about “carrying around a bit of me with you.”

  “There’s a correspondence much later ... it's very amusing.” — Dr. Arnn (03:46)

Churchill’s Inheritance and Career (04:32–07:10)

• Money Woes: Churchill’s father only balanced his debts at the moment of his death, leaving no estate. Churchill must make his own way, primarily through writing and eventually, politics.

  "Churchill made most of his money in his life writing." — Dr. Arnn (05:03)

• Early Political Ambitions: Churchill approaches the Conservative Party, who are interested in him but expect financial contributions before any real support.

  "It's for sale, sort of. Right." — Dr. Arnn (06:49)

Modern Parallels in Political Candidacy (07:10–08:33)

• Hugh draws parallels to U.S. politics, noting contemporary parties prioritize fundraising ability for candidates.

Getting a Start in Public Speaking (08:33–10:49)

• Churchill’s struggle to secure his first speech, being handed low-priority opportunities, and his methodical preparation.

  "The flowers of rhetoric are hothouse plants. That means they have to be artificially produced so that they don't seem artificial." — Dr. Arnn (09:50)

• Notable Churchillian wit in recounting his first speech:

  "I confined myself rigorously to 25 minutes." — Quoted from Churchill (10:18)
  "There they were. What could they do? They had asked for it, and they must have it." — Quoted from Churchill (10:44)

Reflections on Speechmaking (13:30–15:49)

• Dr. Arnn humorously shares his own “greatest rhetorical failure” as a speaker in Dulwich (13:38–14:24), drawing connections with Churchill’s own nerves and humility in early oratory attempts.

  "Eventually, I began to see the humor in the situation ... Well, he stayed awake. That was my failure." — Dr. Arnn (14:24)

Rhetorical Style & Literary References (15:49–19:08)

• Churchill’s subtle self-praise and humor compared to modern political figures.

  "All politicians are different from all other politicians ... Churchill is more subtle." — Dr. Arnn (15:49)

• Discussion of Churchill’s reverence for classic language and clarity, even as he occasionally tossed in erudite terminology for effect.

  "Eloquence begins with clarity. So the first thing you got to do is make it clear what you're trying to say." — Dr. Arnn (18:01)

• Churchill’s flirtation with Oxford and decision not to attend, weighing real-world experience over academic rigor.

On the Right Age & Desire for Higher Education (19:08–21:43)

• Dr. Arnn muses on the ideal age for college and the importance of true curiosity in higher learning, relating Churchill’s own “late blossoming” as a scholar.

  "It was not until my 22nd year... that the desire of learning came upon me." — Churchill, paraphrased by Dr. Arnn (20:35)

The Game of Polo & Its Lessons (23:53–29:01)

• Hugh and Dr. Arnn discuss Churchill’s zeal for polo, his commitment (returning from England to India for a championship), and what the sport taught him about discipline and camaraderie — lessons as valuable as a university education.

  "Discipline and comradeship were lessons it taught. And perhaps, after all, they are just as valuable as the lore of the universities. Still, one would like to have both." — Quoting Churchill (28:57)

Churchill as Writer—Fun or Hard Work? (31:44–32:27)

• Churchill relishes writing, producing nearly 50 books, while Hugh admits he finds writing a “task.”

  "He thinks it's great fun. I think it's a task to be done." — Hugh Hewitt (31:44)

• The only comparable figure: Cicero, but Churchill’s statesmanship is considered in a league of its own.

Survival, Fate, and Providence (32:58–35:14)

• The hosts reflect on the high mortality among Churchill’s peers and his apparent sense of destiny.

  "God did not make a force like me just to stop a bullet." — Churchill, letter recounted by Dr. Arnn (33:24)

• Comparisons with Douglas MacArthur's recklessness and survival.

Lord Cromer and British Influence in Egypt (36:19–37:09)

• Churchill admires Lord Cromer’s indirect exercise of power, “stooped to conquer,” and patience in governance.

  "He might be nothing. He was, in fact, everything. But he was everything because he did not presume to be an autocrat. He worked the back room." — Hugh Hewitt (36:15)

• Discussion of styles of authority and the nuances of political leadership.

The Indelibility of Historical Deeds (37:09–38:36)

• Critiques of Churchill cannot erase the facts of his legacy, Dr. Arnn argues.

