THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Name. Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 61«
91.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR
W. A. and EMILY BOUCHER.Editor*
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at the postoffir**
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Friday, May 16, 1947
Two Years After V-E Day
(Anchorage Daily Times)
MAY 8 WAS the second anniversary of V-E Day. In
all that time the U. S. has been doing its darnedest to
cooperate with Soviet Russia. The result—climaxed by
the outcome of the Big Four foreign ministers’ confer
ence at Moscow—has been pretty much of a goose egg.
The record of American attempts to be pals is as long
as a telephone pole. It begins with eleven billion dol
lars lend-lease aid furnished in wartime, and it runs
through 72 per cent—the U. S. share—of two hundred
fifty million dollars UNRRA aid to White Russia and
the Ukraine. Until this month it has been impossible to
get Russia to even talk about making a settlement for
lend-lease or extension of further credits.
The U. S. offer to share the secrets of atomic energy
production and work out effective international con
trols was unprecedented in its generosity. It has met
only obstruction.
Offers for closer cultural ties through exchange of
students, professors, scientific and technical informa
tion have been repulsed. Offers to negotiate treaties
settling economic and trade relations have likewise
been repulsed.
To American eyes, war-torn Russia could have used
this help. She spurned it, drawing back into isolation
like a hibernating bear, exercising tight discipline over
her people to turn them away from the West. Moreover
Russia has refused to allow her neighbors to be econo
mically free. She apparently feared that if they were
free they would be dominated by the West. By this ac
tion Russia has in effect alarmed the West against her.
Concessions and compromises made by the U. S. to
overcome Soviet suspicions and win Soviet co-opera
tion have been many.
At Yalta the U. S. agreed to cession of the Kurile Is
lands and Southern Sakhalin to Russia. The U. S.
agreed to recognize the independence of Outer Mongo
lia, Soviet interests in Manchurian railways and ports.
The U. S. agreed to cession of eastern Poland to Russia.
At Potsdam the U. S. agreed to cession of northern
East Prussia to Russia, The U. S. agreed to Polish ad
ministration of eastern Germany, to consider revision
of the treaty governing control of the Dardanelles. The
U. S. agreed to reparations for Russia from western
Germany in exchange for food. The food has never been
delivered.
In drafting the United Nations Charter the U. S.
made many concessions to the Soviet. The U. S. agreed
to admission of White Russia and the Ukraine as full
members, to give Russia three votes. The U.. S. gave in
to Soviet ideas on the veto.
In the Council of Foreign Ministers, the U. S. agreed
to Russian reparations from Italy. Concessions were
made to the Soviet viewpoint on the boundaries of Tri
este and Venezia Giulia.
For over a year the Russians delayed the peace trea
ties with German satellite countries. At the Moscow
conference just closed the Soviet blocked completion of
an Austrian treaty and drafting of a German treaty.
In the four-power Allied control councils for govern
ing occupied territories, the Soviet blocked the organi
zation of Germany, Austria, and Korea as economic
units.
Russia failed to carry out free elections in Poland,
Romania, Bulgaria. She has refused to talk about abuses
in Hungary, has encouraged Yugoslavia to obstruct pol
ices, not approved by Moscow, has blocked freedom of
navigation on the Danube.
In tKe UN the real lack of progress can be attributed
principally to Soviet obstruction. Ten times the Soviet
has used its veto. Work of the Military Staff Committee
| has been delayed interminably. The Russians have re
: fused to join various UN subordinate organizations—
i the Food and Agriculture Organization, International
Trade Organization, Aviation Organization, World
Bank, and Monetary Fund.
in the main the Russians have used the UN as a
rounding board for their propaganda, with complete
disregard for its real objectives. This propaganda, at
heme and abroad, has been a vicious anti-American line.
| mm— — m • —■ iii ■■ ■ ■ ■ » ■
Training Not Unpopular
• (Cincinnati Enquirer)
SURVEYING A SAMPLE GROUP of 5,500 of its pol
i icy holders, the Northwestern National Life Insurance
Company has found out some interesting things about
public opinion. In a recent poll of this group on military
training, It was ascertained that 87 per cent favor peace
time military training for all able-bodies young men.
This is doubly impressive because only*81 per cent were
of that opinion in 1944, when the company conducted a
similar survey.
