Original typescript of an article, starting "Is a European war becoming more probable?", with some corrections by W.S.C.

Sir Winston Spencer CHURCHILL (1874-1965).

A typescript newspaper article, first line "Is a European war becoming more probable? " with comments on the "United States of Europe", with original hand-written corrections. [Avignon, France: sent 10th August 1931]. 8pp. typescript, the first page of the article is a first-generation typed copy, the others carbon copies with manuscript corrections.

with: a 1p. typed transcription of a note (probably a telegram ?) from Winston Churchill, dated Avignon, 10.8.31, "Kindly acknowledge by telegram"

and: a  1p. page transcript of Hillman’s answering telegram, 12th August, "article received thanks hillman". 

"Is a European war becoming more probable? Four or fives years ago there was a general conviction that though the jealousies and hatreds of the peoples of Europe, great and small, were unassuaged, nevertheless the idea of war had become so odious, ........... The danger point is the Russian Soviet Government. Here is a gigantic centralized state with one hundred and sixty million subjects, outside the comity of nations, in extreme hostility to the rest of the world, heavily armed by science and with many real grievances and appetites to satisfy, all along the frontiers of Russia from the Baltic to the Black Sea lies a line of newly-born or re-born states, who owe their existence or aggrandizement to the disasters which Russia suffered in the Great War. Finland, Esthonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Roumania have all carved their fortunes in whole or in part out of the Russian mass."

Provenance: William Hillman (1895-1962); with a Litchfield auction house (c.1997-2005); purchased by the present owner.

WSC was on holiday in France. Shortly after sending in this article he cut short his holiday, returning to England on the 16th August, 1931.

Christie’s sold a signed typescript of an earlier version of this article in 2012, see for comparison:

https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/books-manuscripts/churchill-winston-s-typescript-signed-5636250-details.aspx?from=salesummery&intobjectid=5636250&sid=d7e38472-7141-409d-b5b6-7e9b713812ff

William Hillman was born in New York City in 1895. His career as a journalist started in 1915, and from 1926 onwards he worked as a foreign correspondent for Universal Service and Hearst Newspapers in Paris, Berlin and London. From 1934 to 1939 he was Chief of Staff, Foreign Correspondents, for Hearst Newspapers, also reporting directly to Mr. Hearst. He subsequently did a lot of work for President Truman, and the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum in Independence, MO, have a large holding of his papers (but largely concerned with this latter part of his career from 1951 until his death in 1962, with a few items going back as far as 1934). See https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/personal-papers/william-hillman-papers

Yale also have some of Hillman’s papers, part of the Than Vanneman Ranck papers (see https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/12/resources/3673 ). These are probably more relevant as they concern the workings of the Hearst organization.

Hillman stored his files and papers in a barn that was ‘local’ to his New Milford, Ct. property. In effect these ‘disappeared’ when he died and only ‘re-surfaced’ in the 1990s. The dispute over their ownership was not sorted out until 2005, and they were subsequently put up for auction in Litchfield, Ct. The present lot is from this ‘New Milford group’.