Mr. Winston Churchill was the guest of the Press Club at a house dinner during mail week with Lord Burnham as President writes the “Times”. Responding to the toast of his health Mr. Churchill said “I feel I have a right to call myself a journalist, because when I reached the age of 20 I became entirely dependent for my support upon my own exertion and although I had the advantage of inheriting my father’s friends, I found no other substantial means of providing for the vulgar necessaries of existence and it was to journalism I turned in order to provide the necessary sinew of war which enabled me to enter the House of Commons. I wrote down in my election paper at Oldham ‘journalist’ and I got into Parliament on that.” Mr. Churchill went on to say that the history of the Press in the war was a striking one. In the beginning they simply did not exist. The “brass hats” said “How dare you speak about the war? This is our war.” They said: “Use a word of indiscretion and you will be shot.” Then gradually the Press began to come back into its own, and from that moment it marched from victory to victory. It dominated the counsels of Government; it made and unmade Ministries: it blasted or boosted, or rather established reputations of public men — all that until there was no doubt that at a certain period it exerted a power in this country beyond what was its proper function in the state.”
