THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome, Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 618
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR
W. A. and EMILY BOUCHER.Editors
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at the postoffie*
at Nome. Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Monday, January 6, 1947
Thinking Ahead — Alaska Style
(By George Sundborg)
(General Manager Alaska Devolepment Board)
IT IS ONLY through foresight that it is possible
for the individual to live in Alaska. The foresight may
not be his own. But someone must have planned in the
spring, and made the arrangements in the summer, for
winter’s housing, heat, food, clothing and transporta
tion.
Individual foresight is part of the tradition of the
North. The prospector, trapper, fisherman, trader, and
the trails traveler of an earlier day, either thought
ahead or perished.
Alaska’s industries of today also must plan ahead in
order to operate efficiently. The planning in most cases
is not from month to month, but rather in terms of years
or decades. Back of next season’s gold dredging opera
tion, for example, lie years of thought and effort in pros
pecting, staking out ground, building roads and camps,
bringing in water, stripping overburden, driving thaw
points, constructing dredges, having supplies and re
placement parts ready, and performing the thousand
and one tasks going toward a successful operation. Only
after the whole series of plans are made and carried into
action is there any realization on the investment. Only
then can there be a clean-up day.
The operation of a lode mine, or of a salmon cannery,
cold storage plant, lumber mill, toy factory, farm or
service establishment differs in its details from the op
eration of a placer show. But all successful operations in
industry are alike in that much thought and effort—and
usually the elapse of time—take place before there is a
payoff.
As individuals, and as enterprisers in industry or
business, Alaskans are accustomed to thinking ahead.
Whether they admit it or not, they are planners.
We have numerous examples throughout the Terri
tory, however, that in organizing our community ef
forts, as distinguished from individual or business ones,
Alaskans lack some of this same foresight. Our munici
pal facilities lag behind the urgent need for them. Vir
tually every city in Alaska is up against a power short
age. Housing has always been inadequate. Some of our
communities, though established for many years, are
still without satisfactory water or sewerage systems.
We seem always to be pressed desperately to catch up
with situations already on top of us. Under such cir
cumstances, much of our effort is bound to be wasteful
an dcostly. It isn’t al lour fault, of course, and some of
our problems will always be unforeseen but the results
are not what they would be if we had taken thought yes
terday of today’s needs.
The responsibility of forethought which we somehow
fail to assume as residents of communities seems lack
ing too in our behavior as citizens of a Territory. Who
is giving serious thought today to the kind of Alaska we
want to have in 1960? Without such forethought, and
without earnest striving to achieve definite goals de
termined in advance, Alaskans are going to be as over
whelmed then with the pressing problems of 1960 (for
which preparation could be made in advance) as they
are in 1946 with the messes resulting from our short
comings as planners in years past.
The fact is that for a city or for a Territory to think
ahead is no more difficult, and in many respects is sim
pler and more certain of results, than for individuals
or companies to do so.
The City of Anchorage is contemplating the creation
of a planning commission to carry forward the develop
THOSE TROUBLE SPOTS !
7 1
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ment program for this municipality. The Territory is
depending on the Alaska Development Board and our
efforts are concentrated on that job.
During the past year the board has conducted a vig
orous program, parti of it aimed at planning for new or
improved economic enterprises and part at preventing
the perpetuation of obstacles or creation of new obsta
cles that impede development.
In the first group comes the board’s activity in en
! couraging the establishment of new industries in the
Territory, such as pulp, gypsum, limestone quarrying,
creosoting, woodworking, tourist lodges, and other en
terprises.
'In the second group comes the board’s activity in re
sisting the proposed increases in steamship freight
rates, removing governmental red tape that restricts the
use of Alaska’s natural resources, overcoming special
problems of individuals and firms in obtaining surplus
property, supplies or other assistance.
The payoff from this effort may take years to realize.
It is in the future—the future which inevitably becomes
the present.
There is a great debt all of us owe to the past. Without
the thought and toil of the men of ages past, we would
not be able to live comfortably as we do in this pioneer
country. There is only one way in which we can dis
charge this debt. That is by repaying it to the future—
by doing our utmost intelligently and with foresight, to
make Alaska a better and more satisfying place in which
our children and our children’s children will live.
Progress In Japan
A.
