< 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 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.
< 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."
< "Stand proud, America!"
<

This is one of the best editorials that I have ever
< read regarding the United States. It is nice that one man realizes
it.
I only wish that the rest of the world would realize it. We are
always
< blamed for everything, and never even get a thank you for the things
we
do.
< I would hope that each of you would send this to as many people as
you can
< and emphasize that they should send it to as many of their friends
until
< this letter is sent to every person on the web. I am just a single
American
< that has read this.
<
<
<