™s NOME NUGGET
OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
VOL. LII. No. 15 NOME, ALASKA, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1950 _Per Copy—15c
:
NEWS IN BRIEF
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SAN JUAN, P. R., (>P)—A U. S. |
airforce C-47 transport plane with
two officers and one enlisted man ,
aboard crashed into the sea late«
Friday night just off the Puerto
Rican coast. ;
Army and navy rescue officials
said there was little hope for sur
. vivors as the plane apparently
had hit the water at full flying
speed.
Identification of the men was
withheld.
—
LEEDS, Eng. (/P> — Winston
Churchill accused the Labor gov
ernment Saturday of tearing Bri
tain apart with class warfare at
the most critical hour in its
peacetime history.
Churchill said the Laborites,
taking in a leaf from Soviet Rus
sia’s book, have kept wartime
controls in order “to get every
one into their power, and make
them stand in queues for he fa
vors which an all-wise and all
powerful governing machine
chooses to bestow.”
SEATTLE, (/P) — Merle G.
Ringenberg, 60, president and
manager of the waterfront em
ployers of Washington, died Sat
urday night of a heart ailment.
He had been with the Seattle wa
terfront group for 30 years.
NORFOLK, Va., (JP)—A naval
court of inquiry spent the entire
week-end poring over the battle
• ship Missouri's navigating and op
erating charts and logs, seeking
to learn why the ship got stuck in
the mud.
The court opened briefly Fri
day, then adjourned until today
after hearing one witness and ad
mitting the charts and logs in evi
dence.
SEATTLE, (JP)—Fred K. Ross,
Seattle newspaperman left here
l Saturday night for Washington,
D. C., *to take over the post of i
managing editor of the Erwin
News Bureau.
In addition to directing Wash
ington, D. C., coverage for the
Bureau’s 50 newspaper clients,
Ross will help publish a newslet
ter for Latin American countries.
Before he left, he made plans
to dispose of the resort near
Ketchikan, Alaska, which he has
operated for the past three years.
ADAK, (JP) — Naval operating ,
base officials said today Marine
Pfc. R. S. Rhoads of Quarryville,
Pa., was in “excellent condition”
and recovering from an accident
al, self-inflicted gunshot wound
in the left thigh Jan. 23.
They said Rhoads was shot in
the fleshy part of the thigh, and
« that no bone, artery or nerve was
(Continued on Page Two)
t
Lewis Ignores
Truman; Calls
Nation-Wide Strike
PITTSBURGH, (/P> — The soft
coal strike burst into a nation
wide walkout today with angry
miners in nearly a score of states
joining in an all-out bid for a
contract showdown.
As the number of idle miners
skyrocketed from the 100,006 out
last week in six states to at least
330,000, production of bituminous
("soft* coal plummeted. Roving
pickets were active in some areas.
"Let’s wait and see what hap
pens now,” declared a grizzled
veteran of the Pennsylvania pits.
He referred to reports President
Truman is ready to invoke the
Taft-Hartley Act against John L.
Lewis and his United Mine Work
ers.
Surveys showed no UMW dig
gers at work in Pennsylvania,
West Virginia, Illinois, Utah and
Tennessee. Other states said in
complete checks indicated a total
work stoppage.
A small stream of coal still is
coming from unorganized mines
(Continued on Page Four)
Bartlett Lauds
Barrow Rejection
Of Reservation
WASHINGTON, (JP) —Delegate
Bartlett of Alaska today hailed
the Barrow Eskimos’ rejection of
a proposed reservation for them
as a “testimonial to their common
good sense.”
“The Barrow Eskimos by their
vote last Saturday showed con
clusively they do not want the
government to run their affairs
even if the bait held out is held to
be exclusively theirs,” he said in
a statement.
The Eskimos, Bartlett said, “are
to be congratulated on having em
phatically refused to accept for
themselves and their children the
dreary life of reservation natives.”
“I trust the interior depart
ment will not now attempt to do
what it did once at White Moun
tain, “call another election after
the first vote resulted in a smash
ing defeat for the reservation.
“I hope too the Eskimo in the
Kobuk region (Shungnak) and the
Indians at Hvdaburg, will—if
elections are held at those places
in April as now scheduled—re
ject their reservations as resound
ingly as have the Barrow people.”
The order for the creation of
the three reservations, subject to
a vote by the natives, was signed
by former secretary of the interi
or J. A. Krug on his last day in
office.
/ — ■— - —• NT"
BARRQW. Alaska, (^P) — Eski
mos along this northern rim. of
the continent have overwhelming
ly rejected an interior department
plan to create a reservation for
them. .
Officials, said yesterday the
vote, in Saturday’s election was
231 against and 29 for acceptance.
A similar election will be held
April 24 or 28 among the Eskimos
in the Shungnak area of north
wetsern Alaska. It originally was
scheduled for Feb; 8 but was
postponed late last week by the
department.
A third reservation election
among the Hydaburg Indians of
Southeast Alaska also will be held
in April.
The department announced Fri
day that the Barrow election had
been postponed ann the Shungnak
election would be held Satu/day.
It said Saturday this was errone
ous and due to a misunderstand
ing but did not explain how it
occurred.
The department said it found
it was impossible to postpone the
Barrow election because of lack
of communication to the large
area involved.
