TH 5 NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome. Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 618
w. A. and EMILY BOUCHER t Edit >
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR
Entered as second class matter October 14. 1943. at the postoffice
at Nome. Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Wednesday, October 22, 1947
What (lhian<> Musi Do l\ir IJ. S. Aid
(By Palmer Hoyt)
UNITED STATES'POLICY in China has followed a
circuitous'course in the past few years, a course that be-1
gan in the war against Japan. It has come time for that
course to be straightened and lined up with the Truman
doctrine and the Marshall plan for Europe.
Few officials in our state department, least of all Sec
retary Marshall, hold any shining illusions about the j
Chinese political scene, no matter how Chiang Kai
Shek has changed the props. The play is the same that i
had a long run in Nanking, moved to Hankow and
Chungking after 1937, and has now returned to Nan
king. There are new actors in the minor roles, but the
central characters are not changed.
It is certain that the United States must follow a dy
namic policy toward China. In these days of globe-cir
cling aircraft and atomic bombs the east China coast
represents the western border of the United States. But
America is to uphold the democratic principles on
which the States were united, our policy in China must
be demacrtic.
A democratic policy means that America should not
give assistance to the Chinese government in its oppres^
sion of the people. Chiang Kai-Shek needs aid badly".
When President Truman and Secretary Marshall sug
gested last year that a broadening of the government
would produce aid, Chiang obligingly included a few
more liberals, all the time maintaining strict .control in
the hands of the right wing of the Kuomintang, which
has so long dominated China.
Chiang has long believed that America’s interest in
preservation of a non-Communist, non-Soviet China
would force the United States to aid him at any price.
He has smilingly made surface changes, so as not to em
barrass the American government, but he has made no
basic changes.
Now, since the United States has removed its troops
from China, and since the failure of the Marshall mis
sion, America is at the crossroads. It must decide what
course it will follow in the Far East, and that course pri
marily concerns China. The United States should give
aid to the Chinese, but only under a definite condition.
That condition is broadening of the Chinese govern
ment.
Broadening means this:
1— 'Chiang must include liberals from the Democratic
league and other groups; he must include them in re
sponsible positions; and he must bring in enough of them
so that their weight will counter-balance the right wing
of the Kuomintang.
2— The Chinese government must stop subsidy of the
Kuomintang party, subsidy which it has been giving
for years, and the Kuomintang must be placed on an
equal footing with other parties in China.
3— The Chinese government must hold elections for
local government offices, and for the national govern
ment as well, which has never had a true election.
4— That government must give civil rights to its peo
ple. Among others it must give the right of habeas cor
pus and the right to trial. It must allow free speech and
a free press.
5— The Chinese government must live up to the pro
visions of the trade treaty it signed with the United
States—rrtust stop discrimination against foreign na
tionals.
This does not mean that the United States should at
tempt to foist western democracy onto China. America
developed her own form of democracy, and that form
fits American needs. It does not necessarily fit Chinese
needs. But there are certain basic human rights that
THE OLD PUNCHING BAG
0.1 J
"POUAR J
imperiausaa" I
should be guaranteed every living man, and the United
States should exert pressure to see that Chiang gives
them to his people.
The United States should strongly recommend that
Chiang change his hateful process of violent conscrip
tion, that he begin education of the Chinese people, and
that he adjust taxes so that they are equitable, rather
than placing he burden on the small landowner and ten
ant farmer.
Even though the United States is fighting Commun
ism throughout the world, and Communism is a danger
in China, the American government cannot continue to
support totalitarian governments and keep the respect
of the peoples of free countries.
America-Sold Short
(The Denver Post)
THE REPORT by American Congressmen that the
British people do not understand either America or
Americans and are allowing Soviet propaganda to color
their opinions is disconcerting but hardly surprising.
The truth of the matter is that the Uniated States has
had bad public relations—the worst of any of the big
powers—and that too small an attempt is being made to
sell America as a going commodity.
