THE 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 . ...Editors
*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.
Friday, January 16, 1948
Little Man* You Have A Busy Year!
(By Palmer Hoyt)
WE PRAY that the infant 1948 recently ushered into
the world may have all the most heroic qualities of his
ancestors.
He will need the Christian faith, hope and charity of
the year 1, the Columbia boldness of 1492, the revolu
tionary ardor of 1776, the gold hunter’s luck of 1849, the
pioneer’s hardihood of 1850, the G. I.’s devotion of 1944
—these, plus the inspired wisdom of all the ages. These
arritbutes are not too much to ask for a young year
which must meet the demands of 1948.
For the United States especially, this will be a year
of great decisions; and the decisions we reach in this
rich and powerful land of ours will be global in their
effect.
Last week was begun one of the momentous debates
in U. S. history as Congress embarked upon considera
tion of the Marshall plan. The lines of controversy al
ready are clear. It will be an America which dares to
use its great strength to defend freedom in a contracting
world, versus an America which would pull itself tur
tlewise against the challenge.
The Marshall plan debate will be the immediate fo
cus of the conflict between western freedom and eastern
totalitarianism. But that global clash will mount on
many fronts—in the United Nations and among the peo
ples of western Europe, the Mediterranean and the Far
East.
I i
' At home in these United States, we shall be making
the great decisions of a Presidential campaign year. For-,
eign policy, inflation, Communism and civil liberties,
and housing will be the central issues. Each of these vi
tal questions will be dominated by the politics of the
with their activities.* To the skeptical American it was
the Republicans, rising in confidence, seek to wrest
loose the Presidency.
Every prospect is for a continuation through 1948 of
the dizzying prosperity of the past year. In some manu
facturing lines, prices may drop as “pipelines” fill with
goods and competition becomes effective; but, in the!
main, prices will probably remain high. Wages and em
ployment will likewise stay up, along with farm income
and industrial profits. We shall be riding a high curve
| of prosperity, far above the rest of the world still strug
gling out of chaos. \
But shall we recognize our unequaled strength and
rise to the responsibilitie which it places upon us? That
will be the great challenge to the infant 1948.
Little man, you have a busy year.
File Comedy Ends
(The Denver Post)
MONARCHY to the tolerant American is a curiosity
it best. He says, “What the heck! If it makes them hap
yy, let them have it.” But the Romanian throne, which
.he Communists last week jerked out from under King
Mihai, has been a real puzzler.
That comic opera monarchy, during its final years,
.•ombined the pretensions of monarchy with the deport
nent of Broadway. Its Queen Marie held America agog
vith a regal vaudeville tour, indorsing soaps and face
.•reams en route. Its scapegrace King Carol and his lady
riend, Magda, kept the gossip columnists chittering
vit htheir activities. To the skeptical American it was
lard to see how they could win such notoriety on this
iide of the Atlantic and maintain respect at home. But
hey did, and it proves something of the hold a mon
irchy may exercise over its common followers.
Young King Mihai, the inheritor of this somewhat
soiled ermine, tried to be a good king in the face of un
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precedented difficulties. Throughout the period of os
tensible Nazi collaboration, Mihai and the aged peasant
leader, Juliu Maniu, maintained contact with the Allies.1
One of the dramatic episodes in the last year of the war
was the palace coup d’etat engineered by Mihai and
Maniu in which the pro-Nazi leaders were suddenly ar
rested by the royal guard. In the five-day battle which
followed, the Germans were driven from Bucharest
without Allied Aid, and Romania finished the war on
the side of the democracies.
Mihai has now been ousted to make way for a newly
proclaimed “popular democratic republic”—which, un
der complete Communist domination, will be neither
popular, democratic nor republican.
Not Fooling The Public j
(By Jack Foster)
PRESIDENT TRUMAN’S statement? announcing his
reluctant signing of the Republican anti-inflation bill
was a clever but obvious bid for votes!
It is true, as he says, that the Republican measure, en
acting only three of the 10 points he recomended, repre-'
sent.s only “feeble steps toward control of inflation.”
And it is true that since his request for the 10-point pro
gram the prices of butter, beef, pork, shoes, gasoline,
etc., have continued to rise.
