Edward R. Murrow Address: John McKay

At the close of World War II, American journalist Edward R. Murrow made this timeless observation in his March 1946 farewell address to England over the BBC:

"I doubt that the most important thing was Dunkirk or the Battle of Britain, El Alamein or Stalingrad, [perhaps] not even the landings in Normandy or the great blows struck by British and American bombers. Historians may decide that any one of these events was decisive, but I am persuaded that the most important thing that happened in Britain was that this nation chose to win or lose this war under the established rules of parliamentary procedure. It feared Nazism, but did not choose to imitate it. The government was given dictatorial power, but it was used with restraint, and the House of Commons was ever vigilant.

... remember that while London was being bombed in the daylight, the House of Commons devoted two days to discussing conditions under which enemy aliens were detained on the Isle of Man. Though Britain fell, there were to be no concentration camps here. ... [T]here was no retreat from the principles for which our ancestors fought."