THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
NOME. ALASKA
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 618
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR
W. A. Boucher .Owner-Publisher
Entered as second class matter October 14. 1943, at the postoffice
fct Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Nome, Alaska Monday, April 17, 1950
THE SPIRIT OF RESEARCH
(By George S. Benson, President Harding College)
What has happened to the half-starved genius, who
used to toil in some lonely attic, hoping to invent the
wonder of the age His day is just about over. There are
not so many of these lone-wolf inventors as there were
in grandpa’s time. Don’t we give patents any more? It
isn’t that. America is still the land of liberty and oppor
tunity. A man can still build his gadget and risk his
shirt—in hope of making his first million. Some do. That
spirit remains.
But better ways have been found. Many an attic
genius did invent and patent valuable discoveries. Out
of the one-room shop has come thousands of devices
and gadgets we enjoy and depend upon. But today, the
realm of scientific knowledge and skill has spread out
over a wide range of territory. Much of what an inven
tor needs in skill and money today may lie beyond the
grasp of any one man.
The newer term “research” is gradually replacing the
older term “invention.” Our complex age has made
specialization necessary, and this has been true of in
vention, or product development. To solve the problems
of today, the new way is to bring together many differ
ent minds, each highly trained in its own way. Industry
is doing just this, and we call it reaserch. The term it
self means “to look again, or to go around or about once
more.”
That is exactly what our research teams are doing.
The spirit of the attic inventor is there, but the tools and
the methods are different. While the half-starved in
ventor struggled along with almost no financial back
ing, the modern research team requires and uses vast
amounts of money. This explains why industry has built
fine laboratories and filled them with expensive equip
ment. Many wonderful things come out of these re
search buildings.
Now, I wonder if John Doe, member of Local 382, un
derstands why his company put down in their annual i
report: for Research and Development, $2,000,000. In
round figures, that was the sum spent last year by a
company that employs about 8,000 persons. Some com-!
panies spend more. One of the firms that manufacture
rayon reports that it has spent more than $30,000,000 j
since it became interested in that product.
True, it may seem like a lot of money your company
is spending for research, Joe. But remember this: re
search money comes right back to you in a thousand
ways. Actually, the company that does not spend for re
search, for better ways of producing better products, is
a company that will lose out and close down in the long
run. A more enterprising competitor will wind up with
the consumer’s dollar!
The company that spends for research is the company ;
that I would want to work for. It is also the company
whose stock I’d be willing to buy. I am convinced that!
when many industries are putting large sums of money j
into research, to find the answers to problems that face
them and the consumer, that money is well spent. Years i
of time and millions of dollars may be behind a new pro
duct. But it may be worth far more. Many a new job
and a much better product may be the result.
I mentioned rayon. Nowadays, nylon is newer. The
DuPont Company spent 11 years of research before
tley could even announce nylon, and used up $11,000,
000 before a penny was earned from the product. That
kind of thing can happen only in America, and under
free enterprise. The freedom to venture and to look for
the better way of doing things, for the newer and better
product, belongs to the spirit of America, and it is re
sponsible for our high wages and our high standard of
living.
Comm it tee Urges
Abolishment Of
Jury Sanity Trials
w J
(Continued from Page One'
erally demoralizing as the pres
ent building maintained as a fed
eral jail in Anchorage, the largest
city in Alaska.
“The use of this fabulous ob
scenity as a place to house mental
patients is nothing short of bar
baric. despite the effort of the U.
S. marshal and his staff to render
decently humane treatment.
“It must also be said that this
facility is fully as unsuitable for
prisoners as it is for the mentally
ill.”
The committee recommended
federal construction of a 350-bed
hospital in the Anchorage area,
for central Alaska, and a 50-bed
center at Mt. Edgecumbe, Sitka,
for Southeastern Alaska. Alaskan
mental patients now are housed
at Morningside Hospital, Port
I land, Ore.
The committee said that of pres
ent general hospitals in Alaska,
the Mavnard-McDougal Memorial
Hospital at Nome would lend it
self most readily to the addition
of a psychiatric unit.
All other general hospitals in
the Territory are either overload
ed as is Providence Hospital at
Anchorage, or are of inadequate
construction, or both, it said.
The committee urged that the
Catholic order which operates St.
Joseph’s Hospital at Fairbanks in
clude a psychiatric unit in the
hospital addition it is planning.
Urging the immediate abolition
of the jury system and jury-de
tention in sanity hearings, the
committee said:
“The stigma of being charged
with a crime, the public docket
filed with the court and the pub- ,
licity of having to appear before a '
panel of six neighbors are humil
iating in the extreme and are cer
tainly not recommended treat
ment for a person who might be
mentally ill.”
Dr. Wilfred Overholser, super
intendent of St. Elizabeth’s hos
pital, Washington. D. C., headed
the committee on a three-week
tour of Alaskan hospitals.