The growth of sentiment for universal military train
ing since the war ended may startle a good many people.
The usual assumption is that after a war anything mili
tary becomes unpopular. But with millions of men re
turning from active military service, there is new pub
lic support for military training in peacetime. Veterans
as a rule have learned the advantages of learning the
art of war before one is plunged into it.
Furthermore, the last year or two has been a period
of tension in world politics. And it is being realized
more clearly that adoption of universal military train
j ing would materially strengthen our hand as a nation
in the conduct of foreign policy.
Of the 13 per cent of policy holders opposed to uni
versal military training, in this recent poll, fully half
would favor a type of training given through all public
high schools. Thus it appears that only about 6 per cent
of the total are actually opposed to military training in
any form whatever.
These are figures worthy of more attention in Con
gress than they seem to be getting. There is a manifest
disposition among legislators to. dodge the military
training issue, on the theory that any program at all
| would be unpopular. Indeed, the tendency is all the
i other way. #
_NOW FDR A RIGHT OF WAY
_ . ■ ■ §
A Proclamation
“I Am An American Day”, 1947
Pursuant to the foil owing
Proclamation by the President of
the United States designating
Sunday, May 18, 1947, as “I AM
AN AMERICAN DAY”:
“WHEREAS the rise of the
United States of America to a
place of eminence among nations
in less than two centuries has
been greatly enhanced by tfcie mi
gration to its shores of pioneering,
freedom-loving peoples; and
“WHEREAS the political life
blood of the Nation is annually
renewed by the coming of voting
age of more than two million na- i
* tive-born young men and women;
and
“WHEREAS the combined tal
r ents, skills, service, and loyalty of
these mingled native-born and
i f .reign-born peoples have brought
us victoriously through the great
, est of all wars; and
“WHEREAS in the teamwork of
democracy the requisites for good
citizenship are not place of birth
or race or religious belief; but
character, education, cooperation,
and loyalty; and
“WHEREAS the stupendous
j task of all men in this new age is
to strive to remove from the
world the age-old curse of war
fare, and to advance the cause of
fieedom and brotherhood:
“NOW, THEREFORE, I, HARRY
S TRUMAN, President of the
United States of America, under
and by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Congress in
Public Resolution 67, approved
May 3, 1940, do hereby designate
Sunday, May 18, 1947, as “I AM
AN AMERICAN DAY,” and do
set aside that day as a public oc
casion for the honoring of Ameri
can citizenship by giving special
recognition to those who have be
come naturalized as citizens* dur
ing the past year and to the young
1 people who have during the year
assumed full responsibilities of
citizenship by coming of age.
And I urge Federal, State and
local officials and patriotic, civic,
and educational organizations to
plan and hold, on or about May
18, exercises designed to help our
citizens better to understand their
privileges and responsibilities as
participants in our representative
democracy, to the end that world
peace and domestic felicity may
be attained and perpetuated.”
NOW, THEREFORE, I, LEW
M. WILLIAMS, Acting Governor
of Alaska, call the attention of the
people of Alaska to this Procla
mation, and urge that they partici
pate in observing this day.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I
have hereunto subscribed my hand
and caused the Seal of the Terri
tory of Alaska to be affixed at
Juneau, the Capital, this 6th day
of May, in the year of our Lord
ninteen hundred and forty-seven.
<Seal of Territory)
LEW M. WILLIAMS.
Acting Governor.
Federal School Aid
To Be Killed
WASHINGTON (A*)—The House
Republican leadership was report
ed Thursday to have issued orders
to the labor committee to kill a
bill which would give states $300,
000,000 a year in federal aid for
schools.
A high-ranking party member
who does not want his name used
told reporters the orders will be
carried out because of GOP
pledges to hold down government
spending.
Majority leader Halleck of In
diana, asked about the report said
“there has been no determination
on the matter.”
A subcommittee still is holding
hearings on the bill, he said, and
they are “not just a gesture.” But
he also gaid:
“Of course, we are not exactly
hunting ways to spend more
money. And many states have
done a lot in the last year for '
their schools and teachers.”
Rep. McCowen fR.-Ohio), who
introduced the federal aid bill,
heads the sub-committee which
has been holding hearings on it
for weeks. •
Most of the long list of witness
es, including many teachers, have
favored the measure.