THE NOME NUGGET
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Entered as second class matter October 14. 1943. at the ^
at Nome. Alaska, under the Act of March 3. 1879.
Monday, April 28. 1947
Zanv. But Crackpot (iun Be Dangerous
(By George Dixon)
WASHINGTON—Isn’t it about time we realized thax
Henry Wallace is merely out of date?—That in olden
days he would have spent his time hopping around on
live coals or butting his head against a stone pillar, a!1
the while shrieking mad gibberish?
Anyone who ever observed him closely here in Wash
ington when he was upholding the dignity of the v'r
presidency by running wild figure-eights in the snow
and babbiing incoherencies should have tabbed him as
a Mad Mullah—just as fantastic—and just as dang9rw,c
The menace of all crack-pot zealots is that thev h°v3
lucid moments in which they can plot their seroen*‘no
course. Most of them also have the gift of exhorting
multitudes; their very zaniness being taken for blazin'
sincerity.
Everyone who has had any dealings with American
Communists has been struck by this: that a staggering
percentage of them are defectives.
The normal and healthy are a rarity in the rank an i
file. The leaders, of course, are smart—but thev usc
these defectives to carry out the orders passed on fro^
Moscow.
To a dreadful extent, American Communism is a
uge of the disgruntled: men and women railing againsx
fate because the potter’s hand slipped in the making.
Maybe what we need is an amendment to the bill nnw
pending in Congress—to treat alcoholics as hospita1
cases. Maybe we should establish some hospital wards
for our home-grown Reds?
Wallace has got a lot of our statesmen all worked ur»
over his latest eruption: his speech urging Britain not to
side with this country against Russia. In a balanced
mind this would be pretty close to treason.
A Real Peace Conference
(Rocky Mountain News)
THE FARCICAL proceedings at Moscow provide con
vincing evidence that the Council of Foreign Ministers
is not the proper vehicle to bring understanding and
stabilitv to troubled Europe.
The Soviet veto constantly has killed every construc
tive proposal looking toward settlement of pending
problems.
But where the Big Four Powers have failed in their
negotiations, perhaps a general, democratic conference
of all Allied nations willing to attend would succeed.
That possibility should be considered seriously.
The Soviet Union and its satellites undoubtedly would
boycott such a conference, which would exclude from
its jurisdiction areas controlled by the Slav-Communist
bloc. But wishful thinking will not change that situa
tion. Europe of the Axis days presently is divided into
two rival spheres of influence, and two years of effort
to break down the iron barriers between them has failed.
Freezing the present occupational zones where they
are is not to be desired, but if that is inescapable, we
must accept things as they are. A strong peace offensive
by the democracies, however, eventually might break
the logjam which an appeasement policy hasn’t as much
as budged.
Without the embarrassment of Russia’s exorbitant
reparations demands, we would be free to offer peace
terms to Germany, Autsria, Italy and the enemy Balkan
states which would pull the rug from under the Com
munist movements in those countries.
An Allied agreement immediately releasing all pris
oners of war outside the Soviet Union also would put
the Russians in an awkward position. Rumors are cur
rent that hundreds of thousands of Germans and Aus
trians have died from mistreatment in Russia s slave
labor camps.
This may explain Russia’s reluctance to release :hoce
who survived and who might bring back the whole u/iy
row German Communism might suffer from cuch i
cl sures. But, apart from the expedients involved, m • -
a.ity demands that we take a resolute stand a a.ns.
system of human slavery.
T”? hold seme of the best cards, if we play them ■
"sr.’t 'he right way an Allied peace conference. wv
r;.:icns that declared war against the Axis could
cn an equal footing, dedicated to draft a peace based
upon the principles of the Atlantic Charter?
V/e have tried the Russian way. Why not the Ameri
can way?
Texas Disaster Gives Glimpse
Of Future War
(Bv Thomas L. Stokes)
THE PHOTOGRAPHS from Texas Citv show +h
smoke curling up in that ominous mushroom share r*
fbe atom bomb familiar from the Bikini tests.
It wasn’t an atom bomb, of course. It might have been
^e catastroohe that killed hundreds of Americans and
m hired hundreds more was only a small-scale illustra
tion of what the atom bomb has done and can do.
You read the newspaper stories and look at that oic
*we and then thumb through a collection of releases
nhked at random that have been published in the snwe
of ? single week. It is like peeking into the doonwdav
book.
r or a lew samples—
A release from United Nations World telling abouf an
article in that magazine by Adm. Ellis M. Zacharies. r°
4lVed. former deputy chief of U. S. Naval Intelligence. It
starts: “Should war come tomorrow, the United States
~nd her Allies in the Western bloc could count on ponu
’ation resources of 415 millions; the Soviet republic
would be defended by a population of 293 millions: 570
million people in France, China, Italy and Sprin would
be nlunged into civil war and the rest of the world—694
million people—would be either neutral or of uncertain
status.”
