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
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR
_•_
Entered as second class matter October 14. 1943. at the postoffice
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3. 1879.
Friday, February 6, 1948
“Why I Broke With Wallace”
(By Dr. Frank Kingdon—Co-Chairman P. C. A)
THE NATIONAL REPUBLICAN club and the Krem
lin clapped hands together on the night Henry Wallace
announced his third party plans. Henry Wallace gave
both of them the New Year gift they most wanted. He
presented the Republicans the biggest boost since 1932.
He handed the Kremlin the one political move it wanted
in the U. S. A. in 1948.
I have great personal affection for Henry Wallace. I
maintained my loyalty to him as long as I could keep
alive the hope that he would avoid this tragic folly. The
issue now is not Henry Wallace—not personal affection
of loyalty—but the forces behind him and the probable
results of his adventure.
Who asked Henry Wallace to run? The answer is in
the record. The Communist party, through William Z.
Foster and Eugene Dennis, were the first. I am no Red
baiter. I believed it possible for American liberals to so
operate with Communists for social ends immediately
desirable. The saddest lesson I learned in 1947 was that
this is impossible. I was finally convinced when the
steamroller ran over me the night P. C. A. became the
second organized group to demand Wallace’s candidacy.
The record is clear. The call to Wallace came from
the Communist party and the only progressive organiza
tion admitting Communists to its membership. All citi
zens, including Communists, have a right to put for
ward a candidate. All I am saying is that their candidate
is theirs. They are his sponsors. He is named by them to
serve their ends.
Their tactics are the same here as in every country m
Europe. They are out to divide and confuse progressive
forces, to put reaction in power long enough to produce
despair, and then to cash in on desperation with a bid
for power. This pattern is plain in Italy and France. It is
plain in the schism they are fostering between Ziliacus
and the leaders of the British Labor party. It is plain in
the third-party drive here. It is deliberately aimed at
confusing progressive and encouraging social discontent.
I do not believe Henry Wallah is party to this plan.
He undoubtedly believes he is fighting for peace and
lasting prosperity. He is the present convenient symbol
for people who are using him. They will cast him aside
when his usefulness to them is gone.
I tried to tell him this. He would not be persuaded.
The result of this refusal will be to undermine his own
reputation and to imperil the aims most dear to him.
The important thing now is that other progressives
shall not follow him into the same error. The bright
name of Wallace should not lure his admirers into the
bog of his folly. The path of true American progressives
does not run to aims cherished by Communist strategy.
Union Revolt Of Red Control
(By Palmer Hoyt, Jr., Foreign Correspondent)
CHERBOURG—If this little town of 35,000 gives any
general indication of France as a whole, the “Worekrs’
Strength” movement is going to become very powerful
in this country within the next few months.
The movement began in Paris last month. Leon Jou
haux and other non-Communist leaders of the Gederal
Federation of Labor decided that the Communist-dom
inated faction of their group had used them long enough
to further Communist ends. They broke away and set
up headquarters for this new organization.
Here in Cherbourg, there is a battered old stone
building, at 50 Rue de Faubourg, which is humming
with activity—the local headquarters of the General
Federation.
Just before the first of the year local federation lead
I SUDS IN YOUR EYE
I *
I *
ers announced in La Presse Cherbourgoise, the town’s
single daily newspaper, that the administrative com
mittee for the entire department of La Manche had de
cided by a vote of 19 to 12 to join the Worekrs’Strength.
“In the present state of things, the identification of
the majority of the General Federation with the Com
munist party has made the air unbreaheable in a feder
ation that no longer represents the working class.”
“We call on all those who approve our action to join
our organization (Workers’ Strength) en masse, to par
ticipate with us in making unionism free and independ
ent.”
After the announcement, the leader^ of the Workers’
Strength group called for votes in the various local
unions, to determine which side individual union mem
bers would follow.
This move was a direct result of the strike called in
November by the Communist-led Paris headquarters of
the federation. Here in Cherbourg the strike was suc
cessful only among the 2,000 dockworkers.
“When the strike care,” Robert LeMarchant, Cunard
line employee said, “1,800 of the dockworkers wanted to
ignore the Paris demand. But 200 Communists and their
friends forced them into it. There was no secret ballot.
