THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome. Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 61H
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—
W. A. and EMILY BOUCHER.Editors
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at the postoffic**
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Monday, February 3, 1947
Younger Admirals
(Washington Star)
The Navy’s high-ranking officers will be younger as
a group than they were when World War II called them
to combat duty, if plans for promotion system reforms
are approved by Congress. The plans, recently drawn up
by the naval high command, call for a long-overdue
scrapping of an outmoded seniority system under which
young officers of exceptional ability have grown old in
the Navy before attaining flag rank, or have reached re
tirement age without “making” admiral at all.
The deficiencies of this system quickly became appar
ent when the stresses of modern-day warfare fell upon
the Navy’s higher-level officers after Pearl Harbor. Ad
miral Towers, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet,
has pointed out that the slambang tactics of fast carrier
warfare and the prolonged slugfests of pre-invasion bat
tleship, cruiser and destroyer operations imposed physi
cal strains which were too much for some of the older
officers to endure.“Not only were they too old,” he said,
“but they did not have experience in aviation and did
not know how to use their weapons. As a result, they
were over-cautious.”
As the war progresesd, the older men—with a few
notable exceptions—were replaced by more youthful,
vigorous and daring commanders, who proved beyond
doubt that an officer can qualify as an admiral or com
modore with something more than age or length of serv
ice to his credit. The Navy will seek to take advantage of
this lesson by giving youth and ability an opportunity
to advance in time of peace as well as of war. Selection
boards will be authorized to reach down on the list of
eligibles and pick out men who, regardless of age, have
demonstrated outstanding ability in command assign
ments. Unless Congress increases, the peacetime officer
strength of the Navy, of course, the promotions thus or
dered are sure to be relatively few. The incentive for
young officers to aspire to flag rank, with some appreci
able degree of hope, will be real and compelling, how
ever. The net result of the whole service is bound to be
salutary.
Will U. S. Labor Muff This Opportunity?
(The Denver Post)
FOR LABOR AND ITS FRIENDS the weeks in the
offing hold a fateful opportunity. They contain labor’s
fair chance to weather the tidal wave of restrictive legis
lation which public opinion is blowing down upon it.
There is a dangerous probability that labor will muff it.
Labor can miss its chance two ways: it can subject the
nation to a new wave of strikes and it can oppose with
blind obstinacy any effort to create a just balance in
labor relations.
In the wake of a near-disastrous coal strike, CIO lead
ers are composing new demands threatening to snarl
the revival of such basic industries as steel, automobiles,
glass and rubber. These demands are framed around an
economic survey which purposes to show that these in
dustries can afford a blanket 25 per cent increase with
out raising the prices of their products. The fallacy in
such “economics” was well exposed when these indus
tries were squeezed for similar wage increases a year
ago, resulting in the breakdown of the Truman stabil
ization program. The new demands promise either an
outburst of strikes or another round of price increases,
quite possibly both. Whichever happens, this develop^
ment would have serious consequences to postwar re
covery. It could not fail to increase pressure for restric
tive labor controls.
Nothing can stop the movement toward rectification
of the nation’s labor code. But labor can, if its leaders
are wise, help channel this movement along ways which
will insure preservation of the worker’s just rights. La
bor will miss this chance if it maintains a flat-footed re
sistance to any limitation on its organized strength.
John L. Lewis’ attitude was that of being above the law.
This is in line with labor’s often-asserted claim that there
may be no curtailment of the “right to refuse to work.”
But the coal strike has powerfully shown the difference
between freedom of the individual and that of the or
ganized group. The nation, for its own safety, cannot
tolerate an absolute and unqualified right to imperil the,
welfare of the whole people. Congress must act to re-]
strict such monopolistic power for evil, just as it re-j
strained similar power in the hands of business.
At least two unions leaders recently have candidly i
admitted abuse of power by labor. Daniel J. Tobin, |
president of the teamster’s union, broke the Oakland
general strike with a sharp reprimand to local union
leaders. He said, “No general strike has ever yet brought
success to the labor movement. On the contrary, the
only result ... is to persecute and incenvenience the
public and seriously injure the thousands of fair em
ployers with whom we have contracts.”
Even more pertinent was the advice of Clinton S. Gol
den, assistant to CIO President Philip Murray. Golden
warned labor leaders to “use their heads.” He frankly
conceded that labor now has the whip hand in industrial
relations. “A lot of people have come into power,” he
remarked. “They are not management, and they are not
using their power as judiciously as management.”
