m NOME NUGGET
OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS_
VOL. L. No. 36 NOME, ALASKA, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 1948 PER COPY — 15c
NEWS IN BRIEF
YAKIMA, Two teen-age boys
were killed yesterday in a two-car
collision near here. The dead, both
of Wiley City, Wash., were identi
fied as Lindal Havron, 18, and
William Lee Roberts, 16.
SEATTLE, (iP)—A railroad con
struction worker, Virgil C. Coke
ley, 31, of Tacoma, was electrocut
ed Monday. Coroner John P. Brill,
Jr., said a wire being strung by the
crew came in contact with a high
tension wire and dropped on
Cokeley’s head.
OMAHA, (/P)—Fire swept thru
a rest home here yesterday taking
the lives of five elderly persons.
SAN FRANCISCO, (/P)—A son
was born Monday to Mrs. Nancy
Bridges, wife of CIO longshore
leader Harry Bridges.
NANKING, (/P)—K. P. S. Ken
non, foreign secretary of India,
told the Chinese Central News
agency yesterday his country re
gards Tibet as an “autonomous re
gion under the sovereignty of
China.” Mennon said he foresaw
no serious problem in working out
on agreement on Tibet, which was
under discussion between the Chi
nese and British prior to the
granting of independence to India.
MANILA (>P)—A supplementary
budget outlay of $1,700,000 for the
military training of 13,000 young
Filipinos this year was approved
by the House appropriations com
mittee yesterday. Training would
begin June 1.
The United States would furn
ish military equipment, ammuni
tion and other supplies under the
military assistance pact.
JUNEAU, (iP) — Gov. Ernest
Gruening had the initial link to
day in the proposed Fairbanks to
Seattle railroad.
It was a piece of 280-pound rail
brought to Juneau by members of
the university of Washington re
serve officers training corps.
Ine rail is the “gift” of the Seat
tle chamber of commerce.
The trainees arrived yesterday
and were guests at a party given
last night by the governor.
The return cruise was to get un
der way today by way of Wran
gell and Ketchikan.
LOS ANGELES, (/P) — It was
.nearly three years before actress
Lauren Bacall claimed her $2,300
in government bonds.
They’d been held at the county
clerk’s office for her since she was
a minor, by court direction, but
she could have gotten them at any
time since May 21, 1945, when she
was married to Humphrey Bogart.
"This is the first day I’ve really
had time to come in,” she said
when she called for the bonds yes
terday.
PEIPING, (IP)—All three news
papers at Paoting, city of 120,000
and the capital of Hopeh province,
have shut down. Publishers ex
plained it wasn’t worth while to
continue publication because their
maximum profit was limited to
20,000,000 Chinese dollars a
month.
. That’s only $40, U. S. money.
Tax Slash Bill
Certain To Pass
WASHINGTON, (/P) — The
House ways and means committee
voted 18 to 5 today to accept the
$4,800,000,000 income tax-cutting
bill passed by the Senate.
The original tax bill passed by
the House had called for a cut of
$6,500,000,000.
The committee action is subject
to House approval. It virtually as
sures that the Senate bill will go
to the White House without
change.
House speaker Martin (R.-Mass.)
previously has predicted the House
will approve the measure by a
“more than three to one” vote and
send it to President Truman’s
desk.
Chairman Knutson iR.-Minn.)
author of the tax-slashing legisla
tion, told reporters:
“I hope the President will fall
in line with the popular demand
for tax reduction, and will not
veto the bill. If he does veto it, he
is sure to be overridden.”
The Senate passed the bill 78 to
11.
“The tax cut is certain. The veto
bill will be overridden,” Speaker
Martin said.
World Politics
At A Glance
i _
(By The Associated Press)
Italy rejected yesterday the Yu
goslav offer to swap Trieste for
the Italian town of Gorizia to the
north.
Trieste, of course, is interna
tional territory and is not Yugo
slavia’s to barter. The proposal of
the United States, Great Britain
and France to return Trieste to
Italy was believed adverse to the
Italian communists, bidding for
supreme power in the April 18th
elections.
