THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday. Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome, Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 * P. O. Box 61H
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. 1879.
Friday, March 5, 1948
Taft Vs. Eisenhower On UMT
(Rocky Mountain News)
WE HAVE YET to meet the American who would op
pose Senator Taft’s argument that this country must
maintain air supremacy to be secure.
Nothing Mr. Taft has said in recent years has found
more of us in his corner.
We cannot agree, however, that a strong air force and
universal military training are incompatible. We can
not accept his judgment that the training of future
M-Day forces has little military value.
The weight of evidence is against him. Leaders of our
Army, Navy and Air Force are united in their insistence
this nation must have trained manpower if it is to de
fend itself. They are unanimous that universal military
training alone can supply that manpower.
The Compton Commission, in its report to the Presi
dent, cited six essentials to an intergrated national se
curity program—a strong, healthy and educated popu
lation, a co-ordinated intelligence service, scientific re
search and development, industrial mobilization and
stockpiling, a striking air force and universal military
training. No part of that program, it said, had purpose
or effect “except as part of the balanced structure.”
A few years ago, three ground-crew men could keep
a combat plane in the air. Today it takes 18 to maintain
a jet-propelled plane. Those men must be trained. There1
must be a pool of replacements. Only by training them
on the scale contemplated by the Compton Commission
can be know that our air force is ready to meet aggres-!
sion—anywhere, any time.
Senator Taft’s statement was followed, quite by coin
cidence, by General Eisenhower’s final report., Once
again, the retiring general of the armies warns that
UMT is essential.
Only the foot soldier, General Eisenhower said, can
hold a defensive position, seize a major offensive base
and control an enemy population—three fundamental
purposes of armed effort. He says the invention of the
airplane and the atomic bomb has “No more eliminated
the need for him than the first use of a cavalry or the
discovery of gunpowder.” Unfortunately, he reports, we
have “taken no steps to assure ourselves the necessary
number of trained men.
Price Drop And ERP
(By Barnet Nover)
REPORTS FROM EUROPE indicated that the same
puzzlement over the causes, consequences and prob
able duration of the slump in American commodity
prices, the same uneasy mixture of relief and alarip
that is being experienced here, is being felt abroad.
Ail over the world people are watching the American
economic barometer with bated breath. The questions
they are asking are precisely the questions Americans
are asking:
Is the unprecedentedly sharp decline in wheat, corn
and cattle prices during the past month just a healthy
readjustment in what had admittedly been an over-in
flated price level or is it the warning crack of doom, the
first stage in a new American depression?
This intense interest in American economic develop
ments which is being manifested aboard is anything but
academic.
In Russia, Soviet spokesmen are jubilantly declaring
that what has happened to t^ie price of American com-:
modifies is what they have expecting for some j
time. This, they say, marks thjjsd of the American j
boom, the beginning of the bust which, having consult-1
ed Marxian horoscopes (and Russia Adesires), they had!
long predicted. J j
The rest of the world is anythin® but sure that the!
NOT STRINGING ALONG I
Soviet analysis of current American economic trends is
correct. They are waiting to see what happens next, and
while waiting are keeping their fingers crossed.
There can be no question whatever that the inflation
ary spiral that has had the United States in its grip dur
ing recent months has had a deleterious effect on the
economy of western Europe.
High prices for American products, which Europe has
badly needed, has increased the rate at which the na
tions abroad have had to dig into their dollar reserves.
A decline in commodity prices would therefore be
welcomed by Europe, as well as by American consum
ers, as a helpful development. Nobody can be at all sure,
however, that the present decline is more than a tem
porary phenomenon, merely a recoil before a new rise.
Nor can anyone be sure that deflation may not get out
of hand and set in motion forces that may prove impos
sible to control.
What should not be forgotten, despite the precipitous
nature of the price decline in commodities is that de
spite this decline prices are still mountain high in pre
war terms. The reduction in the retail price of bread,
flour, lard soap, bacon, ham, vegetable shortening, eggs,
butter and beef have only brought those prices back to
about where they were last summer.
The psychological impast of the price drop has so far
been much greater than the economic. As a whole the
American people do not quite know whether, in the
words of Horace Walpole, they ought to be ringing bells
or wringing their hands and some are doing both.
