THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday. Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome. Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 618
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W. A. and EMILY BOUCHER.Editors
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at the postoffice
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Wednesday, July 23, 1947
Sixty Million Jobs Plus
(The Rocky Mountain News)
A FEW YEARS AGO Henry Wallace and others be
gan talking about 60 million jobs as America’s postwar
full-employment goal.
If this goal was to be reached by 1950, they said, the i
government must make proper plans for management
of the national economy. Mr. Wallace wrote a book
about the plans he considered essential.
Well, the Census Bureau now reports that last month
—June, 1947, the goal was passed. There were 60,055,
000 Americans in civilian jobs, and 1,400,000 more were
employed in the armed services. Civilian employment
was 1,730,000 higher than in May, 1947; about 3,700,000
higher than in June, 1946.
Beating the Wallace goal three years ahead of the
Wallace schedule is quite an achievement. But don’t ex
pect the great economic thinkers of the Wallace school
to be happy about it. It wasn’t done according to their
plans. In fact, it was done in spite of their many warn
ings, over the last two years, that vast unemployment
was about to hit.
So now they’ll say that the 60,055,000 jobs result
from an unhealthy boom. They’ll point to the way prices
have gone up since government controls came off.
To be sure, that record-smashing job total does not
justify complacency.
There are dangers to be avoided. There is need for
great wisdom in the policies of government and busi
ness. But if prices have risen, so have the hourly wage
rates and weekly earnings. By comparison with any
other country, the United States is in remarkably good
shape.
There is a country—much admired by Mr. Wallace
and his followers—where government planning and
management of the national economy is complete. That|
country, Russia, probably has even “fuller” employ
ment than we do.
People there are compelled to work. Wages and
prices are tightly controlled by the Soviet government.
There are no “profit-greedy” corporations to “rob” the
workers. So, let’s see how well off those Russian work
ers are.
The U. S. Labor Department has just issued an offi- <
cial study of Soviet prices and wages two years after
the war.
It says that in Moscow, wages have gone up 25 per
cent, average food prices 166 per cent, since last Sep
tember. The weekly wage of an average Soviet worker
will buy only 23 loaves of bread, or 17 pounds of sugar,
or 16 quarts of milk, or less than 10 pounds of beef, or
four pounds of butter.
The living standard of the average American worker,
deprived though he is of Wallace-style government
planning, is almost 10 times as high as that of his Rus
sian counterpart. The average American factory worker
can buy with his present weekly wage at least 390
loaves of bread, or 500 pounds of sugar, or 275 quarts of
milk, or 82 pounds of beef, or 70 pounds of putter.
Thus the employment picture, and some light on
comparative purchasing power, but—
Is America Equal To This Challenge?
(The Denver Post)
NINE EMPTY CHAIRS at the Paris conference on
European cooperation symbolize what appears to be the
final shattering, at least for the present, of the One
World dream. It was a great dream molded of the finest
aspirations of mankind. But, like much of such stuff, it
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was shaped from illusion—in its case the never substan-i
tial belief that Russia would co-operate.
From the outset, the hard logic of reality argued
against faith in Russian collaboration for the building of
One World. Everything in the history and nature of
Soviet power contradicted such a hope. But we believed
in it because of our trust in a common humaneness of
purpose. And we continued to believe it in spite of re
peated dousings with the icy water of fact.
There will be many who are loath to rub the sands
from their eyes, but even Henry Wallace, in his halting
indorsement of the Marshall plan, is beginning to show
signs of consciousness.
Fortunately, we are not awakening to despair. Rather
we are striding forth on the one path which yet may
lead to a free and peaceful world. In our compromises
with Russian totalitarianism we were embracing con
tradictions which inevitably would have led to a spread
ing suffocation of liberty and finally to war. Now, in the
constructive principles of the Marshall program, we are
promising Europe the one kind of support which can
halt this final drift.
