THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome. Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 618
SI.50 PER MONTH S16.P0 A YEAR
W. A. and EMILY BOUCHER.Editors
Entered as second class matter October 14. 1943. at the postoffice at
Nome. Alaska, under the Act of March 3. 1879
Wednesday, September 11, 1946
THE PUBLIC GOOD
\VIRTUALLY EVERYONE AGREES that govern
ment and private business should aim, always,
at enterprises “in the public good.” But compara
tively few individuals can differentiate between their
own benefits and benefits to others. To most of us
the “public good” is our own good. Programs which
interfere in any way with our own comforts or designs
we are likely to consider as against public interest, even
when, in fact, their adoption would benefit more peo
ple than they would hurt.
The public good means the majority good. Leg
islation which benefits the mass of our citizens, with
out working any real hardship on others, is, by that
standard, beneficial legislation. Yet in Washington,
America has set up an amazingly extensive and pow
erful group of lobbyists. The duty of each of these
individuals is to bring all the pressure to bear on Con
gress in favor of certain types of legislation, and in op
position to other types. Lobbyists represent, not the
public good, but small limited interests. Yet, for
all our boasts about majority rule, these pressure
groups exert jowerful influence on our legislators. Too
often they have their way, interposing their own meas
ures where measures of more general benefit should
have been.
Were it possible for each segment of society to
think in terms of the other segments, most of our
problems would be solved. But at this moment in our
civilization such an idealistic state seems far ahead—
if indeed we can ever reach it. By struggling and
clamoring for our selfish interests we manage to ar
rive at certain ends, some of which are satisfactory;
some of which are, in reality, “in the public good.”
But each such victory is presaged by endless quarrel
ing and bickering; is followed by the wails and howls
of small minorities whose grief at their own little loss
es hide from them the beauty of the majority’s gain.
(Cincinnati Enquirer)
NOT WORTH A CANDLE
Russian actions in Austria,as described by
General Clark in his monthly report for July, re
veals a 9hort-sighted selfishness that reflects no cred
it on Moscow. Not only in Austria but among the peo
ples of the other occupying powers they are stirring
up resentment out of all proportion to any economic
gains the Soviet can hope for.
General Clark protests against the Russian pol
icy of grabbing practically all of Austria’s oil and re
fusing to give the other occupying powers their share.
He protests against the Russian attempt to seize a long
list of Austrian properties on the ground that they were
“German” and reports that the allied control council
has approved Austria’s decision to nationalize these
properties over Russian objection. He charges Rus
sia with obstructing Austrian recovery by refusing
to permit formation of a central government.
This recital comes at a moment when Austria is
the subject of sharp discussion at Geneva, where the
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administra
tion is in session. Fiorelia LaGuardia, director-gen
eral of the UNRRA, has announced he will enforce
Resolution 91, which forbids the shipment of indigen
ous products out of a country receiving aid. The
Russian delegate refused even to discuss this matter on
a ground that it lies outside the scope of UNRRA.
This attitude is unintelligent as well as unreason
ENDLESS PRODUCTION LINE
[_
Mr yrai
Bn*
able. When the Russians are systematically stripping
Austria they must expect that the United States, Brit
ain and Canada, which supply 90 percent of UNRRA
funds, will object to shipping in goods Austria could
otherwise provide for her people. It is time that
Soviet policy-makers realized that this game is not
worth the candle. (Anchorage Times)
SOME GROCERY PRICES
WILL MOVE UP
TO MAKE UP FOR HIGHER PARITY, and subsi
dies dropped or lowered since June 30, we can
expect the price of some canned goods to go up one
to two cents a can shortly. The Alaska OPA Price
Division is now at work reviewing specific prices now
in effect on canned goods—to take into consideration
these changes and any commodity price increases
which may be granted for the 1946 pack.
In the dry grocery field, some price increases are
now moving on up to the retail level. One rise will
be in corn meal, due to the rise in corn prices when
grains were declared price exempt by the new OPA
bill.
Another result of the decontrol of grains is the
price behavior of flour. When flour went up, bread
prices were forced up along with it. Bread-type rolls
and cookies also took a price hike within the last few
weeks as the decontrol of most of their ingredients
increased productioncosts.
