THE NOME NUGGET
Pub! shed 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 postoffice
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Nome, Alaska. Wednesday. August 24, 1949
100 YEARS FROM NOW
(By Hugh S. Sims)
Predictions that the population of the globe may pos
sibly outrun production of food and that, as a result,
many people will starve, have no bearing upon the
United States if the conclusions of Dr. Harold G. Moul
ton, well-known economist, are correct.
Dr. Moulton, head of a privately endowed research
institution, maintains that the United States has the
ability to support double its population, one hundred
years from now, on a plane of living eight times as high
as that of the present.
The economist conditions his predictions upon “wise
policies” in relation to our resources. What these wise i
policies may be, when the generation of 2049 looks
backward, no one can tell. Only then can any one know
whether we, of today, are following wise or foolish pol
icies.
THE WRONGEST IDEA
(By DeWitt Emery, President National Small Business
Men’s Association)
One of the “wrongest” ideas about America, and one
promoted hard by the commies, is that America’s!
strength and wealth all stem from our “lion’s share” of
the world’s natural resources. They claim that by
squandering these we make up for our “decadence” as i
a people under our capitalistic culture.
All it takes to set this nonsense straight are a few ev- j
eryday almanac statistics. In the first place, we have
about 6 percent of the world’s people and we have 7 ;
per cent of its land. On that basic score we are about
“even-Stephen.”
When you make a list of all our natural resources,
from iron ore (where we’re lucky) to rubber (where
nature passed us by), we are by no means overly-en
dowed. Several countries like Brazil, China, India and
Russia stack up as good or better in the natural resource
assets they have to work with. Yet, instead of being
“rich,” the last three countries mentioned are so back
ward in their use of their natural assets that they have
a corner on the world’s poverty and hardship.
It is a little surprising, in view of what America has
been able to do in 150 years with what we do have as
our share of things, that it hasn’t gone to our heads on
this money business about “racial superiority.” Maybe j
it’s because there are so many nationalities among us, i
and we’re still so much like our forty-’leven kinds of j
grandparents, that no one group can figure out how to
claim credit for our total success.
The fact is that the kids of any kind of emigrants j
grow bigger and taller in this country (average—1 inch
taller and 20 pounds heavier). But we still produce1
enough dopes and bone heads so that we don’t have any
illusions about how “superior” we are. Actually, we
seem to derive our greatest pride from the feeling that
we are just ordinary folks who can doextraordinary |
things. And we take a pretty dim view of anybody,'
American or otherwise, who starts taking on airs about
himself or his family or his “race.”
Maybe the whole thing can be explained by a com
parison in the world of chemistry. Technicians make
frequent use of what they call “catalytic agents” to
cause chemical reactions to take place. Nothing happens
to the catalyst but its mere presence makes the other
substances “get results” which they won’t get in its ab
sence.
America has a lot of wonderful catalytic agents that
work the same way. Some are merely ideas or princi
ples, but the more they are used the better they get. i
Some of them we call “rights;” some more are “free
doms;” and others are just ideas about the way we think
things ought to be done. None of these catalysts ever
Gen. Feldman Gave
Five Percenter
Armv Information
(Continued from Page One>
for his appearance by developing
from documents that he sent the
buying information to Hunt and
also advised an army purchasing
officer to get in touch with Hunt.
He told the officer that “Hunt has
ready entree to the White House.”
Hunt is the management coun
sellor whose acitvities led the Sen
ate investigations • sub-committee
to order a general inquiry into
“five percenters” — persons who
get government contracts for oth
ers for a fee, usually five per cent.
Feldman, suspended army quar
termaster, was waiting to testify
when Francis D. Flanagan, assist
ant committee counsel, read two
letters into the record. Both were
written by Feldman.
One letter was to Hunt. Dated
July 23, 1947, it accompanied the
information on army buying plans.
The second letter was to Brig.
Gen. Wayne R. Allen. This letter
was dated November 19, 1947,
when Allen was chief administra
tive officer and purchasing agent
for the quartermaster corps at Los
Angeles. Feldman at that time
was a brigadier general in the
corps in Washington.
Feldman suggested that Allen
“drop a note to Colonel Hunt, let
ting him know what problems of
the county of Los Angeles may be,
for I am sure that he could be of
considerable help to you if you
can interest him.”
Gigantic Seaweed
Beds Belong To
11. S. Government
?By Vern Haugland)
WASHINGTON, ;/P>—The sea
weed beds off Alaska belong to
tho federal government, the inte
rior department said last week.