Saturday’s reversal of Friday’s
i announcement added another de
I gree of confusion to a situation
(Continued on Page Three)
Truman Invokes
TaftiHartley Law
In Coal Strike
WASHINGTON, (/P)—President
Truman today invoked the Taft
Hartley Law in an effort to re
store coal production .
He appointed a board of in
quiry headed by David L. Cole,
Paterson, N. J., lawyer, to look
into the issues at dispute.
The other members are Wil
liam W. Wirtz and John Dunlop.
In view of the emergency, the
President instructed the board to
report “not later” than one week
from today.
Mr. Truman’s move sets in mo
tion Taft-Hartley law procedures
that could lead to a court order a
week or 10 days from now for the
miners to get back to work for 80
days.
Whether the miners will pay
any attention to a “stop-strike”
order from the courts—provided
one is issued—is a question.
John L. Lewis, the 70-year-old
president of the UMW, told Mr.!
Truman last week that he doubt- 1
ed they would.
Presidential secretary Charles
G. Ross said Mr. Truman’s order
covered only the soft coal indus
try.
He said the three board mem
bers had accepted the appoint
ments and would meet in Wash
ington to begin work.
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Search Continues j
For Missing C-54
EDMONTON, Alta. (TP) — Im
proving weather" was looked for
today to aid in the continuing
search for a .USAF C-54 which
vanished Jan. 26 with 44 persons
aboard.
Weat her permitting, planes
were expected to return to inte
rior British Columbia where a
searching B-29 bomber yesterday
picked up an S.O.S. signal on the
high frequency distress band.
The B-29, one of 10 flying out
of Great Falls, Mont., picked up
the signal north of Spokane.
Numerous other signals have
been picked up all the way from
Alaska to the U. S.-Canada bor
der, but investigation has shown
no connection with the missing
(Continued on Page Three)
Russian Spy Got
Both Atomic And
Hydrogen Secrets
j ~
WASHINGTON, (JP) — Alarmed
lawmakers demanded rigid new
secrecy measures Saturday after
receiving reports that a top Bri
tish scientist had passed hydro
gen bomb—as well as atomic— '
secrets to Russia.
With the biggest atomic spy'
case of all still unfolding there j
were these developments:.
1. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover
was quoted by Senators as having j
reported to them that Klaus
Fuchs, the 38-year-old accused
British scientist, had been plant- j
ed as a paid Russia spy in the1
British atomic set-up and had
given the innermost atomic se
crets, and some information about
the hydrogen bomb, to Moscow.
2. A group of Senators demand
(Continued on Page Two>
Alaska OOP’s
Patch Up Their
Diffe rences
JUNEAU, (JP) — An announce
ment indicated that the long
standing breach in Alaska Repub
lican party ranks is on the way to
being healed.
Lending strength to that belief
was the word that Capt. Austin
E. Lathrop, wealthy Fairbanks
publisher, will have the voting
proxy of Mrs. Margaret E. White
at the Republican national and
policy committee meetings in
Washington, D. C., today.
Mrs. White, Republican notion
al committeewoman for Alaska, is
the wife of Albert White of .Tun- .
eau, titular head of Alaska Re
publicanism.
(Continued on Page Four)
News of the World
At A Glance - - -
Saturday. February 3. 1950
i By The Associated Press^
The Russians dropped thqir de
laying tactics in Germany today
and gavp speedy clearance to
truck traffic.
East German economic authori
ties said that arguments over
shipping papers and other tech
ncalities had been settled. The
Western Allies earlier had threat
ened counter measures to force
the lifting of the “baby blockade.”
East and West German econo
mic authorities, it was learned,
had held several conferences in
the past two days to iron out dif
ficulties.
Truck traffic at Helmstedt,
which at one time was slowed to
three trucks an hour is now mov
ing at the rate of one a minute.
Western authorities had charg
ed the Russian bottleneck was a
deliberate attempt to frustrate
West Germart economic recovery.
French Premier Georges Bi
dault said in Paris he will attempt
to carry on the government with
out Socialist members of his cab
inet who resigned yesterday. He
is going to patch up his shaky
coalition and face Parliament
Tuesday for a policy debate, and
then ask for a vote of confidence.
France was rocked by both a
political and economic crisis.
Communists threatened to crip
ple France’s efforts to send troops
and supplies to Indochina where
France is attempting to put down
the revolt of Ho Chi-Minh. Ho’s
rebel government has been re
conized by Russia and several of
her sattelites. Communists also
threatened to prevent unloading
of American arms aid supplies.
Paul Hoffman, Marshall Plan
administrator, is seeking Con
gressional approval of $3,100,000,
000 for the third year of the eco
nomic recovery plan for Western
Europe. Economy minded Sena
tors have threatened drastic cuts.
Chinese Nationalists on Formo
sa said the communists have taken
Fenghu Island near the mainland
seaport of Swaton as a stepping
stone in the projected invasion of
Formosa.
Monday, February 6, 1950
A demand was voiced in Wash
ington today for investigation of
whether Klaus Fuchs, German
born British scientist accused of
giving atom data *o Russia, may
have had high American contacts.
Senator Bridges tR.-N. H.) de
manded a search "in high places"
for any U. S. contacts Fuchs may
have had.
"This man Fuchs,” Bridges said,
"must have had contacts in this
country and we must follow
(Continued on Page Three)