THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome, Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 61H
SI.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR
- - ■ - '■ ■
W. A. and EMILY BOUCHER.. Editors
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at the postofJi^*
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Wednesday, February 5, 1947
Air Safety Record Speaks For Itself
(Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
A BIG AIRPLANE ACCIDENT is a spectacular and
horrible thing; with its eye-witness descriptions and pic
tures of wreckage, it burns into the memory. Thus, the
cumulative effect of the recent accidents has been to
alarm the public and to arouse Congress. There is no
getting away from that.
But we think now is a good time to sit back and sur
vey just what the score is with the air transport indus
try. Now is a good time to insist on the use of the most
modern safety devices—and now is a good time also to
insist that no measures be taken to cripple needlessly a
young and strong and growing transportation giant.
Let’s take the case of the scheduled (certified) air
lines of the United States.
We are not talking, please remember, of nonsched
uled flights by chartered planes, of private planes, nor of
American-made aircraft in the service of foreign com
panies, where, incidentally, the more recent crashes
have occurred. We are talking of the big American com
panies, whose scheduled flights last year carried some 13
million passengers all over the United States and abroad.
Well, what are the facts? We are using statistics sup
plied by John W. Thompson, director of information of
the Air Transport Association of America, of which Vice
Adm. Emory S. Land is president. That is an organiza
tion, with headquarters in Washington, that speaks for
all the scheduled air lines.
The first fact is that in domestic operation in 1946 the
air lines established the best safety record in history.
This is measured on the basis of passenger fatalities
per 100 million passenger milbs, which is the standard
measurement.
In 194b, then, the fatality rate was 1.2, as against 2.17
in 1945 and 3.05 in 1940.
It is an interesting comparison that the corresponding
figure for automobile travel in 1945 was 2.9.
For overseas operations in 1946 the rate was 3.68, con
siderably higher than the domestic operation rate. Yet
even here the fatality trend was slightly down from 1945
and the safety trend slightly up. For 1945, the overseas
operation fatality rate was 3.75.
Too many statistics are tiring, but we would like to
give you a few more.
The domestic scheduled air lines had three accidents
involving fatalities in 1940, eight in 1945 and nine in
1946. The overseas operators had no fatalities in 1940,
two in 1945 and two in 1946.
Yet the number of revenue passenger miles flown was
nearly six times as great in 1946 as in 1940, and nearly
twice as great in 1946 as in 1945.
In round figures, the domestic carriers flew 108 mil
lion miles in 1940, 214 million miles in 1945 and 328 mil
lion miles in 1946. The corresponding totals for the in
ternational lines were 10 million miles in 1940, 32 mil
lion in 1945 and 67 million in 1946.
This, it seems to us, is an impressive record. Congress
already has discovered, in its concern over recent acci
dents, that the record is unassailable. It is there.
What, then, is the problem? Essentially, it is to reas
sure the public by making a good record better.
To this end, the air lines will spend more than a mil
lion dollars in 1947. The lines already have spent $25,000
at LaGuardia Field as their share in developing an au
tomatic control system, ^nd will spend $20,000 in neces
sary modifications.
They are going to spend $100,000 in installing radar
units uith scanning scopes in the traffic control lowers
at Chicago, LaGuardia and Washington, working with
the ar ny and the civil aeronautics administration.
The / are experimenting with a fog dispersal system
t the landing aids experiment station in Areata, Calif.,
nd they will spend nearly half a million dollars in the
Jeve’ jpment of control and navigational systems, using
is m; ny wartime developments as may be adaptable to
comr lercial use.
Preparations are now being made for the installation
of the latest safety devices at the Seattle-Tacoma Air
port at Bow Lake.
Safety, yes. Let us insist on every safety device pos
sible. But let us also remember the facts.
!
Oi> e Mail’s Opinion By Walter kiernan
1 HE C. I. O. and the N. A. M. have filed briefs in the j
Michigan Pottery Portal case.—Through these portals',
pass some of the most beautiful briefs in the world . . .
