THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
NOME, ALASKA
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 6jo
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W. A. Boucher .Owner-Publisher
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943. at the postoffice
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Nome, Alaska, Wednesday, June 29. 1949
RUHR'S REDS ARE TACKLED BY BUCHMAN
(Cleveland Plain Dealer)
(The Plain Dealer sent John P. Leacacos, its Eurooean correspond
ent. from Pome to study and if possible appraise the probable effect of
the Moral Rearmament program. His first report is printed below*.
CAUX, Switzerland—A 100-man team of amateurs,
sparked by American and British followers of Quaker
inspired Dr. Frank N. D. Buchman’s Moral Rearmament
Assembly, has been waging a frontal assault on key
German communists in their Ruhr and Rhineland
strongholds for the last six months, it was disclosed to
day at the world M. R. A. congress concluding here.
According to a hitherto unpublished report released
exclusively to this correspondent, by Dr. Buchman,
Moral Re-Armament activities in western Germany
have:
PERSONALLY induced more than two dozen com
munist officials of party cells, shop communities and
trades unions to change their philosophy, resulting in
Red resignation from party membership.
INITIATED the training of German M. R. A. disci
ples for duty in the Soviet zone of Eastern Germany to
preach house to house what the Buchmanites call the'
“moral principles of inspired democracy.” This program
will go into high gear June 17 when the first of 2,000
German vouths come to Caux for training this summer.
PLAYED an amateur production — “The Forgotten
Factor,” a folk drama—before audiences totaling more
than 70,000 in 12 mining and textile towns of the Ruhr. !
The play caused great enthusiasm among the Germans j
for its simple, moving presentation of the virtues of the,
democratic life, testimony showed.
AIDED in the promotion of management-labor un-1
derstanding and in the lessening of partisan political
feuding by sponsoring behind-the-scenes conferences
between industrialists and workers and among leaders
of the bitterly warring party factions.
The keynote of such conferences was perhaps best
expressed by Dr. Hermann Kost, director-general of the
German coal board which supervises operation of the
Ruhr’s coal fields. He said to his fellow industrialists:
“It is not for us to wait for labor to change. Change, j
gentlemen, is demanded of us. It is not a question of
whether we change, but HOW we change.”
Dr. Buchman, commenting on the report, said:
“The principles of Moral Re-Armament can be the
straw that will save Germany. The amazing response of
the Germans may well prove that Germany is one of
the nations that will teach the world.”
Garrett Stearly, who was born in Cleveland, led the
German crusade. For his part he emphasized the per
sonal reactions of the Germans to free honest discussion
of the virtues and failures of democracy.
“Our people lived, ate and slept in German houses,”
he related. “We admitted our own faults right off the
bat. We only insisted that a man has to find the answer
to his problems in his own God-directed conscience, not
in a formal doctrine or isms.”
On the wider propaganda front, the M. R. A. group
also distributed several thousand booklets in German,
in which the theme was hit again and again that every
German, be he factory owner, worker, bureaucrat or
housewife, “has got to change personally” in order to
make democracy come to life in Germany.
This privately published pamphlet was made possible
by the contribution of 200 tons of newsprint from eight
American and Canadian companies and 100 tons from
Swedish companies. The effectiveness of the propagan
da message has drawn the keen interest of Assistant
Secretary of State George Allen, who is in charge of of
ficial United States information services abroad.
M. R. A. leaders plan to extend their training meth
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ods to native citizens of the Soviet satellite countries
and to send the trained personnel back into their states
to spread the democratic gospel. The idea is to develop
national leaders in every country who can persuade
their own people better than outside propagandists.
Dr. Buchman said a similar effort will be made for
the Far East, Japan, India, Burma and China, “despite
the Communist control” in the last named. He added
that if M. R. A. would could have been turned on China
two years earlier, it might have given the Nationalists
a new lease on life which would have made it possible
for them to cleanse their inefficiency and fight the Reds
to better effect.
The M. R. A. members assert they do not try to attack
Communism directly by name but rather counter with
proving that democracy truly carried out is infinitely
better. The communists always repeat they want to
feed, clothe and shelter the millions but western indus
trialists express the same wish too infrequently, it was
said. M. R. A. says western industry can do it much bet
ter without resort to class warfare.
