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 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."

Stand proud, America!

Origins:   On June 5 1973, Canadian radio commentator Gordon Sinclair
decided he'd had enough of the stream of criticism and negative press
recently directed at the United States of America by foreign journalists
(primarily over America's long military involvement in Vietnam, which had
ended with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords six months earlier).
When he arrived at radio station CFRB in Toronto that morning, he spent
twenty minutes dashing off a two-page editorial defending the USA against
its carping critics which he then delivered in a defiant, indignant tone
during his "Let's Be Personal" spot at 11:45 AM that day. The unusualness
of any foreign correspondent -- even one from a country with such close
ties to the USA as Canada -- delivering such a caustic commentary about
those who would dare to criticize the USA is best demonstrated by the fact
that even thirty years later, many Americans doubt that this piece (which
has been circulating on the Internet in the slightly-altered form quoted
above as something "recently" printed in a Toronto newspaper) is real. It
is real, and it received a great deal of attention in its day. After
Sinclair's editorial was rebroadcast by a few American radio stations, it
spread like wildfire all over the country. It was played again and again
(often superimposed over a piece of inspirational music such as "Battle
Hymn of the Republic" or "Bridge Over Troubled Waters"), read into the
Congress Record multiple times, and finally released on a record (titled
"The Americans"), with all royalties donated to the American Red Cross. (A
Detroit radio broadcaster named Byron MacGregor recorded and released an
unauthorized version of the piece that hit the record stores before
Sinclair's official version; an infringement suit was avoided when
MacGregor agreed to donate his profits to the Red Cross as well). Sinclair
passed away in 1984, but he will long be remembered on both sides of the
U.S.-Canadian border -- both for his contributions to journalism, and for
his loudly proclaiming what no one else at the time would stand up and
say.