THE NOME NUGGET
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W. A. and EMILY BOUCHI .... Editors
Entered as second class matter October 14. 1943. at the postoffice at
Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3. 1379.
Wednesday, October 16, 1946
America Steps Forward
(The Denver Monitor)
We are told by some people that ours is a “corrupted
and corruptive culture of bourgeois society” and Amer
icans do but express “the moral disintegration and rot
ting of the capitalistic system.”
We are not, to be sure, as good as we might be—not
as bad, however, as our critics make us out to be. A tre
mendous strength is in this free America as our part in
the war amply proved—a more passionate devotion to
freedom than our critics suspect—and it is not going to
hurt any of us to appreciate America a little more than,
perhaps, some of us have.
There is a lot of good sound progress to be found in
American history if it is read as it ought to be—without
fantastic notions colored by a theory about the inevi
table “decline” of American society. It was not “moral
disintegration,” but moral strength, that overcame the
restrictive measures against Catholics which appeared
in the charters of 17th century Massachusetts and 18th
century Georgia, and which finally expressed itself on
behalf of all faiths in the Bill of Rights by declaring that
Congres shall have no law “prohibiting the free exer
cise” of religion.
It is a long step forward from the early days of our
history, when some Americans were denied the right to
hold public office solely on religious grounds, to the
. Constitution which declares that “no religious test shall
ever be required as a qualification to any office or pub
lic trust under the United States.”
As late as 1861 only New York and the New England
states permitted Negroes to vote. We are doing better
than that today. Even in those parts of the United States
where restrictions against Negroes have held out the
longest, five states, since 1934, have repealed the poll
tax. That’s not “moral disintegration.” That’s progress;
—up-to-the-minute progress.
That’s the way we work in America. And if, at times.;
the fight for freedom seems to be set back, we should
renew the battle with increased zeal knowing we have
-a history which shows that, over the long haul, Ameri
can society does advance.
A Mouthful Of Truth
(The Rocky Mountain News)
A Montana Rancher, interviewed by Scripps-Howard
Reporter Charles T. Lucey, said this:
“The people in Washington, no mater how smart they
are, can’t control efficiently anything as complex as the
cattle and the meat-packing business. If controls went
off, prices would go up for a while, but they would level
off before long. The longer Washington persists in con
trols, the longer there will be trouble.”
We think he spoke a mouthful of truth.
And cattle-and-meat is only one of many infinitely
complex businesses that “the people in Washington”
are trying to control with consequences that become
more and more painful.
There is a great meat shortage because cattle and
hogs are not going to the legal slaughter houses which
must pay OPA prices. But that isn’t all. There are other
great shortages, present or impending, due to the same
cause:
—Of soap, which is made chiefly of tallow, which
comes from cattle.
—Of shoes, which are made of hides, which come
from cows and calves.
—Of bakery goods, which require lard, which comes
from hogs.
—of many medicines, which are made of the organs
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and glands of cattle.
Lack of meat creates an abnormal demand for poul
try, fish, butter, and drives their prices upward.
If the OPA undertakes to cut their prices dwon, it is
most probable that they will disappear from the mar
kets.
The government worries about factory inventories—
fears that they are becoming dangerously big. But a
huge part of these inventories is in the form of nearly
finished products, piled up at the factories because a
few vital parts are not available. The manufacturers
contend that OPA price restrictions have discouraged
production of these missing parts.
A maker of farm machinery can’t sell four million
dollars’ worth of tractors because he can’t buy $15,000
worth of special steel needed to complete them. A truck
company has $3,500,000 worth of trucks in its factory
yard, lacking essential minor parts.
Thousands of fine radios can’t be delivered—no cab
inets. Shortages of such things as copper wire, small
motors, sheet steel are delaying or stopping the produc
tion of railway cars, heavy machinery, automobiles and
many more urgently-wanted goods.
The People in Washington, just aren t, and never
can be, smart enough to do the job they’re attempting.
Such success as they had during the war was due to,
and measured by, the extent to which prices and wages
were frozen in the relationships that had been brought
about in a free market by operation of the law of supp
and demand.
