THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome. Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P* O* ®ox 6*®
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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.
Friday, November 30, 1945
A WISE MOVE
(Alaska Weekly)
The following editorial appeared in the Seattle Post
Intelligencer and deserves widespread reiteration. The
regulation of the opening and closing dates in Alaska s
salmon fishery from an easy chair in Washington, D. C.,
has cost the industry millions, the Territory untold
amounts in taxes, the nation a shortage in a valuable
and popular food supply . . . and all to no avail as con
cerns conservation of the resource.
Regulations of sufficiently flexible nature to allow
an augmented field force to exercise reasonable discre
tion would go a long way toward solving a vital problem
for the industry. It is little short of criminal to see
hordes of fish ascending the streams to ruin the spawn
ing beds and die by the thousands instead of going into
cans. Somehow the Fish and Wildlife Service should be
jarred out of its complacency.
“Milo Moore, the State’s new Supervisor of Fisheries,
has earned the warmest recommendation of the Puget
Sound salmon fishing and canning industry for apply
ing common sense to this season’s operations.
“As a practical fisherman and fish buyer of 25 years’
experience Moore well knows that salmon do not read
calendars and that they have customarily entered Puget
Sound waters in the past in utter disregard of seasonal
dates for commercial fishing fixed by the department;
he now heads.
“Hence Moore threw overboard the ‘fixed dates’ pol-1
icy of his predecessors and adjusted the permissible
fishing period to the appearance and prevalence of the
salmon in local waters.
“This wise and practical approach has contributed to
one of the heaviest catches of pink salmon in many,
years. Canneries generally already have doubled their
preseason estimate of volume.
“When they were loaded to capacity with fish Moore |
ordered fishing operations suspended until the canner-i
ies could catch up, thus keeping the supply factor in
balance with canning speed.
“This has meant maximum employment in the indus
try, profitable operations, an unexpected addition to
sorely needed food supplies, and on top of all this, a
healthy escapement of salmon to the spawning grounds.
“By way of contrast the Federal Fish and Wildlife
Service has rigidly adhered to its bewhiskered ‘fixed
dates’ policy in Alaska waters, entirely oblivious, it
would seem, to the fact that salmon do not adjust their
movements to man-made regulations and, in fact, often
arrive weeks earlier or later than such regulations call
for.
“Southeast Alaska fishermen and canners report a
short pack because the fish didn’t Jcnow they were sup
. posed to arrive during the dates fixed by the service.
“But even if the salmon do not read the regulations
the canners must and thus with the expiration of the
legal season they suspended operations. Fishing and
canning crews returned to the States with meager earn
ings. The entire industry, including the workers, was
unhappy.
And then the salmon arrived m volume—but too
late to do anybody any good, including themselves. It
is an established biological fact that too heavy an es
capement is a menace to maximum propagation.
“Isn’t it high time for the Federal agency to revise
its regulations, or at least include in them sufficient
elasticity to meet the facts of life—salmon life? It could
take a leaf from Moore’s book.”
AH, SUGAR!
(Cincinnati Enquirer)
The discovery of 1,900,000 tons of sugar cached by
the Japanese in Java ports brightens very materially
the outlook for the domestic sugar supply this yeai and
next. E. C. Zimmermann, Commissioner for the Neth
erlands East Indies, reported the discovery to Secretary
of Agriculture Clinton Anderson, voicing the hope that
additional amounts of scarce food yvould be found in
the interior of Java and elsewhere in the East Indies.
The Java ports were reoccupied by Australian forces.
The sugar will be added to the United Nations pool,
and the proportion which will be available for distribu
tion in the United States has not been decided upon as
yet. Apparently it will be sizeable. In addition to the
quantity which is allocated to this country, however,
the relieving of the European sugar shortage also will
benefit the domestic situation,‘because it will ease or
perhaps eliminate the demand for overseas shipments
of American sugar. j
The size of the Japanese sugar hoard is amazing. It
about equals the annual beet sugar production of the
United States, and is more than three times as great as j
our cane sugar production. It is about half the annual
output of Cuba, the world’s largest producer.
The general public should avoid any immediaet as
The general public should avoid any immediate as
distribution and shipment of the sugar from the South
west Pacific will take time and involve difficulties. Its
effect, therefore, will be mainly in easing the expected
shortage in 1946. This may permit us to draw more on
cur depleted reserves, however, and in that way bring
relatively early relief from the sugar shortage, which
promised to be one of the most persistent of all our war
created food shortages.