When it came time to vote—the leaders simply calV
! on those who did not want to strike to hold up the;r
hands. Everyone was afraid, so no hands were raised.”
“The other workers in town?—none of them went o~
! strike. The railways continued to run, and the worker
went to the naval arsenal every day.”
Since the local federation officials announced their
decision, street corners and cafes of Cherbourg have
been buzzing with talk. Workers of all trades come to
i the headquarters and stand around in small knots, talk
ing things over. All' the secretaries and minor officials
of the federation seem to be Communists, for in three
.visits to the secretariat, I heard each time that the
{Workers’ Strength movement would not take many
i workers from the Communist-led federation.
“Some of them will go, of course,” said M. Guerei
j secretary of the Marine Workers union at the arsenal
“The metal workers will go, but all the rest will stay.
So will the dockers.”
The secretary of the Seaman’s union said the same
tnmg.
But just outside the building’s big meeting hall, two
dockworkers told a different story.
“The dockworkers will join the Workers’ Strength
group. The federation no longer represents what we
want in labor unions. It is too political, and we are not
, interested in politics,” one red-faced man said.
During the conversation, he began to speak loudly
The thin man next to him looked out the window, and
tried to quiet him. Apparently he was afraid that some
of the Communist federation members might hear.
But the red-faced man shook him off.
“The last strike proved that the Communists do nol
care anything for our interests. We don't want anythin
to do with politics—we want to get out of their hands.'
Collectivized
Farms Major
Goal Of Reds
(By Dorothy Thompson)
The publicly propagand i z e d
aims of Communism are vaguely
liberal. One can read the Daily
Worker every day for a year with
out finding any clear exegesis of
Communist principle. Like Hitler.
Communists outside their own
ranks, promise all things to most
men, denouncing only “monopol
ists,” “imperialistss” (and failing
to provide a glossary for their
meaning of these terms), opposing
race discrimination, child labor,
etc. And everywhere they pose as
the friends of all farmers, except
owners of “vast estates.”
Since Henry Wallace has inter
national Communist support and
is supposed to be a friend of farm
ers, let us see what the Commun
ist program is for them.
Communism aims at the even
tual expropriation without com
pensation of all land, and the re
duction of all farmers to the status
of propertyless agricultural share
croppers for the dictatorship of
the proletariat. The program is set
forth in detail in the international
. congresses, especially the second
1 and the sixth.
The program recognizes four
classes of proprietors: Owners of
large landed estates (acreage not
i fixed; in Poland all Over 250
acres); successful farmers of
smaller holdings; marginal farm
j ers only one point above subsist
j ence; and those who barely
scratch a living.
These are to be absorbed step
i by step as follows:
"Confiscation of all large landed
estates and transference of state
and municipal properties, forests,
minerals. rivers, etc.," together
with "all property used in produc
tion connected with such proper
ties, buildings, machinery, cattle,
flour mills, dairies, etc., to the
proletarian dictatorship."
Compensation of any kind, or
, retention, even of household
goods, is strictly prohibited.
Parts of such porperties are to
be initially bestowed upon mar
ginal and subsistence farmers “to
the degree necessary to neutral
ize them and win them over to the
side of proletarian revolution.”
The poorest, “little fanners who
possess by right of ownership or
rental small portions of land
! which barely meet the needs of
their families without requiring
hired labor,” it is calculated, “will
side with the proletariat”—aspe
cially since they are to be bribed
J The marginal farmers are
“small landowners who possess
; portions of land which, though
small, may yield only scanty pro
vision for the family. But the pos
j sibility of accumulating a certair
j surplus which, in the best years
! could be transformed into capita
: and which sometimes needs to em
ploy labor . . . must in the begin
ning of the proletarian dictator
-ship, be neutralized. The vacilla
tion of this group is unavoidable.1
Bui members of the farmin'
class which represents the back
; bone of all agriculture, the work
ing farmers with sufficient land ft
! yield a considerable surplus ova
the family's needs, with sufficieo
capital investment to mean hig]
and efficient production—the das
to which a majority of America
farmers belong—are described «
"the worst class enemies."
• “The land-owning fanners ax
capitalists, managing their lan