But now the government has abandoned or lost con
trol of wages, its efforts to control prices are doing great!
harm. The moves of the controllers create unbalances
and distortions—not stability—in the national econ
omy.
We do not say that decontrol of prices will solve all
our economic problems. We do believe those problems
will become more burdensome and more difficult to
solve the longer decontrol of prices is delayed.
THAT’S THAT By bruce gustin
^_ .
Three times 'in the last week,
President Truman has gone' into
a huddle with his advisers on the
meat Shortage situation. With the
Congressional elections less than a
month away, it is doubtful whe
ther anything can be done now to
offset the political effects of his
stubbornness and blundering in
insisting upon maintenance of
price controls. The damage al
ready has been done.
The President’s last hope of a
political “out” from the meat
shortage scandal went glimmering
| when the department of justice
I reported than an investigation by
the FBI found no evidence of a
r
conspiracy or collusion between
the packers and cattle growers to
create a meat shortage. That fixed
the blame more firmly than ever
on OPA price control policies. As
F. E. Moll in of Denver, executive
secretary of the American Nation
al Livestock association, has
pointed out: “The meat shortage
| is not due to any shortage of live
stock itself. Current feed crops
are the largest on record, and
meat can be produced in record
volume if ceilings are removed
and bungling regulations done
i away with."
There’s another thing about this
meat situation that is enough to
make the American people see red.
One reason the supply is so short
is because so much has been ship
ped abroad. The United States
Daily News reported a few days
ago that meat exports in JunH
i amounted to $37,441,000 as com
pared with a monthly average of
$2,182,000 in the 1936-33 period,
) and that “meat exports currently
I ire about 16 percent of total pro
i ductien.”
According to an Associated Press
survey, in forty-five of the major
cities of the United States, popple
I are experiencing more and wors»
1 shortages than in the darkest da^
j of the war. Not only meat, but
! soap, cooking oils and fats, sugar
! and many other items are scarce
j as the proverbial hen’s tooth. The
war has been over for more than
j a year, so it can’t be blamed for
j this situation. Many factors may
figure in .these shortages. But
! there is one thing people cannot
forget. Until the federal govern
ment began meddling in every
thing and injected a totalitarian
sytsem of price controls and regi-^
mentation into the American econ
omy, this country never experi
1 onced any shortages.
Even Senator Pepper, Florida
New Dealer, and one of the most
fiery champions of price controls,
is dubious about the political wis
dom of continuing this system. “I
am givin serious consideration
whether we should repeal all
kinds of price conrtol and try to
weather the bitter storm of infla
tion which will ensue thereafter,”
he said recently. “If price control
is gettin like prohibition in its last
days, so public opinion is not go
in to support effective price con
trol and the Congress is not going
to support it, we might just as
well not try to have it.”
The price control situation is
worse than prohibition was in its
last days. There were a lot of peo
ple who believed in prohibition.
Fewer believe in the totalitarian
theory that government should
control prices. After all, this is
supposed to be a free country.
Many Americans were firmly con
vinced that prohibition was a
violation of personal liberties.
Freedom of people to buy meat is
a thousand times more importadH
than any right to buy liquor.
Apparently there is a sound
basis for the charge of a federal
grand jury that state officials
from governor down to sheriff
have failed to enforce dry laws in
Kansas. But the blame really rests
upon public hypocrisy. Kansas
has been ‘‘voting dry and drinking
wet.” Whether laws are enforced
depends as much upon public sen
timent as upon public officials—
even more. If the people of Kan
sas wanted prohibition enforce
ment, they would have it.
White Shirts Guilty
Of Inciting Mob
NEW YORK (>P)—New Yorkers
have formed lines that extender
around a city block for movies,
liquor, cigarets, meat, nylons, but
ter, or what have you. But it re
quired the cops to handle a mob
that gathered in the Times Square
section when a haberdasher ad
vertised white shirts.
The crowd not only hampered
automobile traffic but interfered
with such serious business as the
attendance of bobby-soxers at an
early movie show.
One of the last of 3,600 whi®?
shirts went to a man who de
clared:
‘Without this I don’t know how
I could get married tomorrow
night!”