THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome, Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P- O* P°x 618
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W. A. and EMILY BOUCHER.Editors
Entered as seeoftd class matter October 14, 1943, at the postoffice at
Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Monday, November 26, 1945 _
THE NATION “WANTS” . . . PERIOD
(Alaska Weekly)
Writing for Industrial Press Service Carl R. Bielmil
ler, business commentator, recently said:
“Volume of purchasing power in the public’s hands
has been increasing rapidly since the outbreak of the
war. Expansion has been vivid in both amount of money
in circulation and volume of bank deposits. Money in
circulation amounted to some $7.5 billion in 1939. By
the end of 1944 total volume had increased to $25.3 bil
lion, an increase of 127 per cent since 1941, the year of
the Japs’ fatal error at Pearl Harbor.
Deposits and Bonds
“Despite this increase in circulating money, it is small
compared to what happened to bank deposits. From the
end of 1939 to December, 1941, these deposits rose from
$58.3 billion to $70.8 billion and this did not include
deposits which banks themselves place in other banks.
In December, 1944, they had reached $129 billion.
“While money in circulation and bank deposits were
rising, our people reached into patriotic pockets for war
• bonds. There was a volume of $40.4 billion of these
bonds outstanding for redemption at the end of 1944.
“Demand for goods is a story by itself. In an all-en
compassing nutshell it can be phrased: ‘We want!’ Start
with $15 billion worth of housing a year. Check the new
cars, refrigerators, radios, gadgets, clothes. This nation
‘wants,’ and in boxcar figures.
“Purchasing power and demand make a lovely cou
ple. And they make prosperity unless uncle is so re
signed to perpetual depression he can’t turn a free and
powerful economy out into the springtime of peace to
build an enduring home.”
This unparalleled “want” includes just about every
thing modern man uses. Making and delivering all these
things will provide jobs for millions.
Manufacturers want to make them, salesmen and
dealers want to supply them—it’s as simple as that. Or,
it should be!
But, there’s the OPA. Created to maintain necessary
price control in wartime, it refuses to recognize the;
practicalities of peace.
Large volume production, with consequent large vol
ume of employment, can only be attained by the man
ufacture under fair prices which yield fair incentive
profits.
Such prices should recognize all current costs, includ
ing those of administrative and selling expense, plus
the profit margin the factories experienced in the high
ly competitive pre-war years of 1939 to 1940, or, an
average of the two.
This is what business asks, and certainly it seems rea
sonable.
FRUITFUL FAILURE
(Anchorage Times)
In retrospect, there seems to be one bright spot in the
gloomy outcome of the foreign ministers’ meeting in
London. And it can be found, oddly enough, in the meet
ing’s utter unproductiveness and failure of agreement.
The curse of professional diplomacy is that some
thing always has to be brought home and exhibited
from a meeting of powers. Something has to be accom
plished as proof of the diplomat’s ability. It can always
be dressed up in diplomatic language and made to look
good.
If, later on, it turns out that the diplomatic accom
plishment was to a nation’s detriment—as has some
times happened—that’s just too bad.
It may be that Mr. Byrnes, not being a professional
diplomat, didn’t know what was expected of him, and
hence stuck to a course that he though was right even
if it meant coming home with nothing to show the folks.
If that is so, perhaps we have reason to thank him. At
any rate, as things stand now, the Big Three differences
are clearly defined and each knows where the other
stands, even if it isn’t on common ground.
A STRANGE CONTRAST
(The Alaska Weekly)
S :nator Magnuson recently proposed that tne United
States government undertake a development program
in Alaska similar to that of Soviet Russia in Siberia.
The Senator pointed out that this program includes
trunk highways with inter-connecting road systems,
agricultural experiment stations and various other aids
to the development of the resources of a frontier coun
try.
This recommendation of Senator Magnuson, who,
really knows something about Alaska, is at consider-j
able variance with that of Chairman Johnson, who re
turned from his recent trip to recommend that appro- j
priations for essential roads and bridges should be with
held until the Territory could be forced into tax revi
sions which would guarantee that it pay its full share of
all development.
While Russia is spending vast sums, much of the
money borrowed from us, to make its northern empire
prosperous and populous, thus making it of military
value in the Pacific area, we have the strange spectacle
of the chairman of an important Congressional commit
tee with life and death powers over Department of In
terior appropriations for Alaska refusing funds for de
velopment research and attempting to blackjack the
people of the Territory into submission insofar as con
cerns taxation.
