THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome, Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 618
W. A. and EMILY BOUCHER .Editors
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Entered as second class matter October 14. 1943, at the postoffice
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1379
Friday, April 30, 1948.
SUGGESTS GOVERNMENT
CONSTRUCT THE PLANES
The idea that government should keep its hands
off business does seem to have the approval of Em
ory S. Land, President of Air Transportation Asso
ciation, who proposes the peacetime establishment
of a 5,000-plane fleet of transports.
Mr. Land admits that the gigantic fleet could not
be supported at present but points out that some
of the planes should be kept in a Government re
serve pool, upon which the airlines could draw as
their needs increased.
The Government, in return for fostering and de
veloping commercial aviation, would have the as
surance that wartime transport needs could be sat
isfactorily met.
We see no reason to doubt the gdvisability of the
Government looking ahead in connection with the
possession of adequate military air transport facil
ities. Nevertheless, if the Government is to keep the
planes in a pool, we do not see why it should
turn them over to the airlines. Why not let the
Government keep its military planes under con
trol for its use whenever necessary?
DEMOCRATIC DOINGS
(The Christian Science Monitor
What has happned to Harry Truman? Six months
ago the public opinion showed him running ahead
of any prospective Republicen candidate. Today
it is generally believed he will run behind and
Republican and almost daily some prominent Dem
ocrat suggests that he not run at all.
Yet a tremendous European Recovery Plan, in
itiated by the Truman Administration, has just been
carried triumphantly through Congress under con
trol of the opposition party. At the same time the
President has won marked and possibly decisive
support for an arms program which two months
ago would have appeared practically impossible.
A national leader who can score such victories
might be expected to ride a new tide of popularity.
Moreover, the mounting pulse of national feeling
against Russia might be expected to strengthen the
nation's natural spokesman in foreign affairs. But
political observers today count the President to have
no better than even chance to get the nomination.
Why? The basic difficulty of course is the deep
cleavage in the Democratic Party. Even Franklin
Roosevelt was able to drive the conservative, rural
Southarners in double harness with the laborite,
urban northerners after 1940 only because there
was a war on. The first major crack was the Wallace
revolt, which made the Democrats a minority party
in key areas. Then came the revolt of Southerners
against the Truman civil rights program.
The arms program aroused fear and criticism
as well as support. And ERP was put across only
with Republican help, with Senator Vandenberg
in fact making it look almost like a Republican
project. Moreover the President's basic weakness—
aside from lack of imaginative popular leadership
—was his inability to deliver. He lacked to power
to push through either a civil rights or an antiin
flation program. He could not stop either the Taft
Hartley Act nor a tax cut.
As the Truman ship showed increasing signs of
sinking its passengers began to seek safety else
where—not success but merely safety. Indeed, ac
ceptance of defeat in 1948 appears to be behind
THEY CAME, THEY CONQUERED, THEY SAW
AWXiiUl . I in I .T -1 ■ .1 - m — A" -fcl i — I >■! Ml i i ■ II r -'****"* A J*
the latest demands for "somebody else." Strangely
enough these demands unite two usually conflict
ing groups—the big city bosses and the liberals.
Col. Jacob Arvey, now in control of the Chicago ma
chine, expresses the same desire to “change horses"
as Chester Bowles and the New Republic.
In both cases the purpose appears to be to sal
vage as much as possible in the way of local suc
cesses this year and rebuilding of the party for 1952.
The city bosses would be glad to pull the Southern
conservatives back into the team and the liberals
believe the right candidate would recapture most
of the Wallaceites.
But there is less asurance when it comes to say
ing who this miracle man might be. To drop the
prestige of the Presidency overboard, to take on the
handicap of repudiating their own party's record for
the last three years and at the same time cement
its divergent wings—for that task the Democrats
would seem to require a veritable political magic
ian. Where is he?
