The Americans (Tribute)

skyfriends.com ^ | June 5, 1973 | GORDON SINCLAIR

[jaykay]

The Americans
written by Gordon Sinclair

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 AND AUDIO
COURTESY STANDARD BROADCASTING CORPORATION LTD.

(c) 1973 BY GORDON SINCLAIR

[jaykay]

I first heard this as a kid in the mid '70s when it was read by a Detroit/Windsor area radio broadcaster named Byron MacGregor. Almost 31 years later to the date and it could be fresh material with a few names and places changed.

[Neanderthal]

Gordon Sinclair was the author of one of the best books ever for kids, Bright Paths to Adventure. He was a reporter for the Toronto Star before it became the useless PC rag it is now.

[eccentric]

This was one of my husband's favorites --- he died 5 years ago and I lost the record to a housefire last year. Yet just reading this I could hear the exact sound on the speaker's voice.

[jaykay]

While looking for this, I came across this website which sells it on cassette or cd with the proceeds going to the Red Cross. There seem to be others including Amazon selling it as well.

[Savage Beast]

This is the story of my life.

I pulled myself up from poverty by my own bootstraps, became successful, and in the process learned how to deal with life, including how to love people, shortcomings and all, and about how much to expect from them.

I educated myself and many others as well. I established a scholarship fund for the indigent, gave people jobs with no descrimination, before the anti-descrimination laws were established, including minorities, men, women, homosexuals, alcoholics, ex-prisoners, at least one functioning schizophrenic, and a man with terminal cancer. I wasn't coerced; I just couldn't bring myself to discriminate against somebody who wanted an honest job. My mother, born rich but later doomed to poverty, told me that any honest work is honorable. So is any honest worker.

Here's what I have to say: Give, but do not expect anything in return.

There's at least as much goodness and heroism in people than there is evil.

Generosity and kindness often go unrepaid. Don't expect to be repaid.

"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"

Nobody. But we won't. Our generosity of spirit and basic goodness will continue.

[Squawk 8888]

This was originally broadcast on CFRB radio (Toronto, AM 1010, also on shortwave as CFRX) in the early 70s, where Sinclair worked as a newscaster and commentator. The transcript is at the station's website, http://www.cfrb.com

Trivia note: His son Gord worked at CJAD Montréal, and now his granddaughter, Connie Sinclair, is a weekend newsreader at CFRB.

[jaykay]

Thanks for the info, very interesting.