THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday. Wednesday and Friday by the
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
NOME. ALASKA
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 6id
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR
W. A. Boucher . Owner-Publisher
Emily Boucher . Local Editor
Entered as second class matter October 1 1. 1943, at he postoffice
at Nome. Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1379.
Nome, Alaska, Wednesday, January 12, 1949
NOME CENTER OF SPY RING, SAYS SOLON
(By Associated Press)
Representative Charles T. Kersten, Republican, Wis
consin, said recently an “espionage” ring in Nome, ,
Alaska, has been feeding information on military in
stallations there to Russia.
Kersten is chairman of a House labor subcommittee
which has been investigating subversive activities in la
bor.
Kersten told a reporter that he uncovered the infor
mation on Alaskan spying activities while on a two-;
week tour of Alaska in late October.
In Nome, he said, he found that “Soviet officials right
across from Alaska seemed to have up-to-date informa
tion on what was going on.
“They knew the number of men there, and the names
of men."
Kersten said the United States has an air field and a
polar-training school at Nome.
“How extensive the espionage is beyond Nome, I
don’t know,” Kersten said. “I don’t know how well the
system is developed. What the source is, I’m not sure.1
But there’s some form of espionage (in Nome); very
likely Communistic.”
Kersten said he also found Communist “infiltration”
in a fisheries union in Anchorage, one of our main Alas
kan military installations.
The Congressman said he found a “rather important”
Communist Party member assisted in setting up a "un
ion council there.
Kersten said he “couldn’t imagine” this Communist
going to Anchorage “unless there was some good party,
reason. It's entirely nos-iMe there might he espionage
there, too.” He added that he found no Communism
among local fishery-union officials.
Kersten’s report asked the Congress to immediately
strengthen United States military defenses in Alaska.
The report pointed out the “increasing danger to
Alaska defense caused bv the imminent fall of China."
The Congressmen sa d he was “shocked” by what he
termed the present “inadequate” United States defenses
in the Alaskan area. We need at least 16.000 combat
men to defend our airfields there he said, “and we have
considerably less than that there now.”
THE WAR OF IDEAS IN EUROPE AND ASIA
(By Congressman Walter H. Judd)
Throughout the whole world a fierce political and
ideological struggle is being waged, the outcome of
which will determine who really won World War II and
probably whether or not there is to be World War III.
Today the focus is China. If Russia gets China and the
control of other rich portions of East Asia which will
certainly follow, the balance of resources in the world
will have shifted so strongly in her favor that the men
of Asiatic temperament who run Russia may very well
just sit it out for a few years of decades until the west
ern world, including the United States, has bled itself
to death.
The weaknesses which have brought us to this omin
ous hour have not been primarily military or economic.
Our greatest failures have been in the political and
ideological fields.
We go to the diplomatic conferences with men who
are masters of the strategies and tactics of military and
economic struggle as our representatives—and come
home with bloody noses.
Russia sends to the conferences her Molotovs and
Vishinskys with nothing but superb skill in the strate
HOPING IT ISN'T JUST EYEWASH
COST or LIVING
“PROP
, I
#
gies and tactics of diplomatic and ideological wacfa c
—and they go home with the bacon.
Russia is spending far more effort and money on
propaganda for her ideology than any other nation H't
rules are aware of what one man, Karl Marx, was able
to start with an idea—and what two others, Len'n md
Stalin, have been able to carry on with that idea.
They know what Hitler did with an idea.
They know what the Pilgrims, when they came to
America over 300 years ago, did with an idea.
I recognize it is already terribly late—perhaps too
late. Our best hope of avoiding disaster is through
mobilizing our utmost strength and skill in the political
and ideological fields as well as the economic and mil
itary.
Our difficulties are not insurmountable if we can de
velop within ourselves and other free peoples a sense
of mission, a moral compulsion to build in the world
the sort of order which our forefathers had the will to
buildin these United States.
However, if we persist in putting our faith in false
remedies, and in worshipping the gods we ourselves
have created—our mechanical skills, our science, our
power, our material sucess—then we, too, will perish,
strutting to our doom like the 20 civilizations before u*.
