TRIBUTE TO THE UNITED STATES

This, from a Canadian newspaper, is worth sharing. America: The Good Neighbor.

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 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. 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 technology, and you get radios. You talk about German technology, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technology, 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."

Stand proud, America!

-- Red Whitenblue (@ .), March 20, 2000

Answers

Wow, that gives me the warm fuzzies all over! Just a small question, however, what does the writer refer to in:

"They will come out of this thing with their flag high"

What 'thing' is the writer referring to? Have we stepped in yet another dogpile or something?

-- InquiringMinds (WantTo@Know.com), March 20, 2000.

Its a paraphrased 20+ year old song. I don't remember what the writer was talking about but it could have been Nixon or the 70s gas crisis or even as late as the thing in Iran. If you look up Gordon Sinclair I'm sure you will find something because it seems that is who put it out all those years ago. I think the name of the song was "The Americans".

-- Just passin through (nobody@nowhere.com), March 20, 2000.

My grandfather came to America from Europe in 1888.

Thank God he didn't miss the boat.

-- (.@...), March 20, 2000.

Sinclair has been dead for twenty years. Did he give this fom his grave?

-- Y2K Pro (y2kpro1@hotmail.com), March 20, 2000.

Very nice post Red. I, too, got the chills. Thank you =o)

-- cin (cinlooo@aol.com), March 20, 2000.

It is a fact that the U. S. is a very generous country.

France always acts like a Jerk, remember when we couldn't fly over there air space. Guess they forgot the about the Yanks coming to the rescue during WWII when the Germans had taken over.

So we have lots of warts, I'll still take my chances here.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), March 20, 2000.

The editorial quoted above looks like one that came out in 1980 or 1981 after it was revealed that the Canadian embassay in Teheran, Iran had, for over a year, sheltered and hidden some Americans who barely managed to avoid being captured as hostages during the 1979 takeover of the American embassay there. (The "thing" in the last half of the last paragraph refers to that Iranian hostage situation.)

[Note that there is a reference to "the San Francisco earthquake". This was an unambiguous reference to the one occurring early in the 1900s because the later, smaller, one in the late 1980s had not yet occurred at the time this editorial was written.]

A sort of "Poor Us! Poor Unappreciated Us!" wave had become popular in the U.S. during 1979-1980, and the news about Canadian cooperation led to an accompanying overreaction along the lines of "Wow! Somebody likes us! How wonderful of the Canadians to help us!" To which the general Canadian response was "You're quite welcome, but why all the fuss? This is simply what friendly civilized nations do for each other."

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), March 20, 2000.

Well, I don't care what anyone says -- this country can use a few more kudos like that. We really are the good guys with the white hats and so many seem to forget that.

-- imho (Redy@or.not), March 20, 2000.

I went ahead and looked it up. It was released in 1974 by Bryon MacGregor who rerecorded the original editorial by Gordon Sinclair first used on Gordons radio show 'Let's Be Personal' on CFRB Radio. It doesn't say when Gordon originaly did the editorial.

Link for reference

-- Just passin through (nobody@nowhere.com), March 20, 2000.

Yup they get our money and help and we get the up upyours you know the rest.

-- ET (bneville@zebra.net), March 20, 2000.

Ah -- so the editorial predated the Iranian hostage situation, but was re-released after it.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), March 21, 2000.