THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the
NOME PUBLISHING CO
NOME. ALASKA
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 618
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR
W. A. Boucher .Owner-Publisher
Entered as second class matter October 14. 1943, at the postoffict
•t Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Nome, Alaska, Monday, April 3, 1950
OUR BIGGEST PROBLEM.
(By George S. Benson, President Harding College)
This period in world history may well be recorded as
the era of the Great Hullabaloo for economic security.
Future historians will never be able to relate, however,
that the politicians of this or any other day discovered
a magic formula for making everybody healthy, weal
thy and free “at the sound of the gong.” The bedrock
realities of life block fulfillment of any such politician’s
pipe dream or promise.
Economic security simply can’t be spooned out of a
bottle like patent medicine. And it isn’t a gift to be be
stowed without strings attached. It’s something to work
for, something that can be had only when and as it is
produced. Behind the economic security of every man,
every family, every group, must be somebody’s produc
tive effort, somebody’s somebody’s thrift, somebody’s
conserved wealth. The government can only give to one
man what it takes from him, or another, or both; for the
American kind of government doesn’t produce wealth.
There are two notable nations today in which the gov
ernment is providing for the economic seurity of all the
people. These are, of course, Britain and Russia. Any
American worker, middle man, executive, school
teacher or lawyer might go to either country and ob
tain politically-guaranteed economic security—full em
ployment, old age pensions, free medical care, etc. But
who wants to go; who in America, indeed, wants that
kind of security at the price demanded?
And yet we must do more than merely reject the dan
gerous palliative of the political planners. We must set
about calmly and unhurried to find a road along which
we can travel safely toward the goal of economic secur
ity which is a basic motivation of all minkind. But how?
What road? From Jamestown to Yorktown, America’s
historic freedom road was two centuries long and cost
ly. Because of that freedom we have come a long way i
on the security road.
In the area of big industry, where the preesnt head
long drive for pensions and other security benefits is
concentrated, there assuredly should be pension and
life and medical insurance programs soundly calculat
ed. Employees should contribute from salaries and
wages to programs in which they participate. No per
son has the right to demand a secure old age, medical
and hospital service and life insurance, unless he is will
ing, while able, to contribute to the cost.
When a company is obliged through pressure of one
kind or another to pay all the cost without any corre
sponding increase in productivity or decrease in pro
duction cost, then the public has to stand the bill. My
neighbor has just bought a good $2.95 axe at the hard
ware store. When the recent steel price hike, brought on
by the pensions granted last December, is extended to
the retail price, the same axe will sell for at least $3.25,
the store owner told him. Files and many other steel
implements already have gone up, the hardware man
said.
So those who buy axes will be contributing about 20c
each (best estimate) of their money to the steel work
er’s pension fund. When we consider the price boosts
on other all steel implements, the coal miners’ pensions
and others which are also directly reflected in higher
retail prices, we can see an accumulating problem.
Those in the working consumer group not pensioned
will seek relief or recourse. But where will they go?
Right now some are turning to the political securtiy
medicine men—and that is dangerous, as can be wit
nessed in Russia and England.
Theer are also the problems in the area ol small busi
ness where employee groups will naturally try to follow
the example of their counterparts in big industry. The
problems here have a hundred angles. If we are wise,
our citizenry will not let the political hullabaloo rush
Truman Wants Bi
Partisan Policy;
Won’t Use GOFg
WASHINGTON, (/P)—A sugges
' tion that President Truman could
salvage the nation’s bipartisan for
eign policy by inviting Republi
cans to join in decisions on world
problems was advanced Saturday
by Senator Ferguson (R..Mich.)
Ferguson’s proposal was made
to reporters as other Republicans
pulled out the stops in a bitter
counter attack on the President’s
assertion that at least three GOP
Senators are sabotaging foreign
policy by attacks on the state de
partment.
One of these, Senator Bridges
of New Hampshire, called for a
showdown. American policy “is
presumably aimed at Russia,”
Bridges said, adding “I believe it
is time to tell the American peo
ple the truth about this policy and
how we are losing the cold war.”
Ferguson said there is no reason
why the President couldn’t call in
Republicans as well as Demo
Alaska Census
Takers Will Use All
Modes Of Travel
FAIRBANKS, (/P) — Census
takers began their count of Alas
ka’s isolated noses Saturday, au
tomobiles, airplanes, dog teams
and ships will be used to round
up the information for Uncle Sam.
