The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French, and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in Western 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 earth.

As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read the newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River, and Yangtse. Who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did.

They have helped control the floods on the Nile, Amazon, Ganges, and 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, Britian and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debt. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

Whe 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. I was there. I saw it.

When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, 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, Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent war- mongering Americans.

I'd like to see one of these countries that are gloating over the erosion  of the United States dollar, build its own airplanes.

Come on.... lets hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane equal to 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 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 and women 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 hell with the rest of the world". Let someone else buy the Israeli bonds, Let someone else build or repair foreign dams, or design foreign building that won't shake apart in earth quakes.


When the railroads of  France, Germany, and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad, and New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. I can name you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to 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 damn tired of hearing them kicked around. They will come out of this 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 isn't one of them. But their are many smug, self- righteous
Canadians. And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48 annual meeting in New Orleans this morning, that it was broke.

This years disasters.... with the year less than half over.... has taken it all, and nobody, but nobody.... has helped.