A foreign office spokesman
said:
“It is clear that Italy cannot ac
cept the separation of a part of
Italian flesh bartered for another1
part of Italian flesh.”
The Italian answer came only a
few hours after great throngs
roaring “Viva Trieste” welcomed
Premier Alcide *de Gasperi and
foreign minister Count Carlo Sfor
za back to Rome.
The spokesman emphasized that!
the Italian government had re
ceived no official word of the re
ported proposal regarding Gorizia.
He said he was speaking entirely
on the basis of press reports.
Asked what other hopes of
treaty revision there was in re
gard to the Italian colonies, the
spokesman said:
“On the part of France, the the
sis has been confirmed in the most
absolute manner that she wishes
to give Italy administration of i
Eritrea, Somaliland and Libya.”
French officials said foreign
minister Georges Bidault and per-j
haps British foreign secretary Er
nest Bevin would go to Washing
ton next month to confer with
Secretary of State Marshall. How-|
ever, a British foreign office
spokesman denied the report. The;
French sources said the chief top-1
(Continued on Page Four)
Rep. Peden Wants
Alaska Statehood
Bill Passed Quickly
_ •
((iP) Special Washington Service*
WASHINGTON, (A5) — It is of
the utmost national importance
that Congress quickly approve a
bill to give Alaska statehood, Rep.
Peden (D.-Okla.) said yetserdav.
Statehood is necessary for both
defense and for development of
vast ijatural resources in that area,
he told a reporter. He added:
“We will never develop Alaska,
however, until we get people to
go there and settle. And the only
way to get them there is to give
them a voiec in the government
and the right to own property.”
There is a need to build thriving
cities, highways, airports and “all
that goes with the development of
states,” he said.
He recalled that development of
large tracts in the western part of
the United States was more rapid
after those areas became states.
“Orderly development of Alas
ka is absolutely dependent upon
Statehood,” he said. “People who
go there are under too many han
dicaps now. These include a U. S.
federal government ownership or
control of much of the land and
the inability of a citizen to partici
pate in the affairs of a state gov
ernment.”
Stop-Communism
Fight At A Glance
(By The Associated Press)
Russia was on fresh notice to
day that the United States means
business in its stop-communism
stand.
The White House announcement
that the army, rather than the
state department, will be in con
trol indefinitely of the American
sectors of Germany, Austria and
Trieste was regarded as strength
ening some of the most important
lines to be held against Soviet ex
pansion.
The curt counter-boycott by the
U. S., French and British against
Russia’s walkout of the Allied con
trol council in Berlin showed the
Soviets they will have a fight if
they want to force the western
powers from the German capital.
Prestige is at stake.
Other signs were prospects in
Washington of more billions being
poured into the national defense
bill, growing support for a peace
time draft of unmarried men up to
27 and fading opposition to the
$6,205,000,000 grants for Western
E u r ope, Greece, Turkey and
China.
Yugoslavia backed out of her
tentative offer to allow Italy to
have Trieste if Yugoslayia were
given Italian Gorizia. The Italians
had spurned the offer since Tri
este is not Yugoslavia’s but inter
national territory. The Yugoslav;
foreign ministry spoke of a “mis- (
understanding” to its trial balloon.
A Russian assertion that France
had granted rights on French mili
tary and air bases to the United
States was termed absurd in Paris.
The Greek foreign office said
the guerrillas are training im
(Continued on Page Three)
Defense Heads In
Secret Meeting
WASHINGTON, 4/P)—1The Sen
ate armed services committee
swung its weight yesterday behind
President Truman’s plea for quick
steps to build up America’s mili
tary forces.
Chairman Gurney <R.-S. D.) re
ported that 10 of the committee’s
13 members already are convinced
both a limited draft and universal
military training have become an
“absolute necessity.”
Gurney and nine of his col
leagues were the only Senators
present during a 50-minute meet
ing behind locked doors with sec
retary of state Marshall, secretary
of defense Forrestal and secretary
of army Royall. The group includ
ed Senator Morse of Oregon.
