Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast
from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television Commentator. What follows
is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the 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 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."
