THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
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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.
Wednesday, December 3, 1947
Rough Road Ahead
(The Denver Post)
PRESIDENT TRUMAN’S REPORT to Congress on
aid to Greece indicates more than it actually tells. It is
so significant in that regard that it undoubtedly will
weight the thinking of Congress on the broader pro
grams of stop-gap aid to Europe and the Marshall plan.
The President made it pretty clear that up to now the
300 million dollars we provided for Greece hasn’t done
the jolo. He left no doubt that both internally and exter
nally the Greek situation is not good. He raised the
question whether American dollars alone ever will
make it good.
“If order can be restored” in Greece, the President
said, Greece can recover and rerqain a free community.
But the “if” is a very big one, as Mr. Truman definitely
indicated. Restoration of order, his letter said, depends
both upon the effectiveness of the Greek government,
and on the prevention of Communist-inspired efforts
from outside Greece, to support disorders within
Greece. Thus far the Greek government has not been
effective, and the Greek frontiers have not been barred
to foreign agitators. In a word, restoration of order is
not even in sight.
It is not an encouraging picture. Though conditions
in France and Italy as not exactly comparable to those
in Greece, the danger that disorder and confusion in
those countries will devour American dollars and pre
vent recovery is very grave.
Viewed in connection with Secretary Marshall’s tes-1
timony before Congressional committees on stop-gap
and long-range aid, the President’s letter emphasizes
the length and the roughness of the road on which the
people and government of the Unfted States have em
barked, in their efforts to insure, with good will, with
money and with commodities, the preservation of free
dom in other lands.
Maybe Yes, Maybe No
(By Palmer Hoyt)
SO THE RUSSIANS set off an atomic bomb of their
own manufacture in Siberia last June? Maybe they did,
but when a report like that leaks through the iron cur
tain, we can’t be sure it wasn’t pushed through with de
liberate intent to get a rise out of us.
Sending up a “trial balloon” is one of the oldest tricks
in the international art of fishing for secret information.
The silence with which American scientists have greet
ed the report of Siberian fission is encouraging. Their
wartime lessons of atomic secrecy were well learned.
Look at it this way. Suppose our nuclear physicists,
hearing that report, had rushed into print about it. Sup
pose they’d cried, “Fake! If the Russians had tested a
successful A-bomb, it would have sent up radioactive
materials into the global atmosphere and our instru
ments would have detected it.” Or suppose they’d said,
“True enough! Our observations revealed radioactive
evidence of such a test ten days after it was made.”
Either statement might be exactly what the Russians
hoped to get by fishing. Their object well might be to
find out whether we have means* of detecting atom
bombs at a distance. If so, our scientists failed to bite.
When pressed for statements they limit themselves to a
cautious “maybe.” »
Did our own Bikini test produce measureable radio
activity in the atmosphere? Some say yes, some say no.
Reports are conflicting. Were well-planned attempts
made to detect it? Are special instruments available for
the job? Maybe. The boys who can say aren’t saying.
During the war, radium paint was used on vast num
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bers of luminous instrument dials. The dial painters
wiped their brushes on waste paper which got back into
commercial channels. To avoid fogging, the Eastman
company packed films only in cardboard and paper pro
duced in their own, uncontaminated mill. Yet forty days
after the first atom test in New Mexico, Eastman’s
strawboard showed radioactivity. The conclusion was
that the New Mexico atom cloud ITad affected the straw,
the water used in processing, or both.
Maybe we now have accurate means of checking such
things. Maybe they are being applied in Alaska, Japan,
at American embassies and consulates near Russian
frontiers. Maybe Russia would like to know.
«
ft
Marshall Plan Stockpiles
(By Jack Foster)
OF ALL THE ASPECTS of the Marshall Plan for Eu
ropean aid there is probably none on which there is such
general agreement as the need for partial European re
payment in the form of strategic materials.
Everybody knows that the United States is short of
many minerals essential to military preparedness. No
less than 47 of those key materials are available in the
16 Marshall Plan countries or their colonies. So an ex
change should be relatively easy to work out.
