THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome, Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 613
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR
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.
Monday, January 28, 1946
POLIOMYELITIS SHALL BE CONQUERED
It is the determination of the National Foundation for
Infantile Paralysis, founded by Franklin D. Roosevelt,
that poliomyelitis shall be conquered. The people of
Ajnerica share in that determination, and through con
tributions to the annual March of Dimes, January 14-31,
they take an active part in the unrelenting fight against
the Great Crippler.
Among those who, like Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
refused to be conquered by infantile paralysis, are:
Dinah Shore, stage, screen and radio star; Doris Hart,
champion player of ship tennis; and Mayor Lyle J.
Goodwin, of Molcolm, Iowa.
More striking than any monument which might be
erected to Franklin Delano Roosevelt is the organized
fight against infantile paralysis, which he inaugurated
and personally symbolized in his lifetime.
You contributions to the National Foundation for In
fantile Paralysis, through the March of Dimes, January
14-31, can help build a living memorial to our great war
president.
ALASKA: ITS FUTURE
By MACK TABOT
The Territory of Alaska and its people are getting the
run-around.
We want Alaska, our last froniter, to be a strong out
post capable of standing on its own feet.
If Alaska is to pay its own way it must have a better
deal than it is getting. It is now a vassal territory with
less voice in its own affairs than France had when it
was occupied by the Nazis.
Alaska is run by a “carpetbag” government. Its gov
ernor and top officials are appointed by Washington
bureaucrats 4,000 miles from Juneau, territorial capital.
Alaskans have no say when their governor is ap
pointed. They are ruled from Washington, which col
lects taxes, but gives no representation.
Alaskan economic affairs are controlled by Washing
ton, too. Practically all of the Territory’s rich resources
aresealed off from exploration and development, “pro
tectively” held in federal reservations.
Vast timber lands, oil fields and mineral wealth are
tied up in these federal reserves areas.
Alaska’s “absentee” government is doing nothing to
open up and encourage development of reserves. Instead
it sits meekly while Ickes’ interior department sets up
more reservations, further obstructing Alaska’s oppor
tunity to grow.
More timber than could be cut in a year rots in Alas
kan forest reserves every 12 months.
Only a short distance east—across the border in Can
ada—the lumber industry and pulp mills are going full
blast.
Exploration and working of new mineral resources
in Alaska is at a standstill.
Across the border in Canada the Yellowknife gold
field is booming.
Proof that Alaska’s resources are worth looking into
is the fact that the U. S. Navy is drilling for ail on a
huge reserve at Point Barrow north of the Arctic Circle.
Alaska assumed its greatest role in World War II. It
was our closest outpost to Japan.
It was the northern road to victory.
Given a fighting chance, Alaska will grow even
stronger in peacetime.
World War II brought it a transportation system
which would have taken years to create in normal times.
Military agencies, including the naval air transport
service, blazed air trails to Alaska’s distant reaches,
where are located great treasures in natural wealth.
Not so many weeks ago Alaska’s air lanes and airports
buzzed .with war activity. Today there is a mere trickle
of traffic.
From tidewater at Seward, the northern territory has
a 500-mile railroad line running through the heart of
Alaska. War geared the Alaska Railroad to boom-time
traffic.
With surplus ships, Alaskan steamship lines are
equipped to move increasing commerce and trade.
Alaska has the transportation, but it is standing idle.
It waits for goods to move.
PIPE COUPLING THAT ALLOWS NO DRIP
With a new self-sealing pipe coupling you can now dis
connect pipes without the loss of liquid or gas contents,
not .even a drip get out, and no air or dirt can get into
the line. The secret is two automatic valves that seal
off the ends of the line as they are uncoupled. It is par
ticularly handy in preventing spilling of inflammable
or corrosive liquids which may be carried in pipes.
Developed by the Evactor Control Company, Ltd.,
London, and reported in “The Engineer,” a British tech
nical journal, the coupling can be used for systems car
rying liquids or gases at pressures up to 200 pounds per
square inch. The bore of the coupling ranges between
one-quarter inch to 12 inches.
The metal of which the coupling is made varies; de
pending upon the use to which it is to be put. Light al
loys are used for aircraft, heavier metals for ordinary
use, and stainless steel for chemicals whose purity must
be guarded and for liquids to be used for human con
sumption.
As the outer ring of the coupling is unscrewed,
springs inside the unit gradually force synthetic rubber
valves into valve seats, sealing off the two ends before
they are uncoupled. In addition to normal screw coup
lings, bayonet fittings and other quick-release methods
may be adapted to the self-sealing principle.
—Science Service.
!
ONCE UPON A tiaac
t r 'OXING
I AHEAD
Fn GEORG?! BENSON
^ President—Mardlaf Catlap
■ Sea ref. Arkansan
SHELTER
Mussolini is dead, Hitler is still
missing and Hirohito is taking or
ders from an American soldier,
but mortal craving for power ap
pears to have survived World War
II. Any individual who can find
something that a great many peo
ple need, and figure out a way to
keep them from getting it, has put
himself in a “key position” able
to make a lot of people suffer.
One thing a lot of people want
right now is shelter. Shortages of
building materials and the scarcity
of skilled workmen have combined
to make housing about the scarc
est commodity in common use. It
is an everyday necessity, too. Peo
ple have to have a place to live
and they will pay what it costs to
get in out of the weather, or they
will take whatever shelter they
can afford.
Humming and Hawing
i Comes now proposed legislation
to protect home buyers and home
builders from inflation, by gov
ernmental controls. Administra
tion of rulings always brings de- ^
lay, and more delay. Now we need
housing, and more housing. Natu
ral, competitive safeguards will
provide better protection against
inflation than rulings, as certainly
as sturdy walls will keep out more
cold than red tape.
The strategy is to fix ceiling
prices on residential property, new
and old, to allocate building mate
rials and regulate the transfer of
new real estate. Allocating mate
rials means giving somebody a
right to say who can build and
who can’t. A crafty “co-ordinator”
with such authority could soon
have a great many fellow citizens
doing his bidding. America needs
a V-B Day on bureaus.
Guessing At Prices
Ceiling prices on old residential
property is an absurd idea. There
is nobody in my state able to um
pire the transfer of old homes in
my town, much less yours. Such
laws are only made to break. A
legal ceiling on new-home prices^
might be easy to express in a
mathematical curve but its result
would be bad. It would tend to
cheapen construction and encour
age jerry-building.
Clamping down on the sale of
vacant lots would surely be wrong
in point of expedience. It would
kill much precious time. Service
men are coming home now, not
after next year. They want places
to live no later than they can get
wife and baby out of the in-laws’
spare room. They are entitled to ax
home and ought to have it as fast
as their local builder can meet
their needs.
Pocketbook Care
I don’t want to see today’s new
home makers (least of all service
men’ pay three prices for houses,
but natural competition among
builders would prevent it if they
could get materials. Paying a pre
mium for promptness in a time of
emergency is a trivial matter com
pared to the “highway robbery1’!
v'o ore courting in shoddy houses,
built cheaply to sell under a ceil
ing.
Government’s moral obligations
to home-seeking service ,men are
three: (1) Help builders get good
building msFterials quickly to make
suitable, small homes, (2> Begin no
”bl!c works to busy the building
trades until the home need is re
lieved, (3) See that mortgage
’'■’oney is not carelessly thrown!
around. Bank loans ought to be
asy on well-built houses and im
possible on poor ones.