It will take at least a month
for Martha Lundstrom and Julia
Mayfield to cover the Johnson
River-Tok area southeast of here.
They started out Saturday after
making arrangements for auto,
plane and dog team transporta-1
tion.
Capt. Aarnout Castell, well
known Arctic trader who has
sailed the northern coast from
Barter Island to Bristol Bay for
30 years, is crew leader for the
Second Division.
“He knows the country so well j
he could sit in an armchair and 1
crats “when there is a decision of
major importance in the offing.”
\
us and trap us. It took nearly 200 years for Americans
to establish freedom. We can well afford to spend con
siderable time on thsi second great goal—security.
Rushing into it too fast, without calculating the costs,
might wreck ou reconomy and bring insecurity to all.
SEVEN-MAN GAG
(Christian Science Monitor)
Five weeks ago, by the required two-thirds majority, i
the Senate passed the Lodge-Gossett resolution which
would, by Constitutional amendment, change the meth
od of counting electoral votes in a Presidential election.
Had the House debated the measure and then defeat
ed it, the result could have been credited to differences j
of opinion nad political exigencies between Senators
and Representatives.
However, the House has neither debated the resolu
tion nor voted upon it. And it may be some time before
it can do either. For the rules committee has bottled it!
up for the undisclosed reasons of seven of the eleven
members voting.
Whether the United States should continue its prac
tice of casting all of a state’s electoral votes for the can
didate winning even a bare majority, or whether each
state’s electoral votes should be cast in proportion to its
popular vote, is by no means a one-sided question. There
are profound and valid arguments, pro and con.
But seven committeemen, who presumably are traf
fic directors for legislation, not judges of its merits, sit
ting in silence on so important a resolution present a
travesty on the free and open discussion so vital to rep
resentative government.
APRILFCCL
I
CHINESE BONDS
j USED AS CLUBS
HONG KONG, (/P) — Arrivals
from Peiping say the Chinese
Communists use their Victory
bonds to club “uncooperative” cit
izens. They give this case as typ
ical:
A Chinese educator was asked
to write an anti-American article
for the Communist press. The ed
ucator had lived in the United
States. The educator asked to be
excused. He didn’t feel qualified.
Two days later he was informed
the quota of Victory bonds he was
required to buy had been set. The
quota was about twice what he
was worth. He had to sell his
house and most of his personal
property to meet the quota.
take the census from his own par
lor, divisional supervisor George
Jarris said.
The southern portion from
Fairbanks southwest to the Kus
kokwim River will be supervised
by Simeon Olivei', whose Eskimo
name is Nutchuk. He is a musician
and author as well as a census
man.
William Gough, Fairbanks busi
nessman, is in charge of the
northern section.
The first names on the census
here were brought in by Mrs.
Anna Poling. She said she was
afraid the enumeiator might slip
of the glacier road to her Birch
Hill home, so she motoi'ed into
town to report her family:
One husband, Clarence; one
son, Steven.
This is the first time Alaska’s
consus has been taken at the same
time as in the States. It originally
was scheduled to start earlier
this year, too.
But Alaskans won postpone
ment to correspond with the eouiit
in the States. They protested that
in the past, many perosns, living
in the Territory but spending the
winter months in the States, re
turned after the census had been
taken, resulting in an incorrect
population count.
Gruening, Bartlett
Jubiliant Over
Early Hearings
WASHINGTON, f/P)—Governor
Gruening and Congressional Del
egate Bartlett expresse gratifica
tion Monday night over the Sen
ate interior comittee’s setting of
an Alaska statehood hearing for
April 24.
Bartlett declared: ^
“Proponents of statehood are
jubilant over this opportunity to
be heard at a date sufficiently in
advance of Congressional adjourn
ment for the bill to be reported
out, debated on the floor and
voted on in the Senate.
“At the same time, the hearings
will be long enough so that both
sides may be heard. The argu
ments in favor of statehood are so
overwhelming . 4 . that I am con
fident of the outcome—that the
Alaska statehood bill will be ap
proved before this session of Con
gress ends.”
Bartlett has submitted a list of
20 prospective witnesses in behalf
of statehood.
Governor Gruening added: •
“I am confident that such a
hearing will produce the evidence
necessary to enable the members
of the committee to make up their
minds on this supremely import
ant issue.
“The fact that hearings have
been set four weeks away will
give everybody who wishes to be
heard ample time to make the
necessary arrangements.”