THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
NOME, ALASKA
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 6i»
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR
W. A. Boucher .Owner-Publisher
Emily Boucher .Local Editor
Entered as second class matter October 14. 1943, at the postoffice
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Nome, Alaska, Monday, March 14, 1949
0
SOMETHING NEW IN BY-LAWS
(By Pauline R. Reynolds in The Country Gentleman)
%
If you think club by-laws are pretty cut and dried
(though necessary) you’ll find these framed by the Es
kimo Woman’s Club of Unalakleet, Alaska, rather re
freshing.
Here are some examples:
“E^ch mother must bathe her child every week.
“Children must be put to bed by 8 o’clock.
“Honor and obey your husband.”
There are other rules, too, relating to dues and regu
lar attendance of the club’s 43 members, but these give
a clue to some conditions near the Arctic Circle which
clubwomen are trying to change. For example, it’s long
been a custom among the Eskimos for the entire family
to stay up so late at night that neither adults nor chil
dren want to get up in the morning. One school in the
Arctic met the problem of low attendance by serving
brakfast to the children who reached school on time.
Since an X-ray survey showed a number of active
cases of tuberculosis in this native village, and since the
average Eskimo’s life span is only 45 years, club mem
bers have begun an aggressive health program. Their
first thought was for the school children who now get
a nutritionally balanced meal each noon. For this, men
of the village furnish wild meat (the blood is frozen for;
use later in soup), and the women supply vegetables
and berries.
A year ago the club bought the first pressure cooker
the members had ever seen. Among the foods canned
were cauliflower greens, though growing vegetables is
not, unfortunately, a common practice among many Es
kimos. Unalakleet women plant and care for vegetable
gardens, while the men work in fish canneries.
All of the club members are Eskimos, but American
names like Brown and Smith can be found on the club
roll along with Agibinik, Nashoalok and Nanouk. The
' club charges members 50 cents dues per year. In the
four years since its organization it has not ony improv
ed the level of child care and homemaking, but it has
provided new interests for the village. Unalakleet needs
these, for although it is on the Bering Sea it has no har
bor to receive ships and can be reached only by plane
and dog sled. 1
A community fair has been one educational and recre
ational project. In the handicraft division women dis
play mittens, parkas and winter boots called mukluks,
all made from skins which have been tanned and sewed
together with sinew by the women. It’s a form of need
lework which requires not only hands but teeth as well,
and the Eskimo women gradually wear down their
teeth by this ancient method. Knitted clothing and
carved ivory are displayed also among the handicrafts.
There are no horses in the village, and therefore no
horse races at the fair, but dog teams and reindeer races
prove just as exciting.
In addition to starting the fair, the club has:
Sponsored food sales twice a year netting $604, some
of the proceeds going for the school lunch project.
Entertained thq superintendent of the Alaska Native
Service and asked him for improved schools where their
children can learn better English.
Sought lower freight rates from the commercial air
lines serving Unalakleet.
Helped with church and community welfare. (Ten
per cent of club money goes to a “sick fund.”)
The Unalaldeet Woman’s Club is said to be the only
-one of its kind in Alaska. If that is true, what a shame
•• •
RESPONSE IN THE RUHR
(New World News Service)
The Soviet Union has revolutionized tjie role of the
Red Army in the cold war. Recently, Marshall Vasilev
ski, former Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army,
was replaced by a little known general schooled for
years in the art of ideological warfare. Stalin knows a
shooting war alone gets nothing—not even for the vic
tor—except ruins, scorched earth and millions of starv
ing people to feed. He knows you can’t shoot an idea but
you can take over a whole nation with one. Backed by
the tremendous striking power of the Red Army at
home a constant offensive is being carried on around
the world by the 24 million ideologically trained Party
members. Countries like Czechoslovakia are conquered
without a shot.
However, hot spots of hope are multiplying rapidly.
