THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome, Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 61H
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR
W. A. and EMILY BOUCHER.Editors
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at the postoftioe
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Friday, December 6, 1946
The Nation Learns Its Impotence
• (The Denver Post)
IT IS PROBABLE that John L. Lewis, with an in
flated sense of personal destiny, would be not at all
averse to jail as a penalty for his contempt of a court
order restraining him from breaking his contract with
the government.
Lewis knows well that the magnet of martyrdom,
which would be his, would pull the warring factions of
the American labor movement together. Jail would
make him a hero to millions. It might be the electrify
ing element which would enable him to fulfill his ear
lier-frustrated ambition to control all of labor under his
single banner.
Two men, now enshrined as labor heroes, owe much
of their stature to defiance of injunctions on a far lesser
scale than that of Lewis. They were Eugene V. Debs
and Samuel Gompers.
Debs, head of the American Railway union (an in
dustrial organization of railroad workers), led his union!
out in sympathy with the Pullman strikers of 1894. His
contempt of a resulting injunction brought a six-month;
jail sentence. In jail he became a Socialist and, once'
free, he became a pioneer of political action. His greater
martyrdom was to come later, during World War I,
when he was imprisoned for violation of the espionage
act. From prison he ran as Socialist candidate for Pres
ident in 1920 and received 915,302 votes.
Gompers, the American Federation of Labor’s great
est leader, discovered the glories of martyrdom in the
strike of the Buck’s Stove & Range plant in St. Louis,
1906 and 1907. The stove workers had struck for a nine
hour in place of a ten-hour working day. Supporting
them, the A. F. of L. decreed a nationwide boycott of
thfe company’s wares. The company appealed to the
courts and ,in 1907, obtained an injunction from the Dis
trict of Columbia supreme court which prohibited pub
licking the boycott. The A. F. of L., supported by the
United Mine Workers, flouted the injunction. Finding
contempt, the court sentenced Gompers to one year, A
F. of L. Secretary Frank Morrison to nine months and
U. M. W. president John Mitchell to six months. The
Gompers case dragged through the courts for more than
six years, and in 1914 the U. S. Supreme Court final1'^
nullified the sentences, holding that since the contempt |
was civil and not criminal the court could only fine the!
defendants. The statute of limitations prevented any
further action.
The Debs and the Gompers cases were important
landmarks in labor’s war against the use of the injunc
tion in labor disputes, a fight which was crowned with
its greatest success in the Norris-LaGuardia act of 1932.
This law was a virtual death stroke to judicial restraints;
in labor cases. The present Lewis case, however, tests
the contention that the act does not apply to the gov
ernment.
If Lewis, is adjudged guilty in Wednesday’s hearing
the case may well be pursued through the courts for
weeks even while the coal crisis deepens. And though
Lewis should yield to the law there remains no assur
ance the miners will return to their work.
The Lewis case will go down in labor history as a
milestone. It has finally shown the impotence of the
community against the organized rebelliousness of la
bor. As never before, it points the need for some basic
thinking to save the nation from industrial anarchy.
GETTING CLOSER
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The Public Has Power, Too
(Rocky Mountain News)
AFTER JOHN L. LEWIS forced the government to
give his soft-coal miners higher pay and other gains last (
summer, the OPA raised the price of coal 40 V2 cents a
ton to offset the increased wage costs.
We don’t know how much more Mr. Lewis will force j
the government to give the miners in the new negotia
tions or how much more the price of coal will rise as a
result; or whether he is at all concerned over how much
more the public can affrod to pay for coal.
But we hope he wasn’t too busy to notice a small
news item. It said that the price of home-heating fuel
oil was being reduced slightly along the East Coast,
stocks of such oil having reached 65,499,000 barrels—
an unusually high level for this time of year.
Mr. Lewis, as dictator of the miners’ union, has tre
mendous monopoly power over coal. And shrewd ob-'
servers think that part of his present plan is to increase
that power by presenting his annual new-contract de-j
mands hereafter in the fall—when approaching cold
weather makes a coalstrike threat more terrifying—in
stead of in the spring.
