THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome, Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAH
W. A. and EMILY BOUCHER. Editors
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at the postoftte*
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Monday, December 16, 1946
John L. Lew is Surrendered
(Rocky Mountain News)
APPROPRIATELY ENOUGH, it was on the fifth an
niversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Not since that attack had America faced greater peril.
Its free institutions and its whole economic structure
were in danger.
America had not sought this new war, just as it had
not sought the one that began at Pearl Harbor. In both
cases the attack came out of a clear sky. And free men
could do nothing but fight to preserve their freedom.
For the first time in many years, America had to
stand up to a domestic bully and fight him to a finish.
There was no appeasement, no face-saving in the Lewis
announcement. It was complete surrender.
On an historic anniversary, another dictator bit the
dust.
Lewis told a news conference that he had called off
the coal strike on his own authority. That is the same
way it started.
The 400,000 coal miners had no intimation a few
weeks ago that a strike was about to begin. They had
not voted for one. They had not even discussed new de
mands. They were working under the terms of the most
favorable contract in their history, granted them only a
few months previously.
Then, out of the blue, came the one-man decision that
a contract with the government was abrogated. Trapped
by a tradition, it left the coal diggers no alternative save
to quit work.
Yesterday, by the same sort of decision the strike end
ed. Today the surprised subjects of this one-man dicta
torship return to the pits, under exactly the same con
ditions that prevailed when they left.
They have lost over two weeks’ pay at Christmas
time. Nearly a million other workers have had their
earnings reduced. The 17-day strike has cost the nation
untold millions. Its effects have rippled out over the
whole world. They will be felt for months to come.
Never was there such a startling demonstration of
what can happen when one man gains a complete mo
nopoly over a vital resource.
Lewis bases his action on “fitting respect for the dig
nity” of the Supreme Court. He said that it “should be
free from public pressure superinduced by the hysteria
and frenzy of an economic crisis.”
That excuse is, of course, pure bunk. He called the
strike in the face of an injunction and against the Amer
ican government. He called it to produce hysteria and
frenzy and economic crisis. He expected to use them as
a weapon to enforce his will.
He got hit by his own boomerang. He aroused the
American people as they had not been aroused since
Pearl Harbor Day.
The next deadline is March 31, 1947.
Save for loss of prestige and the physical bruises from
his licking, there is nothing to prevent Lewis from call
ing another of the long series of coal strikes on that date.
However, the Supreme Court has time to act and
Congress has time to meet and legislate before that date.
Surely the events of this abortive revolution have
clearly demonstrated the need for sound legislation to
protect America—and to protect the coal miners—
against further rash acts of this irresponsible despot. It
may prove fortunate that this new deadline has been
set, for it will prevent hasty forgetting of what has just
happened.
Meanwhile the terrible penalty of non-production has
A CHEERY BLAZE, AN EXCITING BOOK—
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been strikingly emphasized.
Once again we must try to pick ourselves up and re
cover.
Let’s hope that this new revelation of the strength of
a nation in time of crisis may aid in that process.
Mandate For Action
(Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
REPUBLICANS, who will have the obligation of or
ganizing and leading the new Congress, should not miss
the importance of timing.
In the coming weeks before Congress meeis, the lead
ers should carefully formulate their legislative program.
Then, early in January while the popular mandate
for ridding the nation of destructive New Deal hobbles
is still fresh, they should speedily enact into law their
proposals for industrial peace, national solvency, and
restoration of a vigorous Americanism.
Unless they strike while the iron is hot, they will
miss their opportunity to be effective.
The majority of the voters have clamored for action,
for common sense, and for common honesty.
In such a mood, the people will not be satisfied with
timidjtv and hesitation.
It will be recalled that the most effective time in the
administration of the late President Roosevelt was dur
ing the first hundred days of his first administration.
Then he acted with a sureness of touch which he neve1"
quite achieved again.
If the Republicans act swiftly on major legislative
remedial matters, they will serve the country we11
they will shorten the period of business hesitation while
men of affairs await the new pattern of events.
The new majority has received a great mandate from
the people, and it will be fine statesmanship to carry it
out with the utmost expedition.
In the British Tomes’ recent Blackpool conference,
Winston Churchill called on God to join him against
the Labor government. Losing American Democrats
asked for more doorbell ringers.
By cartoon, the Christian Science Monitor asks for
answers to “two $64 questions”—“Threat of Atomic
Boom or Bust,” and “Threat of Economic Boom or
Bust.” Who’s got em?
By GEORGE S BENSON
President of Harding College
Searcy. Arkansas
INFLATE OR DEFLATE
Inflation is one of those things
you talk more about when you do
no have it. We have a mild case
of inflation now. We do not want
it, but we are perhaps less scared
about it now than we were before
it came. Most of us do not mind
adding to the spiral a little bit,
: though we may dislike to see other
loiks do so. We seem assured that
! that is “turn about for everybody’
, in the inflation spiral. w
Some features of our snarled tty
labor-management relations, with
die consequent paltry production
;nd lower income for strikers,
would represent deflation of a
art. But we must know that when
we push our wages up and up, we
simply must have production to
justify these increased costs.^If
we do not, we may expect prices
to follow or even shoot ahead
the laws of economics begin to
make adjustments.
Plain Economics
Higher wages without increased
production create a situation that
oears some resemblance to strikes
without production. Either one
will cripple American industry,
and this is a time when labor can
not afford to contribute to indus
trial chaos. People the world over
need goods desperately, even peo
ple with an inflation already
past our own. The only answer is
production! We must produce,
produce, produce.
Without production, any wage
premiums which labor asks and
wins represent the direst sort of
inflation and public liability. We
have already approached the dan
ger point. Now. without price con
trol, it is easier to see plain eco
nomics in operation. Labor costs
represent most of the cost of our
manufactured goods. Any in
creased costs as well as the costs
of scarcities, will be passed di
rectly to the people.
Coal, For Example
Suppose the nation’s coal sup
plies are shut off. Bituminous coal
provides 55 per cent of our indus
trial energy, 62 per cent of oi§r
electric power, and 95 per cent of
our industrial power. No coal
means no steel, and the shortage
pressures then begin operating to
force up prices of everything we
buy. Suppose the miners win a fi
nancial premium through striking,
the possibility of which no one has
yet discussed to any extent.
Higher prices for coal mean
higher prices for steel. Steel is one
of the basic ingredients of thou
sands of things we require daily,
and soon up goes the general level
of prices for consumer goods and
for services as well.
The Spiral, Again
Again suppose the miners win
i wage increases. Their success is
eyed by wage earners in varied
other Industrie and crafts. Al
ready the industrial unions ha^?
made top billing of a new drrre
for increased wages. Up go prices
again. That’s plain economics.
We like inflation for ourselves,
; when it is going our way, but gen
! erally we prefer to deflate the
other fellow. It is time somebody
thought of the Golden Rule. May
I submit that production is the
Golden Rule way to steer our
selves out of this jam and to keep
the traditional American freedoms
i we so much cherish.
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DDT Smoke Battles Insects
War-designed to provide smoke
screens for troops, smoke genera
tors have been adapted by the U.
S. Army Chemical Corps for pro
tecting orchards and row crops
against frost and insects. Fourteen
Department of Agriculture stations
across the country now are testing
DDT mixed with smoke to exter
minate insect pests on grain, lu
bacco, fruit, and vegetable crops.
U. S. Regular Army volunteers se
lecting the Chemical Corps for
their service are trained to handle
equipment useful in both war and
peace.