Then there’s an exhibit in a release from Aviation
News, saying “the United States will have the first fleet
of long-range 500 MPH bombers, successful test flights
of two four-engine jet bombers within the past month
indicate.”
A release from General Electric savs that company,
“builders of the world’s most powerful atom-smasher
betatron more than three years ago, is prepared to build
a new type of machine three times as powerful.”
Behind the mail-man who brings these items, there;
come through the door the desperate young men who
survived that last war and look fearfully to the future1
they thought was going to be so different. We told them
it would be. i
The latest is Ernest David McCoy, belligerent for
peace, one of the three young war veterans who left
Northwestern University and organized World Republic
to promote world government, to which more and more
young men and women are devoting their lives. They
took over a whole building in Evanston, 111., and are
branching out. Mr. McCoy and some of his associates
are here now to open a Washington office. Said he.
sternly; “It’s time to stop talking about world govern
ment and do something about it.”
Why Kremlin Blocks Pact? That’s Easy
■ 'J
(By Barnet Nover)
In September, 1945, at London,
Secretary of State James F. Byrnes
made on behalf of the United States
an offer to Russia, Great Britain
and France which must have
caused the late William E. Borah
and the late Hiram Johnson to
turn violently in their graves.
Mr. Byrnes proposed nothing
nothing less than an iron-clad alli
ance of the four powers to keep
Germany disarmed and demilitar
ized. The alliance was to be for
twenty-five years. When the criti
cism was made that this was not
long enough the secretary declared
that this country had no objection
to having the alliance run for thir
ty or thirty-five or forty years.
The Byrnes offer marked a radi
cal and even revolutionary shift in
American foreign policy, fully as
revolutionary, in fact, as the policy
recently enunciated by President
Truman when he urged Congress
to extend large-scale aid to Greece
and Turkey.
One might have imagined that
the proposal would have been hail
eci by hosannahs and hallelujahs
by all of America’s partners in the
late war.
At the time Mr. Byrnes spoke,.
n-» fear in Europe was widespread
that history would repeat itself
ar. 1 that the United States would
lin this time, as sfte had done
after the first World War, revert
o an isolationist policy.
The four-power alliance plan
designed to end such fears. It
was an announcement in as clear
cut fashion as could be devised
■•at this time the United States
was in the peace-preservation busi
ness for keeps.
H&d such an alliance been in ex
..-tence after World War I, there
would probably not have been a
7 orld War II. Even the less com
rehensive Anglo-American guar
. r.tee of France’s security against
German attack which President
,V .'son brought back with him
: um the Paris peace conference of
i&13 could have achieved that ob
oe:; ve. That guarantee was never
wen voted on by the United States
.ate. It was not even considered
by the foreign relations commit
tee.
In due course, after a formal
nr aft of the proposed four-power
treaty had been submitted to them,
Great Britain and France approved
it in principle. Russia balked. Yet
the treaty offer was tailQr-made to
meet Russia’s professed needs.
As Senator Arthur H. Vanden
berg pointed out in his great
speech of Jan. 10, 1945, in which
tne plan of an anti-Germna alli
ance was given its first airing, the
proposed treaty was designed to
eliminate that “fear of reborn Ger
man aggression” which was alleg
edly “at the hase of most of our
contemporary frictions.”
That fear had again and again
been advanced as the excuse for
t..e policy which Russia pursued
in eastern Europe, a policy of
pushing out her borders and sur
rounding herself with satellite
states.
To this day the Russians have
not made clear what then objec
tions are to the four-power anti
German alliance. Mr. Byrnes was
not able to get that out of them
and General Marshall has had no
better luck.
The most that Marshall has been
able to get out of the Russian gov
ernment was a wholly unaccept
able counter-proposal advanced by
Molotov. As the price for Russia’s
acceptance of the four-power alli
ance plan, the (Russian foreign
minister insists on the acceptance
by the other powers of all the
points which Russia has been con
tending for at the Moscow confer
ence but which have not been ac
cepted.
It is unlikely that Molotov was
optimistic enough to believe that
his counter-proposal would be
^ven seriously. It was merely his
way of rejecting the American plan
iknout placing himself directly
on record as having done so.
The real reason why Russia does
not want the four-power alliance
proposed by the United States to
become a reality is not hard to
discover, however. The real reason
'■> that the Kremlin far from anx
>us ‘.o have the United Sta es stay
in Europe, is only eager to have
thi country clear out of Europe.
Like Col. Robert R. McCormick
of the Chicago Tribune, although
for very different reasons, Molo
tov is an ardent believer in Amer
ican isolationism.
Were the United States to revert
to such a policy all Europe would
lie open to the Soviets. There is
not a country on the continent
! which alone or in combination
I with its neghbors is strong enough
to serve as a barrier to further ter