THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome, Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. o. Box 618
I1**0 PER MONTH Slt.00 A YEAR
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at the postoffice
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
-,
Nome, Alaska, Monday, October 4,1948
ALASKA’S GOLD FISH DAY
(The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin)
Oct. 12 Referendum on Salmon Traps May Affect
Price of Canned Product.
In Alaska this year Columbus Day will be oversha
dowed by Gold Fish Day. The voters are going to the
polls to decide whether or not the trapping of salmon
shall be outlawed in the Territory. It’s a red-hot issue.
The outcome may be felt wherever canned salmon is
eaten. In Philadelphia, for instance.
Seems that there are two methods of catching salmon
for the canneries. They are taken in traps—which we in
the East call weirs—or by seine and gill net operators.
The latter are by far the more numerous of the salmon
catchers. There are 415 trap owners and 3,200 gill net
and seine boatmen. So the move to confiscate the traps
and put the trappers out of business has substantial nu
merical support.
It might be supposed that this was strictly a conserva
tion issue. On the contrary, arguments for the preserva
tion of the salmon supply do not enter convincingly into
the picture. Julius A. Krug, as Secretary of Interior, tes
• tifiesd in a letter to Senator Vandenberg: “The Fish and
Wildlife Service ... is convinced that the trap is an ef
ficient form of fishing gear and is no threat to the con
servation of salmon_The Service considers it a desir
able means of fishing as far as conservation is con
cerned.”
Arguments Against Traps
What, then, are the abolitionists’ arguments? First,
that if you stop trapping, more men will be given em
ployment. Second, you will preserve Alaskan waters for
the use of Alaskans. Third, in spite of the evidence to the
contrary, the life of the fisheries will be prolonged if
you give seiners and gill-netters a monopoly.
The matter may seem trivial to the canned salmon
consumer until he examines the economic evidence.
Alaska derives on the average 55 per cent of its revenue
from the salmon catch. The fish traps pay 22 per cent
of the taxes.
A salmon trap is a complicated affair. There are two
types—floating and fixed. Both comsume enormous
quantities of raw timber and locally-produced wire net
ting.
The fixed trap consists of a fencing of logs driven by
a pile-driver into shallow water for the support of a ver
tical netting. The fish enter through a funnel and are im
prisoned in a submarine corrall.
The season is short—40 days. At its end the piles have
to be pulled like teeth and stored away. Then the gear
has to be got ready for next year's use.
I
Arguments For Traps
The trap operators claim that they give more and
longer employment than the boatmen, directly and by
increasing the length of operation of the canneries. For
the canners must process at once the catch of the seine
men and the gill net men, but they can hold in reserve,
in the traps or pounds, the catch of the trappers, and
can it when the rush is over.
In the Puget Sound region traps were abolished in
1934 at the instance, the trappers allege, of sportsmen
who said trapping was interfering with their pleasure.
The Puget Sound example is held up to the Alaskan vot
ers by the opponents of trapping.
At this distance the iherits of the controversy to be de
cided by referendum October 12 are obscure. It looks
like a fight between two types of commercial interest.
HOLD VOUR BRKA.TH
MOLOTOV
f THE
BERLIN
V QUESTION
UK
I
If there will be fewer canned salmon in Eastern mar
kets, at higher prices, under the plan to stop the trap
ping, the Eastener will wish he could vote in the Alas
kan election.
_ (
A FAIR COMPROMISE FOR PEACE
(Rocky Mountain News) (
With Britain joining the United States in support of
of the Bemadotte proposals for a Palestine settlement, •
there is a good chance they will be accepted by the UN
Assembly.
In theory, at least. Whether the UN is ready to pro
vide enforcement, however, is doubtful. As the UN me
diator stated in his report, peace and a fair compromise
settlement cannot be achieved unless by the UN
We agree with Secretary of State Marshall and For
eign Secretary Bevin that the Bemadotte plan should
be approved by the UN. Various Arab spokesmen have
condemned it because it recognizes there is a separate
Jewish state.
The Israeli government opposes acceptance as “pre
mature” and is maneuvering for better terms. But the
long and patient experience of many mediators, includ
ing Count Bernadotte, shows that no plan ever will be
mutually satisfactory to Arabs and Jews.
