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
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Entered as second class matter October 14. 1943, at the postoffice
at Nome. Alaska, under the Act of March 3. 1879.
Friday, March 26, 1948
Keeping The Korean Record Clear
(The Rocky Mountain News)
THE CALLING of Korean elections for May 9 is a
victory for American policy and an assertion of United
Nations authority.
But, because of Soviet imperialism, self-government
is not in sight for all of that unhappy land.
Because Russia refuses to permit a UN-supervised
election in her occupation zone of North Korea, a mi
nority of the Little Assembly questions the wisdom of
going ahead with the polling plan.
The vote was 31 to 2, with 11 abstaining—and the
Soviet six boycotting. In our judgment, the UN could
not have revoked its election order without branding
itsef a puppet of Red dictation and setting a precedent
for future impotence.
Of course, minority fears that the election will pro
long the present division of Korea are justified. But
there is no way to prevent that, short of war to oust the
Russians from North Korea, or withdrawal of American
and UN authority from South Korea to permit unifica
tion of the entire country under a Red police state.
The practical question is whether 20 million people in
the South should be denied self-government because 10
million fellow-countrymen in the North are unfortunate
enough to be enslaved by a foreign power. The answer
is too obvious for serious debate.
If the United States had any imperialistic itch or de
sire for indefinite military occupation there, as charged
by the Red propagandists, it would not have turned over
to United Nations the responsibility for Korean freedom.
If it wanted to exercise improper influence, it would
not have insisted on free secret-ballot, full-suffrage elec
tions under UN supervision. Finally, if it wishes to pro
long division of the country, or to penalize residents of
the Soviet zone, it would not have insisted that one
third of the National Assembly seats be reserved for
North Koreans until th$y are free to elect representa
tives.
Washington has much to answer for in Korea, partic-j
ularly for the blunder of inviting Red dictatorship to
share temporary occupation responsibility in the first
place. But Americans may be proud of the continuing
efforts of their government to win independence and
self-government for Korea through the United Nations.
The greater the threat of a Soviet-provoked war in
the Far East, the more important it is for the United
States to keep the record clear on the Red source of ag
gression in strategic Korea.
Attack Of Jitters
(By Barnet Nover)
Not in years has official Washington suffered from
such an acute attack of the jitters as it is experiencing at
this time. What took place in Czechoslovakia was not
altogether unexpected. It was foreshadowed as far back
as last July, when the Prague government was ordered
to cancel its acceptance of the invitation to take part in
the Marshall plan talks.
It was foreshadowed in what has happeped in Bul
garia, Romania, Albania, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland,
in Esthonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
The freedom and independence of ten nations has now
been crushed by the forward-moving Russian jugger
naut.
Washington’s jitters is not merely the product of the
ominous circumstance that history was being repeated
in the Danube valley, with Stalin playing the role play
ed by Hitler and Russia’s fifth column playing in Czech
oslovakia the role payed by the wehrmacht in the
spring of 1939.
Beyond and above all the fears and forebodings that
BACK TO THE MINES I
TimTinr ir>—l———iMKm—l
frustration, helplessness, even futility.
The tragic fact, illuminated by the grim developments
in Czechoslovakia, is that we are not winning the “cold
war”; we are losing it.
Let’s make no mistake about that. And we shall con
tinue to lose it until our will proves as great as our re
Washington feels are the produot of a deep sense of
sources, our understanding equal to our needs.
The seizure of power in Prague no more marks the
end of the trail for Russian ambitions than the occupa
tion of Prague in 1939 marked the end of the trail for
the ambitions of the Nazis. In the latter case it was an
important expansion. We have no reason to assume that
the same is not true of Soviet ambitions.
While Stalin prepared his coup in Czechoslovakia
what were we doing? We were congratulating ourselves
on having stopped the Russian tide by means of the
Marshall plan. We took courage and heart from devel
opments that occurred in France and Italy.
We began to make large plans to succor that part of
Europe which had not yet been overwhelmed by the
Soviet tide and which continued to show powers of re
sistance to Communist totalitarianism. A half a billion
dollars was voted by Congress for aid to France, Italy,
Austria.
