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Eleanor Roosevelt Speeches

Pilgrim Society Dinner, Part 2

December 4, 1948

Description

BBC recording of speeches given at Pilgrim Society Dinner in Honor of ER and in honor of FDR


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[00:00:00]
[Winston Churchill:]

To endure the exhaustion of the spiritual forces, which during a life and death struggle for a noble cause, have lifted men and whole nations far above their normal level. He did not have to face the grave economic aftermath of splendid sacrifices and deeds. He was spared all this. My somber moments, when I have them, I [audience laughs] uh they sometimes come to a trouble. I remember the lines of Lindsay Gordon. "We-we carry on, we are toiling still. He is gone and he fared the best. He fought against odds, he struggled uphill, he has fairly earned his seasons of rest." But I do not think that that could be uh the epitaph of the famous man whose memory we honor tonight. First because the troubles we now encounter are less than those he overcame. Next because the United States, which sustained him, has risen as the result of his direction and prejudices to the foremost place among the nations. And above all because having this solemn and awful responsibility and burden cast upon her, the great republic has neither bowed nor flinched before our task and duty and has found also from her free democracy and federal system a wealth of gifted men and a unity of national purpose equal to all the tasks which may be sent.

[Applause]

These, these tasks, ladies and gentlemen, will be hard, the burden heavy, the decisions difficult and grave, but they will not be too much for us to bear and in championship of all the world's [00:02:54][unclear] with which the name of Franklin Roosevelt is bound up, the British Empire and commonwealth of nations will prove itself a valiant and faithful friend and ally of the United States, in peace as it was in war, in the future as in the past, [][unclear (3:22-3:26)] and thus and Mrs. Roosevelt and [00:03:29][unclear] believe in the end all will come right.

[00:03:33]
[Applause]
[Unknown Announcer:]

You've been listening to speeches at the dinner given by the Pilgrims of Great Britain at the Savoy Hotel London. The speakers were Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt, who was introduced by the Right Honorable Viscount Greenwood, the Prime Minister, the Right Honorable Clement Atlee, and the Right Honorable Winston Churchill.

[00:04:31]

Program Participants



About this document

Pilgrim Society Dinner, Part 2

December 4, 1948

PT4M31S

Eleanor Roosevelt

Project Editors
Funder(s):
  • National Endowment for the Humanities

Eleanor Roosevelt Speeches is a project and publication of The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, The George Washington University, Academic Building, Post Hall, Room 312, 2100 Foxhall Road, NW, Washington, DC 20007

Transcript Editors

Transcribed and published by the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, 2019-11-27


Transcription created from holdings at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library