So … what did change in this election?
As a Canadian, I am old enough to remember the war in Vietnam and the cost to America in lives, dollars and world reputation. When the US pulled out of Vietnam in June of 1973, world opinion of the America could not have been at a lower point. International editorials were scathing and unsparing in their criticism. Racial strife boiled over in major cities like Detroit and Los Angeles. On top of that, the US dollar had fallen 41% in the previous two years against European currencies. It was a bleak time in America.
On June 5th of 1973, a well know Canadian radio commentator in Canada who worked for a station CFRB in Toronto, made a remarkable public broadcast in praise of America’s role in the world. His name was Gordon Sinclair. And those of us who followed his career remember him mostly as a grumpy old man: something bad to say about everything, pretty much. If I close my eyes I can still see that scowling, bulldog face and his trademark loud bow tie.
So no one could have been more surprised to hear than us what he had to say that day. No one more surprised, unless of course, you were an American. He wrote the piece that morning in about half an hour. He gave it live over radio 15 minutes later, unedited. Although some of the references are dated and the world’s landscape has changed since 1973, that address is worth remembering in our day when so much change is afoot regardless of who takes office. So what follows below is the full transcript, under it’s original title, given as I remember it, in Sinclair’s signature raspy voice and clipped, cryptic delivery.
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 earth.
As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtse. Who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did.
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 French 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. I was there. I saw it.
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. 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 107? 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 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 everyone to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, 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 h**l with the rest of the world'. Let someone else buy the Israel 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 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 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 am one Canadian who is d****d 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 nose 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.
June 05, 1973
This address was repeated on radio stations across America as well as in thousands of public venues, including the US Senate. As recently as last year I heard fragments of it pop up in a political speech. But of lesser known significance, Sinclair waived all royalty rights to published and recorded versions of the address and gave all the proceeds to the US Red Cross, a number that totaled in the millions. Gordon Sinclair died on May 17th, 1984. All of Canada was lessened by his loss.
By the time you are likely to have read this, the election will be over. And maybe you are pleased with the outcome or worried. But I think the future for us is a good one. Because although 25 years have passed, the remarkable spirit reflected in Sinclair’s address is still very much at the heart of American life. And that is one very good reason no matter how this election turned out, I think we should all be very proud that it is. As a Canadian, I know I am. And may God bless the United States of America.
… just thinkling
