m NOME NUGGET
OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
VOL. LII. No. 17 NOME, ALASKA, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1950 Per Copy—15c
NEWS IN BRIEF
NEW YORK, (#») — Two men
have been arrested and have ad
mitted participation in the daring
$25,000 gem and fur robbery at1
the home of showman Billy Rose,
police said today.
The announcement was made
by police commissioner William
P. O’Brien. It came after the two
had been questioned for hours by
top-ranking members of the police
department.
The commissioner said that
three other men also were being
sought.
He identified the two men in
custody as Andrew Finnegan, 34,
a longshoreman, and Alex (Red*
Grenlock, 33, of Astoria, Queens.
Both men have long police re
cords, O’Brien said.
WASHINGTON, </P) — Seven
press service and newspaper cor
respondents flow from here yes
terday to observe the joint U. S.
Canadian military maneuvers on
the Alaskan border.
A representative of the Associ
ated Press was included in the
group which will travel in an Air
Force transport to Whitehorse, Y.
T., by way of Great Falls, Mont.
About 5,200 air force and army
personnel will take part in the
war games—the first joint troop
training exercises of its kind ever
held by the two countries.
Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Chamber
lain, Fifth Army commander,
will have over-all command of the
maneuvers.
BRATTLEBORO, Vt., (£>)—The
body of Peter Culbertson, 19
months-old son of bridge expert
Ely Culbertson, was found under
the frozen surface of a brook near
his parents Brookside Terrace i
estate Wednesday.
Dr. Camuel D. Bell, Jr., said
the child died accidentally in a
head-first plunge from a bridge j
over the brook.
WASHINGTON, {#) — The
armed services told Congress to
ddy they plan to spend about
$112,160,000 for housing under a
proposed multi-million dollar de
fense public works program.
Army, navy and air force offi
cers said at a hearing of the
House armed services committee
that $45,834,000 would go for
army quarters; $55,326,120 for air
force, and $11,000,000 for the
navy.
No figures weer given on the:
number of units to be built.
Lt. Gen. Thomas B. Larkin, of
the army said the housing would
be in addition to quarters to be
built under the Wherry defense
housing act passed by the last ses- j
sion of Congress.
JUNEAU, (/P) — Governor Er
Gruening described the proposal
for creating Alaska native reser
vations as “wholly destructive” in
a talk to the chamber of commerce |
yesterday. He has just returned
from Washington, D. C.
He said the furore over the air
force plan to transfer B-47 bomb
er production from the Seattle
Boeing plant to the Wichita plant
(Continued on Page Three!
Coal Parley Col
lapses; Cutbacks *
Come In Industry
PITTSBURGH, (/P) — Industry
tightened its belt today as soft j
coal peace talks collapsed in
Washington yesterday.
More steel companies announc
ed cutbacks.
The nation’s, railroads rushed to
juggle train schedules.
Hundreds of runs must be can
celled under an interstate com
merce commission ruling before
11:59 p.m. (local time) tonight.
Over the country, an estimated
34,400 workers were forced into
idleness by the coal strike. The
bulk of them are in railroading
or the steel industry.
These were some of the devel
opments:
1. Inland Steel Company at
Chicago said its coal supplies
“have dwindled to the critical
point.” It announced the shut
down of a second blast furnace.
(Continued on Page Five)
Bridges Couldn’t
Have Joined Reds;
He Wasn’t There!
SAN FRANCISCO, (/P)—A de
tailed report of Harry Bridges’
activities in the summer of 1936
was before a federal court jury
today.
His testimony, along with min
utes of union meetings, was pre
sented yesterday in an effort to
prove that the longshore leader
did not attend communist party
meetings that summer.
Defense counsel Vincent Halli
nan used a blackboard to list
Bridges’ daily activities from June
21 to July 4, 1936. Documents
were introduced to prove the la
bor leader made a speech in
Stockton, Calif., on June 27—the
date that two government wit
nesses, Paul Crouch and Manning
Johnson, testified they saw
Bridges elected to the communist
party central comm;’lee.
Hallinan asked: “Were you
ever elected to anything in the
communist party from janitor up
to Commissar of public defense?”
“No,” said Bridges.
Clarify Law For
Assessment Work
(UP) Special Washington Service)
WASHINGTON, (/P)—The Sen- j
ate is expected to act soon on a
House bill to clarify a law sus
pending mining claim assessment
work requirements for the year
ended July 1, 1949.
The law was approved at the
last session. It permitted claim
ants who already had performed
the required $100 worth of assess
ment work on their claims during
the year to have this credited to
the year ending July 1, 1950.
However, confusion arose as to
how this credit could be claimed.
The House, therefore, passed a
bill Tuesday to allow such claim
ants up to July 1 of this year to
file notices for the work credit.
Bridges Denies
Ever Joining
Communist Party
SAN FRANCISCO, (JP)—Harry
Bridges says he didn’t disagree
“so much” with the communist
program but refused to join the
party for fear of deportation.
Further he testified at his fed
eral trial on perjury charges Wed
nesday, he never paid dues to the
party, never signed an applica
tion to join, and the communists
did not dominate or dictate strat
egy in the 1934 waterfront strike.
It was that west coast strike in
which Bridges’ newly-formed In
ternational Longshoremen’s un
ion emerged as a power and pro
pelled the Australian-born Bridg
es into a career as a controversial
union leader, a man whom the
government twice before has
tried unsuccessfully to deport.
Conviction on the pres ent
charge, that he committed perjury
when he told his citizenship
hearing in 1945 that he had never
been a communist, could lead to
his deportation.
Bridges ackowledged he had
! consulted with communists and
! accepted their help, but he insist
ed he had never joined them.
