V \
THE
* OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS _
VOL. LI. No. 27 NOME, ALASKA, FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 1949 Per Copy—15c
NEWS IN BRIEF
^ FAIRBANKS, (A3) — Riding a
tv 100-mile-an-hour tailwind, an air j
force B-45 four-jet bomber streak
ed from Anchorage to Fairbanks
I
in 24 minuted Wednesday.
The Ladd Field information
office said the ship averaged 675
miles an hour on the 270-mile
flight from Elmendorf Field. It
was piloted by Capt. Louis Stokes,
28, of Chicago Heights, 111.
About the size of World War II
heavy bombers the B-45 carries
Va 10-ton bomb load and crew of
only four. It has been undergoing
Arctic tests since January.
ALAMEDA, Calif. .(/P>—El Toro
marines and squadron VR-4 of
Seattle were winners Wednesday ;
night in first round games of a
navy basketball championship.
El Toro, champions of the 11th
naval district at San Diego, dc-1
1 feated Adak naval operating base,
17th naval district, 67-48.
VR-5, 13th district title holder |
and leading contender for the
navy’s coast honors, out-ran
Treasure Island, 12th district, 56
44.
WRANGELL, (/P)—A searching
party has returned from the Sti
kine River flats requesting a cor
oner’s jury investigate the death
of Tom Tremble at his cabin
there.
* Tremble apparently had been
dead a week when his body was
found. The searching party re
ported the cause of death “ques
tionable.”
A coroner’s jury, marshal and
mqdical examiner will leave at
noon Monday for an investigation
and will return Friday afternoon.
* SEATTLE (/P) — Funeral serv
ices were held today for Mrs. i
Verna Buckley, 64, of Juneau, who
died here Tuesday. Mrs. Buckley,
who operated a shoe store at Jun
eau with her sister, Mrs. Zola
Devlin, came here last month to
visit a son.
SEATTLE, (£*)—F. A. Zeusler,
executive assistant to the presi
dent of the Alaska Steamship <
company, will sail for Juneau to- i
morrow on company business.
4 J. Fred Zumdieck, superintend
ent of Alaska Steam, and Emil
Hansen, superintendent of the
Alaska Terminal and Stevedoring <
company, arrived back yesterday !
on the Bferanof after an inspection i
tour of Alaska port facilities. 1
MUSKEGON, Mich. {£*)—A wi- ]
^ dowed mother, at least nine of her
children and a roomer were burn
ed to death yesterday when a fire
destroyed their flimsy frame
home.
The flames, starting when an j
oil stove exploded, swept through
the home of Mrs. Maude Clover 1
at Lakewood, a little resort com- <
munity 12 miles north of here.
The charred bodies of 46-year
old Mrs. Clover and nine children, ]
ranging in age from 3 to 15 years,
were pulled from the ruins. A i
roomer, identified as August Tas
ky, also perished.
Deputy sheriffs said in addition
three more Clover children may
have died.
• • W- "W? ' —
These school children from Nome, Alaska, many of whom had never before tasted fresh milk,
met the arrival of a Pan American Clipper this week, which carried the first shipment from the
States, to be distributed free to the Nome school children.
The “milk run” is being sponsored by the newly formed Walrus Men’s Club at Nome, and is ded
icated to the idea that nothing is more important to a community than the health and welfare of its
children.
The club arranged for twice-weekly shipments of fresh milk, to be flown 2,200 miles from the
States and distributed free of charge to 225 first-to-sixth-grade children.
Driving the dog team sled is Tom Prout. Stewardess Catherine Corcoran distributed the milk.
LIFTING THE LID
AT JUNEAU
Thursday. March 3. 1949
(By James Hutcheson)
JUNEAU, (JP)— A compromise
580 a month old-age pension—$20
above the present figure — was
recommended yesterday by a con
ference committee named by both
Houses.
The House quickly adopted the
recommendation and the Senate
is scheduled to vote on it today.
In its final form the bill in
cludes present eligibility require
ments of citizenship and five
pears' residence in the Territory.
The House also adopted:
A bill to provide for fishermen
injured at work or contracting an
pccupational ailment, carrying a
$100,000 appropriation with .ad
ministration by the fisheries, de
partment, the vote was 23-1.
A bill for a $1 and $2 tax on
punchboards, by a vote of 21-3.
A memorial asking military and
federal officials to keep the Rich
ardson highway open the year
j round.
A memorial providing at least
>0 per cent of workers employed
py the salmon industry this year
must be Alaska residents, 60 per
cent the next year and 70 per cent
he following year.
Besides approving the old age
pension figure, the House passed
n all nine bills and three memo-!
*ials during an afternoon session
vhich ran overtime to 6 p.m.