Most of what the three secre
taries said remained cloaked in
complete secrecy. But Gurney did
report when the session broke up
late Monday:
1. The United States has drawn
no line, and does not intend to
draw one, as the final limit for
Russian expansion.
2. There was a great deal of
general, rather than specific, dis
cussion of the “generally critical
and more progressively serious
situation in Europe.”
“It is my firm belief that the
committee—those that were here—
left the meeting feeling there is
an absolute necessity for quick
passage of both (the draft and
UMT> measures,” Gurney declar
ed.
Coal Miners Reject
Government Offer
WASHINGTON, (/P> — The
United Mine workers yesterday
flatly rejected a government pro
posal for ending the nine-day-old
soft coal strike.
The rejection was made in a let
ter to Cyrus S. Ching, federal con
ciliation chief, by the three-man
UMW committee which received
the government offer Monday.
John L. Lewis, UMW president,
did not sign the rejection person
ally.
The committee termed the gov
ernment proposal “grotesque.”
Ching’s proposal, which was ac
cepted “reluctantly” by the mine
operators Monday, called for cre
ation of a fact-finding board to in
vestigate the dispute over miners’
pensions that touched off the
walkouts.
However, Lewis would have to
send the miners back to work be
fore the plan would go into effect, i
The UMW committee advised j
Ching it felt the proposal was
made to “aid the coal operators,
who have dishonored their (work)
agreement and to further defraud
the beneficiaries of the welfare
fund.”
Therefore, they said, they could
not recommend its acceptance by
the mine workers.
The welfare fund to which the
committee referred was set up in
the work contract signed by Lewis
and the operators last year.
Ching had told reporters after
the offer was made that a formal
Continued on Page Three
House Will Not
Fight Aid Bill
WASHINGTON, 4^;—Prospects
of a House fight to cut the $6,205,
000,000 foreign aid bill faded to
day. As the measure to pit Ameri
can billions and military help
against communism in China and
part of Europe rolled into a sec
ond day’s debate, Rep. Jonkman
iR.-Mich.) told a reporter he is for
the full amount. *
In the past, Jonkman has led
battles to slash foreign aid pro
grams. He opposed them, he said,
because he was against letting the
state department handle business
matters.
But the new program, he said,
provides for an administrator free
of state department control.
Rep. Lawrence H. Smith (,R.
Wis.>, who teamed up with Jonk
man for cuts in other bills, said he
hasn’t made up his mind on this
one.
But members of the foreign af
fairs committee noted that Smith
had made no effort to trim the
program while the committee was
working on it. Both Smith and
Jonkman are committee members,
and both were scheduled for
speeches during today’s debate.
Only Two Survive
C-47 Plane Crash
In Washington
WOODLAND, Wash., </P) — A
tragic story of how death slowly
extended an icy hand against most
of the eight men who perished in
a C-47 plane crash Sunday came
today from the isolated mountain
crash scene.
Two men—one with a broken
leg — survived miraculously to
bring from the southwest Wash
ington mountain area yesterday
afternoon the first word of their
fate.
Two others, alive when the pair
left the scene, had lost the battle
for survival in the snow-covered
wilds before rescuers arrived last
night. The survivors said only two
of the 10 aboard were killed out
right.
Bodies of the eight were to be
brought today from the area where
the California-to-Portland trans
port plane crashed.
Survivors were Major John B.
Harding, Portland, the pilot and
Pfc. John M. Belmonte, East Bos
ton, Mass. They are in the Barnes
G e n e r al hospital, Vancouver,
Wash. All aboard but two have
been identified.
The two survivors had crawled
through several miles of deep
snow in the timbered wilderness—
the pilot with a broken leg—to
reach a cabin Monday night. The
next morning they called to log
gers working nearby.
Their rescue was the first clue
to the whereabouts of the military
plane that has vanished Sunday
afternoon during a torrential rain
storm. The transport was ap
proaching Portland air base for a
landing after a flight from Fair
field-Suisun base, Colifornia.
Bodies of the others were found
last night by searchers. Four were
(Continued on Pag\ Seven)