“It was not so much that I dis
i agreed with their program as that
; I knew membership would sub
ject me to deportation.”
He said the communists had a
“nice, fine, revolutionary pro
gram,” but “I didn’t think that it
answered any of our problems.”
He said what he and his fellow
unionists wanted was an answer
to their immediate problems —
(Continued on Page Eight)
LATE BULLETIN
WASHINGTON, (/P) — j
The Air Force reiterated
today it will close Marks
Field.
Air Secretary Syming- j
ton rejected requests by
Bartlett and Gruening for
reconsideration of the plan
to abandon the base.
Symington said the per
sonnel at Marks Field is
now’ limited to those re
quired to operate an air
way station and indoctrin
ation school.
“These forces,” he said,
“have little or no combat
capability and their with
drawal will have no appre
ciable effect on the defense
of Alaska.”
Bartlett said “this means
withdrawal of our military
power 550 miles to the
east. To people everywhere
this will seem a confession
I
of weakness on our part.
Siberia is only a few' min
utes from Nome by air. We
now turn our backs on our
potential enemy—and fly
away.”
Work To Rescue
C-47 Crash Victims'
From Mountain
WHITEHORSE, Y. T., (fP)—The
prospect of imminent rescue to
day cheered 10 airmen who have
been . stranded on a snowswept
Yukon mountainside since their
U. S. C-47 search plane crashed
there three days ago.
Food and medical assistance
was brought to the stranded air
men yesterday by a team of six
during paratroopers who plum
meted to the treeless slope while
a ground rescue party fought its
way slowly toward the spot.
The parachutists, who leaped
from a Canadian Air Force plane,
all landed safely within 300 yards
of the marooned men, some of
whom were badly in need of
medical care.
A short time later, another Ca
nadian Air Force Dakota (Cana
dian equivalent of the U.S.A.F.
C-47) dropped pup tents and a
half cord of fire wood to the hud
dled party.
The 10 men, five U. S. airmen
and five Canadian soldiers, were
aboard a C-47 which crashed
Tuesday night during the two
week-old search for a C-54 carry
ing 44 persons.
Included among the rescue
party was a doctor from Ladd
Field, Fairbanks — Major S. J.
Baczewski of Conshohocken, Pa.
He was to attend the three air
man who suffered leg and arm
fractures in the crash.
Working toward the group,
camped on the bald slope 7,000
(Continued on Page Eight’
New Road Work
Suspended for 1950
As a result of information ob
tained at the District Engineers’
conference of the Alaska Road
Commission in Juneau recently,
which was attended by John Hu
dert, Second Division District En
gineer, the following information
is made available to the public of
the Second Division.
As no appropriations have been
made except for general main
tainance of Nome district roads,
all planned new construction,
which includes the proposed
White Mountain-Golovin road,
and the Nome-Solomon road, will j
not be started this season. Im
provement of local roads as re
commended by the Nome office,
will not be done this season but
every effort will be made to keep
the roads in shape for the travel
ing public.
It is planned to complete the
road into Council besides improv
ing the location in East Fork and
Fox Rivers.
Included in the program is the
general maintainance of the Sew
ard Peninsula tram, the Bunker
Hill-Taylor road, T e 1 ler-Blue
stone road and the Deering-Inmi
chuk road.
It is expected to send addition
al equipment to Deering and Tel
ler to facilitate the work to be
done in these areas.
News of the World
At A Glance - - -
Thursday. February 9. 1950
(By The Associated Press)
Russia has acquired naval bases
in communist North Korea, a
spokesman for the American sup
ported South Korea government
said today.
The government’s information
office at Seoul said large scale
harbor operations are underway
in thic«_ North Korea port! and
“many Soviet naval officers and
soldiers are stationed at these
ports.”
Over a year ago Russia an
nounced she had withdrawr all
troops fr:>m North Korea.
The newly acquired Korean
bases said to be leased by Russia
on terms similar to those for Rus
sian-held Port Arthur, Manchu
ria.
Russia is reported to have more
and more big long range subma
rines in the Pacific. The U. S.
navy recently announced large
scale anti-submarine exercis e s
would be conducted soon in west
ern Pacific waters.
In Tokyo government workers
threatened a general Japan-wide
strike following refusel of the
Japanese prime minister to grant
wage increases.
Communist Shanghai was bom
barded for the third straight day
by nationalist Chinese heavy
bombers. The American-owned
power plant w'as reported smash
ed. The dockyards and two ships
weer damaged. The nationalists
yesterday threatened heavy aerial
raids on 10 big Chinese cities.
The East German communist
government has inaugurated a
new secret police force similar to
Hitler’s gestapo and has set up a
youth movement with Nazi color
ation.
The communist controlled volk
skammer (people’s parliament*
approved the two measures yes
terday.
One bill creates a new ministry
of state security to create the se
cret police to hunt down “enemy
agents, spies and saboteurs.” It
will be patterned after the Sov
iet Union’s MVD. A soviet news
paper said 127 East German agents
of “American imperialists” have
been arrested for acts of sabotage.
The other law virtually enrolls
some 3.000,000 youth in the FD.J
the Free German Youth move
ment. It seems to have all the
trapings of the Hitler Jugend.
Friday, February 10. 1950
The Hungarian ministry of jus
tice announced in Budapest today
that American businessman Rob
ert E. Vogeler would bo tried for
spying and sabotage Feb. 17. The
government has stated that Voge
ler, who is an executive of the In
ternational Telephone and Tele
(Continued on Page Seven>
DON’T FORGET
Basketball Game tonight
at the School Gym, 8 p.m.
Nome High School vs.
Nome Beverage