The World Economic Crisis.

First and only printing of the entirety of this timely speech, together with the questions and discussion which followed; an excellent copy, and highly uncommon. As noted by Cohen, Rhodes James publishes "a small part only" of the address in the Collected Speeches (V, pp 5132-3), this thus being the only printing of the complete speech.

Churchill made his trip to the United States in December 1931 with the main aim of "regaining some of the money he had lost in the New York stock market crash" (Gilbert, V, p. 420). Shortly after his arrival he was knocked down by a taxi on 5th Avenue and hospitalised. After a brief period of recuperation in the Bahamas he returned to the lecture circuit, meeting with "increasing success... the Daily Telegraph reporting that his tour had developed 'into a triumphal progress', and that at each lecture he was received with a 'tumultuous' welcome, with the entire audience rising to its feet to cheer him" (p. 426). The assembly for Churchill's engagement at the Economic Club of New York might be expected to have been a little more staid, but nonetheless his heartfelt concluding admonishment not to "add to monetary deflation the hideous deflation of panic and despair" was greeted by "sustained applause". The Economic Club of New York was founded in 1907 as an off-shoot of the National Economic League, and is still in existence today as a "non-profit and non-partisan institution with the purpose of promoting the study and discussion of social, economic, and political questions". The president at the time of Churchill's appearance was General Samuel McRoberts, a former vice-president of the National City Bank of New York, and president of the Metropolitan Trust Company of New York, who during World War I had been chief of procurement for the Ordnance Department; the questions were put by Prof. Robert E. Ely, founder of the Academy of Political Science at Columbia, secretary for the League for Political education.