THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome. Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 618
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W^A. and EMILY BOUCHER .Editors
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at
the postoffice at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of
March 3, 1879.
Friday, May 11, 1945
FORGIVING THE JAPS
(Anchorage Daily Times)
Newspaper reports of a recent speech
by Robert E. Sherwood attribute some
rather amazing words to the peacetime
playwright and wartime Chief of the
Overseas Branch of OWI.
Mr. Sherwood, back from the Pacific
war theater, told the Urban League of
New York that, once Japan is conquered,
we must be prepared to extend the hand
of fellowship to the remaining Japs and
forgive them their atrocities ‘‘if we are
to continue believing in our professed
principles of democracy.”
These, we repeat, are amazing words.
And they are particularly amazing from
the lips of Robert E. Sherwood. Even be
fore the beginning of the European war
he had declared a personal war on Fas
cism. In two olavs, “Idiot’s Delight” and
“There Shall Be No Night,” he had
spoken out in eloquent anger against the
foes of democracy.
We do not suggest now that Mr. Sher
wood has lost his hatred of totalitarian
ism. But it does sound as if his hatred of
the men who practice and perpetuate
Fascism was stronger before the war
than it is today, when the barbarous
cruelty of those men has surpassed any
thing that the pray wright of 1936 and
1940 could have imagined.
According to the quotations from Mr.
Sherwood’s speech, he seems to feel that
the only alternative to the complete ex
termination of the Japanese people is
complete forgiveness. This is as illogical
as his contention that our sincere profes
sion of democracy depends upon that
forgiveness.
It might seem, rather, that a belief in
democracy should extend beyond a dis
approval of fascism in the abstract to
hatred of the men who have tortured,
starved and murdered the defenseless,
including our own citizens, in Fascism’s
name.
Yet Mr. Sherwood, if he is quoted cor
rectly, does not counsel our forgiving
the Japanese civilians, the passive and
ignorant and deluded who did not fight.
He says that we must forgive the Japs
their atrocities. He says this to those
who have suffered the atrocities, and to
the families of those victims. That is a
pretty large order to fill.
The American people have no wish to
imitate Jap or Nazi barbarism by anni
hilating the Japanese. We must live in
the same world with them. But we are
under no discernible compulsion to like
them, let alone forgive them.
Mr. Sherwood has a major role in
shaping our official propaganda for for
eign consumption. We hope that his ad
vice quoted above is to be understood as
his private opinion, and not something
which will be mistakenly labeled abroad
as the preponderant sentiment of the
American people.
HO MOW SINKIHS ^‘eEU NSS ? «
Wm* "i
m pewcr AutoST
m entire imperial
fleet is now
SAFE FROM
EMEMIV / ,
ATTACKS! A
! VETERAN’S
GUIDE
I
■* —
I
By MAJOR THOMAS M. NIAL
WASHINGTON — In these re
portings about veterans’ affairs
! I’ll be sparing with opinions be
! cause facts can scream loudest.
But any opinions that show up
won’t be cut on the bias.
I won’t be sniffing in solemn
judgment over the trials of the
government trying to take care of
its veterans and the troubles of
veterans trying to take care of
themselves. I’m not interested in
politics unless veterans may be
*v.*
affected, and I have no axe to
grind.
When I say “ex-service men" I
mean ex-service women, too. Wo
;
men were and still are in the
services with equal grade or
rank, and they become “ex-service
1 men” to most of us. Anyway, vet
erans’ rights apply equally to
; women and to men. Even the GI
i Bill of Rights says, “Whenever
used in the Act—the masculine
includes the feminine.” That’s life.
I got a letter from an ex-WAC,
now home at Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
Although her letter had a far
away APO feeling, she was evi
dently trying to get used to civil
ion life since she sought informa
tion about applying for a course
in dietetics and mentioned a sec
ond more personal problem. •* T
gave her the answers—I hope—
but I won't discuss the questions
here because this isn’t a question
and answ’er box.
Still, I’ll give as much time as
I can to letters from your ex-serv
ice men or members of your fam
ily. I’ll attempt to get you the
answers to vour questions, be
muse T happen to be in a spot
where if T don’t know the ans
wers, maybe T can dig them out.
And I may use some of the ma
terial if it is of general value to
i
Veterans.
The Veterans’ Admin-stration.*
which the GI Bill of‘Rights indi
cates as its executor and first
line source of information hasn’t
completed its plans for applying
the bill’s provisions. There have
been some delays. Instructions
concerning the loan sections of
| the bill have only recently been
I issued.
Probably the V. A. hasn’t yet
become adjusted to the size of its
i new task, and has neither the re
! quired number of employees nor
sufficient equipment to bite into
J its big, new job.
Congress declared as its intent
and purpose that “there shall be
1 an effective job counseling and
i employment placement service
for veterans." Th:s was in the bill
passed in June 1944 Title IV, Sec.
600 which authorized a Veterans’
Placement Service Board named
the members, and state i thpt
Chairman may delega c authority
to an executive secretary wl o
will automatically become Chief
of the Veterans’ Placement Em
ployment Service.
The bill became law on June
22, 1944 but it was not until Oc
tober that Perry Faulkner was
named as executive secretary. I
talked with him in Washington a
short while ago and found him
I
alertly struggling to grasp the
reins so he could start driving.
The Veterans’ Administration
is short-handed in many places. .
Honorably discharged veterans
can get some of these jobs, be
cause they receive certain priv
| ileges not extended to others.
One of the most important of
these privileges is that a veteran
is entitled to five extra points on
a civil service examination. If vve
have a service-connected disabil
ity, we get ten points instead of
five and we automatically go to
the top of the list for most jobs.
This applies to all civil service
jobs as well as those that may be
open in the Veterans Administra
tion.
HOME ON FURLOUGH 11
Lars Willoya, son of Mr. and
Mrs. Willoya is home on a forty
five day furlough and is enjoying
being home among his own peo
ple again.
REINDEER MAN PASSES ON
Andrew Bahr. 73 year old Rein
deer Man, passed away in Pouls
bo, Wash. He is well known for
his incredible trek across Arctic
Alaska to deliver 3000 reindeer to
the starving Eskimos in Canada.
He lived with his wife and foster
daughter and was very shy of the
attention showered upon him
after his 1.000 mile trip with the
deer which took several years..
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Nome Directory
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IRA D. ORTON
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O. D. COCHRAN
Attorney At Law
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Nome, Alaska