A radio personality named Sinclair once recorded a glowing tribute to his neighbor to the south, the U.S. Could you print
what he said?
Sure.
Well, The Informer will at least print most of the comments, which run to more than 700 words.
Canadian journalist Gordon Sinclair, angered by the criticism leveled at the United States over the Vietnam War, wrote “The
Americans,” an editorial that he read over the air on Toronto radio station CFRB on June 5, 1973:
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 percent
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 60 years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtze. 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 earthquake, 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 warmongering
Americans. ...
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.’ ...
Our neighbors 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.
Online: www.broadcasting-history.ca.
The Informer answers questions from readers each Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. It is researched and written by Andrew Perzo, an American Press staff writer. To ask a question, call 494-4098, press 5 and leave voice mail, or email informer@americanpress.com