I
first read this over a year ago on a bulletin board I post on. I couldn’t agree
with it more. It was an editorial to something called Congressional Record in
Toronto, which I assume is a newspaper of some kind. To my knowledge, it was an
editorial by Gordon Sinclair (a Canadian television Commentator) that was later
printed in the above-mentioned publication.
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This Canadian thinks
it is time to speak up for the
Americans as the
most generous and possibly the least
appreciated people
on all the earth.
Germany, Japan and,
to a lesser extent, Britain and
Italy were lifted
out of the debris of war by the
Americans who poured
in billions of dollars and
forgave other
billions in debts. None of these
countries is today
paying even the interest on its
remaining debts to
the United States.
When France was in
danger of collapsing in 1956, it
was the Americans
who propped it up, and their reward
was to be insulted
and swindled on the streets of
Paris. I was there.
I saw it.
When earthquakes hit
distant cities, it is the United
States that hurries
in to help. This spring, 59
American communities
were flattened by tornadoes.
Nobody helped.
The Marshall Plan
and the Truman Policy pumped
billions of dollars
into discouraged countries. Now
newspapers in those
countries are writing about the
decadent, warmongering
Americans.
I'd like to see just
one of those countries that is
gloating over the
erosion of the United States dollar
build its own
airplane. Does any other country in the
world have a plane
to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the
Lockheed Tri-Star,
or the Douglas DC10? If so, why
don't they fly them?
Why do all the International
lines except Russia
fly American Planes?
Why does no other
land on earth even consider putting
a man or woman on
the moon? You talk about Japanese
technocracy, and you
get radios. You talk about German
technocracy, and you
get automobiles. You talk about
American
technocracy, and you find men on the moon -
not once, but
several times and safely home again.
You talk about
scandals, and the Americans put theirs
right in the store
window for everybody to look at.
Even their
draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded.
They are here on our
streets, and most of them, unless
they are breaking
Canadian laws, are getting American
dollars from ma and
pa at home to spend here.
When the railways of
France, Germany and India were
breaking down
through age, it was the Americans who
rebuilt them. When
the Pennsylvania Railroad and the
New York Central
went broke, nobody loaned them an
old caboose. Both are
still broke.
I can name you 5000
times when the Americans raced to
the help of other
people in trouble. Can you name me
even one time when
someone else raced to the Americans
in trouble? I don't
think there was outside help even
during the San
Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have
faced it alone, and I'm one
Canadian who is
damned tired of hearing them get
kicked around. They
will come out of this thing with
their flag high. And
when they do, they are entitled
to thumb their nose
at the lands that are gloating
over their present
troubles. I hope Canada is not one
of those.
