THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome, Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 613
$1.50 PER MONTH S16.00 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.
Monday, July 1, 1946
COMMUNITY MOURNS PASSING
OF MARY POLET, BELOVED CITIZEN
# * * * *
OUR COMMUNEEY MOURNS the passing of Mrs.
Antonio Polet, who died in Seattle, last Friday
morning at 7:00 o’clock. Her death came as a shock
to family and friends.
MARY POLET came to Nome in 1905, from her
home in Tacoma, Washington, to be married to one
of Nome’s then up-and-coming citizens.
Always friendly and cheerful, never too tired or
busy to assist in any community project, Mary Polet
was generous, to a fault.
She was active in several community and social
organizations: A Past President of the Pioneer Wo
men of Alaska; Past Matron of the Order of Eastern
Star; Past Noble Grand of the Midnight Sun Rebekah
Lodge; Past President of the Ladies Aid Sdciety; and
took an active part in most civic programs.
Her leadership, advice and assistance will not be
forgotten by these orders to which she has given so
much effort.
MARY P. POLET is survived by her husband,
Antonio Polet; a son, Alvin Polet in Fairbanks; a
daughter, Mrs. Wilfred A. Boucher in Nome; three
grandchildren in Nome; a sister and brother in Tacoma,
Wash.; and a brother in California.
* * * * *
“No man is born into the world whose work
is not born with him. There is always work,
and tools to work with, for those who will,
and blessed are the horny hands of toil. The
busy world shoves angrily aside the man who
stands with arms akimbo until occasion tells
him what to do; and he who waits to have
his task marked out shall die and leave his
errand unfulfilled.” — James Russell Lowell.
* * * * *
One message in the modern language of free people
which will be engraved in the hearts of all who knew
Mary Polet, is “Mission Accomplished.”
* * * * *
We can be certain that the Almighty Father above
has taken her Home.
HOUSING CAN COST TOO MUCH
EVERYONE in the United States wants our people,
and particularly our war veterans, well housed
quickly. Amlost everyone, we believe, likes the vigor
and imagination with which Wilson W. Wyatt, the
housing expediter, is going about the job of mobiliz
ing our housing resources.
No one, however, wants the veterans, or anyone else,
la get a lot of severe economic headaches along with
the housing. As it stands, the emergency housing pro
gram runs unnecessary risks of having such results.
Here are the reasons:
1 The principal opportunity the program offers
to the veteran is that of buying a^ high cost house
Where a chance to rent would, more often than not,
meet his requirements much better.
2 At the worst possible time, the program adds
substantially to the dangers of a runaway infla
tion of the sort that inevitably ends in a crash.
3 Little is done to try to reduce the arbitrarily
high costs of building, such as those resulting
IF *T FIRST VOU DON'T *UCCBIP—_I
from restrictions imposed by labor unions and
antiquated building codes.
4 By giving overriding priorities to unatainable
goals of home construction, the program endangers
a volume of industrial construction necessary to
sustain full employment.
Too Easy To Pay Too Much
One of the mysteries of the Wyatt program is its
general emphasis on measures to increase the supply
of money with which to buy houses when the demand
for houses is already at an all-time high. Some vet
erans may need special financial help, but the plan
to give 90-95 per cent mortgages generally on new
homes is not only unnecessary but positively dan
gerous. By providing up to $3.5 billions of govern- i
ment-guaranteed credit for homes this year, and al
most twice as much in 1947, the program will release
an equivalent amount of individual savings to create
further demand for goods and services. All that such
generous mortgage terms will accomplish with cer
tainty is a dangerous lengthening of the odds that wej
will not avoid a boom and bust cycle of inflation.
If building codes were brought up to date and!
arbitrary union working restrictions were eliminated,
i the way would be paved for reductions in the price
of standard houses which, it has been estimated, might
run as much as 20 percent. This would both give the
buyer of a new house a far better run for his money, j
and also reduce the inflationary pressure created by
the super-generous credit arrangements involved.
Getting anything done along this line is difficult,
particularly because the restrictions are imposed by
tens of thousands of separate localities and organiza
tions. Some headway is being made. The local
housing committees being set up under the Wyatt pro
gram provide a means of doing much more. Far
more steam must be put behind this aspect of the pro
gram, however, if its greatest potentiality for perman
ently constructive accomplishment is to be realized:
- ■ - ^
VITAL ECONOMY
Hearing that it would not be
necessary for anybody to pay any
federal taxes for a period of 12
months would have been good
news to a lot of people any year
for two decades before World
War II. It would have occupied
acres of front-page space in
metropolitan papers, utilized hours
of radio time and consumed gal
lons of red ink. It might have
started a buying boom.
The money people used to put
out in federal taxes was stagger
| ing (then) although the amoun s
| seems small in contrast to what
I they have been paying lately and
probably will keep paying for sev
eral years. Just the same, pre
war taxes were big money and,
even now, would be worth sav
ing. That’s exactly the point I
want to make in this depart
ment today: It can be saved.
OVER TWICE ENOUGH *
Civilian employees of the Unit
ed States government today num
ber approximately 2,800,000 when
1,250,000 would be plenty. Even
this low figure is about twice
what we had six months after
World War I. In short, govern
ment has 1,550,000 unnecessary
hirelings now — more people than
live in The Bronx, in Los Angeles
or in St. Louis plus all of its sub
urbs. It is humiliating to think
about.
All of this enormous host of
people are eating out of the pub-^
lie breadbasket. They are not to
be thought about as if they had
private wealth and had retired
to pursue some impractical hobby.
Such people as that do, at least,
distribute wealth previously put
away. The people I am talking
about are deadweight on the rest
of us. They subsist on federal
tax revenue.
FIVE MILLION GRAND
Since their average annual in
come is about $2,400 each, they
are costing the taxpayers of the
United States every year the stag
gering sum of $3,720,000,000 in
salaries alone. Everybody who
hires salaried people knows well
that salaries are not all the ex
pense they incur. They all ha\^t
to be provided more or less space/
lighted, heated and equipped.
Add to these items such mat
ters as traveling expenses, tele
phone calls and incidentals and
the grand annual expense, as a
result of having these people em
ployed will swell to at least five
billion dollars. That’s more than
total federal tax collections in any
pre-war year. If such people
could be lifted off the public’s
neck the money could be saved
and the public would surely feel
the relief.
PLUS SOCIAL GAINS
Such shortening of payrolls
would be completely justified by
savings alone but there are plen
ty of other benefits. (1) It would
help to balance the federal bud
get, and if it is not balanced the
country will eventually go broke.
(2) It would help curb the trend
toward bureaucracy, toward cen
tralization of power and toward
government by whim instead of
deliberate government by law.
(3) Not the least of blessings
to follow laying off these people
would be to release more than
one and a half million persons for
productive work, letting them cre
ate something instead of living
off the efforts of others. (41 Fin
ally, it would increase the hope
of saving for future generations
the finest civilization the world
has ever known. I submit unto
you it ought to be done.
ROBERT PETERSON DIES
IN EVERETT WASHINGTON
Word has been received here
by Norvin W. Lewis of the death
of Robert Peterson of Nome, who
left here last year for a leg opera
tion. He died in Everett, Wn.