the nome Nugget
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome. Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. o. Box 818
jl»S0 PEN MONTH _>184)0 A YEAR
W. A. and EMILY BOUCHER .Editors
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at
iJrf..*!? at Nome» Alaska, under the Act of
March 3, 1879.
__Wednesday, July 4,1945
PROBLEM OR OPPORTUNITY
An Independence Day Thought for our
returning veterans:
At the rate of more than 100,000 a
month, young men from the Armed
Services are returning to civilian life.
Eventually over 11,000,000 of our na
tion’s finest will be back with us.
Absorbing these men into the econo
mic life of the nation is going to present
difficulties. Adjustments and rearrange
ments will have to be made and help and
encouragement offered.
But the problem part of this national
readjustment has been over-emphasized
- . . The opportunity part has not been
emphasized enough! For the returning
veteran is the hope of all of us for a bet
ter America than we have ever known
before. The future of our nation is in his
hands.
Experienced Beyond His Years
His youth, strength and energy,
backed up by experience beyond his
years; his imagination, initiative and ca
pacity for leadership; his idealism, sea
soned by a hard-won grasp of realities,
and his common sense—these precious
things, as they flow into the stream of
our nation’s life, hold extraordinary
promise.
Consider the impact on our thinking
of millions of men like this! Big indus
trial organizations, smairbusiness enter
prises, farms, government, the arts and
sciences—^all will benefit from the re
turn to the home front of these clear
eyed, straight-thinking, vigorous young
men—the finest specimens of our entire .
population.
With these young men of America
back with us, establishing families and
building homes, we will have little to
fear for the American way of life, much
to hope for in economic and social prog
ress.
Do you wonder that the returning vet
eran doesn’t want to be treated as a hero?
. . . That he doesn’t want sentimentality;
and, above all, doesn’t want to be re
garded as a problem.” All he asks is an
opportunity to show what he can do. And
he is going to get that opportunity!
LEND OR GIVE?
Just a thought in the line of duty.
Shall I lend my money now or do I wish
heavier taxes? If I buy bonds now, my
taxes should be less much sooner. That I
believe. If I do not lend by money now,
I know there is no other way for the gov
ernment to raise the necessary funds to
carry the war to a successful conclusion,
than by taxation. By successful I mean
the soonest possible end to the war, with
the least number of lives lost in attain- !
ing that goal.
If the bonds I buy will save a life, or
even prevent a wound, they have been
in service. BUY BONDS’
A PRACTICED HAND
__ V yP
1/
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Sr
HOLLWOOD—Cigarettes .
Cigarettes . . .
Maybe there wouldn’t be any
Ginger Rogers if there hadn’t been
cigarettes. Remember “Young
Man of Manhattan” — and Gin
eer’s famous line, “Cigarette me,
big boy?” Some people who don’t
remember the picture still remem
ber the line—and Ginger.
Without cigarettes, a whole
movie-going generation might
have been deprived of what later
became known as It, Oomph, and
Ping. The cigarette helped make
Theda Bara the screen’s first vam
pire. In Theda’s day a woman who
smoked just had to be wicked, and
when Theda smoked on the screen
her character was established.
You remember what famous
novel and movie character was
named “Cigaret?” Theda Bara
played her first, Claudette Colbert
later—in “Under Two Flags.”
Cigarettes . . . Cigarettes . . .
A A A
Actor Albert Dekker, elected to
represent his district in the Cali
fornia assembly, won’t need to
buy a costume to look like the
old-style legislator—with string
bow-tie and big black hat. “I can
just borrow some of those sheriff’s
duds I’ve worn in westerns,” he
insists.
Dekker’s is an encyclopedic
mind, with a curiosity and enthu
siasm worthy of a small boy. His
latest scientific pursuit is the
mushroom and its difference from
the toadstool.
“All you have to know,” he re
assures, “is which are good to eat
and which are bad.”
“Reminded that in such mat
ters, as in villainy the dividing
line betweefi “good” and ‘bad” is
often infinitesimally thin, Albert
flashes back: “It’s simple then—
all you have to do is to associate
only with the good!”
Which, of course, is a good po
litical motto besides. Incidentally
if he makes a mistake on his
mushroom-hunts, you’ll get a bul
letin—he’s eating them.
* * *
Add to unsung heroes of the
war effort: the two-headed nail.
Driven into the backs of movie
sets, its second head protruding it
can be yanked easily after the set
is ready for dismantling, with no
damage to the lumber—and the
nail can be straightened for future
use. . . . James Craig, in “Our
Vines Have Tender Grapes,”
carved the role played by Edward
G. Robinson, that of Margaret
O’Brien’s father. Said Jim, with
curiqus logic, “I’m too young for
that kind of part, and too young
to be a leading man.” He’s 33. But
maybe he was thinking of Walter
Pidgeon, Humphrey Bogart, Ron
ald Colman. James Cagney et als
—all fortyish or more. . . .
Wartime In
Washington
WASHINGTON—Your Capital
in wartime:
Walt Disney was in town on a
“secret mission.” It had to do with
the Army, but neither Disney nor
the War Department, ■ would say
anything about it. When the whole
story is written about what part
animated cartoons hatfe played in
training our armed forces, it’ll be
one of the best chapters in the
Hollywood annals and it may be
the beginning of something so all
fired new in education that it will
result in revamping the whole
system. Pictures have been used
in education for years, but not
the way Disney has used them.
Walt tells me that 80 percent of
his “plant” in Hollywood is work
ing full time these days on war
work. He has lost more than 170
of his artists to the armed forces,
a dozen of them in the WACS and
WAVES, because lady animators,
once so rare, have become quite
commonplace.
* * *
The library of Congress an
nounces that the world’s longest
“talking book’’ for the blind has
just been completed. It consists of
119 records. It’s a reading by Al
exander Scourby, with a foreword
i by Clifton Fadiman.
If Scourby ever gets to town, I
want an interview. If ever a man
made 119 records before in con
i
secutive sittings, I never heard
of it. The book, incidentally, in the
midst of war, is Count Leo Tol
stoy’s “War and Peace,’’ that Rus
sian epic which became a best
seller as no other classic ever has.
* * *
Despite politics, the progress of
the war, world-rocking confer
ences of United Nations leaders,
!
and so forth, one of the most fre
quent topics of discussion in
Washington these days is juvenile
i
delinquency. Like the weather,
I it’s one of those things everybody
is talking about, but nobody is do
ing much about.
However, there is a group which
is planning something, though just
what isn’t clear at this point. It’s
Sen. Claude Pepper’s tD-Fla> com
mittee on wartime health and ed
j ucation. The committee got a
' shock the other day when Miss
Kathen'ne Lenroot, head of the
Children’s Bureau, appeared to
give her testimony on what's hap
pening to the youngsters of our
country.
She said very frankly that thou
i sands upon thousands of the na
tion’s children are on the “thres
holds of jail, and in many cases
something worse than jail.” She
! brought out the startling fad that
three imes as many girls as boys
have been caught in the wartime
j wave of juvenile delinquency and
that in most cases, the delinquen
cy of ! e~e girls takes the form of
sexual offenses.