  "You can't topple anything in the past. It happened." — Dr. Arnn (37:40)

• The proper way to study figures like Churchill is not to evaluate isolated decisions, but to examine their methods of judgment and practical wisdom.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Churchill’s early character:

  "This is the mature man reflecting on the young man, and his sense of humor and sense of adventure is still with him." — Dr. Arnn (02:36)

• On early public speaking:

  "For years after, he memorized every word ... the flowers of rhetoric are hot house plants." — Dr. Arnn (09:50)

• On learning and education:

  "You need to want to know." — Dr. Arnn (20:50)

• On Churchill’s resilience:

  "He was never wounded, and he was around a lot of bullets in his life." — Dr. Arnn (33:24)

• On historical legacy:

  "What we can learn from Churchill ... is how did he make these choices? And what can we learn from that? What is it like to make choices? And, you know, that's learning in practical wisdom." — Dr. Arnn (38:02)

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Recommended Timestamps for Interested Listeners

• [03:04] — The graphic skin graft ordeal and Churchill’s humor about it
• [05:03] — Churchill’s financial reality and writing as a career
• [09:50] — Insights on Churchill's speech preparation and rhetorical philosophy
• [13:38] — Dr. Arnn’s own public speaking flop in England
• [15:49] — On Churchill's rhetorical humility and comparisons with other politicians
• [20:35] — The delayed onset of Churchill’s “desire for learning”
• [24:14] — The culture and demands of polo, mirroring lessons in life
• [28:57] — Churchill’s final thoughts on sport versus university learning
• [33:24] — Churchill’s sense of providence regarding survival
• [36:19] — The subtle nature of Lord Cromer’s influence in Egypt
• [37:40] — The immutability of history and the right approach to studying great figures

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Tone & Style

The conversation is warm, direct, and laced with humor, much like Churchill’s writing itself. Both Hugh Hewitt and Dr. Arnn blend scholarly admiration with personal anecdotes, illuminating how Churchill’s early life offers lessons still applicable to modern pursuits in politics, oratory, and education.

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For a deeper appreciation of Churchill’s character and the fascinating intersections of ambition, learning, and history, this episode provides both narrative color and practical reflection. The hosts will continue to unravel Churchill’s lessons for today’s listeners in future episodes.

Transcript

[Hugh Hewitt]

Read along with Hugh and Dr. Arne and enjoy Winston Churchill's My Early Life on a deeper level. Purchase your very own copy of My Early Life at the Hillsdale College Bookstore. Just visit Hillsdale. Edu Radio. Learn about the fascinating first 30 years in the life of one of the most provocative and compelling leaders of the 20th century, Winston Churchill in My Early Life. Hillsdale. Edu Radio Radio. That's Hillsdale. Edu Radio to buy your copy of My Early Life.

[Scott Bertram]

Every week, Hillsdale College president Larry Arne joins Hugh Hewitt to discuss great books, great men and great ideas. This is Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes at podcast Hillsdale. Edu or wherever you find your audio.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Morning Glory and Evening Grace, America, Bongshore High, Canada. I'm Hugh Hewitt. The Hilltale dialogue is underway. There's the music. There's the familiar music. It's on my fault. I went early. Dr. Larry Arn is back and we are into chapter 16 of this fabulous book, My Early Life. Chapter 16. I leave the army before I get into the specifics of this, Dr. Arne. There's a lot of stuff about Churchill that's been produced, including Finest Hour, a movie of which you approved, and you were on the set when they were making it. There are miniseries galore. There are lots of books. Has anyone ever done the theatrical presentation in, like, a miniseries of the young Churchill life? Because it's absolutely 12 episodes of adventure.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Oh, yeah. So it turns out the answer to that is yes. The late Carl Foreman, who was the genius behind the movie High Noon and was a friend of Martin Gilbert's, made a series called Young Winston's wars, starring an actor named Simon Ward, who was very good, and it's a very good series, and I think one can still find it around, and it captures, you know, what kind of guy was he? You know, he was, he was something else that he was moving. And so, yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's a, it's a great, it's, it's lovely reading. I always say to people, what should I read about Churchill? And the answer is, well, first of all, are you going to devote your. The rest of your life to it? Because you can. But I always say, my early life is a great place to start because you get a sense of his character. And this, you know, this is the mature man reflecting on the young man and his sense of humor and his sense of adventure is still with him. And so he conveys all that now in this chapter.