The other committee members
were Dr. Dale C. Cameron of the
National Institute of Mental
Health, Territorial Health Com
missioner C. Earl Albrecht, Dr.
James Googe, medical director of
the Alaska Native Service, and
M. W. Goding, assistant chief of
interior’s Alaska branch.
Committee Suggest
Nome For Alaska
Psychiatric Unit
*
• Continued from Page One)
ably the Maynard-McDougal Me
morial Hospital lends itself most
readily to a psychiatric unit.”
It is the newest and most mod
ern hospital and there appears to
be space on the ground floor level
which could be adapted without
excessive expenditure.
Under a well-developed mental
health program this space could
be developed for use as a mental
health clinic for in-patients and
out-patients where prevent i v e
and curative services could be of
fered on a short term basis. It
could also be used as a psychiatric
receiving center, i.e.: “detention
hospital” for patients under ob
servation or awaiting transporta
tion to a hospital for long term
care.
No other general hospital vis
ited by your committee appeared
to have space currently available
for such service.
All other hospitals are either
too overloaded <as the Providence
Hospital in Anchorage) or of in
adequate construction, or both.
It would also be necessary to
overcome a certain resistance for
psychiatric patients on the part of
teh heads of some private general
hospitals if additional facilities
were to be added. •
PIONEED WOMEN
CONFER DEGREES
Friday evening degrees were
conferred by the Pioneer Women
of Alaska on Mrs. Clyde Cobb,
native born Alaskan from Daw
son. Her husband is stationed
here with ACS, and Mrs. Clinton
Atwood who was in Nome in the
early days and whose husband is
with the Lomen Commercial Co.
here.
Following the meeting delicious
refreshments were served by the
committee Mrs. Joe Walsh and
Mrs. Charles O’Leary. Prizes for
card games were won by Mrs. Ron
Brousseau, Carrie McLain and
Mrs. C. Cobb.
Michael Reilly and George Me
grath, department of interior offi
cials who passed through here en
route to Shungnak as “observers”
concerning the forthcoming vote
to be taken to determine whether
or not the natives wish to be put
on a reservation, returned from
the north with Wien Airlines and
departed for Fairbanks.
NO UNEMPLOYMENT IN THIS DEPARTMENT
__ i It' I .
Tu8s Savs Soviets
Will Not Halt
Downing Planes
(By Eddie Gilmore)
MOSCOW, (/P)—Moscow news
papers Saturday published Tass
news agency dispatches under
foreign datelines indicating a be
lief abroad that Russian fighters
may have shot down the U. S.
Navy Privateer plane missing
since April 8.
Under a London dateline, Tass
quoted the News Chronicle as
saying that: “Incidents such as
the present one in which a- plane
was downed will be repeated in
the future as the Russians will not
halt at anything to preserve mili
tary secrets.”
Tass said the missing plane was
equipped with “exploratory ra
dar” and aerial photographic
equipment and had on board “3
specialists in electronics.”
The American press was ac
I eused of distorting the facts of the
! case and of minimizing the ‘Veal
purpose” of the plane’s trip.
The agency dispatch also said
the widespread search for the
missing plane during the past
week was a mask for air intelli
gence exploration in the Baltic.
It quoted the New York Times
as saying in a Frankfurt story
that the Baltic shore is a very in
teresting place for aerial observa
tions.
It is becoming clearer all the
time that if thq missing plane ac
tually was shot down, the Rus
] sians regard this as just punish
ment for violation of international
law. Likewise it is very apparent '
that the Soviets would deal out
similar treatment to any other
foreign military planes which
, show up on this side of the fron
tier.
The Soviet press has maintain
ed from the first that this has
been a “crude violation” of inter
national rights and sovereignty
and the plane got “what was com
ing to it.”
j _
Adm. Nimitz Says
H-Bomb Won't Be
Made in Lifetime
LAKE SUCCESS. </P) — U. S.
Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz
told 35 visiting West Point cadets
Friday he doesn’t think the hy
drogen bomb can be developed in
his lifetime.
He added: ‘I hope I don’t live
to see it.”
Nimitz, who is engaged by the
United Nations to administer a
plebiscite for Kashmir, spoke to
the cadets for 30 minutes.
His opinion that man would not
produce a hydrogen bomb in the
near future was concurred in by
Dr. Robert Millikan, chairman of
the California Institute of Tech
nology.
Millikan, one of the nation’s
top scientists said the stumbling
block to the hydrogen bomb is
that man can’t produce 25,000,000
degree centigrade temperatures to
• transform helium into energy,
like the sun does.
He told reporters here the
world does not have to fear that
Russia will have a stockpile of
atom bombs very soon. He said
Russia is getting most of its uran
ium from the Poachimstahl fields
in northern Czechoslovakia and
* Saxony and added that he doesn’t
! think there is much uranium
there.
• /