THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
NOME, ALASKA
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 610
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR
W. A. Bouchet; . Owner-Publisher
Entered as second class matter October 14. 1943. at the postoffice
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Nome, Alaska, Monday, June 20, 1949
WE RE GOING THE WRONG WAY
(By George S. Benson, President, Harding College)
When the question is put squarely to my fellow
Americans, I believe there are few of them who will
honestly admit a craving for more government. Most
Americans are reluctant to accept money directly or in
directly from the government, whether or not they
know where it all comes from. Yes, genus Americanus
known as Joe Doe still has high respect for his own ini
tiative and industriousness.
How much longer he will be able to hold up this self
respect of his against the power of the encroaching
“welfare” state, is question for serious thought. With
government besieging him from all sides, thinking up
more and more ways to spend his own money for him,
Joe Doe has a stiff battle on his hands. Actually, Joe has
been taught for many years now that taking things of
fered by the government is a way to get something for
nothing.
Of course, everybody has a soft spot for the underdog,
yet Joe knows in his heart that you can’t help the little
fellow by pulling down somebody else. He knows you
can’t really help people by having the government steal
from some to give to others, a practice that makes the
government both thief and benefactor. He sees politi
cians use this line to get office and to stay in office. Can
didates get elected by doing things for people, with
other people’s money of course.
Nevertheless, our friend Doe is puzzled, like most
other plain Americans. This is a time of plenty and high j
production. He is pulling down the best wages he everj
earned, yet he’s having an awful time taking care of1
himself and family. What Joe does not know is that he!
is working only about 27 hours a week for himself; the
rest of his 40-hour work week goes to the government.
In fact, all of us together are working for ourselves only
two out of everv three days we work.
One third of what we produce, then, goes for the op
eration of government (local, state federal). Is it any
wonder that Joe Doe is having such a hard time making
ends meet? He’s up against it, trying to get along on!
what he has left for himself and family. There are times
when Joe wonders whether it wouldn’t be all right to go
ahead and do as so many of his neighbors are doing:
call on the government to help him out!
Joe Doe is definitely on the spot. Sure, the govern
ment wants to help him, by giving him more of this,
that, and the other. But if the government is to give Joe
health insurance, job security, old age pensions, federal
aid, and everything else, taxes will have to be raised.
Joe will then be working more and more for the govern- i
ment, and less and less for himself. Do you see this vi- j
cious circle, that leads to enslavement?
It would seem that Joe has almost forgotten, like a lot
of us, the lessons of history. Man’s struggle for liberty
and freedom reaches back through the centuries. Yet.:
we need turn only a few pages to find that tyrants, des
pots—and dictators—gained and kept their power by
giving out the money they got through taxes. Their
ways were not different from the ways of the “welfare”
state that would tax away the people’s livelihood to
manage their lives.
It has been estimated that social “security” programs
before Congress would cost the people one and a quar
ter trillion dollars in 50 years, and at the end of that
time would be taking 13 per cent of the whole nation’s
annual income and grabbing one-fifth of the paycheck
of every worker, in addition to what he is now paying,
and in addition to what other new burdens might be
added in the meantime. Surely, it is time to stop and
think what great harm we are doing to ourselves and to
the future of the nation. America will not be saved by
having “more” government.
GROMYKO THINKS U. S. WANTS PEACE
(By Hugo S. Sims)
The new shift in Soviet policy, reflected some weeks
ago in the changing of high officials, is explained in
some quarters by the statement that Andrei K. Grom
yko, former Russian representative to the United Na
tions, convinced Premier Stalin that the American peo
ple did not want war and that our economic help would
be available to the Soviet Union and the Soviet satellites
“once the political atmosphere cleared.”
Mr. Gromyko had a series of interviews with Amei
ican industrialists and financiers before he returned to
Moscow last summer. He concluded, and it is though;
deported to Stalin, that rapprochement between the
two nations was feasible, that the United Nations was
the proper agency for such conciliation, that the small
group of American “jingoists” are losing ground, that
aid would be available if political differences were set
tled, that the United States would never allow the re
building of a Nazi Germany and that the United States
distrusted Russian motives and was not convinced that
Russia sincerly wanted peace.