SEVEN WONDERS OF
THE MODERN WORLD
i
_ A
Although men have listened and
argued about the Seven Wonders
of the World for more than 21
centuries, the Seven wonders of
the Inventive World have been
relatively unnoticed and neglected.
Now the Seven inventions have
been brought into the spotlight by
the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
which states that probably “the
most important of all human in
ventions” was the invention-dis
covery that plants can be grown
from seeds. Recognition of this
fact resulted in the first primitive
agriculture, producing a regular
harvest instead of a risky catch
as-catch-can food supply.
Second in practical importance,
says the Britannica, was the dis
I covery of how to control fire, and
third place goes to the invention
of pottery dishes. Pottery made
it possible to cook and store food
more successfully, giving prehis
toric man an incentive to set up
permanent housekeeping near his
cached food suply, according to
the Britannica.
From ancient Babylonia or In
do-Persia came two additional in
ventions of great human import
ance: writing, which is fourth in
Britannica’s list, and the invalu
able standards of measurement,
weight, time and money—the bas
es on which modem life is or
ganized, rated as fifth most im
portant.
In spite of the fact that the
nineteenth and twentieth centur
ies are considered to be the great
inventive ages, only two of the
seven greatest inventions were
made in modern times. “T1
greatest of all inventions in hi
toric times,” says the Britannic
is food canning, which reduc<
! man’s dependence on annual ar
; local harvest. Another model
| invention, last of the seven and tl
! only one on the Britannica rost»
which is not completely anon:
mous, is the Louis Pasteur gen
theory.
Perhaps, like the Seven Wor
dors of the World which ha^
| been supplemented by an end
less number of Eighth Wonder
Britannica’s Seven Wonders of th
Inventive World can now anne
an eighth—atomic fission.
Edward Elway Free, forme
consulting chemist and phvsicis
and lecturer on Outlines of Scienc
at New York University, who con
tributed the Britannica article 01
inventions and discoveries, dis
qualifies speech, domestication o
animals, the concept of medica
treatment, invention of weapons
development of governments am
erection of buildings.
These cannot be included, hi
writes, because they were not thi
result of any definite act. Mos
of them were developed by ani
mals long before man learned t<
talk. Free points out.
For instance, speech probabb
began in animal sounds and fin
ally resulted from a long serie;
of small inventions—a word her£
a bit of grammar there. Leader
ship and government . were prob
ably familiar devices to man’;
animal cousins. Man very likelj
got the idea of building shelter*
from watching orang-utans or oth
er animals making nests in trees
Free says. The apes were a jump
ahead of the homo sapiens when
it came to weapons as well, mak
ing use of sticks and stones. To
man. however, goes the credit foT
sharpening flints and for devis
ing the bow and arrow, incom
parable' the cleverest invention of
prehistoric weaponmakers.
NO JOKE
CHICAGO, Sept. 11 —(£>)—Shir
ley Hudson, 23, told Superior Judge
Edwin A. Robson that her marri
age to J. Clinton Hudson, 26, of
Wheatland, Wyo., lasted eight days
and was just “one practical joke
after another.”
After their marriage on July
13, 1946, she told Judge Robson
he tied her ankles to a bed sheet
and hoisted her up toward the
chandelier. When she objected,
she said, Hudson told her she had
no sense of humor and left her.
Judge Robson granted her a di
vorce.
CHINESE SITUATOIN SERIOUS
NANKING, Sept. 11 —(;p)_The
Communists today rejected Chi
ang Kai-Shek’s latest truce pro
posal as unsatisfactory, dooming
any immediate hopes of a politi
cal settlement of China’s mounting
civil strife.
General Marshall, U. S. Spe
cial Envoy, communicated the Gen
eralissimo’s undisclosed terms for
a nation-wide armistice in a two
and a half hour conference with
Gen. Chou En-Lai, No. 2 Chinese
Communist. Then Comirtunist
spokesman Wang Ping-Nan re
ported:
“We continue to demand uncon
ditional cease-fire. We will not
accept any other conditions. The
situation remains serious.”