German miners and managers report Moral Re-Arma
ment, with its ideology of a change of heart for every
man and nation, has received remarkable response in
the Ruhr. For a week MRA’s drama, “The Forgotten
Factor,” played in Moers, coal mining town, where 35' r
of the miners are members of the Communist Party, and
40% are members of the Social Democratic Party which
is Marxist in its philosophy, but refuses to accept the
dictatorial disciplines of the Communists. After seeing
the play a Communist miner tested his life by the four
absolute moral standards of honesty, purity, usefulness
and love. When he heard the Communist organizer in
the district had refused to see the play, he replied, “Tell
him that any man who refuses to try the experiment of
living the four standards is a traitor to his people.”
The Director of the Mines in Moers who is also Chair
man of the German Coal Control Board called a meeting
of the mine managers in the city to discuss the need for
a change of heart in management. He pointed out the
real issue is not “whether to change, but how to change.
It is not for us to Wait for labor to begin,” he concluded.
“Change, gentlemen, is demanded of us.”
Moral Re-Armament answers the needs of nations
with men.
A PLAN TO PREVENT WAR
It might be a good idea, in connection with discus
sions about the proposed North Atlantic Secqrity Pact
to understand that its prime purpose is not to prepare
for war with Russia but to deter Russia from aggression
and thus prevent war.
The idea is general in Western Europe that the Rus
sians will not attack the countries of Western Europe
if Moscow knows that the United States will immedi
ately come in on the side of the nations attacked. If this
is made abundantly clear to the Russian leaders, the
leaders seem to be confident that no war is in the mak
ing.
When we don’t change the world, the world changes
us .. . It’s not so much who controls what as what con
trol* who!
i LIFTING THE LID
! AT JUNEAU
(Confined from Page One)
Jensen, Alymer Rydeen an<f
j James Nolan. *
Earlier the House voted 21-2 In
favor of a bill to loan $1,200,000
to the veterans’ revolving fund at
the rate of $50,000 monthly. Re
payments would be at the same
rate, starting in 1956.
In the Senate, approval was ,
given to a House bill which would
shift city elections from April to
October, and also provides that by
popular referendum cities can
change mayors terms from one
year to two or three. The vote was
14-2.
Another measure already passed
by the House enabling cities to en
act sales taxes if they desire was
given the Senate ok., 9-7. Both
bills now go to the Governor.
The Senate sent a bill taxing j
cigarettes 3 cents a pack and other
tobaccos proportionately back to
the House for action on a minor
amendment.
The House voted 21-2 last night
to give fishing boat owners special
conseidartion under the hew gen
eral property tax by allowing an
alternative of paying $4 per ton
instead of lOjpnills on valuation. «
Estimates given on the floor
were that the provision might
mean nothing to some boats, but
would cut the tax on some large
new ones to a quarter or third of
what otherwise it would be.
Debate mostly ranged legisla
tors from mining regions against
those from the Southeastern Alas
ka fishing areas.
The House passed by big ma
jorities bills bv Rep. Clarence T.
Keating providing for recall petir
toons for municipal officers an®
removal of all elective Territorial
officials by legislative impeach
ment trial.
Governor Gruening meanwhile
announced signing into law a bill
raising old age pensions to $80
per month.
The Territorial Senate approved
legislation today authorizing pw?
chase of the apartment house ad
jacent to the Pioneer Home at Sit
ka for a Pioneer Women’s Home.
I _
Monday, March 14, 1949
JUNEAU, (/P) — The heavily
trimmed general appropriations
bill reaches the House floor today.
Nearly $3,000,000 has been lopped
, from budget board requests.
The sharpest cut by the ways
and means committee is on the
(University of Alaska appropria
tion, although it still is listed for
three times what it received duj^
mg tiie present biennium.
; The university’s budget request
of $3,500,000 was pared to $2,055.
000. Most of the trimming was
done on new construction, which
was marked down for $900,000 in
stead of the nearly $2,000,000 re
quested. Nearly half a million was
pared from other university itef#s.
The budget for the support of
common schools was left virtually
(intact at $4,935,000. A sharp cut
trimmed the controversial Alaska
Development board request from
$360,000 to $150,000. And even
that figure was expected to draw
heated Republican Senate opposi
tion. Some ways and means com
mittee members favored cutting
it to $100,000.
The public welfare and labor
departments also felt the knife.
Aid to dependent children was cut
from $750,000 to $450,000, T^d
destitution relief from half a mil
lion to $350,000.
! The bill provides for an increase