[Hugh Hewitt]

It's not about any major thing. It's about a lot of small things, but each one matters. The first thing is, you ever heard of a man being played alive? He's on his boat, you know, he's been to two wars already in India and he's done with the river war that we've talked about at length, and he's sailing back to England. And his friend, whose last name I cannot pronounce, Dick Molyneux, has been grievously wounded. And Churchill's keeping him company when the doctor comes in and he needs a skin graft. So first he goes to the nurse, this big raw boned Irish doctor, according to Churchill, and he flays her skin off. Then he turns to Churchill and he just happens to be there. It's your turn. And Churchill recounts, they sod what, two square inches off of his arm.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Yeah. There's a correspondence much later between Churchill and this man Molyneux, and Churchill's wondering how his skin is doing and whether you're still carrying around a bit of me with you. And it's very amusing. See, isn't that interesting? Like Churchill, you know, is, has just related in a previous chapter, a cavalry charge. And what's that like? You know. But now this thing is in some ways a more vivid memory as it would be. You know, it.

[Hugh Hewitt]

He calls it an ordeal.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Oh, yeah, well, it's terrible. And you know, the, the anesthetics were not so advanced back then as they are none.

[Hugh Hewitt]

But the nurse, the nurse wasn't given a choice and he wasn't given a choice. I just can't imagine it in modern times. All right, he arrives back in England and then we get a couple of pages about money. And the interesting phrase about his father is, my father died at the moment when his new fortune almost exactly equaled his debts. So there is no estate for Churchill to inherit. He's got to make his way and he commends his example to his children. What was that way?

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Well, Churchill made most of his money in his life writing. And so he figured out that he was not in remunerative lines of work. If you're a cavalry officer, you can't. You got to pay it better to be rich because you got to bring resources to it. They'll pay you just enough maybe to keep up your uniforms and your horses. Then after that you got to eat. And. And so he's never going to make his way that way, he figures out. And then the other thing was, he's going to run for Parliament. It's very amusing in this chapter, he explains what that was like because he goes to the Conservative office, you know, and he's a very well known and well connected young man. But he hadn't done anything except go to war and write some articles. And he says, you know, just imagine Winston Churchill working in the. Walking in the Conservative central office in London where he would eventually go many times and say, you know, please sir, how do I go about this? And they love the idea of him. Right away he's got some public notoriety and he's got connections through his dad, his family, writ large. But then they acquaint him with the hard fact. I'll find you a seat. But the seats that you're likely to win are going to expect you to have some dough and to spread it around in, in the constituency because the people, the, the district, the conservative associations, they're called in the constituencies if you're sitting, if you're the, you know, the guys who get to be the precinct leaders and the association leaders in a safe seat, you're in a position of power and everybody comes to you and they want to, you know, they want to, they want you to adopt them. And then they say, how much you going to give to our favorite charities? How much you going to give for building the conservative ranks in our constituency? It's for sale, sort of. Right.

[Hugh Hewitt]

It has not changed. When the National Republican Congressional Committee needs to find a candidate, they usually go out and say, who can raise a million dollars and will then begin to take you seriously. Or maybe it's 500, I don't know what it is, but they do. They have to concern themselves with who can raise or has already raised a substantial amount of money. Cuz it's expensive to run for office. You mentioned he went to the Conservative Party office. He meets there with a Mr. Middleton. The skipper. Right. So the Skipper. I love this phrase. When parties lose election through bad leadership or foolish policy or because of mere slackness in the swing of the pendulum, they always sack the party manager. So it is only fair that these functionaries should receive all the honors of success. And so the Skipper wants Churchill, but he's told his subordinates don't give Churchill anything until Churchill gives us something. They won't even give him a speech. Churchill has to trick them into giving him a speech.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

That's right. Yeah. Well, he finds a. And see if you go if you're going to run for office. This is true in America today too, by the way. And you know, in a, in a contested seat, a million dollars ain't even a start.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Yep.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Right. But, but if, if. And so you can get. Churchill can get constituency that he was bound to lose. Nobody wants those. And they.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Forlorn hopes. They're called forlorn hopes.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