Curiously, however, it is on this point that the Ad
ministration in its voluminous presentation of Marshall
Plan problems has been least efficient. Apparently just
because it is in the taken-for-granted category, none of
the numerous departments, agencies and special com
mittees has gone all out on the subject.
With this lack of emphasis on what should be a major
rather than minor part of the plan. Republicans in the
j current Congressional hearings quite properly are prod
ding officials. Though interested, neither the spokes
man for the Krug committee nor for the State Depart
ment seemed adequately informed when cross-exam
i ined. Assurances of chairman Vandenberg of the Senate
foreign relations committee are most welcome.
He promises that his committee will see that such
partial repayment provisions are in the treaties cover
ing the Marshall Plan when they reach the Senate. But,
of course, the initiative should come from the State De
partment, which negotiates the treaties.
Apart from the obvious justice of a plan for the
i United States to stockpile strategic reserves so depleted
in this country during the war, there ar*> other reasons
| why Washington should negotiate with the 16 nations
; on this matter fully and promptly.
It is the surest test of the good faith of each nation. It
is one of the few methods and certainly the easiest by
which they can repay us in part—and any one-sided re
lationship is always unhealthy, worse even for the re
ceiver than the donor.
Because the United States, in the absence of an inter
national military force, is the world’s major security
j power, those nations should wish to supply us strategic
materials, even if they were not c*ir debtors.
What It Means
Tax Duplication
(By Charles Molony)
WASHINGTON, — Chances.
of a cutdown in overlapping taxa
tion by federal and state govern
ments look brighter than in years
—but not too promising at that.
Of about $39,000,000,000 in fed
eral and $5,000,000,000 in state
collections in fiscal 1946, more
than 90 per cent came from taxes
levied at both levels on the same
things.
The dual levies were income,
death, gift, liquor, tobacco, gaso
line, admissions and stock-trans
fer taxes.
Reasons why charfces for relief
from some of this overlap are
brighter than usual include:
1. General revision of the feder
al tax system for the first time in
a considerable period is to be
studied by Congress at its next
session. The administration ha.-:
encouraged this study.
2. A number of Senators and
Representatives who attended a
recent Chicago conference with 11
governors agreed something should
be done, and that the federal gov
ernment should take the first step
by giving up certain tax fields to
the states.
Revenue Needed
But that last suggestion points
up why the outlook is not too
promising; both the federal and
state governments require a lot of
revenue to pay for their opera
tions, and each is inclined to favor
having the other fellow pull out to
end overlaps.
Treasury department tax anal
ysis of the question suggested
guardedly that the federal govern
ment might well put out of the
gasoline tax field—“in exchange
for state withdrawal from another
field.” It hinted at state withdraw
al from tobacco taxation.
Conflicts Limited
On the other hands, it said, con
flicts between federal and state
income taxes are ‘‘not as broad as
appears at first sight" and that,
furthermore, taxpayers might as
well assume they’ll have to keep
on paying both.
Latest available figures on col
lections are for the fiscal years
1946, the 12 months ending June
30, 1946. ,
During that period, the Treasury
Department said, 76.9 per cent
($18,705,000,000) of federal and
16.9 per cent ($395,000,000) of
slate collections were from income
taxes. Neither is likely to give up
such an important sourse of rev
enue. The treasury analysis said
an integrated program might
smooth out some conflicts, though.
Here are some further traesury
views on overlapping taxes:
1. Tobacco—38 states tax it. It’s
the ninth best producer of state
revenue, yielding $198,000,000. It
accounts for only 2.9 per cent of
federal collections — but that’s
$1,166,000,000.
It’s naturally easier for the fed
eral government to administer to
bacco taxes. It collects from the rel
atively few manufacturers. States
have to collect from wholesalers,
retailers, and even consumers.
Differentials Cited
2. Gasoline — The states got
$900,000,000, or 18 per cent of to
tal revenue, from this. Federal
gasoline collections, though
amounting to $406,000,000 were
| less than one per cent of all feder
al revenue.
The report said it might be well
for the government to quit taxing
gasoline—limiting its spending on
i highways proportionately.
3. Liquor taxes—During fiscal