THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome, Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 618
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR
W. A. and EMILY BOUCHER.Editors
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at the posrtoffice
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Wednesday, October 30, 1946
Free Enterprise On Trial
(Rocky Mountain News)
The Truman Administration’s retreat from price con
trol is being hailed as a victory for the free-enterprise
system. And so, we think, it is.
But that system has won a battle, not the war.
The war will be won only if, and when, free enter
prise'proves to the American people that it can, and
will, serve them better than government planning and
management of the economy.
The opportunity for proof is coming sooner and more
fully than seemed possible until the last few weeks, and
it had better not be muffed. If it is lost this time, it may
not come again.
In the next few weeks, we believe, enterprise will be
given more freedom than it has had for many years. We
welcome that prospect. But freedom also has a price,
and an obligation. The time is near when business no
longer and so easily can blame the government when
things go wrong. Increasingly, from now on, if things
go wrong, business will be blamed.
Since Mr. Truman ended meat controls we have
talked with a good many plain citizens—among them a
taxi driver, an elevator man, an apartment janitor, a
cook, a restaurant waiter, a telephone operator.
Most of them approved the President’s decision. The j
meat famine had confirmed their suspicion that OPA
was doing more harm than good. They expected meat
prices to rise sharply for a while. But they voiced a
touching faith that forces of which they had heard or
read—competition and the law of supply and demand—
soon would bring them down again.
We say that any businessman who knowingly does
anything to betray such faith among such people is a
traitor to the free-enterprise system.
That goes, whether he heads a great corporation, runs
a neighborhood store or raises livestock. And it is truer
now than ever before.
For free enterprise has not won final vindication. It
has only been granted a new trial. If meat prices, or any
prices, stay higher longer than they are clearly justified
in staying, the public easily and soon will forget that
meat disappeared under OPA ceilings, and remember
only that government tried to hold the prices down.
Free enterprise faces its new trial under conditions
still, in many respects, adverse. Inflationary pressures
remain strong. Shortages will continue to interfere with
normal operation of supply and demand, and tempt
chiselers and profiteers.
Future wages are an uncertain quantity. And indus
try, business and agriculture have every right and duty
to earn fair profits, if they can.
But the trial is here, and free enterprise has asked for
it. The least that any enterpriser can do safely and hon
orably is to seek no unfair profit, to charge no unneces
sarily high price, to practice vigorous and honest com
petition, to take no selfish advantages of the withdrawal
of government controls.
Almost everywhere else in the world the trend is still
toward more and more government management of ec
onomic life. That trend carries with a grave threat to
political and all other freedoms.
In America, free enterprise is getting another chance
to prove its superior worth. It will be a tragedy, it mav
be a calamity, if through selfishness or greed or lack of
vision, this chance is thrown away.
i SOMEBODY HAD A PICNIC_
The Lyons Den By Leonard Lyons
Justice William O. Douglas, who returned to Wash-!
ington last weekend for the opening of the fall term, was
at the wheel of his car driving through the outskirts of
the capital. A motorcycle cop suddenly drove alongside,
ordered him to pull over and then said to him: “Wottsa
matter, mister, don’t you know the law? . . . The asso
ciate justice of the United States Supreme Court, who
has participated in so many dissents, replied: “If that’s
a rhetorical question, I can get a lot of witnesses who
will agree with you.”
The tentative lineup of the atomic energy commission
to be appointed by President Truman next month has!
David Lilienthal as chairman, with Bob LaFollette,
Sumner Pike of the SEC, Dr. Karl Compton, the scien
tist, and Prof. Edward U. Levi was the only recommen
dation of the Federation of Atomic Scientists.
Korneichuk, the Soviet playwright now visiting this
country, went to a performance of the ballet here and j
expressed dislike for it. “Oh, you’re just following the j
party line,” he was told. “Ehrenburg and Simonov
wrote pieces criticizing the American theater, and you
are merely following suit.” . . . “No. It’s just that I’ve
come to hate all ballet,” Korneichuk insisted. He ex
plained that during the war his assignment in Moscow
was to escort distinguished visitors to places of cultural
interest. And all visitors asked to see the ballet. “I saw
‘Swan Lake’ thirty-four times and each time had to
pretend that I was enjoying it,” said the Russian play
wright. “Now I hate ‘Swan Lake,’ and I hate ballet
and at last I can say so.”
