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
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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.
Monday, July 12, 1948
ANSWER TO AGGRESSION
\
(The Christian Science Monitor)
^JTHE COUNTERMOBILIZATION of power which Rus
sian expansionism has prompted will not cease
because Moscow has opened a peace offensive. The
Senate Foreign Relations Committee's unanimous
recommendation that the United States pledge mili
tary aid to defensive alliances in the latest response
to the essentially unpeaceful offensive pushed by
the Kremlin since the war. So too are its proposals!
for strengthening United Nations curbs on aggres
sion.
In the recent Smith-Molotov exchange of notes
the Russian Foreign Minister injected vigorous pro
tests against American support for the five-power
"Western Union," although no formal action had
been taken in Washington. Now Senator Vanden
berg's committee proposes to spell it out. This might
appear to be a revolutionary step in American for
eign policy, for the pledge of aid means participa
tion in what should be honestly recognized as an
alliance.
It may even be called an entangling alliance,
although the "entangling" interests already exist
and would continue in any case so that the alliance
is only a way of making it clear that those interests
will be defended. That could be much safer than!
permitting a repititionn of the mistake that Hitler
made in assuming that America would not realize!
its security was involved and> would not move to
defend western civilization.
This project for the "association of the United
States by constitutional process" with such regional
defense groups "as affect its national security" is
only part of a program to restrain aggression with
in the UN. In addition the Committee proposes that
the United States press for a UN police force and for
voluntary limitations on the veto, and eventually a
revision of the Charter. 1
The plan for military aid is likely to have great
er immediate effect than any other part of this pro
gram. For it could do in the military field what the
Marshall Plan is doing in the economic rebuilding
of Europe .It seems to us that everything which
strengthens western Europe — morally, economic
ally, militarily and politically — raises a buffer be
tween Russia and the United States and improves
the prospects of peace. Anything which frees west
ern Europe from the fear of aggression helps to re
store a balance of power — and of purpose — and
make a general settlement feasible.
There is in Europe perhaph more fear of indi
rect than of direct aggression. And military aid is
only indirectly a deterrent to indirect aggression. To
check political pressures and penetrations, some
thing more is needed. Basically it must come from
the people's own moral courage and appreciation
for liberty. But possibly international legal action
would help in cases of coups like those in Czecho
slovakia. Prague 1948 recalls Prague 1939. After
i i —atiia Ai
Hitler had been pushing indirect aggression suc
cessfully for three years through agitation, terror
ism, military pressures and coups, he finally took
Czechoslovakia in two bites. The Washington Post
points out that at that time treaties were proposed
calling for joint defense "in the case of direct, or in
direct, aggression; that is to say. an internal coup
d'etat or a political change favorable to the aggres
##
sor.
That proposal came from the same Mr. Molotov
who is now Russia's Foreign Minister. Indeed, Mos
cow was sharper perhaps than any other capital in
opposing the technique of indirect aggression — in
Nazi hands.
Why not now adopt these Russian views of
aggression as one defense against Russia?
Perhaps measures of this kind should be sug
gested as a main subject for peace talks when Mos
cow opens the next phase of its peace offensive.
Even if the Communists are not ready to call a halt
to indirect aggression, a provision dealing with it
might very well be added to the program for unit
ing the democracies within the UN for self-defense.
WAR IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING
^HE OLD GRAY MARE isn't what she used to be?
Alas, neither is the Trojan horse.
A group of Chinese Communists, attempting to
breach the walls of Yinghsien, reportedly disguised
themselves as sheep for the attack. The plan was
a fiasco despite ,or maybe because of, the attackers'
assumption that by mingling with real sheep they
could pull the wool over the eyes of the city's de
fenders.
What strikes one about this ruse is its un-Hom
eric quality. It must have been called Operation in
glorious. Certainly it does nothing to elevate war
making to the romantic levels sometimes claimed
for it. Even East-West diplomacy and American-Rus
sian debate in the United Nations achieve more dig
nity.
To have entered Troy in a wooden horse many
times the size of man or beast — the experience had
proportions at least suggesting the heroic. But to go
into battle as a sheep is too pointedly figurative.
Peace may be harder than war, but surely mankind
will soon prefer it.
| Forest Service
Calls For Bids On
Pulp Timber
(Continued from Page One)
bidder is determined, and before
the final award is made, the suc
cessful bidder must:
1. Show resources of at least
$8,000,000 available for plant con
struction.
2. Qualify for a federal power
license.
Each bid for the contract must
be accompanied by a $25,000 bank
or certified check. The successful
bidder must deposit an additional
$75,000 within a week after his
offer is accepted.
The Forest Service has estima
ted construction of a pulp mill,
power plant, houses and other fa
cilities will cost $30,000,000 to $40,
000,000.
The proposed contract for the
sustained-yield harvest of 1,500,
000.000 cubic feet of pulp timber
calls for installation of not less
than 150 tons a day.
Within five years this is to be
increased to at least 300 tons, and
within ten years it may be raised
to 525 tons a day.
Secretary of the Interior Julius
A. Krug has estimated that Al
aska’s forests could supply in per
petuity up to 25 per cent of the
U.S. newsprint demand.
The Aug. 2 offering is for most
of the timber of the Prince of
Wales Island north of Hydaburg,
Craig and Klawak, and for a smal
ler tract on Revillagigdeo Island
20 to 40 miles north of Ketchikan.
The lowest acceptable bid, the
Forest Service said, is 85 cents
for 100 cubic feet for timber in
tended for pulp manufacture be
fore July 1, 1962.
Also for the initial 10-yeac per
iod, for material to be manufac
J tured or sold in other forms than
i pulp or its products, these fixed
rates will apply:
$3 per 1,000 board feet for
spruce, $1.50 for cedar, $2 for
hemlock and other species, and
from 1 to 1 1/2 cents per lineal
foot for piling and poles.
The rates are subject to read
justment in 1962 and at five-year
intervals thereafter, to meet the
changes in market conditions.
Of the timber offered, all with
in the Tongass National Forest,
75 per cent is western hemlock
and the rest Sitka spruce except
for small amounts of Alaska cedar
and western cedar.
“The operable stand per acre,’’
the Forest Service said, “is be
tween 20,000 and 25,000 board feet
or 3,600 and 4,500 cubic feet,
“The timber is well suited for
manufacture into pulp. Possibly
15 per cent of it may be found
more valuable for manufacture
into lumber .plywood, shingles
or piling.
Veneer logs, saw logs, pulp logs,
cord wood and other primary for
est products may not be shipped
for manufacture outside Alaska
without the consent of the Re
gional Forester.
The Forest Service has reserved
the right to hold not more than
10 per cent of the merchantable
timber in the area for seed trees.
Also reserved are recreational lo
cations, and strips along roads and
along salmon spawning streams.
Congress has authorized the
Secretary of Agriculture to sell
Tongass timber and hold receipts
in a special account until righ s
of Alaska Indians in the forest nrr
determined.