Ville de Quebec, September 1, 1999

This is a city that treasures its history.

In 1943 and 1944, Winston Spencer Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt came here for talks that would set the course of World War II and post-war history.

England had gotten into it, in the first instance, with a treaty guaranteeing the future of Poland.  When, on this date in 1939, Nazi Germany bombed Poland without warning or the formality of a Declaration of War, the British were at war.  A little over two years later, as all Americans know, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor made the United States England's partner in a cause that would, quite literally, save the world from Hitler's madness.

When the Prime Minister of Great Britain and the President of the United States came here, our century had not yet reached its midpoint.  The war so dominated the lives of their countries that such inventions as television would be shifted to a back burner while every possible resource was dedicated to the cause of victory.  The world was at a pivotal moment in modern history, and it was fitting that Roosevelt and Churchill would come to a city where, 200 years before, another great conflict had shaped the future of the western hemisphere and the world.

So it is that, here in Quebec City, there is a tribute to FDR.

Busts of Churchill and Roosevelt, and words carved in stone, tell the story to all who pause near Porte Saint-Louis, one of the gates to Le Vieux Ville, the old walled City of Quebec.

I am reminded that my home has no statue, no bust, no material remembrance of Roosevelt.  It is an Island named for him, of course, and it has a longstanding dream of a Roosevelt monument on that Island's southern tip, within view of the United Nations – another product of Roosevelt and his times.  But no entity – not City, not State, not Nation, not the local operating authority – no entity has done anything material to acknowledge the special nature of this place and its connection to Roosevelt.

Somehow, for these brief moments in another land, I am more connected to my own country's history than when I am at home, and this is a circumstance that leaves me both warmed and saddened.

DL

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