THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Noma, Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P O. Box 61*
SI.50 PER MONTH 516.00 A YEAR
W. A and EMILY BOUCHER Editors
Entered as second class matter October 14. 1943. at the postofhr*.
at Nome. Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Friday, November 29, 1946
A Needed arning
(Anchorage Daily Times)
In the light of another particularly damaging coal
strike, it was interesting to see that an editorial in the
International Teamster, publication of the AFL Team
sters Union, had stated that “strikes have become a
national menace.’'
“They must be curtailed,” the editorial continued,
“or the nation will sink into chaos and organized labor
will perish.”
In addition to this solemn warning, the editorial af
firmed the union’s determination to stamp out wildcat
strikes, and recalled that the international union could
revoke local charters, and fine, suspend or expel indi
vidual participants in such strikes.
All that is wise and commendable, but there seems to
be some differences within the AFL’s great family of
unions between precept and practice. New York City
was tied up for two months by a general trucking strike,
plus a parcel delivery strike which lasted nearly as
Jong. The Teamsters international sanctioned neither
of them. Yet there are no indications to date of any puni
tive action gainst the wildcat strikes.
Elsewhere in the AFL, carpenters and stagehands
have thrown the motion picture industry into confusion
by a jurisdictional strike which the leaders of the war
ring unions have seemed unable or unwilling to settle.
And now the miners stand ready to walk off the job
again if the government fails to meet John L. Lewis’
demands.
The International Tteamster editorial apparently was
written before election day. but its author was speaking
prophetically when he called strikes a national men
ace.” For the vote on Nov. 5 gave unmistakable notice
that the majority of voters agree with that estimate.
The vote showed clearly that the country is fed up
with jurisdictional wrangles, unauthorized walkouts
and actual or threatened strikes of political origin. It
showed that the country is fed up with strikes that pun
ish the public rather than management, and with union
leaders who try to make a monkey out of the govern
ment.
Oddly enough, it is the relatively conservative AFL.
unencumbered with Communists and hence more po
lar with a great many non-union citizens, which is
largely responsible for stirring up the public wrath. And
if Mr. Lewis succeeds in bringing most of our national
machinery to a halt with another “no contract, no work”
strike, that wrath may turn into something really for
midable.
What Price Compromise?
(Rocky Mountain News)
Soviet Russia is asking for a revision of the industrial;
levels now in effect in Germany, as her price for agree
ing to an economic unification of that country.
All details of the Russian’s proposal are not known,
but they are understood to want to raise present limits
far enough to let Germny produce at least 10 billion
dollars worth of manufactured goods for reparations to
the Soviet Union. They want their “reparations” deliv
ered “as quickly as possible,” and have mentioned two
billion dollars worth of goods a year as a figure at which
they would aim.
Among other things, their program would double at
least the previously agreed German annual level of
5,800,000 tons of steel.
There may be sound economic reasons for letting Ger
man industry boost its production figures. But Soviet
emphasis on steel raises some questions.
Would it be used in Russia for peacetime needs, or
would it be converted to armaments or armament
plants? Is Germany, lately the arsenal for Nazi Totali
tarianism, to become an arsenal for Communist Totali
tarianism?
A unified but disarmed Germany is one thing. A uni
fied Germany with its war potential restored, working
for the Soviet Union—the only nation presently threat
ening world peace—would be quite another. We do not
want to buy anything like that, at any price.
Final judgment should be withheld until all the facts
are know. But the Russian proposal which Lt. Gen.
Clay is bringing to Secretary of State Byrnes in Wash
ington should be examined with care.
It seems to us it would be playing with fire to let Ger
many become a major steel producer against for the
benefit of a nation currently mainaining a standing
army of at least four and one-half million men.
■
Alger, True To Life
(Washington Post) .
Page Horatio Alger, and bid the campaigners for
child labor laws give ear!
It can be done. It’s not just a fairy tale, this story of
rising from newsboy to millionaire. For proof, there :
Louis R. Lurie of San Francisco. He was born in Chi
cago in 1884, and he sold newspapers on its street cor
ners and went into the real estate business at 18. If
you'll take his brother’s word for it, he made and lost a
million by the time he was 21. And now he is back in
Chicago buying two LaSalle Street skyscrapers in a
$15,000,000 deal. From newsboy to millionaire—and in
real life, not in “Ragged Dick,” “Tattered Tom” or
“Luck and Pluck.”