Two by-products of interest were ascribed to the Ger
man M. R. A. proselytizing. One came from tackling
the problem of the die-hard Nazi youths left without a
leg to stand on when the Nazi philosophy collapsed in
defeat. These young fanatics were increasingly filling
their mental void with communistic ideas.
Here at Caux it was startling to hear former Nazis get
up and confess their errors and above all a feeling of
guilt about the late war. It was one of the few times this
correspondent has ever heard a German admit as much.
The other major development has been in the im
provement of French-German relations. A prime pro
moter of this has been Mme. Irene Laure, a 51-year-old
former secretary general of the 3,000,000 Socialist wo
| men of France and a resistance leader whose own son
| was tortured by the Gestapo.
A strikingly candid personality Mme. Laure, who
also toured Germany, first amazes and then reduces the
many Germans here to tears when she publicly forgives
them and asks only for the end of the personal hate
which has kept the two nationalities apart these many
years*
More fruitful for concrete economic relations perhaps
have been the private conversations here between
Georges Villiers, president of the French Employers
, Association, and Dr. Hans Boeckler, chairman of the
i German Trades Union Federation in the British zone of
Germany. Further meetings between French and Ger
mans are planned for Caux next month.
—
Advertising is known by the company it keeps. . . .
Advertising is a canny business adventure, not a char
itable process. . . . The newspaper that does something
for its readers can do something for its advertisers. . . .
Every advertisement in The Nome Nugget is testimony
that past advertising has been profitable.
Bureau Suggests
Processing Pribilof
Skins In Alaska
(By Vern Haugland)
<<>P) Special Washington Service)
WASHINGTON, </P>—'The seal
skins taken each year on Alaska’s
Pribilof Islands would be convert
ed into fur coats in Alaska if the
reclamation bureau has its way.
Secretary of the interior Krug
has forwarded President Truman
a bureau report recommending
the change.
Since the government has exer
cised control over the killing of
the seals, the furs have usually
been processed in St. Louis, Mo.,
generally by the Fouke Fur Co.
Since 1939 bids haven’t ever been
asked from other firms.
“It appears incongruous to have
a resource, taken in the most
westward portion of Alaska, ship
ped thousands of miles to the cen
tral portion of the United States
for processing,” the report said.
“Establishment of this industry
in Alaska would be a valuable ad
dition to further development of
the Territory’s economy.
“Alaska has made several at
tempts to have part of the pro
ceeds from annual sales of Pribil
of Island fur seal pelts by the fed
eral government returned to the
Territory. It has always been un
successful, although Great Britain
returned its share to Canada
many years ago.
“In 1947 the pelts were sold for
more than $2,000,000. More signifi
cant than just a share of the re
turns to Alaska would be estab
lishment of the tanning industry
in Alaska to process the pelts.”
Some Housing
Funds “Unfrozen”
JUNEAU. (#*)—The board of ad
ministration Monday broke loose
$50,000 of the $250,000 in housing
authority funds frozen last week
f>n presentation of obligations by
E. Glen Wilder, AHA executive
director.
Wilder said that amount is re
quired by the authority until it
can obtain a pending Congression
al appropriation of $15,000,000.
The board also froze Alaska de
velopment board funds beyond
bare administration expenses and
commitments which already have
been made. The exact amount of
these sums cannot be estimated
until the return of the board’s
consultant, George Sund borg,
from Washington.
Bendix Strike
Nears Settlement
WASHINGTON, </P)—Secretary
of air Symington announced an
agreement yesterday for settle
ment of the strike that has closed
the Bendix Aviation Corp. plant
at South Bend, Ind., for 70 days.
Terms agreed to by company
and united auto workers officials
were kept secret pending study
and a vote by the workers.
Symington summoned the union
and management spokesmen here
for conferences which ran through
Monday night and into yesterday
morning. He said he did so be
cause of the effect of the stoppage
on production of airplane engines.
Symington told reporters “We
were in trouble all over the world
on these airplane parts.” He said
that he had used “no coercion
whatsoever” in bringing labor and
management officials together.