THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
NOME, ALASKA
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 6its
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR
W. A. Boucher .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, Wednesday, May 4, 1949
LET S TALK CONSERVATION
(New York Sunday News)
What with oil and gasoline prices going down and
John L. Lewis calling at least one strike in 1949 to cut
above-ground coal surpluses, this may seem a funny
time to talk about conservation of U. S. natural re
sources. Julius A. (Cap) Krug, secretary of the interior,
has just come up, however, with an annual report which
discusses conservation, and we think in a timely fashion.
With some of the Krug report’s points we can’t agree.
He is still harping for the long-debated St. Lawrence
Seaway project, to be built by Canada and the United
States, with the latter paying most of the cost. This
scheme has seemed highly dubious to us for years, and
still does.
We have a notion, too, that Mr. Krug is unduly
alarmed about the likelihood, as he sees it, of a famine
of newsprint in the next generation or so. Newsprint is
what you’re holding at the moment—the kind of paper
on which newspapers are printed.
While U. S. gazettes use up enormous quantities of the
stuff per year, and there are shortages now and then, it
is nevertheless a fact that Canadian manufacturers are
carefully planting as much spruce tree stock as they
consume.
However, when, the interior secretary gets around in
his report to discussing petroleum, we think he makes
long-range sense, even though petroleum at the moment
is more or less running out of U. S. producers* ears.
Mr. Krug is chiefly anxious to see this country get a
big-scale synthetic oil industry into existence.
He says we have an estimated twenty-one billion bar
rels of proved crude oil reserve in the ground, and per
haps four times that amount of unproved. In such case,
he thinks, “we have only about two generations of do
mestic crude oil supply left.”
That is as may be. These estimates of imminent or
early exhaustion of some natural resource have a habit
of being exploded by discovery of big new deposits, of
the stuff in unexpected places.
But there is always the possibility of a war, which
might cut us off from some or all of our foreign oil
sources, and certainly would put an immediate and
enormous strain on our domestic oilfields.
Wouldn’t it be smart, while peace lasts, to get well
started on development of big plants for producing syn
thetic oil from coal or sweating oil out of shale?
Suppose, some years before Pearl Harbor, we had laid
the foundations for a big synthetic rubber industry. We
wouldn’t have been hit nearly so hard, in that case, by
the sudden loss of our Far East sources of natural rub
ber.
There are various ways to make synthetic oil. Cost is
the main obstacle. But now, in peacetime, is when we
ought to be working on lowering costs and improving
methods—either through private enterprise or with
Government loans to same. Why wait till the lightning
strikes?
Mr. Krug in this same report has some pregnant
things to say about—ALASKA
—our tremendous northwest territory facing Russia’s
Siberia across the Bering Strait. I
How big Alaska it, we doubt that many mainland,
Americans know even yet, though we bought it from
Czarist Russia in 1867. The place has an area of 586,400
square miles, which makes it more than twice as large
as Texas.
It is rich as the devil in timber, metals, fish, and fur
bearing animals. Along the southeast coast of this sub
continent, the climate is mild and well suited to various!
kinds of farming.
Yet the population of Alaska (1948) is only 92,000.
That figure, says the secretary of the interior, should
be steeply and permanently increased, not only for the
wealth that can be got out of Alaska but for national de
fense reasons as well. He adds that what Alaska chiefly
needs are more roads, housing, water power and tourist
accommodations, better land laws for newcomers, im
proved public health facilities, and an over-all conser
vation program.
Comparatively, he says, we have spent less in devel
oping Alaska than we put out in opening up the western
United States in previous generations.
We hope Congress pays careful attention to this re
port—and one good way to start the improvement of
Alaska would be to give it Statehood.
CLEAN-UP WEEK BEGAN WITH GIFT TO CHILD
Spring Clean-Up Week, the yearly phenomenon in
which more than 10,000 communities clean up the win
ter’s debris, is said to be the result of the gift of a blue
pinafore to an untidy little girl in Cleveland.
The child, a product of a run-down shanty district
back in 1909, was given a bright, crisp pinafore by her
teacher in an effort to instill some pride in the girl. The
immediate transformation from a dirty urchin to a pret
ty child made her family aware of their squalor. Self
consciously they started cleaning their house, washing
up floors, repairing the fence and planting flowers for
the first time.