We salute the evidence. We salute even more pro
foundly the reformers because they have made possible
less spectacular successes not for a few but for the many
who are the sinews and the flesh of the nation.
THAT’S THAT By bruce gustin
Republican congressional lead
ers are talking about a 20 percent
slash in personal income taxes.
They plan to make that early
enough next year so it will apply
on the federal income taxes indi
viduals pay in 1947. Their idea is
to cut federal expenditures enough
to permit this reduction. Taxpay
ers certainly will welcome any
measure of relief. But sight should
not be lost of the fact that reduc
ing the national debt is just as im
portant now as lowering taxes.
Now while incomes are high is
the time to begin lopping off bil
lions from the national debt. Every
time one billion of debt is retired,
:hat saves the taxpayers 20 mil
i:on dollars a year in interest. Af
ter World War I, Republican ad
ministrations cut both taxes and
iebt at the same time. If they can
do that again, it will be a fiscal
| performance of which they can be
proud. And it will delight the tax
payers.
From the west coast comes word
! of a new wrinkle in labor trouble.
The CIO newspaper guild’s strike
against the Los Angeles Herald
Express was settled a few day*
ago and striking editorial and ad
vertising employees agreed to re
turn to work. But AFL mec
ci.iplujes aini CIO newsbc
clined to work until the rr
nient agreed to their demai
cash settlement of strike c
to them, resulting from 1
'i oat raises an important qu
,,:ien one group of emp
strikes, shutting down a pla
m owing other employee ,
work, who should pay fo
wages lost by the workers
were laid off—the employer
.'.rikers? If strikers had to p
the damage they do other
ers, strikes wouldn't be sopxj
When Senator Bilbo of >
sippi was asked to comment <
ports that Republicans pi,
.cick him out of the senate, h
ply was “I have done no i
and I have nothing to say.’’
ine that—Bijbo, “The M<
speechless! It must have bee
first time the Missisippi bl;
kite ever wras caught with “
ng to say.” Usually his tonp
wagging at both ends and loc
the middle.
House Republican leaders
the President’s war powers
03 "terminated as fast as coi
ent with wisdom, and the pc
belonging under the const:*,
co the states returned to th
That amounts to a charge tha
national administration has
violating the constitution. Po
which, under the constitution
reserved to the state or to the
ole. cannot lawfully be assu
by the federal government,
can they be delegated to it by (
gress.
Damning big business me
because it is big is a favorite p
Lee of political demagogs,
without big business, Lhis co
try would be in a terrible f:x.
off.cial of the Ford Motor C<
pany has revealed that this cor
ration lost $51,600,000 in the f
nine months of 1946. Only a hi
concern could enduce such a
nancial loss and keep going. F<
is still making automobiles.
Communists, in furtherance
their world revolution conspirai
have been infiltrating labor u
.ons .n the United States. In En
land, V^ir policy is to bore in
wie Labor party which now is
control of the government. Th
have made enough progress to £
more than fifty Laborite membe
of parliament to call upon the go
ernment to “review and recast
conduct of international affairs
as to . . . provide a democratic ai
constructive socialist alternati
to an otherwi e inevitable confli
between American capitalism ai
Soviet Communism.” Their imm
diate objective is plain. It is a r
versal of British foreign poli<
which will align Britain with So'
i iet Russia.
Now the threat of a CIO paci
inghouse workers strike hanj
over the American people. Ju;
when meat supplies were buildin
up and there was a prospect th«
supply would bring prices dow
to a figure ordinary people ca
afford to pay, another interruptio
of production is threatened. May
be the packinghouse workers ar
entitled to the increased pay the
are demanding. But there shoul
be a better way of settling thi
controversy than by starving th
general public.
SHANGHAI, (/P)—The newspa
per Evening Post and Mercury re
ported today that a powerful grou]
of delegates at the national assem
bly in Nanking had launched i
drive to change the draft of thi
constitution proposed by General
issimo Chiang Kai-Shek to maki
Peiping, rather than Nanking
the national capital of China.