My Two CountriesAstor, Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess
General
My Two Countries
Astor, Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess
Reconstruction (1914-1939); Women -- Political activity
Playing politics may be all right when there is nothing seriously wrong
with the world. Just now the human race needs human beings and not boss
politicians. Quacks are failing all the world over and fundamentals are
winning, and the safe policy for politicians and nations is not to do
others, but to do unto others as you would they should do unto you.
ENGLAND
VIII[H]
“_A fool without fear is sometimes wiser than an angel with fear._”
It was very kind of the English Speaking Union and the League of
Nations Union American Committee to have thought of giving me this
welcome. It was particularly appropriate that they should have asked
the First Lord of the Admiralty to preside, and gracious of him to
come. You see, if I have done any good in any way in public life, it’s
due to the men and women of England’s most famous port--Plymouth. I
think we can safely call it the most historical port in the world for
two reasons: first, it was off Plymouth that the Armada was defeated.
That may seem just a big sea-fight of ancient days. It was not thought
so by the enemy at the time. They knew what it meant. It meant that
England would be free to worship God in her own way--not free enough
for some, but far freer than any other place in the world at that time.
Then, from Plymouth, those who found their more advanced ideas about
religious freedom hampered, sailed away to America, where they carried
on their English traditions of freedom. There, in course of time, all
men from all countries found freedom to worship God in their own way. I
think it would have shocked them had they realised that some whom they
welcomed to their shores would preach hate in the name of God toward
the country from which they came; yet that is what they have done,
some of these people who went to America. They have not understood
that true freedom can never come to a man or a nation that hates.
I, personally, have never feared people who preach hate--never--and
in 1918 I was proved right. The nation which hated most was most
handsomely defeated. The people in America who preach hate will also
some day be defeated, and I don’t believe their days is far off.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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