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. Boucher .Owner-Publisher
Emily Boucher .Local Editor
i
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at the postoffice1
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3. 1879.
_._
Nome, Alaska, Wednesday, December 1, 1948
I
U. S. LACKS IN A RCTIC AGRICULTURE
(Anchorage Daily Times)
New impetus for the United States to develop grains,
fruit sand vegetables capable of flourishing in latitudes
of extreme frigidity comes from a report issued by the
Russian embassy at Washington, D. C.
The Russian report claimed that Soviet experts have
made a major step toward solving the problem of food
supply for air bases established north of Arctic Circle.
The embassy’s weekly information bulletin said a
winter wheat crop is being harvested this year in north
ern Siberia which will yield from 16 to 26 bushels to the
acre. Fruit trees covering 45,000 Siberian acres are re
ported to be yielding plentifully in a land where fruit
trees were unknown a few years ago. Soviet experiment
also is c laimed to have developed a fast-growing potato
capable of producing in the Arctic areas.
The report from the embassy follows other informa
tion which has indicated an active program of experi
mentation in northern Siberia. Experimental farms dot
the vast reaches of Siberia and the meager information
coming out from behind the iron curtain hints that the
Russians are far ahead of the Americans in this line of
endeavor.
It was not so long ago that a member of Congress de
clared that Russia has developed 54 varieties of wheat
which can grow in the Arctic. The United States has
still to develop its first variety.
Instead of dotting the north with experimental farms,
the United States has confined its programs to two sta
tions—at Fairbanks and Matanuska. Indeed, these
programs are of such recent origin as Federal projects
that it is too soon to expect results.
The attitude of the Russians toward the Arctic agri
cultural problems has been consistently aggressive over
a period of years. It is in marked contrast to that of the
United States which was demonstrated within the last
year or two when the governor of Alaska called upon the
Secretary of Agriculture for the purpose of discussing
an agricultural program for the Territory.
“I am sorry, I won’t have time to consider a program
in Alaska now because I am about to leave for Mexico to
develop an agricultural program there,” the governor
was told.
Thus it seems that the United States gives Alaska an
inferior priority for attention on a problem which rates
top place for continuous Soviet attention.
Development of foodstuffs that can be produced in the
Arctic is important because it is from air bases within
the Arctic Circle that attacks against industrial centers
of the United States are expected to be launched if war
should occur.
The ability of the Arctic regions to grow food requir
ed for these bases would greatly simplify the problem of
supply.
The Russian claims regarding the development of
food crops suited for the northern regions carry both
hope and warning to the United States. Alaska is the
part of American territory that is nearest to Russia, and
the outpost from which attack from that direction would
have to bedefended or countered.
The lack of adequate transportation facilities in Alas
ka faces military experts with critical supply problems
if any substantial number of troops were based in the
area.
American emulation of the Russians in developing
food crops adapted to the northern climate would vastly
diminish the magnitude of this problem.
What Russian biological science has done, American
.science surely can duplicate. The result would be a ma
fcfl—dlMLi ■ i ■ ■ ■■ ■
THE HEIRLOOM
jor contribution not only to national security but to the
sorely needed peacetime development of Alaska.
WHERE’S RICHARD?
(Fairbanks News-Miner)
Mrs. Richard Morrow-Tait of Cambridge, England, is
flying around the world in a little airplane.
She is accompanied on this journey by a man named
Michael Townsend, referred to in the press dispatches
as her navigator.
Mrs. Morrow-Tait, so the story goes, learned to fly on
weekends. Neither she nor the reporters who have fol
lowed her progress since she and her navigator left Eng
land last August have been able to make it clear exactly
what she is trying to prove in flying around the world
in the British Proctor equivalent of a Piper Cub.
It can’t be to demonstrate that aviation has made the
world so small that even a woman can fly around it in a
little airplane.
The fact that she has a “navigator”—who most cer
tainly is also a licensed pilot—with her obviates that
distinction.
That a little airplane can fly around the world in lei
surely fashion has already been proved by a couple of
Americans, George Truman and Clifford Evans.
Mrs. Morrow-Tait stated in Japan that she wanted to
prove that she could fly from Hokkaido to Shemva, a
distance of 1778 miles, unescorted by planes of the U. S.