The official black market price of bubble-gum now ic
$10 for a box of 100 pieces. . . . Kirsten Flagsted, still
living in Oslo, has done no public singing. Norway’s
concert sponsors are wary of her popularity. Her sister,
however, has been singing in light opera here.. .. Elliott
Roosevelt, who wrote disparagingly of Randolph Chur
chill in his new book, “As He Saw It,” was seated at a
table directly facing Churchill in the Cub room of the
Stork recently. Churchill, who attacked Roosevelt’s
book in a radio broadcast, tried to catch his eye and say
hello. After a half hour the strain on the onlookers be
came too tense. Roosevelt said, “H’ya,” and the diplo
matic relations technically were resumed.
That’s That By bruce gustin
President Truman really stuck
his chin out when he declared that
this country is in as great an
emergency now as when the Japs
attacked Pearl Harbor. Chairman
Reece of the Republican national
committee promptly landed this
verbal haymaker: "If we are in as
great an emergency as Mr. Tru
j man indicates, whose fault is it?
He and his administration have
r
been in power with overwhelming
majorities in both branches of
congress. Mr. Truman is simply in
water over his head.”
The President said this emer
gency will continue “until we can
get peace and production.” The
war ended more than a year ago.
The fact that formal peace
treaties haven’t been signed is not
the fault of his administration.
But it cannot escape blar
failure to establish ind
peace here in the United
That is where the Truman ;
sitration has fallen dowi
worst. And that, coupled wit
tinuance into the postwar
of war time bureaucratic ct
and regimentation; explain:
we are not getting the prod
needed.
"The loss of man-days of
ing time as a result of strik
been greater during the firs
months of 1946 than ever 1
in the country’s history,” A
istrator Small of the civiliai
duction administration rei
last May. But the administ
did absolutely nothing to
with this intolerable situatio
comprehensive legislative
gram to cope with industrial
and promote production was
proposed in Congress. And
interference with production
on unchecked.
A situation bordering on i
trial anarchy developed in
burgh. A strike of electric p
workers paralyzed that citi
state court issued an injun
against the strike. But it wa
nored as a “scrap of paper
the strikers. Under threat of 1
jailed for contempt of court, r
bers of the nine-man strike
mittee recommended that
strike be called off. But the s
ers defied the court by v<
overwhelmingly to stay out
the anti-strike injunction obts
by the city was withdrawn,
then street car workers start
sympathetic strike.
The Pittsburgh strike was n<
dinary strike. It was a test
strength between organized 1
groups and organized society,
proper way to settle any ques
of the validity of the anti-si
injunction is through orderly j
cial procedure in the courts,
public interest is paramount
that of either the employing c
pany or its employees. State
local government cannot tole
defiance from either side.
"T* T T
The election to be held No
in Washington, D. C., will hav<
legal standing. The votes cast c
be counted for congressmen
senators, nor municipal offic
But this election may serve a i
ful purpose in focusing public
tention on the way citizens of
national capital have been
franchised. They are the c
American citizens of voting
who are denied a voice in sel<
ing their own public officials,
a nation where the ballot is
most priceless privilege of citiz
ship, that is a preposterous sit
tion.
The Washington “election” \
be a plebiscite on two questic
Do the people there want
right to vote for President a
members of congress? There is
any doubt about what the answ
to these questions will be.
The Territory of Alaska, witl
population of 72,524, is seek;
admission to the Union as a Sta
And it should be admitted. I
certainly Washington, D. C., w
a population of more than 600,0
has an even stronger claim to a
mision to the union of which it
the capital.
FEDERATED CHURCH
LADIES AID TO MEET
The Ladies Aid of the Fed«
ated Church will meet Friday e\
ning, Nov. 1, at 8 o'clock, at t
Federated Church parsonaj
Please note the change of til
from afternoon to evening.