Close followers of foreign policy are much excited
by an analysis of “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” in
the July issue of Foreign Affairs quarterly. The article
is attributed to “Mister X,” whose anonymity and au
thority suggest he is a highly placed official of the state
department. i
The author—believed to be George. Kennan, the de
partment’s top adviser on long-range policy—summar
izes our hope of success in the struggle with totalitar
ianism in these sensible words:
It is ... a question of the degree to which the United
States can create among the peoples of the world gen
erally the impression of a country which knows what it
wants, which is coping successfully with the problems
of its internal life and with the responsibilities of a
world power, and which has the spiritual vitality cap
able of holding its own among the major ideological
currents of the time. To the extent that such an impres
sion can be created and maintained, the aims of Russian
Communism must appear sterile and quixotic, the
hopes and enthusiams .of Moscow’s supporters must
wane, and added strain must be imposed on the Krem-i
lin’s foreign policies ...”
In those words is perhaps the clearest expression
ever given of the challenge which today faces the
United States. The question we must answer is whether
our people can exercise the unity and strength of pur
pose to make effective use of our unequaled national
power. That is the test. Heaven grant we are equal to it!
Why Food Prices Are High
<By Graham Patterson >
Publisher of Farm Journal, Wash
ington Square, Philadelphia, Pa.
People are complaining on ev
ery hand of the high cost of living.
And rightly so. Practically every
%
thing costs more than it did a few
years ago. One of the principal fac
tors responsible for current high
prices of goods is the greatly in
creased wages now being paid in
nearly every field of industry.
The public has some measure of
control by its purchases—that is,
it can do without some product*
when it feels the price is too nigh.
But no one can do without food.
Food is basic. A man must eat
to live. So when food costs are up,
the public is more or less helpless.
Before the war, 19c of the con
sumer’s dollar went for food—
probably too low a proportion for
the good of agriculture and the
nation. During the war, this figure
went up to 27c; recent figures :n
dicate that food now takes 43c of
the consumer’s dollar.
You may well ask: “Why?”
Food, like everything else, costs
more to produce today because of
the higher wages paid farm labor,
greatly increased costs for feed,
fertilizers and the many other
“tools” the farmer needs in the
work. Little can be done about
these causes. But there is another
reason for today’s high food prices
—and one that something can be
done about. That is the blundering
buying methods used by the Fed
eral Administration in its huge
purchases of food. #
Take corn, as an example. We
produce annually three billion
bushels of corn. Of this, approxi
mately 80 per cent remains in the
county where it is grown, to be
used as food for livestock and
other purposes. Of the remaining
20 per cent, half remains in the
state where it is produced. Th;s
leaves 300 million bushels of com
for interstate and international
commerce—an average of 25
million bushels per month.
Of this remainder, our own
Government is buying, for relief
and other purposes, approximately
J5 million bushels monthly--on
regular schedule. This leaves only
10 million bushels—far below nor
mal—for the market.
Furthermore, the Government’s
purchasing plans are known, and
speculators are quick to take ad
vantage of this and buy up what
corn is available. The result is to
force the price of corn to unrea
sonable heights, affecting no; only
the Administration and the 10 mil
lion bushels available for the pub
lic, but also the price of the entire
three billion bushel crop. The
price of feed for chickens, pigs
and cattle is so high that hundreds
of thousands of farmers cannot af
ford to raise such livestock lor
sale. This has created scarcities in
these food items, which in ‘.urn,
have further raised the price of
the available supply.
Mounting food costs have led 1o
wage increase demands which add
to the cost of other commodities.
With 43c of the consumer’s dol
lar going for food, the average cit
izen is unable to buy many pro
ducts he wants and needs. This
curtailed buying power can lead
to unemployment in one field after
another and in time upset our en
tire national economy.
A partial solution to the prob
lem of high food prices would be a
change in the Administration’s
unwise buying tactics. It announc
es its plans 60 days ahead of the
program to buy millions of bush
els of corn each month. With all
risk thus eliminated, speculators
are free to buy up all available
corn—and the public pays the bill
in higher food costs. If the Admin
istration would stay out of. the
market for a few weeks, or keep
its purchasing plans to itself, this
situation could not exist. Prices
would ease and the effect would
be • spread over our entire econ
omy.
It seems ridiculous for the gov
ernment to ask industry arbitrar
ily to reduce prices, yet at the
same time to help keep prices up
(Continued on Page Four)