Tobin and Golden meet the question of labor’s unre
strained power with openness. Would they be equally!
frank in facing the solution? Answered it must be. La
bor’s share in this solution should for its own sake be
more than its habitual opposition. Labor Can and should
make a positive contribution to this needed balance of
power.
STILL ON THE SHELF_
THAT’S THAT By bruce gustin
#
Last Spring, the New Jersey leg
islature passed a law prohibiting
strikes in public utilties in that
state. A few days ago, 400 employ
ees of two gas manufacturing
plants in New Jersey went on
strike. Governor Edge promptly
ordered state seizure and opera
tion of the plants. He has threat
ened strikers with prosecution un
less they return to their jobs. That
raises squarely the question whe
ther the “right to strike” claimed
by organized labor can be restrict
ed. There is sound authority for
the belief that it can and should be
limited.
At the time of the Boston police
strike in 1919, Calvin Coolidge,
who then was governor of Massa-;
chusetts, declared “there is no'
right to strike against the public
safety by anybody, anywhere any
time.” That was sound philosophy
then. It is just as sound now. And
a strike in a public utility whose
services are so essential to the
public welfare is a strike against
the public safety.
Woodrow Wilson, who was pres
ident at the time of the Boston po
lice strike, congratulated Coolidge /
on the statement he issued. The
late President Roosevelt, in effect,
indorsed the stand that Coolidge
had taken. In a letter to the head
of the National Federation of Fed
eral Employees, Aug. 16, 1937,
President Roosevelt said:
“Particularly, I want to empha
size my conviction that militant
tactics have no place in the func
tions of any organization of gov
ernment employees. Upon employ
ees in the federal service rests the
obligation to serve the whole peo
ple, whose interests and welfare i
require orderliness and continuity
in the conduct of government ac
tivities. This obligation is para
mount. Since their own services
have to do with the functioning of
the government, a strike of public
employees manifests nothing less
than an intent on their part to
prevent or obstruct the operations
of government until their demands
are satisfied. Such action, looking
toward the paralysis of govern
ment by those who have sworn to
support it, is unthinkable and in
tolerable.”
What President Roosevelt said
against strikes by federal employ
ees is just as applicable to state and
municipal employees. , And the
philosophy of it is equally applic
able to public utility employees.
Public utilities, even though pri
vately owned, are in a class with
government itself because they are
regulated by the government. In
this New Jersey strike, the strikers
automatically became state em
ployees when the state took over
the plants. The strikers, in walk
ing out, did not resign their jobs.
They merely refused to work un
til their demands were granted.
Alcohol is useful as an antifreeze
in the radiator of an automobile. ^
It can be blended with gasoline
for use as a motor fuel. But in a
person at the steering wheel of a
car it is a deadly poison. An anal
ysis of traffic fatalities for the
first nine months of 1946 shows,
according to Clarence Werthan of
the A. A. A. Automobile Club, that
in approximately one-third of
these the driver or pedestrian in
volved “had been drinking.”
Drunken walking can be just as
fatal as- drunken driving.
In a recent study of the Tax
Foundation, which was published
in the November Tax Review,
Harley L. Lutz, professor of pub
lic finance at Princeton university
reported that “for any given year
a considerable section of business
is operating at a loss or with a
sub-standard profit return.” His
analysis of corporate business dur
ing the prewar years 1935-1939 in
clusive showed that throughout
that period “corporate business
was done ‘in the red’.” In 1935, for
example, when 164,231 corpora
tions, with a total gross income of
nearly 77 and one-half billion dol
lars, had net incomes or profits,
there were 312,882 with a gross in
come of nearly 36 and one-half
billions which reported no net in
come. In every one of those five
years, there were more corpora
tions whose returns showed no net
income than there were with
profits.
ARCTIC CLUB HELD DANCE
SATURDAY NIGHT
The members of the Arctic Club
held the first of their 1947 series
of dances at the Pioneer Igloo last
Saturday to the music of a peppy
five-piece orchestra from the
Nome Air Base.
Those attending said that the
music was inspiring to dancing
and everyone enjoyed the evening.
Chairman Jane Galvin assisted by
Don Wright served a buffet lunch
following the dancing. ,