THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome, Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 618
W. A. and EMILY BOUCHER .Editors
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Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at the postoffict
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Wednesday, January 7, 1948
Wedemeyer On China Aid
J
(Rocky Mountain News)
AFTER THE CLINCHING testimony to a Senate
committee on the need for ecenomic and military aid to
China, the Administration no longer can continue its
do-nothing policy without discredit to itself and danger
to our ally.
Those who testified were Lt. Gen. Albert C. Wede
meyer, Rep. Walter H. Judd and William C. Bullitt. All
are recognized experts in the field. All have made re
cent investigations on the spot. They agreed the need is
immediate and grave.
The statements of General Wedemeyer were the
more impressive because he was speaking under wraps
as chief of the army general staff’s planning and opera
tions division, and as the president’s recent special en
voy to China whose official report hase been suppressed.
Though, as ordered by the President, he declined to
give the committee a copy of his report, he urged quick
American assistance to China and gave plenty of factual
information for backing such a policy.
Nobody successfully can discount the Wedemeyer
testimony, because no other person can speak with his
authority.
As a result of close wartime association with Chiang
Kai-Shek he knows his man. At the same time, he has
proved that he is no blank-check partisan, having been
super-critical of the national government’s shortcom
ings. Moreover, as the army’s global strategist, he does
not see China separately but as part of our general se
curity problem.
He disposed easily of the shallow, hackneyed excuses
for withholding American aid at this time.
One excuse is that Chiang is a dictator. While agree
ing that the generalissimo is virtually a “benevolent
despot” in some ways, General Wedemeyer pointed out
that Chiang is trying to establish democracy, which is
a long job there.
Can Chiang be trusted? General Wedemeyer remind
ed all that the generalissimo remained loyal to us when
the Japs repeatedly offered him attractive peace terms.
And that, as the oldest, strongest opponent of Commun
ism there, Chiang is the logical leader now to save his
country from the Red rebel armies.
But shouldn’t we concentrate on helping Europe first
and leave China for later? If we try to ignore the Com
munist threat in China while opposing it in Europe, we
shall risk the piecemeal dissipation of our forces, Gen
eral Wedemeyer replied.
Of course it would be helpful if Stalin would limit his
aggression to one area at a time—then we could concen
trate on Europe and forget the Far East for a while. But
as long as Stalin advances on many fronts—and he is
going faster in China than elsewhere now—our defense
also must be global.
High Price For GoM?
(Daily Alaska Empire)
THE LAST ISSUE of the Engineering and Mining
Journal declares editorially that a higher price for gold
is inevitable in due course. This should be encouraging
word for Alaskan operators who, faced with high opera
tional costs, are expected to operate for a price set be
fore the war. Says the Journal:
“Recent news from Europe indicates that attempts to
forestall currency devaluation are bursting at the seams
earlier than even the more orthodox economists have
anticipated. Devaluation means, eventually, a higher
gold price.
“The news is that the French government has an
THE TRYOUT
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AMtClOH
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ncunced its intention of reducing the official value of its
currency in terms of dollars. The report from Geneva is
that several Western European countries are planning
the same move.
“The new turn of events is not because the nations
involved want to violate covenants to maintain current
stability, bpt because they have not found the means to
discipline themselves sufficiently to maintain currency
stability. As a result their currencies are selling greatly
under the official rates wherever free markets for their
currencies exist. Devaluation under these circum
stances is simply an acknowledgment of fact. But, when
devaluation starts, sooner or later other countries will
follow in order to protect their export trade. Eventually
this will call for formal acknowledgment of another
fact, the free market price of gold.
“To state the whole problem another • way, nations
never pay as they go for wars. Invariably they lean on
1 credit to help carry -the financial burden and their ex
travagance is usually more than can be met by normal
repayment of debt. Taxpayers will assume only a cer
tain load and to overburden them results in disrupting
a nation’s economy by depriving people of adequate in
centives to produce. Thus a financialyy overextended
government can only dump the remaining bill in the
laps of its creditors, who consist of those who hold its
bonds and currency. However, the sufferers are not
only these individuals. Every bondholder, savings bank
depositor and insurance policyholder takes the rap in
the same degree.