Air Force, the way Truman and Evans were.
The Air Force, of course, would not permit this, know
ing that the cost of a rescue search would be several
times the expense involved in sending a plane or two
afolt to keep a constant check on the position and safety
of the little British Proctor.
As it happened, Mrs. Morrow-Tait arrived at Shemya
with a dead radio and five gallons of gasoline, thereby
disproving her own contention that it was perfectly safe
to try the North Pacific hop all alone.
The objective of showing that anyone with a little air
plane of his own can take off and spend the summer va
cation flying the world—if that was in the mind of the
young woman—had already been nullified. In Calcutta,
Iidia, Mrs. Morrow-Tait and her navigator sat around
for seven weeks waiting for repair parts.
Up to this moment, Mrs. Morrow-Tait, while win
ning world-wide notoriety, has added little to the public
appraisal of aviation nad to the stature of women filers,
many of whom in war and peace have brought import
ant contributions to the air age.
She has, on the other hand, caused furrowed brows
among authorities of air forces throughout the world
who feared the possibility of loss of military planes and
pilots in search and rescue operations.
Mrs. Morrow-Tait has been besieged by questions
wherever she and her navigator have stopped to refuel.
But on question which nobody seems to have asked:
“Where’s Richard—Mr. Morrow-Tait.
Presumably, he is home in Cambridge, minding babv
Internation’l News
At A Glance —
(Continued from Page One*
Kurz Szekalla.
Gen. MacArthur stayed the exe
cution of Hideki Tojo and fix
! jther Japanese war lords penchng
1 appeals of two to the Supreme
Court of the U. S. American-occu
pied Southern Korea executed 55
more for acting in the Oct. 20 mu
tiny against ’.he new republic. The
i U. S. was reported backing a
United Nations resolution for with
drawal of American troops ir:m
Korea as soon as practicable.
Reporst of abortive conspiracies
came from Chile and Quatemala.
French coal miners went back to
work at the bidding of their com
munist leaders after weeks in
which everybody lost.
Communists in the two northern
Italian provinces of Trent and Al
to suffered crushing defeat in
elections.
A persistent fog fouled western
Europe again.
Winston Churchill, the British
war leader, turned 74—hale and
hear y.
Wednesday, December 1, 1943
Communists took over complete
control today of the Berlin City
Hall.
The United States, Britain and
France, which jointly occupy Ber
lin with Russia, served this notice
in the United Nations security
council efforts to mediate the Rus
sian blockade of the city:
“Tne three western powers can
not agree that .hey should be
bound to submit to all Soviet mea
sures which add to and intensify
the Soviet blockade or which in
terfere with the city administra
tion, while the Soviet remains un
committed to any restraint.”
Berlin City Hail is in the Rus
sian zone. The communists “elec
ted” their rump administration at
an apathetic mass meeting yes er
dny and announced ac ing mayor
Ferdinand Friedensburg o: the
elected Berlin government “has
been dismissed.” Police barred
him an.i other legal officials irom
their offices.
The communists acted before
Retimes of the three western
uats coo id vote Sunday lor a ne w
..gime. The communists and t.neir
Russian mas ers knew that a free
vote «ficr the months of starva
tion blockade and communist riot
ng wouid mean vote losses for the
minority Reds. The communists
proclaimed their rurnp govern
ments for all Berlin. It will apply
only to the Russian zone which
covers roughly about half the c tv
—as long as the western powers
remain in Berlin.
Communists in China thundered
down upon jittery Nanking. Two
nationalist army groups tried
establish a new defense line about
100 miles from the capital. The
quarter million nationalists a: by
passed Suchow apparently were
being prodded into moving s .1 i _
to try and rescue the trapped IC n
army group of 140,000 men near
Suhuien.
Nationalist armies were separa. 1
into three pockets and threatened
with destruction. The commune is
were superior numerically.
Against this background,
Chiang Kai-Shek flew to Wash ni -
ton to plead for more help. F i -
dent Truman and secretary
state Marshall apparently h v^
concluded that any aid that wau- 1
involve this country deeply in
Chinese war is out of the quesd -n.
American authorities appe ar '•»
mvo 1 :!e confidence in tie ah -"