The public, however, is not likely to welcome the1
prospect of shivering in heatless homes, and of seeing
industries shut down. The public will seek means of
protecting itself against monopolist Lewis, and one way
is to become less and less dependent on coal.
A great many families have changed to fuel oil, and a
great many more surely will if the price of oil continues j
to go down while the price of coal climbs.
Mr. Lewis and his union are bitterly opposed to let- j
ting the Big-Inch and Little-Inch pipelines, built in war
time, be used to carry natural gas—a competitor of coal.
But the public, which paid for the pipelines, can exer
cise its right to say how they shall be used.
Mr. Lewis has fought the TVA and all proposals for
government development of other projects to manufac
ture hydro-electric power—another competitor of coal.
The public can exercise its right to say that the govern
ment shall produce more power from the nation’s rivers.
We don’t want to see the coal industry lose markets
and the coal miners lose jobs. But both can happen, and
will, we think, if Mr. Lewis keeps on pulling coal strikes
and forcing coal prices upoward.
By MARY LEE COUNCIL
Secretary to E. L. (Bob) Bartlett, Delegate to Congress from Alaska
PUBLIC LANDS IN ALASKA
Regulations allowing develop
ment of townsites as a nucleus to
group homesteading in Alaska
have been issued by the Bureau of
Land Management through an or
der signed on November 19 by
Acting Director Fred W. Johnson.
Ten or more persons may now
file on public lands through one
representative at 160 acres
pci sou a homestead and may
addition, apply for a townsite. ‘
same regulations allow such i
cedure under the Small Tract 1,
at five acres a tract.
Preliminary diagrams of gr
homesteading must be submi'
to the Bureau of Land Mam
ment showing development pi
contemplated. The diagram n
include specific information aj
relative location and areal ex
of each tract or site which is tc
devoted to school and other mi
cipal or common purposes
stores or other commercial en
prises, to housing and to agri
lure and grazing. The Interior
partment will give assistance
the preparation of the diagrar
Present regulations will be
effect in accordance with all p
lie land laws after settlemen
made on the land.
EXCURSION INLET
Fifteen structures and appr
mately 115 acres of land at
cursion Inlet, 65 miles north\
of Juneau have been declared
plus and will be disposed
through Lowell M. Puckett I
eau of Land Management,
partment of the Interior, Anc
age, according to information
cently made available to Dele
Bartlett.
The property, which is to
sold as one unit, includes two
ministrative buildings, two h
quarters buildings, a dispen
building, post office builc
transit shed, cold storage w
house dock, reservoir and
small structures.
Priorities for bidding wil
considered during the first 90
after November 27 and if not
posed of by that time bids 1
private parties will be consid<
Federal government agencies
have first priority to be folc
by the Reconstruction Fin
Corporation for resale to s
business, territorial and local
ernments, veterans of World
II and spouse and children
deceased serviceman and fii
non-profit institutions.
This real property has
classified as agricultural land
is subject to certain easen
and rights-of-way for public 1
ways, streets and pipe lines.
RESURRECTION BAY
LIGHTHOUSE
Funds to construct a light!
and radio beacon on Ruggei
land in Resurrection Bay an
ing sought by the Coast Gua:
the amount of $500,000, as re
ed to Delegate Bartlett by A
Commandant, Rear Admiral
Lin O’Neill.
Such construction was urge
the American Legion, Depart
of Alaska, at its recent conve
held at Ketchikan. The pi
has been approved by the <
Guard Headquarters and a si
made. However, the money i
available through pending a]
priations “in view of present
itations on new construction
efforts to secure such funds
be continued,” acording to
miral O’Neill.
NAVY WAR CASUALTIES
A casualty compilation
completed reveals that 14 Ala:
were killed, six were wounde<
one was a released prisoner o:
while serving with the na\
World War II.
The statistics based on the
dence of the designated ne:
kin at the time of the casuall
veal:
Those who lost their lives '
Awen Mayer Anderson, K
kan; Joe Deganahl, Juneau; ’