But the Marshall plan is still a dream instead of a
reality and the general sentiment of Congress seems to
be to whittle it down.
In the meantime our handling of the Palestine prob
in the United Nations has not been such as to enhauce
this country’s prestige. * i
We march up the hill only to march down again. We
take the lead in urging partition and then by a process
of hair-splitting that would do credit to a medieval cas
uist insist that while the United Nations security coun
cil has a right and a duty to maintain the peace in Pal
estine it has no authority to enforce partition.
And when the representative of Egypt arose to say
that if the United Nations sends $n army into Palestine
his country will oppose it by force nobody arose, least
of all the representatives of the United States, to de
nounce him and his country (which did not lift a finger,
in its own defense between 1940 and 1944) for such un
paralleled effrontery.
Watching how we are knuckling down to the threats
of the Arab states, it is not surprising that the Russians
pay no attention to our words. In the meantime the bill
for universal military training sleeps in committee.
The Russians are aware of that, too. They judge us by
our actions and not by our words, by the power we ex
ervise, not by the power we possess.
And that is precisely why, unless we bestir ourselves
. and fast, Czechoslovakia will mark not the end of a cycle
of Soviet aggression but only the beginning of a new
and infinitely more dangerous period of Red expansion.
• Te be blind to the realities now and fail to act in the
| light of them with all the vigor we possess will do us
vast injury later.
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CURE FOR SHORTAGE
Oil is said to calm troubled wa
ters. Oil is indeed the key to a
good many problems, internation
al and national. Right no w there is
not enough oil for all who want to
consume oil in this country, and
some domestic waters are not
calmed. Some of you have come
smack up against this shortage of
petroleum products. I hope you
are not among those who have had
the poor judgment to call for gov
ernment rationing and control.
I have said in an earlier column
that it was government bungling,
along with the wastage of war,
that laid the ground work for our
current trouble in the petroleum
industry. The result—our short
age of fuel oil and gasoline—is
here. Now, there are those folks
who get frightened, not having the
long view of things, every time a
slight economic dislocation rears
its head. These folks usually hol
ler for the government to do some
thing?
Who's To Blame?
Or they blame an industry. In
this instance the oil industry is no
more to blame than you are. In
fact you are probably more to
blame, especially if you are one of
nearly a million householders who
have installed oil heating since
1941. Or if you have anything to
do with the almost 2Vi million in
crease in motor vehicle registra
tion since 1941. There are 35%
more trucks on the road than be
fore the war. They haul food to
you that is grown on farms almost
100% more mechanized than in
1941.
All these things take oil. Rail
roads used 42% more diesel fuel
in 1947 than in the year before.
Our greatly stepped-up industrial
growth has been powered by oil
and lubricated by petroleum pro
ducts. Oil and gas have emerged as
the main source of industrial en
ergy. In 1920, coal accounted for
78% of the total energy produced
in this country, oil and gas 19%.
In 1946 it was: coal, 47%; oil and
gas, 47%. (The miners’ Mr. Lewis
please note).
Full Speed Ahead
The oil industry is therefore
producing at top speed. Despite
pricing penalties that hampered
expansion, during the war, the in
dustry is now supplying a larger
volume of petroleum products
than it supplied at the peak of war
demand. Present output of the in
dustry is more than the whole
world required ten years ago. This
demand is estimated" by some oil
men to be growing at a rate of
about 8% a year! This is the kind
of situation that government in
terferences and price control can
never cure!
Demand is a fine things, for the
whole industry. But there are
problems. Oil men tell me it costs
three times as much to put up a
modern refinery as it did in 1936.
They say total exploration costs
are about four times those of ten
years ago, and wildcat wells cost
fper barrel discovered) five to six
times what they used to. Then, of
course, there’s the problem of
whether they can get the steel or
materials at all.
Whai You Can Do
One oil man says: “The oil in
dustry does not have to be told to
expand. Desire to build, to grow,
and to progress is in the blood of
oil men.” But there is more. An
other oil man says: “If the Indus