But it is also true that the Truman 10-point program
itself was little and late, and even if Congress had ap
proved all of it, prices and living costs would have
risen, and probably just as much.
The most important thing to keep in mind in the cur
rent controversy over who killed the Cock Robin of
lower living costs is that 1948 is an election year. Until
November next the Democrats will blame the Republi
cans and vice versa. The public, whose votes are courted,
is not so dumb as to overlook that both are to blame.
The harvest of the present soaring prices is from seeds
sown long since—ex'ravagant government expendi
; tures when e-'rorr' • celled for fallacy that
farmers could ret. more for what they raided without
consumers paying more for what they at.e and wore; the
phony argument that higher wages could be paid for
, less work without the consumers, including farmers
and wage-earners, losing in the end through higher
prices; the cheap-money and pump-priming measures
inaugurated to fight a depression but never reversed
when conditions changed.
The Democrats are at fault in that these were poli
cies of the Roosevelt, and Truman administrations.
The Republicans share the blame in that, when they
finally got voting control of Congress, they proved to be
not strong enough to withstand the pressure groups and
change the trend. It is not likely, in this election year
that either party will do what is necessary to check the
rise in prices. But there are good reasons to hope and
believe that the great productivity of the American sys
tem and the hard work and common sense of the Amer
ican people, who pay the bills, will yet restore order
and balance.
Desperate General
Talked With Su
preme Commander
A prayer for aid to turn the tide
of the Battle of the Bulge, attrib
uted to the late Gen. George Pat
ton, has never before been pub
lished. It appears in the December
issue of True magazine. Thous
ands of Third army men believe
Our Lord worked a true modern
miracle in answer to that prayer.
It was Christmas, 1944. when a
fiery general talked with His
Highest Commander.
“Sir, this is Patton talking. The
last fourteen days have been
straight hell. Rain, snow, more
rain, more snow—and I’m begin
ning to wonder what’s going on in
Your headquarters. Whose side
are You on, anyway?
“For three years my chaplains
have been explaining this as a re
ligious war. This, they tell me, is
the Crusades , all over again, ex
cept that we’re riding tanks in
stead of chargers. They insist we
are here to annihilate the German
army and the godless Hitler so
that religious freedom may return
to Europe.
“Up until now I have gone along
with them, for You have given us
Your unreserved co-operati o n.
Clear skies and a calm sea in Af
rica made the landings highly suc
cessful, and helped us to elimin
ate Rommel. Sicily was compara
tively easy and You supplied ex
cellent weather for our armored
dash across France, the greatest
military victory that You have
thus far allowed. You have often
given me excellent guidance in
difficult command decisions and
You have led German units into
traps that made their elimination
fairly simple.
“But now, You've changed
horses in midstream. You seem to
have given von Runstedt every
break in the book, and frankly,
he’s beating hell out of us. My
army is neither trained nor equip
ped for winter warfare. And, as
You know, this weather is more
suitable for Eskimos than for
southern cavalrymen.
“But now. Sir, I can’t help but
feel that I have offended You in
some way. That suddenly You
have lost all sympathy with our
cause. That You are throwing in
with von Runstedt and his paper
hanging god. You know without
me telling You that our situation
is desperate. Sure, I can tell my
staff that everything is going ac
cording to plan, but there’s no use
telling You that my 101st air
borne is holding out against tre
mendous odds in Bastogne, and
that this continual storm is mak
ing it impossible to supply them
even from the air. It’ve sent Hugh
Gaffey, one of my ablest generals,
wi'h his Fourth armored division,
nor?h toward that all-important
road center to relieve the encir
cled • garrison and he’s finding
Your weather much more difficult
than he is the Krauts.
“I don’t like to complain unrea
sonably, but my soldiers from the
Meuse to Schternach are suffer
ing the tortures of the damned.
Today I visited several hospitals,
all full of frostbite cases, and the
wounded are dying in the fields
because they cannot be brought
back for medical care.
“But that isn’t the worst of the
situatkm. Lack of visibility, con
tinued rains, have completely
grounded my air force. My technic
of battle calls for close-in fighter
bomber support, and if my planes
can’t fly, how can I use then as
earial artillery? Not only is this a
deplorable situation .but, worse