__
PERSPECTIVE
(Cincinnati Enquirer)
There is a disposition, not diminishing with the weeks
but perhaps growing, to regard the atomic bomb as a
milestone at which history stopped, and at which the
continuity of history was broken. Nothing, the inter
preters of atomic power are disposed to argue, will ever
be the same again.
To take this all-embracing view is to ignore a good
many lessons of history—the history which did not stop
when atomic energy was loosed on Hiroshima. The fa
vorite theme of the new prophets is to argue that atom
ic bombs have made all armies and fleets and all other
weapons of war inconsequential. But the same could
just as well have been said of gunpowder at the mo
ment of its first use.
Actually, gunpowder was quite as revolutionary a de
velopment in warfare as the atomic bomb. Yet, al
though it profoundly changed tactics, it had no percep
tible influence on the strategy of warfare, or on the rel
ative importance of land and sea forces. Much the same
may be said of the use of aircraft in warfare. It surely
rivals the atomic bomb in its impact on the art of war
and on the prospects for the survival of civilized society.
Obviously, the perfection of a military explosive re
leasing atomic power is not something to wave away. I.t
does alter the nature of many of our gravest problems.
But our outlook ought to be governed by sanity rather
than hysteria; and this becomes easier if we consider
this fabulous invention in the light of some more im
portant inventions which preceded it—and which hu
man society has survived._
ALPHABET SOUP
FOR BUGS
ROCKFORD, 111.—(ff)—'When a
man came to the police station to
report a theft from his car, the
desk sergeant asked: “What did
you lose?”
‘ r'o~,e beta beta dyphiacyano
diepheldipher,” the victim replied.
“Write it down,” the officer
challenged.
' h ♦he ^’’tleman did, ex
plaining the stolen stuff was in
sect powder.
Private Tip From
A Sergeant
By ARTHUR EDSON
. WASHINGTON — The sergeant
talks softly and grins broadly. Big,
blond and country-boyish, he’s
the kind of a guy you like instant
ly
Staff Sgt. Junion J. Spurrier of
Bluefield. W. Va., 22 years old, is
the guy who won a passel of med
als, including the daddy of them
all, the Congressional M<
Honor. In one busy aftern
captured a town singlel
killed 25 Germans and c;
20 more.
Sgt. Spurrier is all that,
thinks he knows pretty we
the average GI is thinking,
because, he says he’s an a
GI himself.
If the sergeant is right
what he thinks is highly
tant. For what the GI wants
he turns civilian will inf
the legislation and the econc
this country for generatioi
come.
Spurrier is working wit
Veterans of Foreign Wars n<
an adviser to other veteran
ing to make a start.
* * *
This is why he thinks he
was) a typical GI:
He got through the se
grade back in Bluefield and
dropped out of school. He i
held a regular job befon
joined the Army because he
in when he was 17. He spent
years and nine months in sei
went through the European
paign, was wounded eight ti
come home and was discharge
June.
Then he did just what the £
age GI does. He worked in a E
field furniture store a while,
quit because he felt the pay
a week—wasn’t enough, and
cause he realized that he di
know a hoot about furniture
was hired only because of
medals.
He tried running a club for
Bluefield Veterans of Fon
Wars, but quit after some of
friends told him they didn’t th
he should be working aroun<
bar.
Shortly afterward he marr
Katherine Romana, a pretty br
ette from Bluefield. They alre;
have an apartment, and he die
have to flash his Medal of Hoi
to get it either.
* * *
What does the average retui
ing soldier want?
Spurrier thinks it will r
something like this:
First, some sort of a lump si
when he is discharged. This woi
be pay for the furlough time s<
diers were entitled to but nev
got. A veteran needs somethil
like this Spurrier says, to tide hi
over until he can get started.
Second, some sort of a setup
help him when he first returns.
Spurrier believes every tow
should have a central clearir
t
house. When the soldier is di:
charged, he would go there, g<
job information and find the an!
wers to a hundred questions h
has to ask about civilian life.
Third, a good job: At least $20
a month after taxes. Like man;
another new worker, Spurrier wa
shocked at the way Uncle San
can kick a paycheck around.
He admits that most soldier:
haven’t the training or the school
ing to get that kind of job, but
“how could they get the training?
They were in the Army.”
Fourth, some sort of a bonus.
It’ll be known by different names,
the sergeant concedes, but in the
end most soldiers will expect and
demand one.
“We used to talk about this a
lot,” he says. “We decided there
are a lot of old birds up in Con
gress that’ll have to go. I thin)}
we’ll get what we want all right.”