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
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at ‘he postoffice
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Nome, Alaska, Friday, December 3, 1948
REPORT FROM CHINA
(By Leonard Allen)
In these closing weeks of 1948 a thick gloom hangs
over this ancient walled capital of China. The enemy is
at the gates. It is very cold, and what fuel there is must
be kept primarily for cooking. Food has been flying up
the spiral of a dizzy inflation, often out of reach of
hungry hands. There have been rice riots. Rumors
sweep through the dusty, crowded streets like the chill
ing blasts of the north wind.
Eight years of war against Japan, followed by three
years of conflict against Soviet-aided Chinese revolu
tionists, have drained the energy and hope of the peo
ple. They are tired, hungry, and cold. Now there is an
atmosphere of defeat, quite different from the spirited
hopefulness of the war years in Chungking. Confidence
in'the ability of the present regime to save China has,
at times, nearly run out.
Meanwhile China’s neighbors have felt the advance
blasts of this continental storm whose depression vor
tex, at the moment, happens to be in Nanking. Just be
fore leaving Rangoon some weeks ago, the writer was
wakened one morning by the roar of naval gunfire at
tempting to dislodge Marxist extremists from positions
which threatened Burma’s major port. The disruption
in Indo-China, Malaya, and Indonesia has been in the
news for several months. Beneath the surface in the la
bor and peasant movements of Japan and India the com
munists keep a smouldering fire burning. ,
From this Nanking outpost, the prospects are not
bright. Militarily, politically, economically—barring a
radical change—the bag seems to be about emoty.
But is there another factor, not yet adequately eval
uated and applied?
As a background to that question, it is important t->!
understand what the stakes are in this ideological war
in Asia. Communism is bidding for the allegiance an-1
domination of the two billion people who inhabit the
earth, and the bid is directed from Moscow. Mai Tse
tung, Chinese communist leader, in a recent article in
the Cominform Journal in Bucharest, makes it plain
how his movement fits into that picture. Half the neople
of the world happen to live here in Asia, and China is
the key. If China goes, then Japan, Korea and the Phil-1
ippines will be in grave danger. Southeast Asia—al
ready in the softening-up process by communist insur
rectionists—will be critically exposed. India may then
be outflanked on the Bay of Bengal.
• The Berlin crisis has served as a good smokescreen for
the conquest of China. At the moment, one of the biggest
deterrents to a direct communist offensive against the
rearming West may be the lack of know-how in the man
ufacture of atomic weapons. Meanwhlie, what the com
munists lack in atomic power they may match in the
Sovietized manpower of Asia. Industrialized cities may
disintegrate under atomic incineraation, but what about
Sovietized agricultural masses?
The West is inclined to count on industrial strength
as the determining factor. And certainly World War II
reinforced this belief. But the Soviets and the awaken
ing nations of the East have discovered a tremendous
power in the mobilized masses, not too well understood
in the West.
If these observations are sound, then the present
strategy of the West in buttressing industrialized Eu
rope, while giving only secondary considerations to
Asia, is open to serious question. The bid for the billion
of Asia, therefore, cannot be lost by default. For it may
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be they who will decide what kind of a world we will
have in the latter half of this century and beyond. A de
scent into a vast slave-pen society? Or a resurgence of
inspired democracy.
Right now, in this bid, the Soviets are winning. Not
only in a military sense here in China—and by progres
sive insurrection elsewhere—but also by a more com
pelling philosophy and program than the West has yet
presented. Western production figures may appeal to
European imagination, but land reform promises are
the things that figure with the farming masses of Asia.
And on that point the communists are scoring bulls
eyes in China, Burma, and elsewhere.
Also the Soviets are succeeding in stirring up a flam
ing hatred in Asia. Hate in the heart of Asia’s multi-mil
lions would be a titanic force. A terrible weapon. And
here is the ironic factor in Western industrial might:
the use of atomic power against Asia would only multi
ply the hate!
What new factor, then, is there in this whole picture,
which offers a better hope of a new world?