That's right. They won't be asking him for money. They'll say, please come run. Yeah, you know, we need a candidate. Well, the same thing is true about speeches, right. They've got a. He discovered that they have a long list of people asking for speakers and, you know, he got one of the ones where people don't really want to go. So he, you know, I mean, have it. Have Hugh Hewitt and Larry Arne given many speeches to places where the people were just glad to have anybody at all.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Amen.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

And yes, you know, that it. And here's another thing. Churchill is a renowned orator. If you make a list of who are the great orators in history, Winston Churchill's name will come up in the top five over and over and over again. He tells about his first one and he was very nervous and, and he, he, you know, for years he did this, not just in this year when he gives his first one. For years after, he memorized every word and he was, he, he prepared and prepared and never, he never stopped doing that. But he said he writes in.

[Hugh Hewitt]

A.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Couple times in different places. He writes, the flowers of rhetoric are hot house plants. That means they have to be artificially produced so that they don't seem artificial. And I just love the charming way he makes fun of the positions that he took. And he ran in Oldham, which is a seat outside. Oh, wait, that's the next chapter.

[Hugh Hewitt]

That's the next chapter. But he does practice at Bath, and he says, I asked how long I ought to speak. And being told that about a quarter of an hour would do, I confined myself rigorously to 25 minutes. I found by repeated experiments with a stopwatch that I could certainly canter over the course in 20 minutes. Above all, one must not be hurried or flurried. One must not yield too easily to the weaknesses of audiences. There they were. What could they do? They had asked for it and they must have it.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Isn't that great? Yeah, it is. I got them now.

[Hugh Hewitt]

I got them and I've got you. Don't go anywhere. Stay tuned to the Hillsdale dialogue. Dr. Larry Aaron will be right back with me. Remember, all things Hillsdale, Hillsdale. Edu. If you want to find all the previous Dialogues, go to HughForHillsdale.com and of course, you can go to hillsdalecollegecruise.com See if they got any spaces left on the ship that leaves from Portugal soon ends up in London. But everything is at Hillsdale. Edu, including this dialogue soon. Stay tuned. I'll be back with Dr. Arnold.

[Scott Bertram]

Hey there, it's Scott Bertram, host of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Anniversaries play a key role in this week's episode. We start with Mark Moyer, William P. Harris, chair of Military History at Hillsdale College. We discuss the legacy and the lessons learned from the Vietnam War 50 years after the fall of Saigon. Meanwhile, the Great Gatsby turns 100 this year. Benedict Whelan from our English department joins us to discuss the themes in that book. And Julianne Hillock, founding principal at Pozo Academy in New Mexico, talks to us about the unique challenges of running a school in a remote part of the country, plus being honored by the Hillsdale College Alumni Association. All that this week on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Find it at podcast hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio.

[Mark Levin]

Hello America. I'm thrilled, thrilled to announce my new 10 part podcast series, Liberty and Learning with Mark Levin and Larry Arne. Join me and my dear friend Dr. Larry Arne, President of Hillsdale College, as we dive deep into the founding principles of our great nation. And in these challenging times, understanding our history and the ideals of self government is more crucial than ever. We'll explore the core of America's current crises, the changes in our government and what it means for our lives and liberties. From education to borders, citizenship to the separation of powers, we'll cover it all. Tune into Liberty and Learning with Mark Levin and Larry Arn of Hillsdale College. So subscribe now and join us on this wonderful journey to rediscover the principles that made America the freest, most prosperous nation in history generated.

[Scott Bertram]

Listen right now to Liberty and Learning with Mark Levin and Larry Arn at podcast hillsdale.edu. that's podcast hillsdale edu, or wherever you find your audio.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Welcome back, America. Hugh Hewitt with Dr. Larry Arrnd talking about Winston Churchill's my early life. Now, how did all this happen? How'd you come to be in England?