Against this report is the belief that the Russians, in
connection with their apparent change in attitude, were
influenced by the following facts: the airlift had success
fully thwarted the blockade, allied counter measures
were damaging trade and industry in the Soviet occu
pation zone, the hope that a new meeting would block
the Western German State, cause the United States to
reduce appropriations for European recovery and re
armament and, maybe, have some effect on the opera
tions of the North Atlantic Treaty, if it became effec
tive.
A JOB FOR EX-PRESIDENTS
Mr. Herbert Hoover, former President, thinks that it
might be well to permit Presidents, upon retiring from
office, to become members of the Senate, but without
the right to vote.
The suggestion follows long years of speculation as to
how the nation can make use of the experience gained
by a Chief Executive. The ex-President would be in the
Senate, available to give information on any subject
before that body and through it to the country at large.
We see no great objection to the Hoover proposal,
which would, at least, give our ex-Presidents a job with
a salary. The possibility exists that, if divorced from
an idea of a return to office, the advice of the former
I Chief Executive might be valuable.
I Advertising is the servant of those who know how
! to use it.... The wise merchant is the man who put the
“ad” in trade. . . . Every oncq in a while a man has the
rare good fortune to meet with good fortune... . Public
ity is a dangerous habit; some people make fools of
| themselves over a little bit of it. ... So far, nobody has
i devised a way to develop a business without somebody
! putting in hard work.
'News of the World
I
At A Glance —
I —
(Continued from Page One)
! palace today. He has been report
ed a virtual prisoner of the com
m u n ist Czechoslovakia govern
ment. The archbishop told a close
friend he is angry at his treat
ment by the government and will
attempt to break police cordons to
go to Strahovsky cloister, on a
hill above Prague.
Vatican sources have likened
the church-state conflict in Cezch
joslovakia to that of Hungary be
I fore the arrest of Josef Cardinal
Mindszenty.
Archbishop Beran for some
months has led a campaign
j against the government’s plan to
take over schools and abolish
church periodicals. The govern
ment, on the other hand, charges
the hierarchy of interference in
matte -s of state. It has set up its
own Catholic action organization.
Foreign ministers of the Brus
sels alliance — Britain, France,
Belgium, the Netherlands, and
i Luxembourg, met in Luxembourg
I city today. They are settling po
; litical. economic and military
| problems affecting the alliance.
One main item on the agenda is
coordination of their countries’
defenses within the North Atlantic
‘reatv.
Monday. June 20. 1949
The Big Four foreign ministers
a e expected today to announce
i an agreement for bringing peace
t to strife-torn Berlin and instruct
ing their deputies to write an in
dependence treaty for Austria.
Experts of the United States.
t
'Britain, France and Russia reach
cd speedy agreement on a com
munique to be released late in the
dav.
Informed sources described the
| agreement as a statement of prin
ciples which would not solve the
basic problems between Russia
arid the western powers, but
which might ease international
Ensioo and relieve fears of a
clash which might lead to war.
A heckling incident yesterday
highlighted the conflict between
he Catholic church and Czecho
slovakia’s communist government.
Screaming hecklers, apparently
•omrrun'st*. howled down Arch
>Ishop Josef Reran wh:le he was
delivering a sermon at St. Vitus’
•athedr.il in Prague. The whistling
i.vj catcalls broke out as the arch
bishop launched a denunciation
of the government’s attempts to
cripple the church.
An informed Vatican source
said it is “very likely” that Anch
bishop Beran will be made a car
dinal at the next consistory, ex
pected to be held before the end
of the year.
Russia said today she is ready
to resume repatriation of Japanese
prisoners of war. A letter from
the Soviet mission in Tokyo to Al
lied headquarters requested that
four Japanese ships of 2,000-man
capacity be sent to Nakhodka, Si
berian repatriation shipping cen
ter 50 miles east of Vladivostok.
Shanghai had an air raid today.
At least three Chinese nationalist
fighter planes made bombing end
strafing attacks on the commun
ist-held city for about 20 minutes.
The Turkish City of Tokat, in
north central Anatolia, was report
ed wrecked by a flood. Loss of life
was expected to be high. The city
has a population of 150,000. The
Yeshil river, swollen by rain,
swept away hundreds of homes.
All utilities in the city were re
ported destroyed.