Commenting on the Magnuson suggestion the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer said:
We need Alaskan minerals.
Alaskan forestry can furnish enormous quantities of
lumber, of which our own resources are becoming de
pleted, and wood pulp for our chemical and paper in
dustries, now mainly an import from foreign countries.
Alaskan fisheries are of tremendous importance in
our future food supply, while the rich fur-seal grounds
are in the Pribiloff Islands, off the shore of Alaska, in
the Bering Sea.
Alaska also lies under the “great circle’ ’which makes
the shortest air route between our cities and the largest
centers of Northern Asia.
We need commercial airfields in Alaska, and the late
war proved how vital Alaska is to our Navy and Avia
tion forces, for our Pacific Coast defense line begins in
Alaska in the North.
Finally, Alaska is national territory and, unlike the
States on our mainland, requires to be developed by the
federal government, and can be so developed without
infringing upon state sovereignties.
Alaska has one-third the area of the United States
proper.
It can add inestimably to our national income and
equally to our national security, but not if we let it lie
neglected while Soviet Russia turns neighboring Si
beria into a productive stronghold.
ZnOXTXO
f AVEAD
w GEORGE 1 BENSON
k Pttii4(*l~Mar4ia§ Mitft
I Setter. Arkatttt •
GUNS AND SUCH
Revolutions come from abuses
of power, not from the normal
use of it. I am not talking about
wars in particular. All kinds of
revolutionary developments fit
themselves into much the same
pattern. It would oe hard to find
a better illustration than the one
presented by America’s bewilder
I ing canon of statutes on the sub
ject of firearms—their possession
and use.
Guns are violent. They make
men formidable they add to the'
force of people who own and un- ^
derstand them. In some states, cit
izens walk unmolsted in the street
wearing side-arms. In other sta
any resident must buy a permi
he wants to keep his great-gra
sire’s “Revolutionary flint-lo
at home in a glass case. The <
ference is no political whimsy
Matter of Abuse
It would take a big boo’: to
why guns are prohibited in sc
sections and winked at in oth
If the whole story were told h<
ever, it would add up to tl
Wherever the right to own ai
has been abused, an indign
public sentiment has welled
demanding laws against them
acted and enforced. Without p
ular approval it is hard to enfo
any law, wise or otherwise.
A few days ago I wrote a r
diction that the American peo
some day would rise up and en
laws requiring compulsory ai
tration of labor disputes. Sine
penned those lines I have been
several states and talked with n
who are close to the public pu
Almost all of them share
fears, as well as my slender he
that compulsory arbitration n
never happen.
Need* Not Happen
Outlawing strikes, a threat p!
to see, would be an unnecess
calamity. No detail of human fi
dom should be sacrificed to a
thing but public welfare. Stri
like guns, have their uses. If <
lawed, all working people 1
unions only* will take a set-b;
lose the gains of many toils*
years. If I might advise Labe
would say, “Clean your gun
put it away. Don’t make such
tion necessary.”
Civilization has made prog
at times by force of arms. Jus
a large group of people have rr
wholesome advances by forc<
the power to strike. Being
armed would weaken them,
they are likely to be disarmed
cause the public is weary of
lence. The \vwr is over and p
has problems that can’t be so
by rattling sabres or carrying
ners in torch parades.
Hear Henry Wallace
Writing about pressure gr
in his recent book, “60 Mi
Jobs,” Secretary Wallace
“Any one group can, for a 1
get a larger share of the nat
income but it doesn’t work \
all try it at the same time. Sc
or later the pressure game
blow up in our faces. This is
practical arithmetic. Unless
learn it, our future is blacl
deed.”
Elsewhere he wrote: “In 1j
management cooperation lie:
very hope of . .*. jobs. With
tual understanding between
and management, in the dif
years ahead, we stand our
chance of getting good wage
labor, good prices for the fa
stable profits for business mei
a higher standard of livinj
those who need it most.” I
Wallace is a friend of Laboi
he foresees danger.
Car In Cold Storage
OTTAWA, Kas.— (JF) —'
the mercury dropped to
above zero, a water main t
sending a spray into the air.
Howard’s automobile was p
nearby. Hours later it still ^
huge chunk of ice. Howard l
wait for warm weather jv
move the vehicle.