Even if a compromise were acceptable to responsible
leaders of both sides, as should be the case in this in
stance, they would not admit it publicly for fear of their
own extremists. So a UN settlement should not wait any
longer on Arab-Jewish agreement.
In brief the Bernadotte plan provides partition with
fewer patch-work boundaries than the November plan;
guaranteed minority rights and justice for displaced per
sons in both states; free port status for Haifa and for
Lydda airport; and UN control of Jerusalem.
As Secretaries Marshall and Bevin point out, the plan
is on integrated unit which must be taken in its entirety
if at all.
A great deal has happened since the UN Assembly’s
partition recommendation of last fall and the Security
Council’s failure to provide enforcement.
The Jewish state is a going concern, which has suc
cessfully defended itself against Arab military attack.
The Arab nations are divided. Jews and Arabs have vio
lated the truce. Resumption of the Palestine war, with
the attendant risk of world war, is likely unless the UN
imposes a quick settlement and organizes an interna
tional constabulary for Jerusalem and other police du
ties.
There never will be a better time for action. No neu
tral plan ever will carry more authority than that of the
martyred Bernadotte. And the United States and Bri
tain, usually at odds on Palestine, may not agree again
if this chance is lost.
• ■' ■' -■■ ' ■' ■
Chaperone your cigarette—don’t let it go out alone.
Dam Will Plug
Water Needs
In Montana
KALISPELL, Mont. — Hungry
Horse dam is begun. When dirt
flew at ceremonies conducted by
the United States Bureau of Re
clamation in July, it marked the
beginning of construction.
As described by Micheal W..
Straus, U. S. commissioner of re
clamation, “Hungry Horse dam it
one of the great water control pro
jects not only of the United States,
but Of the world. Finished it wil'
be the fourth largest concrete dam
ever built by men, exceeded only
by Grand Coulee, Boulder, and
Shasta dams."
The dam “plugs” the canyon of
the south fork of the Flathead river
tributary of the Columbia, in *he
northwestern part of this state. It
is to be of arch type construction,
520 feet high and 2,100 feet long.
It will form a storage reservoir of
3,500,000-acre feet which will give
Montana a new 40-mile lake.
Main Purpose: Power
The purpose of the dam is power
irrigation, water storage, and flood ,
control. Eventually it will irrigate
more than 80,000 acres in the Flat
head valley south of the dam. But
he main purpose is power.
Not only will it generate 300,COO
kilowatts, but also it will become a *
part of the vast, integrated, and
unified Columbia river ppwer sys
tem complementing and making
more productive Grand Coulee,
Bonneville, and other downstream
dams.
‘ What happens here,” said Wil
liam E. Warnc, asst, secretary cM
the interior department, speak:
at the recent ceremonies,
mesh cleanly with reQ}jift^ents
clear to the ocean. H<ffjgry Horse*
dam will fit well in&> the ultima-e
plan for Columhjk jt vvill serve i
with power and irrigation the com
munities of Mo^anil) near at hand,
and mix its ^x>wer with that of
other dams to> serve best this and
other section^ 0f Pacific Norch
V£Q§t- J
“Through plannel releases of
water from its reservoir, Hu.igry
Horse dam will contribute addi
tional flows that are needed at
Grand Coulee, Bonneville and
other dams downstream to firm up
the power outputs there. In addi
tion water stored here when some
fu;ure disaster threatens to sweep
the valleys below will reduce flood
heights all the way down to the
Pacific.”
To Pay Own Way
It is expected that the dam will
be completed in June, 1952. Con
gress has appropriated $20,000,000
for the initial construction. Like
other projects in the Columbia sys
tem, Hungry Horse will eventually
pay its own cost of construction.
As it is a unit in the structural unity
of the Columbia system, so it is a
unit in which Mr. Warne describes
as the “financial unity” of the sys
tem where the costs will be allo
cated and repayment divided on a
basin-wide basis, and irrigation
development through the whole
Columbia river basin will be as
sisted in repayment by a portion of
the power revenues.
Mr. Straus pointed out that
while Hungry Horse happens to be
in the Flathead valley, its construc
tion actually is national in scope.
He then spoke of the four giant
generators, already contracted for,
which will be manufactured in
New York state, the great turbines
which will be built in Wisconsin,
jthe cement to be kilned in Colo
rado and elsewhere.