It is a fair assumption that given the government’s
economic power prices will not be allowed to fall to
seriously low levels.
Sooner or later the price support law would begin to
come into play. Pegging is mandatory with respect to
twenty major crops, when they fall below “parity”
prices.
More important is the fact that basically the factors
which, in 1920 and 1929, made for an acute depression
are lacking this time. But this does not take into account
the possibly serious effects of a panic.
More than ever it is imperative for Americans to keep
their shirts on. More than ever it is essential that we re
consider our position in the light not merely of our own
needs but of the world’s needs. Not the least interesting
and significant effect of the commodity price drop was
that while a few members of Congress see in it a reason
for holding back, many who have been hesitant on the
subject are beginning to see ERP in a new and friend
lier light.
Spaniard’s Life Regimented
(By Palmar Hoyt. Jr.)
From Madrid, Palmer Hoyt. Jr.,
Denver Post foreign correspond
ent, reports that the Moscow radio
broadcasts its propaganda to
Spain intermittently all day long
in Spanish, British broadcasts
have been increased to forty-five
r*11 ■ -- - --— - -
minutes daily, but the Voice of
America “ca nonly be heard—and
very weakly—for fifteen minutes
every evening.”
MADRID—The internal mech
anism of Generalissimo Franco’s
Spanish regime is very compli
cated, but the average Spaniard
seems to come into contact with
•
the government mostly through a
system of “syndicates," which con
trol most of his life.
Theoretically, the economic syn- r
dicate system is very democratic,
but in practice control is in i ta
hands of picked personnel, who
are closely associated with the I t
lange party, the only legal parti.
There is a national delegate who
is appointed to office. He has a
national secretary and four vice
secretaries, who are supposed to y
be elected, but are actually ap
pointed. These vice secretaries arc
i ncontrol of most aspects of daily
life in Spain.
First there is the vice secretary
of social order. He handles the or
ganization of all syndicates—and
labor relations.
Second is the vice secretary of
ecenomic order, in charge of the
agrarian sector, industry and va
rious “services.”
Third is the vice secretary ol
works, under whom come such
problems as recreation, public
building, public health and en
couragement of craft development.
Finally there is the vice secre
tary of administration, who han
dles the problem of operation of
i syndicates.
This all extends clear through
the organization, through prov
inces, comarcals and local organ
izations, which control the indi
i vidual workers and employers.
As the Spanish government sees
.it, the syndicates are just about
mother and father to the people.
They take the place of employers
organizations, labor unions, and
social groups. The “people’s” dele
gates to the cortes are chosen
, through them as well.
There is a syndicate for prac
I tically every kind of work, al
though nobody seems to know
; how many syndicate members
there are in.Spain. For economic
purposes Stfain is divided into
twenty-two trades and businesses,
each of which has a national syn
dicate. Within these syndicates
there are three branches—employ
ees, employers and technicians,
and each of these elects officers
who meet with the others.
If, in a small Spanish town, the
employees of a printing firm de
cide they are not getting proper
treatment, they complain to their
elected reprsntative. He takes it
up wit hthe employers’ and tech
nicians’ representatives. It nothing
is decided, the problem is turned
over to the local social order sec
retary, and if he can’t decide it he
turns it over to state legal author
ities.
Besides this, the national syndi
cates are supposed to have sixty
si v representatives in the cortes;
one employer, one employee and
one technician representing each ,
of the twenty-two national syn
dicates.
There are supposed to be free
elections in the local cells. Then
there are supposed to be elections
among the representatives for lo
cal, comarcal, and provincial au
thorities. But according to one
source that is not the way things
happen.
Elections are held on a local
level. This source said, however,
that only candidates approved by
the local secretary and the local
Falange leader ever are put on the
ballot. Thus no one who is oppos
ed to the regime, or even suspect
ed of opposition, can be elected to
office. And besides this, there are
great numbers of Spaniards who
lost theird civil rights by being on
I the wrong side in the civil war—
| and they cannot even belong to
syndicates — which leaves them
out in the cold as far as most work
is concerned.