THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome, Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box Hi*.
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAH
W. A. and EMILY BOUCHER.Editors
Entered as second claSs matter October 14, 1943, at the postofi •<**
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Monday, March 24, 1947
Down Payment On An Insurance Policy
(By Associated Press)
AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS took varying attitudes
toward President Truman’s proposal for aiding Greece
and Turkey, but most editorial columns agreed on the i
importance of what The Omaha World-Herald termed!
“the most breath-taking statement ever made in time of j
peace by any American President or statesman.”
“With restraint, but with great clarity, President Tru
man explained the responsibilities thrust upon the
United States by the rise of an aggressive Communist
state in Russia and the coincident decline of Great Bri
tain as a world power,” said The Detroit Free Press.
The Boston Globe said that “the issue is wide and
serious, with commitments in a region where America
has not had them before. Congress and the country will
do well to approach the question in a spirit which as
sures earnest deliberation, vigorous study and thorough
debate.”
The New York Times expressed the*belief that “the1
American people stand behind this warning” to Russia]
“to desist from the physical aggression and the diplo-;
matic attrition that have characterized her policy evei j
since the war and to abide by the charter of the United
Nations as the only safe basis of a tolerable peace.”
-The Ohio State Journal in Columbus said “through
the tangle of these developments may be discerned a
vast shifting of the burden of power and resopnsibility, |
chiefly from England to us . . . For the United States to
continue on this road will only drag us down with all
the rest.”
“President Truman,” said The Chicago Tribune,
“made as cold a war speech against Russia as any Pres-;
ident has ever made except on the occasion of going be
fore Congress to ask for a declaration of war.”
The Boston Herald said the President “undoubtedly!
performed a great service for Secretary Marshall, who!
surely needed this strong backing at home . . . But Con
gress and the people will want to know a great deal more!
about this new departure in American foreign poliev.”
The Cleveland Plain Dealer said: “The inference
which runs through the President’s talk that the present
governments of Greece and Turkey are safely democrat
ic both in name and fact, and that we can promote the
broad aim of democracy by supporting them, is hardly
supported by the facts.”
The San Francisco Chronicle said that the President
“was correct in making common cause between the
American people . . . and other countries of the world
where our kind of freedom still seems to have a fighting
chance to pull through.”
The St. Louis Globe Democrat said: “It is either a free
world or a world dominated by totalitarianism—and the
United States is the only country that can tip the scales
for a free world.”
“Let the Congress back him to the limit,” said The
Portland (Me.) Press Herald.
“Which do you prefer?” asked the New York Daily
News, noncommittally, after presenting the President’s
proposal and another which would let Communism
spread unimpeded so that “the peoples of these Red lab
oratory countries will find in a few years that Commun
ism is a fraud and a phony... .’’It credited the latter sug
gestion to Joseph P. Kennedy, former ambassador to
Great Britain.
“The United States,” said The Philadelphia Inquirer”
is not called upon to support commitments of the Brit
ish Empire indiscriminately . . . but we are called upon
in our own ;r forests to load the hosts of human freedom
and democratic government.”
“Mr. Stalin should have no delusions,” said the Den
ver Post, “about how the American people feel on Rus
sian policy. Rarely have they been more united on a
question of foreign policy. Approximately seven out of
ten favor firmness in dealings of the United States with
the Soviet Union. A recent Gallup poll disclosed that 19
per cent favor following the policy of former Secretary
of State Byrnes while 51 per cent want a firmer policy
toward Russia. Only 15 per cent advocated an easier pol
icy. With such a strong majority of the American people
in favor of a firm Russian policy, President Truman
really echoed the majority opinion in advocating Amer
ican aid to help Greece and Turkey withstand Com
munist aggression. ,
—
Taxes Are Relative
(Rocky Mountain News)
SECRETARY SNYDER makes sense when he says
that taxes should not be reduced this year because any
surplus revenue the government can obtain could better
be used to reduce the public debt.
But he is talking nonsense and thinking in terms of j
politics when he lends his voice to the demagogic but,
oft-repeated argument that when taxes are reduced they;
should not be reduced by a flat-percentage across-the- j
board reduction, because the man with a high income
would get the greater monetary relief.
When the taxes are being laid on, we don’t recall that
anybody ventured to rise up and say, for instance, that
it was unfair because a 20 per cent increase would mean j
that a man who had theretofore paid $100 tax would;
only have to pay $20 additional, while another taxpayer j
who already had been paying $100,000 would have to
pay $20,000 additional.
Of course, a man with a lower income won’t have'
his tax reduced as much in dollars. He couldn’t, and still;
be a taxpayer. He doesn’t have enough taxable income, j
Tax revenues and tax reductions should be thought'
of in terms of revenue, not votes. j
By GEORGE S BENSON
President cf Harding College
Searcy. Arkansas
-r i— 1
_ «
BUGS IN THE BUDGET
Did you know that income of the
federal government for the next
fiscal year will be nine times, may
be ten times, what is was in the
boom period of 1929? It will be at
least seven times the receipts the
federal government had in 1939.