Thus, governments which have spent beyond their
means really have little choice, and their signature to
“hold the line” agreements is meaningless. All of which
means that a higher price of gold is inevitable in due
( course.
*High Voltage In Palestine
(The Denver Post)
IF THERE IS HOPE of keeping the Arab-Jewish con
flict in Palestine from bursting into open civil war, it
must rest upon timely action to check the growing ten
sion. The situation now is like a high-voltage electrical
condenser: building up a huge potential of hate and vio
lence which presently will crackle across the Holy
Land, unless prompt steps are taken to avert it.
It is a situation in which few clear facts stand out.
The threatened holy war has so far been confined to
guerrilla skirmishes and isolated bombings and assas
sinations. In these actions neither side has b?en blame
less. The 300 plus deaths to date are but a mild forerun
ner of the toll if full-scale war should break out.
The most encouraging report has corpe from Cairo. It
is still little more than a rumor, but it tells of a decision
reached in secret meetings of the Arab league that .no
member state shall send its army against the Palestine
Jews. The decision is said to have been prompted by
quiet pressure from the United States and Britain. It
does not mean that the Arabs will not fight, for the
league members have agreed U
aid the anti-partition movemen
with money and recruits.
While the British are reportec
working behind the diplomatic
scenes, they appear to be letting
the situation in Palestine get oul
of hand. There, under the eyes ol
British police, the Arabs arc
building up an army which swells
daily with new recruits.
The British have the responsi
bility of maintaining order in Pal
estine until they surrender their
mandate May 15, and their
spokesmen say they have no in
tention of calling upon the United
Nations security council for help.
Very well, then, it is up to them
to do what they can to pacify the
disputants (until that dale. They
will not be fulfilling their ysspon
sibility if they hand the world a
civil war which they have done
little to prevent.
The Jews themselves have a re
sponsibility as well, perhaps the
greatest—and one to which they
unfortunately are not living up.
That is the duty . of restraining
their own extremists. Reports of
Jewish attacks on Arab centers
have outnumbered those in which
the Arabs have been the aggres
sors. This does not befit a people
who have won a great victory. It
would be well for the Jews to
practice forebearance, even in the
face of provocation.
Before the world, the Jews have
the solemn responsibility of prov
ing that partition will work. They
cannot ask the world to forget it
was they who insisted on this
danger-fraught solution of the
Palestine question. The nations
which shared in this decision
must help, of course; but intelli
gent statesmanship on the part of
the Jews will make the outcome
less hazardous.
Thai's That
By BRUCE GUSTIN
As Senators Aiken and Kilgore
argue, “It’s unfair and unreason
able to ask people to eat less bread
and meat when distillers are per
mitted to use grain they do not
need for some months.” But it is
even more unfair and more unrea
sonable to take American grain
from American distillers, ship it
abroad for “relief” purposes, and
then allow foreign countries to
use that grain to make whiskey
which will be shipped back to the
! United States.
I If more attention were given in
, Washington, D. C., to increasing
' production than to pleas for peo
I pie to eat less and to restoration
i of wartime rationing and price
controls, we might get somewhere.
Senator Capehart of Indiana sized
up the situation accurately when
he said there are only two me#i
ods to increase American food
supplies: Planting more acres,
producing more pel* acre: “Infla
tion cannot be curbed,# except
temporarily, through rationing
and price control. Price control, if
continued forever, would not pro
duce a single pork chop, a single
bushel of corn, a single bushel of
wheat.” That is common sense.
The practice of allowing army
officers retired for “physical dis
ability” to draw tax-free pensions
and earn big money on the side is
outrageous. Recently, it was dis
closed that Maor General Meyers
who is mixed up in a war contract
scandal had been retired in 1 f>45
for “physical disability” and was
drawing a tax-free pension of $550
a month. Mayor General Vaughan
—the President’s military aide—
says he knows a retired office
who has been earning $70,000 an
nually in an outside job. "Any