[Dr. Larry Arne]

I'll tell you, I so I was a Rotary fellow in England. So I went over there and worked on and met my wife there, you know, so Rotary, I owe my life to Rotary. If you're a Rotary fellow, you have to give Rotary speeches and I was frightened to death and I'm going to give I gave several over there, right? And I'm in front of a Bunch of foreigners. And I gave one, and it's my greatest. It's my greatest rhetorical failure. I went to Dulwich village to give a talk about Winston Churchill, which I was there to study. Dulles Village is a charming little thing in south of London Little village. And we're in this room, and there's like, 16 people there, and they're all old, and there's a mahogany paneled room and a roaring fire.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Oh, my.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

And I began to talk, and I had no means of departing from my text. I was frightened to death. And one by one, they started going to sleep. And here's my failure. Eventually, I began to see the humor in the situation, and I thought, if I can put that last guy to sleep, I could leave quietly and they could wake up and wonder what happened. Well, he stayed awake. That was my failure.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Well, I don't even want to guess how many speeches I've given. I would guess you are my equal, because you started at it sooner than I did. But the art of the speech is here revealed very cleverly, without giving a lesson in it. And he is not sparse in giving himself praise about how well he did. In fact, I had to look up the word leaderette because he said the Morning Post wrote a whole column about his speech, and they wrote an appreciative leadert. And I've never seen that word before. So I looked it up, and I find in British English, it's a short editorial that is printed in the same type as the newspaper's leaders. So that's big print. They like Winston Churchill in big print. And he wants us to know that.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, and see, the other thing is, all politicians are different from all other politicians. When. When Donald Trump loves to praise himself in superlatives and everything else he likes, by the way, superlative is the only degree that he knows. And that's. And that is. You know, I can put up with that all day because I'm used to it and because I know he's got a sense of humor about himself. Well, Churchill is more subtle, Right. So he does make a lot of fun of himself about this speech. And then he gives rise to some accounts of his triumph. And, you know, Churchill was. He doesn't mention what it is, but he says that his actual first speech was given in the Strand near a pub where some ladies of questionable profession were forced to abandon their station, and he gave a little talk in favor of them.

[Hugh Hewitt]

That was. We did talk about. That was a speech. There weren't many people there. Dr. Arn, before we turn to quote other and more serious affairs, meaning Polo, I do want to talk about his little rumination on Oxford because he sits down with these very high born men. Lord Hugh Cecil, Lord Percy, Lord Balcaraz. I felt indeed I was the earthen pot among the brass. Lord Hugh had this amazing rhetorical ability. Second word I had to look up. He had held the House of Commons spellbound on the subject of Erastians and high churchmen. I didn't know what an Erastian was, so I went and looked that up. And our audience can go do that if it was. But he always seems to assume that his audience knows exactly what he's talking about. So is that good for a writer to do.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

In the right measure? Sure. Like, you know, we both have a friend in Roger Kimball.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Yep.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

And he's, he's a really great guy and I, I read everything he writes, he sends it to me. But I seldom get through an article without him to look up a word. And, you know, I've been around a while, I know a few words, but that's his style, right. And he sticks those in there because he's learned, or let me put it in his kind of term, erudite. And that's a style Churchill mixes things like that in part for the dramatic flair. But the staple with Churchill, you know, because he writes that in the first thing we have that he ever wrote in the way of an essay called, called Scaffolding of Rhetoric, short, simple English words. And if you, if you read through this book, you will see the sentences are generally short, generally declarative, and the words are familiar and tend to have an old lineage. Right. Eloquence begins with clarity. So the first thing you got to do is make it clear what you're trying to say. And Churchill is very good at that.

[Hugh Hewitt]

I love the fact that after he talks to these high born members of the House, already the lords, and they're very talented, he said. After this encounter, I had the idea that I must go to Oxford when I came back from India after the tournament. But after some rumination, I could not contemplate toiling at Greek irregular verbs after having commanded British regular troops. So after much pondering, I had to, with keen regret, put the plan aside. So I wanted to ask you, as a college president, what's the age range that people ought to pursue college? Not continuing education, not lifelong curiosity, but college?

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Well, it varies, of course. We've had some students who are older, who are grand, but the traditional thing has a reason behind it. When you're 18 years old, you've got to the place where you can think and you've got some foundation of understanding under you. And now you can start drinking from a fire hose and you've got the energy for that and the curiosity for that. And also the, you know, the idea is pretty soon you're going to get busy with your life because you're going to make a living. And so now's the time to focus and do it intensely. And Churchill was not ready to do that when he was 18 years old. He writes in Education at Bangalore, a chapter in this book that we've talked about. It was not until my 22nd year do I remember that year rightly, that the desire of learning came upon me. Well, that's the second thing, right? You need to want to know. And you know, I will tell you that a common experience here is that when they come here, they're first of all, they're afraid because we help encourage that. We want them to come for the right reason and get ready to work. But second, they soon encounter, oh, wow, this is different than anything I ever saw before. And so we, you know, they need to be, you know, they need to be charmed by that. They need to say, wow, I could spend the rest of my life doing.

