"Americans, The" 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 its 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 Yangtze. 
Well, who rushed in with men and money 
to help? 
The Americans did, thats 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
underwater, 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 earthquake, its the United
States that hurries 
in to 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. Now, Id like to see just
one of those countries 
that is gloating over the erosion of the United States
dollar build its own airplanes. 
Come on, now you--lets hear it! 
Does any country in the world have a plane to equal the
Boeing jumbo jet, the Lockheed Tristar, or the Douglas Ten. 
If so, why dont 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 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 the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. 
Theyre right here on our streets in Toronto. Most of them,
unless theyre breaking Canadian laws, are getting American
dollars from ma and pa at home to spend up here. 
When the Americans get out of this bind, as they will, who
could blame 
them if they said to hell with the rest of the world. 
Let somebody else buy the bonds. 
Let somebody else build or repair foreign dams, or design
foreign buildings that wont shake apart in earthquakes. 
When the railways of France and 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 five thousand times when the 
Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. 
Can you name to me even one time when someone raced to the
help of the Americans in 
trouble? 
I dont think there was outside help even during the San
Francisco earthquake. 
Our neighbors have faced it alone. 
And Im one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them
kicked around. 
Theyll come out of this thing with their flag high, and when
they do, theyre entitled 
to thumb their noses at the lands that are gloating over
their present trouble. 
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 years disasters, with the year less than half over,
have taken it 
all, and nobody, but nobody, has helped. --