DEMOCRACY

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21184, 6 August 1940, Page 6

DEMOCRACY

“ THIS SHINING THING” DUNKIRK EVACUATION AN AMERICAN EULOGIUM “So long as the English tongue survives, the word ‘Dunkirk’ will be spoken with reverence. For in that harbour, in such a hell as never blazed on earth before, at the end of a lost battle, the rags and blemishes that have hidden the soul of democracy fell away. There, beaten but unconquered, in shining splendour, she faced the enemy.” Thus, under the heading “ Dunkirk,” the New York Times of June 1. “They sent away the wounded first. Men died so that others could escape. It was not so simple a thing as courage, which the Nazis had in plenty. It was not so simple a thing as discipline, which can be hammered into men by a drill sergeant. It was not the result of careful planning, for there could have been little. It was the common man of the free countries, rising in all his glory out of mill, office, factory, mine, farm and ship, applying to war the lessons learned when he went down the shaft to bring out trapped comrades, when he hurled the lifeboat through the surf, when be endured poverty and hard work for his children’s sake.

“This shining thing in the souls of free men Hitler cannot command, or attain, or conquer. He has crushed it, where he could, from German hearts. It is the great tradition of democracy. It is the future. It is victory.” ,