[Hugh Hewitt]

This for its own purpose, not to impress, but because it has its own return. It's virtuous thing to do. And on that moment, pause, it's virtuous to take a pause as well. I'll be right back with Dr. Larry Ahn, President of Hillsdale College, all things Hillsdale at Hillsdale.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Eduardo.

[Hugh Hewitt]

All of our hundreds of dialogues can also be found at q4hillsdale.com, hughforhillsdale.com, be right back with Dr. R. Stay tuned.

[Scott Bertram]

Hey there, it's Scott Bertram, host of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Anniversaries play a key role in this week's episode. We start with Mark Moyer, William P. Harris, chair of military history at Hillsdale College. We discuss the legacy and the lessons learned from the Vietnam War 50 years after the fall of Saigon. Meanwhile, the Great Gatsby turns 100 this year. Benedict Whelan from our English department joins us to discuss the themes in that book. And Julianne Hillock, founding principal at Hojo Academy in New Mexico, talks to us about the unique challenges of running a school in a remote part of the country, plus being honored by the Hillsdale College Alumni Association. All that this week on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Find it at podcast Hillsdale Edu or wherever you get your audio.

[Hillsdale College Announcer]

Hillsdale College is a small, Christian classical liberal arts college that operates independently of government funding, and we want you or your son or daughter to apply. At Hillsdale, students grow in heart and mind by studying timeless truths in a supportive community dedicated to the highest things. Hillsdale College costs significantly less than other nationally ranked private liberal arts colleges and receives regular recognition as a best value. And nearly all students receive financial aid. Our robust core curriculum, vibrant student life, and 8 to 1 student to faculty ratio make for an education like no other. For more information or to fill out an application, visit hillsdale. Edu Info. That's Hillsdale. Edu info.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Welcome back, America. Hugh Hewitt, Hilltale dialogue underway, part of our series on Winston Churchill's book My Early Life, which we've been in for a few weeks and will be for a few more with my guest, Dr. Larry Arne of Hillsdale College. All things Hillsdale at Hillsdale. Edu. Now let's go to the important stuff. Polo. I have never seen a polo game. Have you seen polo games?

[Dr. Larry Arne]

I have watched two on the Internet, both featuring a member of our board, Steve Van Andle, who has won the US Open Polo Championship once and been in the finals five times. And so by knowing Steve, I know quite a lot about it, as they explained it to me, and it is awesome. And it is, you know, it's, you got to have a whole bunch of horses, they got to be trained. You got to move them around the country. You're moving at great speed. And the way polo works, by the way, you know, Churchill is playing army polo, which is very, you know, in those days, very elite, very excellent. Right. And they won the championship.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Oh, they're cavalrymen. Yes.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Yeah. And, and, and, but the way it works in, in polo in America is, and probably around the world is that there's a handicapping system and a team has a certain number of points and every writer is assigned a handicap. And so, you know, the really greatest writers and polo players in the world, they have a high number and it takes up a lot of your team's things. So you can't stack your team with really excellent.

[Hugh Hewitt]

I did not know that.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

And the style. Yeah, and the style. The stylist that, you know, one of the writers is the owner of the team as they supplies the money. And he matters a lot how good he is because he can contribute a lot and then that saves some economy. Then you can maybe get an extra really great player. Steve keeps in his office a picture of a polo player. Falling off a horse. And it turns out. And he told me the story behind it. He had a league player on his team, and he had a phrase. He would say, the best players never fall. And he would say that with some, you know, arrogance. And so Steve actually has a picture of him.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Of him. Paulie. Well, he goes back. Churchill goes all the way from England to India. I mean, he's been to the war and back. He's going to go back just to play in a polo tournament. And sure enough, they end up in the Dragoon Guards and they meet in the final two lines. You would not have thought it was a game at all, but a matter of life and death. And because it was close, it was so close at the end, it seemed like it was dragging on interminably. He writes, I kept on thinking, would God that night or Blucher would come. Now, he gives no explanation. I know what that means. But, you know, he expects his readers to understand what that means. But if you don't know who Blucher is, you have no idea what it means.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Yeah, yeah. Well, Blucher is not the woman in Young Frankenstein from Lucre. She is named. She is named for the man who commanded the. What Austrian troops.