Weak nation '.i would be, indeed
that could nat balance a peacetime
budget with the receipt side of the
ledger at enormous peacetime
highs.
Just to balance the budget dur
ing boom times, however, is not
enough. We must retire and reduce
taxes. Looking at another angle,
’ the federal government wants to
spend more than four times as
much as it did in any year of the
Thirties, when deficit spending was
in the habit-forming stage. Has it
now become fashionable for our
government it spend all it can
get? Have we forgotten that the
more we spend the more we shall
have to tax?
Pat Projects
If we cannot, under favorable
conditions of high employment
and prosperous trade, get hold of
| ourselves long enough to retire our
; national debt and cut our taxes, at
what future time do we expect to
do so? Is our budgeting so out of
i hand that Congress cannot gain
i control over it? Or is the public
thus unmindful of the trouble
we’re in for under a tax load re
quired by the spending of $37,500,
000.000 annually?
Both the President and the Con
gress have given evidence of hon
est desire to keep the expenditure
>---1
side of the budget down. But the
pressures that are applied from ev
ery direction call for spending
more money. As a people, we shall
have to exert great moral forti
tude at this time if we expect an
about-face in a spending philoso-!
phy grown almost traditional. We
need not complain to the govern
ment for being spendthrift, if at
home we insist upon being spend-;
thristy about our pet projects.!
Economy begins first at home.
• I
Examine Everything ‘
Although the war has been over,
nearly two years, your govern
ment wishes to spend more in the
next fiscal year alone than was,
spent during the whole of World
War I. Of course, this is a danger
ous era, and no one wants to ham
string our national defenses. The
whole nation wants the occupation
program to succeed. But more ef
ficiency and the least possible;
waste of manpower and money
should be the order of the day.
As late as November the War
and Navy departments were still
employing more than a million
civilians. Spending in every de
partment, military or non-military,
should be studied carefully. Every
one knows it is easier to keep on
spending government money than
to retrench. This is just as true of
our national defense. Despite
warnings of what may happen,
Congress will do well to examine
these expenditures.
Embarrass Russia?
Soviet Russia is not likely to be
changed in her course by the out
/
Will Use Radar In
Alaska Flights
WASHINGTON, (JP) — A radar
navigation system will be installed
soon along the storm-dotted air
way in Alaska for use of civilian
and military planes.
The army air forces announcing
this today, said the system, known
as “racon” is a modification of the
original radar tracking device, and
has been used on the North Atlan
tic air route for a year and a half.
It differs somewhat from the
standard ground control approach
equipment, being installed at a
number of airports, with which a
ground control “talks” the pilot of
a plane down along the correct ap
proach to a field. Racon can be
used only by aircraft equipped with
radar units. The ground beacon is
actuated only when the airplane’s
equipment picks it up by an elec
tronic impulse.
The units will be installed at
Shemya, Adak, Anchorage, Ladd
Field. Nome, Fort Randall and Pt.
Barrow.
0
GOOD CROWD OUT TO HEAR
REV. T. W. ANDERSON
President Anderson of the Mis
sion Covenant showed his colored
pictures of Africa in the Lavinia
Wallace Young Mission last Satur
day evening. The church was filled
long before the time to begin and
extra chairs had to be secured
from the building next door. Mr.
Anderson gave a picturesque view
of the situation in interior Africa,
boht political and spiritual.
Mr. T. W. Anderson and the vet
eran missionary of early days,
Mrs. O. P. Anderson, left today for
Unalakleet where the sixtieth anni
versary of Covenant Missions in
Alaska will begin tomorrow eve
ning. By plane and dog team peo
ple from villages all around will
make they way to the big event.
At the last day of the conference,
next Sunday, a half-hour trans
cription will be made of the Es
kimo choirs from the different vil
lages to be sent to Seattle for re
broadcasting during the 62nd an
nual conference of the denomina
tion which will convene in June
of this year.
WASHINGTON, (/P)—A House
fisheries subcommittee headed by
Rep. Tollefson <R.-Wash.), will
hold hearings in April on reports
that the Pacific Exploration com
pany is engaged in commercial
fishing in South Pacific waters.
The exploration company is head
ed by Nick Bez, of Seattle.
come of our budget. Fact that Rus
sia’s whole national income is very
.little more than our proposed na
tional budget ought to embarrass
nobody but Russia. And the fact
that Russia plans to spend more
than our country for military serv
ices ought to be embarrassing, in
these times of peace, to Russia.
However, large expenditures ’for
the sake of national defense may
be necessary until the peace is se
sure. But we need not conclude
that the habit of heavy spending is
to be our full and complete offer
ing to the dove of peace.
Trimming down expenses is not
an easy task for Congress. Snail’s
progress will be made unless the
people make themselves heard. A
big and wasteful budget now, car
rying with it a tax penalty upon
the enterprise of our people, could
do much to start us downhill tow
ard the kind of economy Russia
has. Most Americans, » I believe
would rather be allowed to spend
their own money than have the
government spend it for them.