"LET'S BE PERSONAL" Broadcast June 5, 1973 CFRB, Toronto, Ontario by
Gordon Sinclair
Topic: "The Americans"
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% 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 sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I
read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtse. 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 earthquakes, 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 war-mongering Americans.
I'd like to see one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion
of the United States dollar build its own airplanes.
Come on... let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a
plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 10?
If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia
fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a
man or a women 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 the draft dodgers
are not pursued and hounded. They are right here on our streets in Toronto,
most of them... unless they are breaking Canadian laws... are getting
American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here.
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.
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
of them are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans
raced to the help of other people in trouble.
Can you name to 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 neighbours 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.
ORIGINAL SCRIPT COURTESY STANDARD BROADCASTING CORPORATION
LTD.
(c) 1973 BY GORDON SINCLAIR
PUBLISHED BY STAR QUALITY MUSIC (SOCAN)
A DIVISION OF UNIDISC MUSIC INC.
578 HYMUS BOULEVARD
POINTE-CLAIRE, QUEBEC,
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