THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome. Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O, B-»x 618
S1.50 PER MONTH S16.00 A YEAR
W. A. and EMILY BOUCHER.Editors
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at the posrtoffice
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Monday, November 11, 1946
Armistice Day
Others Have Troubles, Too
(Daily Alaska Empire)
Mulling over the housing shortage, and reading the
estimates of how many new dwellings are needed in
this country, Americans are likely to feel very sorry for
themselves. And it is a staggering problem. But it would
be well to remember that our position is very much
more favorable than that of any other major belligerent
of World War II.
Britain and France and Russia, and all the lesser na
tions of Europe involved in the war have our problem,
but in addition, they have the added shortages resulting
from their longer participation in war, which means a
longer period of prohibitions on home construction. And
on top of that, they lost vast numbers of dwellings by
air bombardment or other military operations.
In Great Britain, for example, 460,000 dwellings were
destroyed or seriously damaged during the war. Fully
1.500.000 families are living doubled up. Not less than
750.000 new dwellings are needed, just to give each
family a new home, without tackling the problem of
slums not really fit for habitation. Yet in the last year
and a half, only 72,000 new homes have been built, two
thirds of them temporary shelters.
Nome Starts Rebuilding
(Jessen’s Weekly)
'We are not amazed by the news that already the resi
dents of hard-hit Nome are now laying their plans for
reconstruction—not just temporarily, although the first
structures will necessarily have to be that, but perman
ently. As far back as we can recall, periodically disaster
of some kind engulfs Nome. It has been swept by floods
and tidal waves and razed by fires. But it never gives
up.
With an undaunted spirit, it has lived through bitter
years of recovery and rebuilding. So it will be on this
occasion. It will continue to be what it has been for al
most a half-century, one of Alaska’s most outstanding
communities.
It should have and almost certainly can get assistance.
First of all, it seems to us that the American Red Cross
can give financial aid from its disaster fund. The Fed
eral government, which has a big investment nearby,
surely will install some revetments that will hold.
The Territory ought to be able to help with school
facilities. A hospital is already assured, but the Terri
torial Health Department might participate in equip
ping it.
The importance of Nome to the Nation and to the
Territory is well-established. It is the obligation of both
to do their part, and not leave it to the people of Nome
to do it alone.
ing to be obliged to pay 20 per cent of their incomes for
rent. If their actual rents are less, as in most cases they
are, the difference goes into a fund to subsidize new
dwellings built at present high costs.
In housing, as in food and clothing and nearly every
thing else, we are much better of fthan either our n
cent Allies or our enemies overseas.
Peace
' “Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet”
On Sunday, September 2, 1945, aboard the great
United States’ Battleship Missouri, General Douglas
MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces,
at the formal Japanese surrender, in his historic address
spoke words the world must not forget. We quote the
following, deeply significant:
“Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has end
ed. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer
rain death—the seas bear only commerce—men every
where walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world
is quietly at peace.”
“As I look back on the long, tortuous trail from those
grim days of Bataan and Corregidor, when an entire
world lived in fear; when democracy was on the defen
sive everywhere, when modern civilization trembled in
the balance, I thank a merciful God that He has given
us the faith, the courage and the power from which to
mould victory.
“We have had our last chance. If we do not now de
vise some greater and more equitable system, Arma
geddon will be at our door. The problem basically is
theological and involves a spirtual recrudescence and
improvement of human character that will synchronize
with our almost matechless advance in. science, art, lit
erature and all material and cultural developments of
the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit if
we are to save the flesh.
i
“And so, my fellow countrymen, today I report to you
that your sons and daughters have served you well and
faithfully with the calm, deliberate, determined fight
ing spirit of the American soldier and sailor based upon
a tradition of historical trait, as against the fanaticism
of an enemy supported only by mythological fiction,
, their spirtiual strength and power has brought us
; through to victory. They are homeward bound — take
care of them.”
(Anonymous in “Dumb Animals”)
Defying The Lyrics
(The Denver Post)
Those chemists have done it again. They’ve found
something 4,000 times as sweet as sugar. Their techni
cal name for it isn’t 4,000 times as long. It just looks
that way to the layman.
This Holland Dutch supersugar for which n Ameri
can patent application has bene filed will be a boon to
i the food, candy and beverage industries—but not to
Hollywood or Tin Pan Alley. Imagine a song lyric like
this:
l-N-Propoxy-2Amino-4-Nitrobenzene,
You’re my super-super-super-sweet village queen.