Anyone wanting to harvest
them must get the permission of
I Congress—and probably would
into opposition by the fishing in
dustry.
In response to a query from a
would-be promoter of an Alaskan
| seaweed industry, assistant interi
or secretary William E. Warne
| asked solicitor Mastin G. White
; for an opinion.
White’s reply:
1. The federal government, not
the Territorial government, has
title to any control over the tide
lands, the lands beneath navigable
inland waters and the lands ol the
continental shelf, of Alaska.
2. If Alaska should become a
State; title to the tidelands and
lands beneath navigable inland
waters would pass to the State.
Ownership of lands of the contin
ental shelf off Alaska would not
be affected.
3. Seaweed growing on U. S.
lands in Alaska is U. S. property
and can be disposed of “only pur
l suant to an authorization from the
Congress.”
“No statutory provision for its
disposal has been enacted, White
said.
“There is no authority at the
present time to permit the cutting
get used up in the process. But their mere presence
makes a lot of things work better.
So it is that while Russia, India and other countries
have raw materials plus vast manpower, they don’t
seem to be able to combine them to produce much re
sults.
Dr Slichter of Harvard suggests that our vast prog
ress over other nations with comparable resources and
manpower stems from what he calls our many “areas of
initiative.” In a dictatorship there is only one center of
initiative or decision. Everything is decided in one place
—at the top. The individual is just so much raw materi
al like coal or cattle feed.
With us every man is his own center of initiative.
Each of us is busy deciding what is best for us and how
we want to make our share of the total effort. The result
is that in free America we have devised a way of work
ing and living together which is far better in every re
spect than any other wav of life the world has ever
known.
•WHEW”
RISING
ECONOMIC
CURVE
Slates* Righters
Go On “Trial’*
WASHINGTON, </P) — States’
Rights members of the Democrat
| ic national committee went on
; trial at a party "court” yester
day on charges of desertion in last
year’s political campaign.
I
Southerners in Congress fully
I expect the Democratic family row
to wind up in a verbal spanking,
to be publicly administered to
| States’ Righters by the national
committee.
The committee is getting togeth
er to pick a new chairman. But
before its gets around to that,
Backers of President Truman
want to give the boot to national
committeemen and women who
refused to support him in last
year’s campaign. A credentials
committee will pass judgment on
that.
After that, it will decide on a
successor to J. Howard McGrath,
who is resigning as national chair
man, and also as U. S. Senator
from Rhode Island, to move into
the cabinet as attorney general.
William M. Boyle, Jr., the $30,
000-a-year executive vice chair
man of the committee, is lined up
to replace McGrath .
of the seaweed beds in Alaskan
Territorial waters for commercial
purposes.
“It follows that the cutting and
taking of seaweed by any person
for such purposes would be an un
authorized action.”
The national economic and so
cial planning association has es
timated that Pacific Coast shallow
waters could produce each year a
seaweed crop worth about $160,
000,000 as fertilizer, and that more
than one-fourth is the share of
Alaska.
It estimated the size and poten
tial potash production of the Pa
cific Coast beds at 390 square
miles containing 2,266,000 tons of
potassium chloride including: Pu
get Sound, five square miles, 20,
000 tons: Southeastern Alaska,
141*2 square miles, 598,000 tons;
Southwestern Alaska, 18 square
miles, 136,000 tons.
Primary product of the seaweed
ar$ the alginates used as a stabil
izing agent in face creams, shav
ing creams, hand lotions, ice
creams, and in the manufacture of
explosives.
An interior department official
who asked that his name be with
held said an Alaska seaweed in
dustry would have to overcome
these hurdles:
1. High production and trans
portation costs.
2. A seaweed quality apparently
lower than that of the California
beds.
3. The fact that Alaskan sea
weed beds are used for spawning
purposes and hiding places by
certain species of fish. No fish are
known to breed in the California
seaweed areas.
The fish and wildlife service has
indicated that, since Alaska herr
ing lay their eggs on the kelp
leaves, it is opposed to disturbing
the beds. Some experts say that
mown seaweed beds grow back in
four to six months, and that they
are best harvested in the spring.
The fish and wildlife service
has made it known that it would
prefer that thorough research pre
cede any attempt to develop the
Alaska seaweed resources.
It has said also that it is more
interested, at present, in funds
for further research in the utiliza
tion of 600,000 tons of fish waste
produced by Alaskan canneries
each year.