Two Congressmen now in England have said the Eng
lish people just do not understand the American gov
ernment system and the part played by the United
i States in building up the United Nations. This lack of
understanding can be blamed upon no one but the
United States. America cannot expect the British gov
ernment to spend its time telling its people about the
beauies of friendship with the United States.
It would be bad enough if this lack of understanding
were confined to Great Britain—with a common lan
guage and much common background and culture. But
it is much worse in other countries. America is still j
thought of as Uncle Shylock, and more and more people
of other countries believe that American policies are
bent toward world domination.
These beliefs are strengthened by misinformation
and the lack of true information disseminated abroad.
It is true that American news services distribute Amer
ican news in many parts of the world. But these serv
ices do not try to sell America—their boast is impartial
ity and true presentation of the facts. That is not
enough. The news services do not disseminate back
ground information, and in their brief daily reports do!
not tell the story of the United States.
Consequently the people of Britain do not know that i
the American loan comes direcly from the pockets of
American taxpayers, and the other people of Europe
envisage Marshall benefits as coming from the bottom-!
less well of resource.
It is simple for these people to condemn the United
States when they have knowledge neither of American
tradition-nor actions, and it is equally simple for Amer
icans to condemn that lack of knowledge. But solution
of the problem is more difficult. It calls for more and
more information to the people of
foreign lands, afficial information
distributed by the state depart- £
ment. The report by these Amer
ican Congressmen, just as similar
reports which trickle into the *
United States almost daily, only
serves to emphasize the immediate
need for expansion of the Ameri
can information program abroad.
That’s That
By BRUCE GUSTIN
Secretary of labor Schwellen- <
bach has been “talking through
his hat.” He said that “wage hikes
in the new United Mine Workers
contract cost the mine operators
$1.87 a ton” and “th^ coal indus
try immediately hiked the price
$5 a ton.” He didn’t name any spe- i
cific field in which such price
gouging was perpetrated. The im
pression he gave was that it was
general. That certainly was not
the case in Colorado. The north
ern Colorado operators figured the ^
wage increase referred to by
Schwellenbach increased produc
tion costs of lignite coal in their
field by 79 cents a ton, and they
advanced the price by that figure.
when the wage increases refer
red to by Schwellenbach were
made last July, the Pittsburgh
Consolidation Coal company, one
of the world’s largest bituminous
producers, announced increases of
40 cents a ton on strip mine coal,
60 cents a ton on West Virginia <
deep mined coal and 78 cents a
ton on Pennsylvania deep mined
coal. The increase made then in
retail coal prices in Pittsburgh av
eraged a little more than $1.
Those figures don’t jibe with
Schwellenbach’s charge that "the
coal industry immediately hiked
the price $5 a ton.
Five operating railway unions
are demanding a 30 per cent wage
increase. They also want changes
in forty-four working rules, many
of which would further increase
operating expenses of the rail
roads. How the carriers could
meet these demands is something
nobody has figured out. In fact,
they can’t afford wage increases
already forced upon them.
The Missouri Pacific has an
nounced that wage increases re
cently awarded non-operating em
ployees will cost is 14 million dol- *
lars a year. That sum. it says, is
$292,000 more per month than it
netted during the first seven
months of 1947. For the railroads
as a wnoie, it is estimated the an
i nual cost of these non-operating
i wage increases will be 438 mil
I lions a year. That is 36 and one
half millions a month—approxi
mately 2 millions a month more
than they have been earning this
year. If the idea of these wage in
creases is to bankrupt the rail
roads and force the government
to take them over, the unions may
be on the right track.
The American people may well
wonder if Henry Wallace knows
what he does want. “If we organ
ize rapidly and well,” he said in a
speech in Boston, “we can force
the present administration to fight
for the controls and 'rationing
necessary to distribute current
scarcity and enable all Ameicans
I to eat well.” Maybe he knows
how distributing scarcity will help
Ameicans to eat well. But that
sounds as screwy as his obsession
about Wall Street controlling the
nation and planning to control the
whole world.
Why the United Nations assem
bly should consider either the
Ukraine or India for election to
| the important security council is
puzzling. The Ukraine is a part of
the Soviet Union. Its independence