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
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at the postoffice
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3. 1879.
Friday, February 27, 1948
The Chennaull Report
(Rocky Mountain News)
MAJOR GENERAL CHENNAULT reports that the
time fuse of another world war is burning in Manchu
ria. The famous founder of the Flying Tigers, now re
tired and operating airlines in China, is not the first to
compare Japan’s conquest of rich Northeast China pro
vinces with the present Red efforts there. But, on the
basis of his experience and knowledge, his opinion car
ries special weight.
• We think you will want to read the report he has
written from Shanghai for the Scripps-Howard news
papers. Since President Truman and secretary of state
Marshall have suppressed the Wedemeyer report, this’
is the most authoritative statement on the subject avail
able.
Though the Manchurian military situation is describ- j
ed as desperate, it is not hopeless. Provided, that is, the
United States governments acts quickly.
There is no suggestion of one-sided interference by
our government. It can act on the invitation of the legal
sovereign Chinese government, a close and faithful ally j
to whom we are indebted for years of valiant strugglej
aganst the common Japanese enemy. Washington has
made promises of aid to Nanking which have not been
carried out. In justice to China and for our own integ
rity we should keep faith.
This does not involve sending American troops. Chi- j
na’s military lack is not in numbers but in training,'
leadership and supplies. Most of the guns she has ob-1
tained from us in the past lack ammunition, which only
we can furnish—and which we can do at relatively little
expense because much of it is now deteriorating in our1
unused dumps on islands in the Pacific. Likewise China
cannot run her American trucks or fly her American
planes for want of parts.
Equally if not more important is the need for Ameri
can advisers. Occording to General Chennault:
“No emergency measure within our power could
serve China more than assignment, at China’s invita
tion, of such a man as General Wedemeyer to a position
such as he held in 1945 under under Generalissimo
Chiang Kai-Shek, for prosecution of aerial warfare the
United States should furnish, again at China’s invita
tion, the best available American tactician. Both of
these men should be supported wth increments of hand
picked specialists and technncians.”
This can assure victory in Manchuria which, in turn,
can save China, he believes.
No expert will question General Chennault’s state
ment of th military crisis.
The Red rebel armies, equipped with Jap arms oblig
ingly left for them by the Russians, now hold nine
tenths of Manchuria and are preparing an early cleanup
offensive.
The question now is whether the long-delayed State
Department recommendation on China aid, will be large
enough.
__ •
No Time For Guesswork
(The Denver Post)
IN THE LAST year many arguments, pro and con, on
the question of whether the American steel industry has
the plant capacity to make possible the maintenance of
full employment have been heard. Now the specal steel
sub-committee of the special Senate committee on the!
problems of small business has proposed that someone,
preferably the department of commerce, should find
out what the nation’s steel needs for the next few years
will be.
The proposal certainly is sound, particularyl since no
survey of domestic steel needs has been made since
HOW GREEN IS HIS VALLEY ?
«(LP
early during the war.
In 1947, the steel industry turned out approximately
85 million tons of steel ingotts, enough to make 62,300,
000 tons of finished steel products.
One government expert estimates that for full em
ployment, the country will need 1.8 tons of steel a year
per civilian job, or about 15 million tons of additional
steel capacity, for the period ending in 1950. The steel
industry has replied that it plans to increase its capacity
by 2 and one-half million tons of ingot capacity by the
end of 1948.
The steel industry, of course, is cautious because it
remembers the time when business was so poor it oper
ated at only 35 per cent of capacity. The industry points
out that shortages of scrap, coke and transportation fa
cilities definitely limit possible steel production as
much as do plant capacities.
The industry points out that steel mill capacity could
not be increased greatly without diverting considerable
much-needed steel to mill construction purposes and it
would be at least two years after such building started
before the new mills could come into production.
The fact remains, however, that American industry,
and world industry too, has been starved for steel for
several years now. A factual survey of steel needs at
least would remove much of the guesswork which has
been involved in all steel capacity discussions which
have been held so far.
