Canada’s Governor General Lord Tweedsmuir, better known as John Buchan, was in Washington on this date in 1937. His Excellency was feted at the White House by President Franklin Roosevelt, and even traveled with the President and First Lady (Eleanor Roosevelt) to George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Tweedsmuir also visited Capitol Hill where he had the honour of separately addressing members of the both the Senate and House of Representatives. You will find his speech to the latter below.
Governor General Lord Tweedsmuir: Mr. Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives, this is a great honour, for which I am most sincerely grateful. I have just had the privilege of being received by the Senate, the upper House. I belong now to the upper house at home, but I have been inside only once and am not very familiar with it as yet. I have come now to a House, in the British Isles the equivalent of which I sat for eight happy years, and I feel very much at home. [Applause.]
The Governor General, as you know, gentlemen, spends his time walking on very thin ice. It is very hard for him to express an opinion on any subject which is remotely connected with politics, and as nearly everything is connected in some way or other with politics, he is wise if he keeps silent. [Laughter and applause.]
But there is one thing he can say freely and with a whole heart. He can express his gratitude to the American people for the pleasure they have given him on this visit and his admiration and affection for your great country. I have known America now for many years. I have the privilege of the friendship of many Americans; in fact, I can say I have always regarded America as my second-fatherland.
This visit has been one of unalloyed pleasure. I have renewed many old friendships and made, I hope, some new ones. I have visited some of the famous places in your environs which I-had not seen for many years, and I have renewed my acquaintance with your beautiful city, a city which I think will very soon be one of the noblest capitals in the world. I have been favored with wonderful spring weather, I have no doubt, through the brilliant organization of your Postmaster General. [Laughter and applause.]
I would like to say to you one thing, and one thing only: Your nation and mine are today in a special sense the guardians of that great form of government which we call democracy, and of which I think the truest definition is a true mixture of law and liberty. Therefore, I regard my visit to you this afternoon as a culminating step in a most memorable experience, for I have been admitted into the very inner shrine, the focus, the center, the power-home of your great democracy, your great free Government. I am proud of the privilege, and I offer you my sincerest thanks. [Applause.]
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.