Astounded neighbors began righting their own back
yards. The ugly street became a respectable part of
town. The neighborhood clean-up inspired other com-!
munities to tackle their local eyesores. The idea spread.!
In 1913 it was tried on a city-wide scale for the first)
time in Cincinnati where civic groups, improvement
associations and school children all pitched in on a
week-long clean-up. City ofter city, hoping to reduce!
fire losses and fight disease, took up the annual renova
tion, paint-up, fix-up plan.
In recent years it has grown steadily, and now the
National Board of Fire Underwriters reports that more
than 10,000 cities, towns and villages participate in the
yearly clean-up!
“President Truman does not seem to be getting any
where with his 81st Democratic Congress,” says the
Greenbush, Minnesota, Tribune. “Not a single major
law has been passed by the 81st Congress to date. The
trouble is tjiat Mr. Truman thinks he has a mandate
from the voters to do just about as he pleases, and that
Congress should do as he wishes. He forgets that he is a
minority President—that is more voters voted against
him than voted for him. On the other hand practically
every member of Congress was elected by a clear ma
jority of thsir districts or state. The members of Con
gress really have a mandate from their constituents,
and it is right that they should exercise their own judg
ment of what they think their constituents want. Presi
dent Truman has been entirely too cocky for his own
good. He must come to realize that he is not the whole
United States Government.”
Alaska Needs
Navigational Aids
qVP) Special Washington Service)
WASHINGTON, (/P) — Alaska
needs better port facilities and
navigational aids to develop a Ber
ing Sea fishery, says fish and wild
life service biologist Joseph E.
King.
Writing in the Commercial
Fisheries Review, King describes
an expedition of the Pacific Ex
ploration company’s motor vessel
Alaska, which fished for king
crabs in the Bering Sea.
Most of the fishing, says King,
was in an area 50 miles long, 30
to 60 miles offshore between Port
Moller and Black Hills, in the
outer portion of Alaska’s Bristol
Bay.
The most profitable fishing area,
in August, was 275 to 300 miles
from the St. Paul marine radio
beacon and 175 miles from the
Cape Sarichef station, King says.
He adds: “As the accurate range
of these stations is only 100 miles,
they were of little value in deter
mining the vessel’s position. If a
more active fishery should devel
op with more vessels using these
waters, there would be a definite
1 need for radio beacons nearer the
fishing grounds.
“The only port on the Bering
Sea side of the Alaska Peninsula
within a reasonable running dis
tance of the fishing grounds test
; ed is Port Moller.
“This port is reached through a
shallow channel, at present buoy
ed only by the local fishermen
each season. It is hazardous for a
boat to be at the cannery dock
when a strong southwest or south
east wind is blowing.
“Although adequate for the ex
isting salmon fishery, if a substan
tial offshore fishery should de
velop in the area, additional dock
ing space and facilities would be
necessary.
CAA Can Purchase
Supplies Early
WASHIN GTON. UP) — The
House of Representatives has ap
proved legislation authorizing the
civil aeronautics administration to
purchase its supplies for Alaska
late in the winter or early spring
each year so they can be sent to
Alaska during early summer.
The measure now goes to the
Senate.
The bill permits the CAA to
purchase the needed supplies
when its appropriations for the
next fiscal year have not been ap
proved by March 1 and pay for
them after the appropriation bills
are passed.
The House interstate and com
merce committee reported that by
shipping early in the summer the
CAA could save considerable
money.
102-YEAR-OLD BANNISTER
SLIDER PASSES ON
SCRANTON, Pa. OP)—Florence
E. Dolph, who celebrated her last
two birthdays by sliding down the
bannister in her home, died yes
terday 18 days before her 102nd
birthday. Born May 19, 1847, in
Dickson City. Pa., Miss Dolph
moved to California in 1902, lived
there 44 years and then returned
to Scranton.
The bannister slides last year
and in 1947 were, Miss Dolph said,
to demonstrate her good health
and agility. Her health continued
good until recently.
She was the oldest alumna of
Lewisburg Seminary—now Buck
nell University.