In 1909, with American Progressivism still in its infancy, Winston Churchill was already an advocate of government programs to help the most needy. On May 23rd of that year he proclaimed, I think it is our duty to use the strength of the resources of the State to arrest the ghastly waste not merely of human happiness but of national health and strength which follows when a working man’s home which has taken him years to get together is broken up and scattered through a long spell of unemployment, or when, through the death, the sickness, or the invalidity of the breadwinner, the frail boat in which the fortunes of the family are embarked founders, and the women and children are left to struggle helplessly on the dark waters of a friendless world.1  By 1951, with the welfare state, including the National Health Service, well established and the socialists controlling the Labour Party, he had developed some reservations, remarking that, All the boastings of the...(Read Full Post)