The Americans: A Canadian's View

[Guest guest]

Happy July 4th! Some may be old enough to remember this.

" LET'S BE PERSONAL "    Broadcast June 5, 1973     CFRB, Toronto, Ontario

Topic: " The Americans " (Gordon Sinclair)

The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French and British

exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany.

It has declined there by 41% since 1971 and this Canadian thinks it is time

to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the

least-appreciated people in all the world.

As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read

of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtse. Well, Who rushed in with men

and money to help? The Americans did, that's who.

They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges and the

Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Mississippi is under water and no

foreign land has sent a dollar to help. 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 those countries is today paying even the interest on its

remaining debts to the United States.

When the franc 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. And I was there. I saw that.

When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that

hurries into help... Managua Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples.

So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by

tornadoes. Nobody has helped.

The Marshall Plan... the Truman Policy... all pumped billions upon billions

of dollars into discouraged countries. And now, newspapers in those

countries are writing about the decadent war-mongering Americans.

I'd like to see one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of

the United States dollar build its own airplanes.

Come on... let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane

to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the 10? If

so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia

fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a

man or a 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 the draft dodgers

are not pursued and hounded. They are right here on our streets in Toronto,

most of them... unless they are breaking Canadian laws... are getting

American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here.

When the Americans get out of this bind... as they will... who could blame

them if they said 'the hell with the rest of the world'. Let someone else

buy the bonds, let someone else build or repair foreign dams or design

foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes.

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

of them are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans

raced to the help of other people in trouble.

Can you name to 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 neighbours have faced it alone and I am one Canadian who is damned tired

of hearing them kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their

flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their noses at the

lands that are gloating over their present troubles.

I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous

Canadians. And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual

meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke.

This year's disasters... with the year less than half-over... has taken it

all and nobody... but nobody... has helped.

[Guest guest]

Dr. Bledsoe-

Thank you for posting the Gordon SInclair article. 35 years ago, and again, the

dollar is down, the Mississippi is flooded and the Red Cross is broke. You gotta

wonder... are we marching in place? Are we as a nation stagnating, or worse,

sliding backwards?

" A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the

simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences. "

Proverbs 22:3