The briefs are filed as “friends of the court”—Soon the,
court will know what a politician means when he says,
“I am in the hands of my friends.” . . . The C. I. O. also
has filed a brief in the Lewis case, taken a position on
Spain and aired its views on the atom bomb.—It has not
yet gotten out a cook book. . .. Anyhow the Amalgamate
cd Meat Cutters & Butchers union has decided not to
bring any portal suits.—They figure the time it takes a
butcher to put on his straw hat is his own.... But there’s
good news from the department of commerce—This!
year more autos and whiskey will be produced ... It
makes a nice combination—Ask the man who owns a
wreck. . . . Moscow says our poets did a poor job in the
war.—More and more it becomes obvious we needed the
atom bomb to turn back the forces of evil. . . . The com
plaint is that which Russian rhymsters were energizing
with epics, our boys were quibbling with couplets . . J
Still the arts were heavy contributors to victory.—Who
can ever forget Toscanini’s threat never to downbeat
his baton again until Fascism had crumpled. That ges
ture alone plus a little help from the armed forces pol
ished off Mussolini.
_PROPPING AN H _
V-,*V.
WflTAIM'5
0 !
Seven Te8t8 of Freedom By Bernard Baruch
Peace seems beautiful during
the savagery of war, but it be
comes almost hateful when war is
over. Each disputant demands a
peace made in his own image in
stead of a peace acceptable to all.
But there are some things more
precious even than peace, and the
greatest of these is freedom.
There need be no casuistry in
defining that word. That great ,
man, whom I am glad to call my
friend, Winston Churchill, indi
cated a simple and effective pro
cess. I present it under the t tie of
the “Seven Tests of Freedom.” Ap
ply them yourselves to any \ - ■
ernment, our own or foreign. The |
answer is final. They tell you au-1
tomatically if true freedom exists,
or if it is a delusion created by an
artificial vocabulary.
Remember that is an over-reach
ing propaganda, words are tortur
ed away from the r true meaning
and become symbols of wishes or
I
falsification, instead of exp *v«<, i.
of truth.
Here are the tests:
First—Is there the right to ires
expression of opinions and of op
position and criticism of the gov
ernment of the day?
Second—Have the people the
right to turn out a government of
which they disapprove, and are
constitutional means provided by
which they can make their will ap
parent?
Third—Are there courts of jus
tice, free from violence by the ex
ecutive and free of all threats of
mob violence and all association
wixn any particular political part
ies?
Fourth—Will these courts ad
minister open and well-established
laws which are associated in the
human mind with the broad prin
ciples of decency and justice?
Fifth—Will there be fair play
for poor as well as for rich, for
private persons as wel las govern
ment officials?
Sixth—Will the rights of the in
dividual, subject to his duties to
the state, be maintained and as
serted and exalted?
Seventh—Is the ordinary peas
ant or workman, earning a living
by daily toil and striving to bring
up a family, free from the fear
that some grim police organiza
tion, under the control of a single
party like the Gestapo started by
the Nazi and Fascist parties, will
tap him on the shoulder and pack
him off, without fair or open trial,
to bondage or ill treatment?
I suggest that you ask yourself
whether you would like to live,
move and have your being under
a reverse of the standards this
great democrat has expressed.
The measure of values set up in
this table are the basic character
istics of the liberal. That is a word
variously interpreted, but I find
no difficulty in understanding it.
To me it means one who holds po
litical, social and religious rights
to be inalienable, and to whom
property rights, though important
to our civilization and to the spur
of ambition, fall into a category of
lesser importance.
Krug Asks For
Hawaiian Fish
Laboratory
WASHINGTON, </P)—A Hawa
iian laboratory to study resources
of the central Pacific, “greatest
untapped fishery resource in the
world,” was urged today by sec
retary of the interior Krug.
In his annual report to the Pres
ident, the secretary also advocated
spending “a few hundred thousand
dollars” to clear obstacles from the
spawning streams of Alaska. This
work, he estimated, will add five
million dollars a year to Alaska’s
fishery revenue.
Hawaiia’s Delegate, Joseph R.
Farrington, has introduced into
Congress legislation for a $450,000
research project.
“Perhaps the greatest untapped
fishery resource in the world is
the fish supply of the central pa
cific—particularly the tunas which,
pound for pound, are the most val
uable of sea fishes.” Krug’s report
said.
Milton C. James, assistant direc
tor of the Fish and Wildlife Serv
ice, told a reporter that “nobody
knows the possib’lities of the cen
tral Pacific fisheries,” and said
the U. S. may discover great food
resources in areas such as the Car
oline and Marshall Islands, “up to
the southwest Pacific and includ
ing the Philippines.”
He added that such development