THEY'LL LIKE IT—OR ELSE
Joseph Starobin of the New York staff of the Com
munist Daily Worker is in Czechoslovakia where he
finds that “changing over from the old society to the
new is a tough job.” All of the people aren’t taking
kindly to the revolution, it seems.
Among the “tokens of the big problems ahead,” Mr.
Starobin encountered people grumbling because they
miss fruits and vegetables and variety in their means.
Also, because “too much machinery is going to the Sov
iet Union.” Imagine that. The rich peasants are accus
ed of holding back their crops. He finds, too, that “the
harvest itself was sabotaged in many places.”
Sometimes “a young woman will acost you and ask
if you are single,” proposing marriage as a way of get
ting out of the country. Isolated cases, these, to be sure.
“But they show,” says Mr. Starobin, “that the new gov
ernment still has to make a clean sweep here.” Which
is why the middle-class sports organization known as
the Sokol is being “cleaned up.” and why “even the
Communist Party, with its two and a third million
members, is beginning a re-examination of every indi
vidual in it.”
Little force is being used to make the people accept
the blessings of Communism, acording to the Daily
Worker’s investigator. “Perhaps too little,” he fears.
“For the job is still to be done.”
Civilization will either go all out for good, or go out
for good and all. — You can’t fill a conference room
with selfish people and expect them to come out with
an unselfish plan.
WASHINGTON
NEWS LETTER
1 Continued from Page one)
States in the matter of claiming
hunting, trapping and fish
.eges in Alaska; allow the
claims of Alaska Railroad empi y
ees for over time wages as far back
,.s ..‘Jl to be determined by the
w'jur. of Claims; permit veterans
..i the Territory to obtain Terri
orial public records, such as birth
certificates and other documents,
free of charge for use in making
claims to the Veterans Adminis
tration; places minimum of $250,
u -0 as allotment to each state, in
cluding the Territories, for hospi
tal construction; transfer certain
funds to Craig representing a li
cense tax for the year 1947 erron
eously paid into the federal treas
ury rather than to the town of
Craig by the New England Fish
Company; amend the Organic Act
t oallow taxation of all mining
claims at the rate paid the United
Sa.es or at a flat rate prescribed
,y the Legislature; authorize the
Secretary of the Interior to con
struct and operate a hospital for
he insane within the Territory;
authorize government loans for
acquisition and improvement of
Homesteads used as farms; and
LX.tnd to the Territorial Legisla
ure authority to levy license taxes
for trades and businesses, if it
r res to exercise such authority.
Two of Delegate Bartlett’s mea
sures are resolutions, one author
izing construction in or near the
University of Alaska of an Arctic
-1c *'• th Insti ute, and the second
authorising the Bureau of Labor
Statistics to report periodically on
labor conditions, cost of living,
housing and other conditions in
Alaska. Eight private relief bills
were also offered by Delegate
Sartlett.
Other members of Congress in
troduced bills having to do with
Alaska, one a statehood bill offer
ed by Congrsesman Homer Angell
of Washington, and another spon
ored by Senator Butler of Ne
braska which would allow the car
riage of passengers between Alas
u par s on foreign vessels and
id the Merchant Marine Act
f U’20 so that merchandise could
be s^nt from points in the contin
ental United States to Alaska on
foreign vessels if part of that
an portation is over Canadian
rali lines.
TRANSPORTATION AT
GOVERNMENT EXPENSE
I A recent decision of the Comp
troller General of the United
States will permit payment of
transportation expenses under cer
tain conditions to government em
ployees in Alaska for the purpose
of taking leave.
Delegate Bartlett has been in
formed that the decision rendered
a few months ago in connection
with a case concerning the Philip
pine War Damage Commission
would be applicable to the Terri
tory. That decision held, in effect,
that under provisions of law u
government employee engaged for
service outside continental United
Sta'es for a certain period under
a written agreement providing Tor
his return to the United States at
government expense upon the
completion of the agreed period
of service, properly may be re
turned to the United States at gov
ernment expense upon completion
of such period of service; and, if
returned for the purpose of taking
leave, he thereafter may be trans
ported at government expense to
his foreign duty post under a re