Some, knowing that hatred breeds on empty stom
achs and idle hands, advocate a Marshall Plan for Asia.
Food, clothing, machinery and financial and other aid
would be a big factor, if they are not delayed too long,
and if they are in sufficient quantity. Already it is pret
ty late, especially in China.
But Asia needs something more. Asia wants evid°nce
that the West itself has a workable ideology, more satis
factory than Marxism. The tide out here will turn when
enough of Asia’s leaders are convinced of this.
Increasingly, there have been numbers of statesmen
from India, China, Burma, Japan and Indonesia, who
uave found in Moral Re-Armament a working ideology
for democracy which has given them fresh hope for a
change in the West, and therefore new hope for the East.
Writing in the popular British periodical “Every
body’s” in November, Dr. Chen Li-fu
the Chinese Parliament, says that through Mora^ R^
Armament he has “become convinced that the most ef
fective answer to communism is the moral force of a su
perior ideology, which is the basis of democracv.” Dr
r,hen describes MRA as “the meeting place of East and
West. After seeing the effect of this ideologv in dealing
with Britain’s coal problem in the Rhondda Valiev, whh
America’s problem of achieving industrial teamwork
and with political tangles in Italy and Germany. Dr
Chen writes: “It gave me new hope for China.”
Make no mistake. The ideology of militant material
ism and class warfare is now winning the heart of Asia.
But the issue is not yet decided. There is still time for
the West, recapturing its own historic ideology of in
spired democracy, to convince the East that the way of
Christ will make a better world than the way of Marx.
A man is never really sorry for his mistakes until he
is sorry enough to stop making them.
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CHURCHES
CATHOLIC CHURCH
Sunday—
Masses at 8 a.m. and 10 ajn.
At the Base Chapel at 4:30 pjn.
LAVINIA WALLACE YOUNG
MISSION
p3stor£ • Rev. H. R. Amundsen
and Rev. Theran McGrew
Sunday:
11:00 a.m. Sunday School.
7:30 p.m. Evening Service.
Vednesday - 3:30 p.m. - Chil
dren’s Miracle Book Club.
Thursday - 7:30 p.m. - Prayer
Meeting.
FEDERATED CHURCH
Sunday
10:00 a.m. Sunday School.
PENTACOSTAL ASSEMBLY OF
GOD
e
Third Avenue West
Pastor A. E. Capener
Sunday—
Sunday School.10:30 a.m.
Evening service .7:45 p.m.
Wednesday—
Bible Study .7:45 pm.
EVERYONE WELCOME
CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE
Third and Division
Pastor—Lewis I. Hudgins
“The Church of God, the Book
of God and the Day of God are
sacred trinity on earth.”—Schaff
10:00 a.m. Singspiration and Sun
day School classes.
11:00 a.m. Morning message.
7:00 p.m. Young People’s Meeting.
7:30 p.m. Singspiration and special
music.
3:00 p.m. Evening message.
Wednesday: 7:30 p.m. Melody and
Prayer.
. You are ever welcome to attend
these services.
Come and bring your Bible.
NOME GOSPEL MISSION
of
Alaska Evangelization Society
Rev. Vern Rimling, Pastor
Sunday:
2:0) p.m. Sunday School.
7:30 p.m. Gospel Service.
T uesday:
7:3 i p.m. Prayer and Testimony
Thursday:
2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Bible Club for
Boys and Girls.
Friday:
7:30 p.m. Bible Study.
a
SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST
SERVICES
at
Pastor's Residence, corner of B St.
between 3rd and 4th Ave.
Sabbath School—10 a.m. Saturday
Morning Worship—11 a.m.
Visitors welcomed.
Fred H. Wagner. Pastor
HOSPITAL NEWS
Mr. and Mrs. Philip Dexter are
the parents of a baby son born on
December first.
Mr. and Mrs. Isiah Oksoktarguk
are the parents of a daughter born
on December, first.
New patients are Eunice Ryan.
Lowell Anagick and George SRaf
ter of Unalakleet. Lizzie Swanson
of Haycock. Maggie Curran of
Solomon.