From my personal journal. This seems relevant today.

September 24, 1979

I write of Cambodia.

It was not easy to read. It ends, “It has happened again” and I can only agree. Yet “it” was put off to page 3 of the Globe. Yet if I were to ask men on the street about it, they would not know, or care.

There are no refugees from Cambodia. There are none, at least, in America. There is no echo of a holocaust. There is nothing but a story on page 3 of the Globe and a nation that is dead.

Could it happen in America? No, I say, and then I turn to “Dear Abby” today to read that the people who wrote were 200-to-1 in favor of letting the boat people die. They chose to let “America First”…and the rest of the world be damned. And so, instead, we are all damned.

It could happen here. It “could not” happen in Germany in the 1930s. It “could not” happen in the 1970’s, not even in Africa or Southeast Asia. But instead of acting, we classify: these are “human rights violations” and so we “boycott” and “debate.”
Debate for me, describe for me, educate me: what is worth the price of a human life? Since when were justice and humanity cast aside in the name of “nationalism?”

Where, indeed, is God?

Where, indeed, am I?

Where, please someone tell me, is Man?

___

FIRST DRAFT:

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NOT SENT
September 24, 1979

Dear Abby:

I read today’s column (about the boat people) and was instantly enraged. If the people of the United States feel, 200-to-1, that the boat people should be left to die, then I realize how terrible a world we live in.

I am a 1979 high school graduate, about to enter college (January) and, now on my own completely, I am aware of the costs of survival in this country for someone who is inexperince at life: forget the idea if you don’t know the language or customs. I see the problems ahead for the boat people; and in addition to unavoidable culture barriers, they must be subjected to animosity by the people of what was once called the greatest nation in the world. Certainly, the “open arms” of the American people were not open to every people. The Irish, for example, were sunjected to hostility, and many Americans are resented merely for their heritage even today. Yet many, many people were willing to extend help in the past and, if we are to survive, that same help will be extended in the future.

Is it a “Communist plot” to destroy this country? I, for one, doubt it. Perhaps it is: now that we have seen the horror of Cambodia, in the shadow of Hitler’s own efforts though in a different direction, perhaps the people of America are smiling at the prospect of eliminating their fellow men who are of a different color or race,or religious or political belief. If we can continue to scream horror at “human rights violations” in other nations, what can we scream at ourselves for even considering the thought of allowing human beings to die by the hundreds on the open sea?

If I am wrong, and the 200-to-1 majority is right, then I will be the first to deny that I am, not just NOT “American First” as implied in your column, not even an American. I will gladly deny my own heritage if that means denying inhumanity and selfishness without limit.

If the boat people are to be sent to Alaska, or “where they can get raw fish”, then I will be the first in line to lead the way for them. If the people of some nation are to be taken down like flies by a Hitler or a Khmer Rouge… then I will gladly surrender my pacifist nature and fight to my own death such a Holocaust.
Mark J. Welch

___

Second Draft:

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(NOT SENT)

September 24, 1979

“Dear Abby:”

I read today’s column and was infuriated. I will answer in anger each of the comments of those participating in the 200-to-1 majority.

If the “boat people” should be sterilized, why should we not sterilize all those who are less than perfect Americans? Indeed, save time, and just kill them off. It almost worked for Hitler.

If we are wasting taxpayers’ money by saving human lives, then I suppose we might as well stop paying taxes. If a human life is as I was taught the most precious thing in this world, then nothing else deserves less attention. And I wait for the day that this reader from El Paso is forced through fate to enter a foreign lifestyle filled with hostility like his own. Certainly the boat people are not risking their lives on the open sea because the situation behind them was mildly uncomfortable.

It is wonderful that other nations can be “practical.” Again, everyone was practical in the years before World War II. They did not scream until their own nation was hurt, and then everyone else was too “practical.” If to follow my emotions in saving lives and giving opportunity to others is wrong, then so was my assistance to a senior citizen or my “hello” on the street.

If the boat people are a Communist plot, then I welcome the chance to overcome it. Can we not agree that to send people away from their own land into the sea is evil? Then how much less evil is it to watch as they die? I will gladly suf- fer the disease of humanity and compassion.

And again, when the boat people, like flies, are costing us money, we object. I will only hope that when the same writer is suffering and needs food or shelter, he will have succeeded in his earlier days in denying the opportunity for food and shelter.

And if I pick up a hitchhiker — attractive or ugly — who would die without me, and a dozen more in common predicament pop up, I will gladly be cramped uncomfortably.

If being an American First means that we cannot be human beings as well, then I am not an American First. But if being an American First means that I can offer my help and my heart, then I thank God I am such. If we will deny the boat people, then let me chisel off the words of the Statue of Liberty and then take my own boat in search of human beings.

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