By the old mill stream.
Not even Ogden Nash would be guilty of that! If the
i chemists hope to make their ultra-sweet stuff popular,
i they’ll have to find a simple name for it—preferably
something that rhymes with true, blue and you.
By GEORGE S BENSON
President of Harding College
Searcy. Arkansas
' " 1 ¥ • -T 1
REPRESENTATION i
All Americans had reason to be
jubilant on August 2, Not because
an unruly monarch had abdicated.
On that day the 79th Congress ad
journed, and its members would
soon sweep through the pre-elec
tion countryside—reporting to the
“constituency.” Our Congressmen
packed up to return home on that
day, and it has been ours to vote
►_
for them or against them.
Our founding fathers decried
the making of laws “without rep
resentation,” could have compli
mented our wartime Congress.
Serving through a most trying pe
riod at the very beginning of our
reconstruction, after courageously
displaying a people’s will though
I the most debilitating war in our
history ,the 79th Congress faced
all manner of problems.
Deliberations
Probably the 79th Congress
not please everybody. But at the
| same time when one surveys the
record, it is apparent that this
Congress has made some unusual
history. Congress accepted the
United Nations charter, thus com
mitting America to a much more
effective part in world leadership.
This Congress demonstrated t/»at
it is not willing to allow our for
eign policy to ride the winds d|
fortune, that it will be active
though deliberate in helping build
a peace.
Deliberate. That’s a word our
Congress properly exemplifies.
Actually, this is another way of
saying that we want the citizens
we vote into Congress to be states
men who will exercise the prerog
ative of brains. We want our leg
islators to be studious and careful
in preparation of laws, in this gov
ernment of the people. Only
this way may we have the best
representation. Remember that
when you hear the alarum: "Why
doesn’t Congress do something?”
No Rubber Stamp
Remember too that political ex
pediency makes deliberation nec
esary, as Congress attempts to
work out a pattern of harmony
with other departments. If some
things were bungled by the 79th
Congress, in many instances the
bungling may be chalked up to
other branches of the government.
But this Congress did demonstrate
that it was no “rubber stamp” Con
gress, and it made parliamentary
history in this respect.
It was a people’s Congress. It
took definite steps in the direction
of a balanced budget, for mai$
legislators put themselves on rec
ord in an attempt to preserve the
integrity of the nation’s finances.
No budget legislation was passed,
but much was done to prepare
ground-work for future budget
balancing legislation.
I
Decadent Bureaucracy
A few of the spreading tentacles^
of bureaucracy were lopped off by
the 79th Congress, and it refused
to pass other measures that would
nurture the beast. Congress re
fused to put the National Housing
Agency on a permanent basis, and
it turned the control and opera
tion of employment services back
to the States. The Reconstruction
Finance Corporation was given
barely a year to liquidate itmeslf.
Major proposals for federal aid to
education died in committees. ^
In removing many of the gov
ernment regulations which have
served their purposes, the Con
gress gave notice that it intends to
keep the traditional freedoms
making America the most desir
able place in the world in which
to live. Congress refused to sanc
tion the drafting of labor in time
of peace. Long live our Congress!
May it ever be the people’s repd^
sentation.
Fair To Firemen,
Reporter Reaps Repast
KOKOMO, Ind. (/P)—City fire
men cooked and served a dinner
in the central fire station to show
their appreciation of nearly 20
years of “fair treatment” by Mau^
rice C. Tull, veteran Kokomd
Tribune city hall reporter.
Some 200 firemen, policenrten
and city officials heard former In
diana Gov. Henry F. Schricker
praise the public service of news
papers, as exemplified in “the
man on the beat.”
Against this record, we can take some comfort in the
fact that 350,000 new houses have been completed in
the United States in the first eight months of 1946. Ma
terials are scarce here. But they are much more scarce
in any country of Europe.
And what are we to say of the Soviet Union,where
it is estimated that 2,000,000 houses were either de
stroyed or so damaged as to need major repairs in the
Ukraine alone. There is complaint in the United States
that we are taking such “drastic measures” to get more
housing under way, such as diverting materials for non
housing construction. But again it is worth while to
make comparisons. In Czechoslovakia, citizens are go