[Hugh Hewitt]

They're Germans, I think. I think they're Prussians.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Germans who interviewed it intervened at Waterloo to turn the battle and defeat Napoleon. And, you know, Wellington is in command, overall command of the Allies in the battle. And Blucher shows up and saves the battle. So he was waiting for him to.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Come, and he did eventually come, as we will, to the end of this chapter shortly. Don't go anywhere. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt with Dr. Larry Arn. When we went to break talking about Winston Churchill's autobiography, My Early Life, we were talking about Blucher. And Blucher is a figure in the Battle of Waterloo, I believe. And I think it's a quote. I think he's quoting Wellington, would God that night or Blucher come? Because it was a close run thing, as I recall. That's another thing. And they had. And they had a great deal of fun after they won. And he ends up by talking about, all right, what good is polo? What good is the army versus this Oxford thing? And he writes, discipline and comradeship were lessons it taught. And perhaps, after all, they are just as valuable as the lore of the universities. Still, one would like to have both. And so I guess the student athlete at Hillsdale is in the best of both worlds.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

I think so. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Churchill played polo until he was 50, and Churchill, I'm Going to go back to say. Say something about education. Churchill, for the rest of his life, is a spokesperson for late learners. He said in a very great speech given in the same week as the Iron Curtain speech, he said, and I want to say a word for the late learners. And that's in 1946. Right. So he's. He's Churchill. And Churchill intervened. It's one reason why the Hillsdale dialogues are good. If they're good, my people like them. If they do. When Churchill's second premiership, after the socialists had been in for five years, they had built a Ministry of Education, which I personally believe is a bad idea. And they were about to do a major initiative on adult education. And Churchill stopped it and reformed the curriculum away from hobbies and retraining for jobs, and refocused it on the classics. Then he gave the speech introducing it himself. And in the speech, the argument goes roughly, just think to reach a late stage in your life and get to pick up these treasures, you see. So Churchill valued that. And you asked me, what is the right age for college students? It's typically for the young, you know, almost fully grown, but it can't really work until the desire of learning comes upon you.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Which is why I will now do a shameless plug for the Hillsdale. Edu site. You will find many courses. Among my favorites is Dr. Ryan teaching four totalitarian novels. Darkness at Noon, 1984, Brave New World, and that Hideous Strength, my favorite novel. And they're not to be undertaken without sitting down to watch them. I don't think you can listen to them when you're doing something else. I suppose you could, but I think they're. They're meant to be understood and explained in the sequence that they unfold. And I love it. I just think. And I think they're very popular, are they not? Not just that one, but all the courses at Hillsdale.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Edu. Yeah, it's. It's getting close to 5 million people. God, taking them now, I think. I think we added a million in the last year, and we're going to do a bunch more. There's a really great one coming up soon on the founding of America. And it's, you know, it's gonna be fun. It's a bunch of our professors talking with some documentary footage and stuff, and so it's very powerful.

[Hugh Hewitt]

There are two more things we have to get to in this chapter. One is about writing books. And you've done that and I've done that. And I have a different view of writing books than Churchill does he thinks it's great fun. I think it's a task to be done. And then we have to talk about Lord, and I hope I pronounce this correctly, Cromer. Is it? Lord Cromer, the British agent in Egypt. All right, so first of all, what do you make of his love of writing? Obviously, he loved it. He did it his whole life. He must have produced, what, 20 books?

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Close to 50.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Okay. Wow. Wow. Is there anyone comparable. This is just an aside. Is there anyone comparable who is both a statesman and who can win the Pulitzer Prize for literature?

