22
With Robert Bass’s support, Winant gained the gover-
norship for one term in 1924, then, in an unprecedented
achievement, served two more terms, from 1931 to 1935.
Collaborating with Democratic legislators, he promoted
reforms that improved the lives of working men, women,
and children throughout the Granite State and made
New Hampshire a leader in innovative programs to
ease the suffering caused by the Great De-
pression. In a state where textile mills and
shoemaking were dominant industries, he
enacted a minimum wage law and a 48-
hour work week for women and children.
“The only help the [industrial] employ-
ees got through most of the century
was through the work of John
Winant,” says John Milne. By 1936,
Winant would be mentioned as a
possible presidential contender.
A devoted ally of President
Franklin Roosevelt and a prot
é
g
é
of Labor Secretary Frances Perkins,
Winant was called to Washington
to chair the new Social Security
Board. There, despite an initial lack
of funding, he organized the New
Deal’s most enduring social wel-
fare program. When Republican
presidential candidate Alf Landon
attacked social security in 1936,
conscience compelled Winant to
resign from the board and devote
his energies to campaigning for
Roosevelt – a move that effectively
ended his political prospects as a
Republican.
As world war again engulfed
Europe, Winant’s 1941 appointment
as ambassador to Great Britain,
replacing the distrusted and de-
featist Joseph Kennedy, brought
hope to a people who were, in the
enduring words of Britain’s war-
time military leader General Sir Alan Brooke, “hanging
on by our eyelids.” Eschewing the official ambassador’s
residence in favor of living quarters near the embassy and
subsisting on the same rations as British citizens, Winant
walked the blazing streets of London as bombs rained
down, asking his characteristic question, “How can I help?”
In spite of his shy nature, Winant’s extraordinary ability
to connect with ordinary working people not only en-
deared him to the British populace, but, in June 1942, it
also saved the nation from a coalminer’s strike that would
have crippled production just when the nation needed it
most. At the request of Labour Party leader and deputy
prime minister Clement Attlee, he addressed striking
miners in Durham. His speech evoked so persuasively
a vision of a post-war world in which social justice had
replaced war as government’s wholehearted purpose that
the strikers returned to their jobs. A little more than five
years later, Winant’s inspiring words would become part
of his epitaph: “We must always remember,” he said,
“that it is the things of the spirit that in the end
prevail. That caring counts. That where
there is no vision, people perish. That
hope and faith count, and that without
charity there can be nothing good.”
As the war dragged on, Ambassador
Winant dedicated himself to easing the
way for the hordes of American
GIs encamped in Britain before
D-Day and, perhaps more import-
antly, alleviated misunderstandings
between the well-fed, well-paid
GIs and the more long-suffering
Tommies. His dedication and vision
sustained the alliance that broke
the fascist menace as he pursued
the goal of enduring peace.
Yet for the balance of the 20th
century, the man Winston Church-
ill called “an inspiration,” who was
with the British prime minister
when he learned that Pearl Harbor
had been bombed and his empire
would be saved (in some descrip-
tions of that evening, they did a
little dance together), was all but
erased from the pages of history.
This came to be through a final,
self-inflicted, act of violence in an
extraordinarily violent time. Two
years after the war’s end, settled
back in Concord and awaiting
delivery of his recently published
memoir, Winant ended his own
life with a pistol shot.
After his suicide, Winant’s legacy went into decline. In
the 1940s and ’50s, a suicide was judged to be not only
grievous, but also shameful, perhaps especially so after
countless brave American GIs had faced down death in
defense of freedom, or died trying. Many religious con-
sidered suicide a sin akin to murder. The St. Paul’s choir
sang “The Strife Is O’er” at Winant’s funeral service, but
he was buried near the back of Concord’s public Blossom
Hill Cemetery. Winston and Clementine Churchill sent
five dozen roses; Eleanor Roosevelt, a large bouquet.
Friends and associates suggested possible causes for
Winant’s self-destruction: money and family troubles,
“Gil Winant
deserves to be
better known,
and he’s a
great inspiration
to me personally.
He’s been
considered the
model for how
to perform the job
since he left
70 years ago.”
Matthew Barzun ’88
U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain
