THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
# NOME, ALASKA
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 618
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W. A. Boucher .Owner-Publisher
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943. at the postoffice
•t Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Nome, Alaska, Monday, August 29, 1949
EAST-WEST PHILOSOPHY
(Christian Science Monitor)
The empirical West and the mystical East have been
looking for a common philosophy at Honolulu. The
East-West Philosophers Conference, recently concluded,
at the University of Hawaii, brought together eminent
thinkers from both worlds, >vho found they had much
more in common than they had anticipated.
This is good and useful. It is also good and useful to
keep basic differences of outlook clearly in view.
Recent anthropological studies have emphasized the
vast gulf between the psychological, social, and cultural
attitudes of the various societies. For instance, Ruth
Benedict’s brilliant study, “The Chrysanthemum and
the Sword,” makes clear how far removed is Japanese
thinking from the superficial westernization and verbal
democracy of that country today: Japan must truly, in
Christian phrase, be “reborn” if it is to come to terms
with the new western concepts—as individual Japanese
already have shown themselves capable of doing.
The recognition of fundamental difference? however,
must precede the conscious and deliberate effort to
start from a new basis of unity. Too often the anthropol
ogists have accepted complacently the inevitability of
disparate cultures. But the philosophers will fall into
the opposite error if they hope to unify though rooted in
historically alien cultures without a genuine spiritual
rebirth on both sides.
It is not quite true to say that human nature is basic
ally the same all over the world, or even that all reli
gions seek the same goal. What is needed is an insight
into the metaphysical unity of the spiritual universe
capable of transforming gradually the multiple cross
purposes of a Babel-minded world.
NOT BY BREAD ALONE
Life is not to be spent entirely in the pursuit of seri
ous ends but neither should it be devoted exclusively
to the pleasures of the moment.
The individual must, of necessity, consider the ulti
mate end of man even if the present condtion of the hu
man race compels attention to other than eternal ob
jectives.
The organization of society today forces men and wo
men to work for material gains. This pressure often
causes some of them to forget that earning a living, im
portant as that is, cannot be the sole endeavor of indi- I
viduals.
Many years ago, it was spoken, “Man shall not live
by bread alone,” and the application of that admonition
in shaping our earthly life should be diligently attend
ed to by every one of us.
Men and women should not neglect their physical
and mental development, but neither should they over
look their spiritual advancement. Those who believe in
the immortality of the spirit should be fortified against
yielding to the temptation of the flesh.
A YANKEE IN NEW YORK
(Hugo S. Sims)
A Connecticut Yankee may still be wandering around
King Arthur’s Court, but he is banished from the public
schools of neighboring New York City.
The belated official explanation given for dropping
t«he Mark Twain classic from the list of approved text
books is that the Harper edition formerly in use is out
of print. This may be a perfectly adequate explanation,
but unfortunately the incident is one of a series which
cannot all be explained away so easily.
There has been considerable concern lately about the
independence of the New York schools from special
group pressures. The continuing ban on the Nation,
since that magazine first published a series of objective
. I Prehistoric Tools
Found In Cape
; Denbigh Area
—
! FAIRBANKS (>P)—Discovery of
: stone tools in an earth stratum
• pre-dating any known Eskimo
culture was reported yesterday by
' Prof. J. L. Giddings. Jr., Univers
ity of Alaska anthropologist.
Giddings would hazard no es
timate of the age of his discovery,
but said it bolstered the theory
that the American Indian came to
this continent by way of the Ber
ing Sea region.
The prolessor disclosed the dis- |
covery to Dr. Terris Moore, uni- j
versity president, upon his return
from this season’s excavations in I
the Cape Denbigh area on Norton |
Sound along the Bering Strait.
He said he found a Folsom point
and a Yuma Point along with mi
crolithic stone tools. <A Folsom j
point in a stone or blade charac
terized by deep grooves or fluting
on both sides; a Yuma point is a j
similar 'blade about an inch and a
half long). *i
‘Some of the microliths <stone
tools) found,” Professor Giddings
said, “are in the form of finished
blades or points of unique work
manship with more than 20 flak
ing scars to the inch.
“A number of flake knives of a 1
type hitherto unknown in Amer
ica, but common in early Euro
pean and Asiatic sites, were also
discovered.”
Folsom points, according to au
thorities. have been discovered
over most parts of the United
States, in some cases associated
with skeletal remains of now ex
tinct mammals. Their age has
been estimated to range from
6,000 to more than 15,000 years.
Hurricane Does
Terrific Damage In
Southern Florida
(Continued from Page One)
section of the Conniston school
four miles from downtown West
Palm Beach.
Rescue units boarded an emer- j
gency bus and drove through the
storm to the school. The refugees
formed a hand-to-hand chain to
reach the bus. They were taken to
the county court house for shelter.
Another ZUU reiugees ai me mil
itary train shelter were moved to j
a different part of the building j
when water and wind damaged ^
the structure.
The Palm Beaches were hard
hit, but so was Belle Glade, on
the eastern shore of Lake Okee
chobee, where damage was estim
ated at more than $1,000,000 by
town officials.
Up and down the "Gold Coast”
from Hollywood to Vero Beach—
a stretch of 120 miles—the storm
left houses unroofed, trees up
rooted, shrubbery torn to ribbons.
Dr. Giddings said neither the
Yuma point, nor the Folsom, have
been found in the Old World.
The stratum containing the pre
historic tools was covered with <
two more Eskimo culture phases, '
Giddings said, but separated from <
them by a layer of sterile clay. i
The Cape Denbigh investiga
tions have been carried out for
the last two years under the joint ;
sponsorship of the university, the ]
Arctic Institute of North America
and the office of naval research, j
Giddings has been assisted by uni- | <
versity students and Eskimos from ,
the village of Shaktoolik on Nor
ton Sound.
1
articles on the social policies of the Roman Catholic
Church, has not been reassuring. The recent charges by
a special commission of the Protestant Episcopal dio
cese of New York that strong ecclesiastical and political
influences were operating in the city’s school system
have not increased confidence.
Mark Twain’s rollicking satire did not spare the me
dieval clergy any more than it spared the feudal nobil
ity, but no one could reasonably call the “Connecticut
Yankee” an attack on a church. It is as American, in its'
faults as well as its virtues, as the whole current ten
dency to ban anything not acceptable to powerful
church groups is un-American. When easy-going but
shrewd Yankee humor vanishes from school reading
lists, Mark Twain may well go out of print. j
I -.
THE NOVICE
»v i -fr i: i ' an i f Ti nl^ «■ .a n ■ i t i» ■«* t
I
CAA Perfects
Tidal Wave
Warning System
WASHINGTONN (VP) — Pacific
and Alaska installations of the
j civil aeronautics administration
have been linked into a vast tidal
! wave detection and warning sys
I tern, the CAA has announced.
The objective is to warn areas
1 in the path of a tidal wave in time
to take what precautions are pos
sible against loss of life -and prop
erty damage.
■ Because tidal waves sometimes
sweep along at more than 400
miles an hour, split second action
[is required to make a warning sys
tem effective. The CAA said it
can provide this with its continu
ous communications cha nnels
linking Anchorage, with Honolulu,
and linking Honolulu with Wake.
Midway, Canton and Palmyra Is
lands in the Pacific.
Honolulu, which has felt the
lash of disastrous tidal waves, has
pressed vigorously for an adequate
warning system, and it will be the
key point in this one.
A tidal wave generally is rela
tively low in height, but of great
length, and is not easily detected
by either aircraft or ships at sea.
Special instruments, spaced
strategically, will be used in the
warning system to surmount that
difficulty, said D. W. Rentzel,
CM administrator. This, he said,
is how the plan w ill work:
Observatories at Fairbanks and
Sitka, Alaska; Tucson, Ariz., and
Berkeley, Calif., will flash word
of seismic or earthquake disturb
ances to Honolulu’s magentic and
seismological observatory. There
a swift check will determine the
likelihood of a tidal wave and its
probable course.
Tidal gauge stations at strategic
points whll be alerted to man their
stations constantly, watch for
signs of a tidal wave, and use the
CAA communications channels to
flash word of danger.
Rentzel said the system would
be a “vital” factor in protecting
lives and property from such dis
asters.
More Troops
Needed In Alaska
SAN FRANCISCO, — Gen.
Mark W. Clark, new chief of
army field forces, said Wednesday
night ‘‘From my point of view the
more troops we have in Alaska,
the better.”
At a press conference after the
Washington announcement of his
elevation from commanding gen
eral of the Sixt Army, Clark in
answer to questions said:
‘‘I think it <Alaska) is a very
i m p o rtant strategic area. We
should be prepared to take care of
its defense. I hope to have the op
portunity of going up there very
promptly to see what the situation
is.”
The general said the army is in
contact with the navy, the air
force and the Canadian govern
ment on Alaska problems,
i ‘.All our plans for defense of the
Northwest are being integrated,'*
he added.
A GALLANT
PIGGY BACK GOVERNOR
CHEYENNE, Wyo., </P) ,— Gov.
Lester Hunt, attending a rodeo,
noticed a pretty girl ruefully eye
ing a stretch of muddy track she
had to cross. He approached her
and said a few words, to which
the girl, Marjane Albright, nodded
eagerly. So the governor carried
her piggy-back across the mud.