(New York Times)
I
Of all the defeated Axis Powers,
Japan seems to be showing signs
of the most rapid recovery. The
Tokyo Government has just an- i
nounced that the national rice ra
tion will be raised immediately to:
I its pre-war level. Two handfuls of
rice a day per person would not
represent abundance to an Ameri
can housewife, but in Japan this
is equivalent to the difference be
tween slow starvation and surviv
al.
The Japanese food crisis, which
reached its height in July and has
[ compelled the Allies to import
600000 tons of supplies in the last
ten months, is not yet ended.
Shortages still exist in many sta
ple lines and importation will have
to continue. But if the people can
get the rice they need, the worst
is over. It forms their basic diet.
They can live and work, if neces
sary, almost entirely on rice and
fish. The rice crop this year has
reached about the level produced
before the war and, under Allied
encouragement, thie fishing indus
try also is reviving.
A number of reasons suggest
themselves for this improved out
look, some of them indigenous to
Japan and her population, some in
the nature of the Allied occupa
tion. The Japanese are thrifty and
industrious, and do not seem to
have been paralyzed psychologic
ally by defeat. Though strenuous
efforts had been made by the old
regime to industrialize the nation,
its basic economy remained agri
cultural. The industrial plant it
did possess was not as severely
damaged as that of Germany. The
home islands have not been loot
ed, as Manchuria and the Russian
zone in Germany were. A subsist
ence level far below that required
in Germany, Austria, or even
Italy, is accepted as normal in
Japan.
Our occupation has been benefi
cial to the Japanese. General Mac
Arthur isn admired and obeyed.
Under a single head, our occupa
tion authorities can act for tne
whole country. The occupat.or^,
machinery fills a void which
would have existed in a regiment
ed nation, with its entire political
system thrown into confusion and
its social order turned topsy-turvy.
Recovery is not hampered by her
metically sealed zones of occupa
tion, as in Germany and Austria,
nor by the harsh exactions ol' to
talitarian rule imposed by the
Russians on their puppet states,
^et a profound economic revolu
tion is going on in Japan, too. T.ie
family trust holdings which dom
inated all business have been abol^
ished. Extensive land and tenant
debt reforms are underway. In
dustry is being restored sufficient
ly to fill many home needs and
permit some export. All recent ob
servers in Japan, especially those
who have seen Korea, where ideo
logical division has produced only
lethargy and hopelessness, com
ment on the confident and diligent
determination of the Japanese
I people to restore order and dm
, themselves out of the morass of
! defeat.
i _
How Everybody
Can Gain
(Rocky Mountain News)
This country has paid a fearful
i price for the industrial warfare *
waged since VJ-Day.
Official government statistics
I show that, in the first nine months
i of this year, strikes caused a di
1 rect loss of 98,225,000 mandays
; working time.
That was nearly three times the
J direct loss of work because of
strikes in all of 1945; nearly four
i times in all of 1937, a year of what
then seemed great industrial tivjl
moil.
And the government’s figures do
not begin to tell the whole story.
Nobody knows how many mil
lions of man-days have been lost
! indirectly this year because
I strike-bound, bottle-neck plants
did not produce the materials and
supplies needed to keep other
plants and industries in ful lopera
tion. But there is every reason to
: believe that-the indirect loss has
! been far greater than the direct.
I What is certain is that the coun-^.
try faces disaster if industrial war
fare continues.
And that is why Basil Manly,
i who has studied the problems of
labor and industry for many years
I has proposed a voluntary agree
ment to make 1947 a year of in
dustrial armistice. jl
I Under the plan he suggests, ar
j tificial wage and price controls
| would be removed. Industry would
, undertake to maintain full pro
; duction and full employment
throughout the year, and to estab
lish machinery for prompt, fair
j adjustment of individual griev
! ances.
I
Managements and unions would
agree to arbitrate all issues not
quickly settled by negotiations, *
and to avoid attempts to change
their respective status as regards
union recognition, the closed shop
and similar issues. Labor would
undertake to prevent outlaw
strikes and slowdowns. Provision
would be made for wage readjust
ments in harmony with cost-of
living changes.
We believe that such an armis
tice would benefit every man, wo- ^
man and child in the United
States. A year of peace between
industry and labor can mean pros*^
perity for all—higher living stand
ards for workers, makets for every
usemul product the factories and
farms can provide.