Because he isn't plainly visible many Democrats
are sticking with Mr. Truman. The reason that in
the current unsettled state of the world great chang
es of sentiment can come before November. They
say that Mr. Truman has lately stopped listening to
his party manager's plans for trying to win this
group or that. Instead they see him forgetting politics
just being the best President he can, hewing to
the line as if he did not care what happened about
the election. That sort of thing has often proved the
best kind of politics. Whether it wins nomination
or election for Mr. Truman it could solve most of
his dilemmas. More important, it would be -a won
derful boon for the country.
THE RUBLE'S BUST?
FRANK RISING, manager of the Automotive &
Aviation Parts Manufacturers, Inc., in his M*mo
to Management," says:
"In all ol our struggles to control inflation by ra
tioning, price rules and subsidies, we always were a
few Jumps behind Russia. There, the state could
go all the way, and did.
"It is strange that we should pay so little atten
tion to the crackup of the Russian currency, the re
pudiation of the ruble, the forced wash-out of sav
ings. After a day or so the news item dropped out
of our papers and people Just don't seem to be in
terested.
"Yet in the news from Russia we can see what
happens to a really controlled economy."
"Mr. Rising has something. The Soviet regime is
hoping, and if they were praying people they would
be praying, for our collapse.
But it's the Soviet system that has had the col
lapse. Russians had to turn in their money, and
many got only one ruble for 10.
X LOOKING
I AKKAD
nr GEORGE S. BENSON
i President—Warding College
Seareg. Jkrknn.s
NEW LIGHT ON PROFIT
Some industrial leaders now -
days refer to that old joker item,
“profit,” in a new way. Annual
reports of corporations are be
ginning to list profit more prop
erly as that part of the sales dol
lar spent for “use of the tools.”
This is an understandable way
to designate whatever money is
paid to stockholders for reinvest
ment or expansion.
If American workers have good
tools they turn out good products
at reasonable prices. Without good
tools the picture would be dif
ferent. We do have good tools
and good plants, better than any
nation. But these things did not
come by accident. These tools
have accumulated because all of
us have been free to save and in
vest. We have put savings into
tools of production. These things
are our capital.
CAPITAL AT WORK
A hundred years ago each work
man had only $550 invested for
his use in the form of tools. To
day more than 11 times this am
ount, or about $6,000 worth of
tools, is back of the average Am
erican workman in his product
ive efforts. In terms of purchas
ing power, our average workman’s
wages have increased about five
fold, even though he works only
half as many hours as he did then.
Tools, then, are important to all
of us. Where do they come from?
The price of these better tools
(sometimes.they’re expensive tools)
has come from the people able
to save from their incomes a lit
tle surplus to invest. Most of
these folks today are in the income
bracket of $5,000 or over. But,
through life insurance and bank
savings, nearly everybody in Am
erica participates in these pur
chases of tools.
DANGER SIGN
Obviously, we have a high
standard of living partly because '
of the labor-aiding tools we have
accumulated. That is fine. But,
we must not forget that it is pos
sible for America to have such
national policies that tool invest
ments are not forthcoming. In
fact, during 1930 to 1940 when
our account in tools (capital)
slipped downward 19.4 per cent,
we found that our economy went
backward rather than forward.
Looking at the record, we see
that most of our tools were ac
! cumulated in the generation prior
to 1929. From 1920 to 1930 new
capital flowed to industry at the
average rate of 6 billion dollars
! a year. But the years from 1933
to 1945 were dangerous years.
During that period a yearly av
erage of less than half a billion
| dollars went into tools for our
j workers to use.
'tools or taxes?
1 What was the trouble? One
trouble was that government had
entered the picture and had be
gun to siphon funds away from
1 the capital market. Tool money
| was turned into taxes. New tools
became scarce. People were afraid
i to invest. Even after government
(had spent its part of the savings
I taken in taxation, depression re
mained and millions were still
! unemployed. We needed money
I turned to tools and incentive, not
to taxes.
i Unsound taxation policies must
not be allowed to get in the way