A Cry for Help

Americans sometimes seem almost eager to believe the most dismal stories about themselves, particularly stories of bad Samaritanism, of cries for help going ignored by an alienated citizenry. Last week the Associated Press sent out on its wires a lugubrious tale about a Wyoming motorist who was found in his car by the side of the road, shot dead with his own .22 pistol. His suicide note sounded desperate: "I have been waiting eleven hours for someone to stop. I can't stand the cold any longer and they just keep passing me by." The item was immediately picked up by the press, radio and television stations and exhibited as a thorn in the national conscience. Walter Cronkite saved it for his finale on the evening news. When he came to his usual closing line, "That's the way it is on February 6..." he seemed to be saying, "That's the way Americans are."

Well, not quite. With some further checking, police determined that the man's car had stopped only a mile from a gas station, on a chilly but sunny day. Motorists who had passed by the same spot only two hours earlier swore that the car wasn't there. The sheriff's office concluded, "He was off his nut." The amended story was just as sad, but at least it offered a reprieve from the country's verdict on itself.

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