I ran across this editorial written a few years ago by Gordon
Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. The following
text was printed in our nation’s Congressional Record:
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
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