Efforts to transfer the jurisdic- I
ion of the fishermen bill to the!
public health department failed
(Continued on Page Three) I
Fate Of Airlines
In CAB’s Hands
i
__
1 SEATTLE, (JP)—'The fate of the
, non-scheduled airlines of the
! Northwest and Alaska is now in
the lap of the civil aeronautics
board.
This was the word brought back ;
yesterday from Washington, D. C., (
by John F. Dore, Jr., counsel for
13 non-scheduled airlines of this
region. He spent three weeks in
the Capital arguing before the
board and submitting briefs in op
position to the proposed change in j
regulations. He said they would
amount to a “death sentence” for
the small independent carriers.
Gov. Gruening of Alaska wired
the board that the non-scheduled
airlines had been a vital factor in
the development of Alaska and
their suspension would be a severe
blow to the economy of the Ter
ritory.
Dore made his report to the op
erators at a meeting yesterday af
ternoon at Boeing Field. Floyd
Davis, newly-appointed president
of the Independent Carriers’ Con
ference, presided.
■ ■■■■ - .. ■■■—
INAUGURAL ADDRESS, 9:00
TONIGHT OVER WXLN
A transcription of President
Truman's Inaugural Address and
Oath of Office has Just been re
ceived by WXLN. and it will be
broadcast over the local station
tonight at 9:00 to 9:30 p.m.
The ''request*' program has
been cut to half an hour, from
9:30 to 10:00 p.m. for tonight only
to make room for this special In
ugural Address program.
Missing C-47 In
Reported Crashed
In Mexico
DEL RIO, Tex. (/P)—Sheriff A.
E. Steinmetz said yesterday that
a missing C-47 crashed in the
Colorado Mountains south of here
in Mexico and that all aboard
were killed.
The plane has been missing for
several days on a flight from
Hamilton Field, Calif., to Kelly
Field in San Antonio, Tex.
It was last reported over Wink,
Tex., in the southwest part of the
state, at 8:26 a.m., Monday. It had
landed earlier at El Paso, Tex.
Internationa News
At A Glance —
Thursday. March 3, 1949
< By The Associated Press>
Premier Sun Fo of China said
today peace talks with the Chi
nese communists are expected to
start in Peiping about March 15.
He was optimistic that the long
and costly civil war might be
ended.
The communists have bested
the Chinese nationalist armies
throughout Manchuria and North
China. The war has been still
since the Chinese took Peiping
and reached the Yangtze river
which flows by Nanking, the vir
tually abandoned nationalist capj
ital.
Sun said the government will
seek an “honorable equitable set
tlement” and that only such a
peace will be acceptable and last
ing.
The United States, Canada, Bri
tain, France and the low coun
tries continued talk in Washington
over the North Atlantic pact.
Communists in New York, France,
Vienna and other parts of the
West kept muttering the Western
. countries never would fight Rus
; sia.
Denmark appeared likely to
join talks on the Atlantic Treaty.
The Danish parliamentary foreign
relations committee was reported
i to have agreed on this in princi
ple. A majority of the members of
parliament is reported favorable.
U. S. military police kept a firm
and polite blockade around the
J eight Russians of the repatriation
commission at Frankfurt, which
the Russians refused to withdraw.
Russia claimed the commission is
indispensable since it is trying to
get 100,000 reluctant persons from
Germany and Austria into Russia.
Neither side showed signs of
backing down.
Russian-controlled police ar
rested Werner Ruediger, a mem
ber of the anti-communist city
council of Western Berlin. He
works for the newspaper Telegraf,
which charged Russia is forcing
German prisoners of war to sign
(Continued on Page Four)
House Public Lands Committee
Approves Statehood For Alaska
_ -
(By Charles D. Watkins)
WASHINGTON, UP)—Statehood
for Alaska was approved today by
the Territories sub-committee of
the House public lands committee.
A similar measure for Hawaii
got the committee’s favorable vote
yesterday.
Chairman Redden (D.-N.C.) said
the vote on Alaska was unani- j
mous.
He said the bills will go before i
the full committee next Tuesday.
He added that he is sure both
will be approved in committee and
will pass when the House gets to
them.
The committee heard short oral
i
testimony in favor of statehood
for Alaska before going into ex
ecutive session to vote.
Father Paul C. O’Connor of
Hooper Bay, Alaska, said the Ter-;
ritory is ready for statehood. He
predicted that it will develop just
as fast as other States “to make
our State one of the principal
States in the Union.”
Interior department representa
tives and army officers also testi
fied in favor of statehood.
Before the session Delegate
E. L. Bartlett, of Alaska said
he expected quick action, without
opposition. He said he believed
the committee would accept last
year’s committee report and not
order a further hearing.
Statehood for Alaska was ap
proved by the public lands com
mittee last year but the proposed
legislation never was cleared by
the rules committee for House de
bate.
The bill provides that on pas-*.
(Continued on Page Six)