American service

[Guest guest]

There are different kinds of humanitrian service. For those who think

America is just the land of the greedy and materialistic:

 

<<THIS IS FROM A CANADIAN NEWSPAPER

 

>Fwd: Fw: AMERICA

 

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. 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.

 

 

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. "