[Dr. Larry Arne]

The nearest I can think of is Cicero.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Ah, yes.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

You know, and Churchill's books are different from Cicero's books. Some of Cicero's books are simply philosophic. Cicero is a very great man. Churchill was probably a greater statesman, but, you know, that's a hard.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Oh, Cicero failed to keep his republic together. Larry, I don't think that's close. Yeah, Cicero failed.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Yeah.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Great speeches. Better writer, maybe. But now, two more things. GW Steven is in here. Boom. The boomsters. And he just notes in passing, as he did of his polo players, he died of typhoid fever, as many of his polo comrades had done the next year. And his polo comrades all got blown up in the Great War. It's really remarkable that Churchill lived to write this book.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Yeah. Churchill's military career is like the law enforcement career of Wyatt Earp. He was never wounded, and he was around a lot of bullets in his life. And he wrote to his mother early in his life, God did not make a force like me just to stop a bullet. So he thought it was providential.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Douglas MacArthur had the same attitude. He had a very bad nickname, Dug Out Doug, which was not true. He was always, always exposing himself to fire, always indifferent to it. It's a remarkable trait among great individuals.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

MacArthur and Churchill are two people I know, and I don't know many others who were dashing fighting in the trenches of World War I. And MacArthur Row wore a scarf, a white scarf, and cut quite a figure around the trenches, you know, exposing himself to gunfire. And he carried his pipe. Right. Well, Churchill would go on adventures with his troops in the night, crawling around in the. You know, from hole to hole, spying out the Germans. And it was. There's several records of it, and it was kind of a lark. You know, Churchill would like, if you make a noise, the Germans know where you are, and they can bring hell down on you. And so Churchill is always shushing them too loud, and then everybody's trying to get him not to do it so loud. And then once he dropped his flashlight and made a clatter and it came on because they call it torch. And he said, turn off that bloody torch. And then, you know, kind of too loud and a little meek voice comes back, it's yours, sir.

[Hugh Hewitt]

I can only imagine rebuking Winston Churchill on a battlefield in no man's land. I can only imagine took some bravery on the part of that soldier. We'll be right back. Final conversation about this week's adventures with Winston, we should call it Dr. Laron will be right back. All things [e-mail] Oliver Our prior dialogues, Hugh, for hillsdale.com stay tuned. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. The Hillsdale dialogue underway. My early life is on the table. Winston Churchill's book about his early adventures. And we're getting close to Lord Cromer. We're going to talk a little bit about Churchill in Egypt now. All right, we have two minutes left. Lord Cromer, he is the British agent in Egypt. And I remember last week we were talking about wars to build democracy. Lord Cromer, quote, he might be nothing. He was, in fact, everything. But he was everything because he did not presume to be MacArthur in Japan or Ambassador Bremer in Iraq. He did not presume to be an autocrat. He worked the back room.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Yeah. Churchill liked the phrase applied to public figures stooped to conquer.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Oh, that's Roseberry and Churchill.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Yeah. And Churchill was capable of that, you know, but on the other hand, Churchill is, you know, everybody's different. Right. Churchill was flashy. He, he was, in my opinion, a very serious man. But he seemed, when you first met him, quick and sudden and, and pushy. But when you understand that, then you see these episodes in his life when the situation is very tense and he waits and he lets things develop. So he could do that, too. Right?

[Hugh Hewitt]

Yeah. Lord Cromer waited on event. He said he could wait weeks, months, years, decades. He would wait on him. And last question, this, this anti Churchill movement you referred to last week, it doesn't have a prayer, does it? I mean, you can't topple Cicero or Churchill or any of the great figures who are also good guys. You can't topple Napoleon or Caesar either. They're bad guys, in my view. But you can't topple the good guys.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Well, you can't topple anything in the past.

[Hugh Hewitt]

True.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

It happened. And so you know what, you know this guy Darrell Cooper, who's out after Churchill, he accuses Churchill of wanting the war which he didn't. And of sustaining the war over Poland. Churchill didn't even do that. He wasn't in power.

[Hugh Hewitt]

I know.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

And so, like, that fact is not going to go away. Right? It's a fact. And so they can't, you know, it, it and see, the, you know, the interesting question is not was Churchill right about this or that? What we can learn from Churchill and from any practical man according to Aristotle, is how did he make these choices? And what can we learn from that? What is it like to make choices? And, you know, that's learning in practical wisdom.

[Hugh Hewitt]

And next week we're going to go to Oldham and we'll learn some very practical lessons in politics. I mean, very practical. Everyone who wants to run for office should read this chapter. And we will be there next week. In my early life. Dr. Larry Arn, thank you. We'll be back next week with the next Hillsdale Dialogue.

[Scott Bertram]

Thanks for listening to the Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes at Podcast hillsdale. Edu or wherever you find your audio. For more information about Hillsdale College, head to Hillsdale.

[Dr. Larry Arne]

Eduardo.