Toward Europe’s Unity
(By Barnet Nover)
IN AGREEING in principle to a customs union be
tween them, Italy and France have taken th£ first long
step along a road which more and more people in both
countries feel their nations must travel.
The road is certain to be long and hard, full af ancient
pitfalls and new obstacles. The same holds true of that
larger plan of a western European union which Ernest
Bevin proposed in a speech in the House of Commons
which marked a historic departure in British foreign
policy.
Yet in two highly significant respects such schemes
of federation, even though still in their incipient stages,
cannot be dismissed as remote and utopian.
In the first place, the desperate plight of their respec
tive countries, has convinced millions of Englishmen,
Frenchmen, Italians, Belgians and others who geogra
phically now occupy the middle ground between the
Russian and the American super-powers, that their na
tions cannot stand alone either militarily or economical
ly or politically. *
If the countries of western Europe are to enjoy more
than a mean and uncertain existence they must, as the
report of the sixteen nations that attended last sum
mer's Paris conference made clear, pool their resources,
integrate their activities and operate on the basis of mu
tual self-help. Even more important, a western Euro
pean union, in one form or another, is the implicit goal
of the Marshall plan and thus far
has behind it the good will of the
United States.
In the past, the urge toward Eu
ropean un’tj has come from two
completely opposite directions. On
the one hand, it has been the
dream of Dante and Kant, of M:.z
zini nad Victor Hugo and other
men 6f vision. In our own d y
projects for a United States of Eu
rope have borne the names if
Coudenhove-Kalergi, Aristide Bri
and, Winston Churchill.
On the other hand, actual at
tempts to unify Europe have, un
til now, consisted in the efforts
made by one country to impose its
will on the other nations of the
continent. That was true of Napo
leon. It was even more spectacu
larly true of Hitler.
At St. Helena, Napoleon sought
tc justify his bloody record by r.r
guing that his aim had always
been to unify Europe.
Had Hitler survived the collapre
of his fantastic empire he would,
no doubt, have argued similarly.
But the unity which each sought
to impose was the unity which one
finds in a jail. The unity which
Europe needs must consist in a
union of free men and free na
tions.
The importance of the moiul
support which the United States,
through its advocacy of the Mar
' shall plan, is giving the idea of
Eureopen unity is beyond calcula
tion. Nor is there any parallel for
it in history.
The entire basis of Briitsh pol
#cy in Europe consisted in main
taining a balance of power on the
continent so as to prevent the rise
of-any power or coalition so strong
as to overshadow the United King
dom.
This policy has now been scrap
ped and it is significant that in his
speech announcing the change Be
vin made it clear that the impetus
for the change came from the
Marshall plan.
This does not mean that tomor
row or the next day or next year
! the federation of western Europe
will become a reality. We can be
certain that the obstacles that
stand in the way of such a devel
opment will not easily or speedily
be overcome.
Yet the desire for federation ex
ists. The pressures are there. And
now in the Franco-Italian agree
ment in principle on the customs
union as well as in the current
British talks with the French and
the Benelux countries (Belgium,
the Netherlands and Luxembourg)
> we have the beginning of specific
explorations of the idea,
i For us the fact is inescapable
i that unless Europe does unite, or
at least achieve a degree of mu
: tual co-operation beyond anything
achieved up to now, the far-reach
ing aims of the Marshall plan will
not be reached. On the other hand
unless the Marshall plan is car
ried out in a large-minded and
1 generous spirit, the great promise
of federation in western Europe
may be still-born.
__ n .
Bread To Eat
On Nov. 5 last, Tom Campbell,
the Montana wheat king, called
i on President Truman.
On his way out of the White
House, Mr. Campbell told news
| paper reporters that what he
wanted was $3.50 a bushel for his
, wheat—and he had 600,000 bush
els of it in storage.
The price then was $2.94 a bu
shel.
Next day, at his press confer
ence, the President told reporters '
that Mr. Campbell wanted to get
as much as he could and he didn’t