THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday. Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome. Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 618
SI.SO PER MONTH SI6.00 A YEAR
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, September 12, 1947
Tuberculosis Control—Greatest Task
ONE OF THE greatest tasks confronting the Terri
tory of Alaska at this time is the control of the dreaded
disease, tuberculosis. Despite the fact that we know the
cause, know how to prevent it and know how to cure it
—it still causes 30 per cent of all our deaths each year.
It is to the credit of our legislators who appropriated
a large sum of money for the control of tuberculosis,
that every resident of Nome, whether man, woman, or
child, may take precautionary steps against this insidi
ous enemy, by having a free chest examination within
the next few weeks.
Until apparatus using smaller films was developed,
mass surveys were impractical and costly. Chest clinics
were necessarily confined to known and suspected
cases. As a result not more than one in five persons suf
fering from the disease was discovered until it has prog
ressed to serious stages. Now this dangerous situation
no longer need exist. Found in its early stage, and prop
erly treated at once, either in the home or in a sana
torium, tuberculosis can be cured and the possibilities
of passing it to others overcome.
More persons in Alaska die from tuberculosis than
from all other communicable diseases combined. This
is largely because an infected person can go on for some
time not at all aware that he has the disease.
Any one of us can be attacked by this disease at any
time. The old belief that.those over 30 are no longer sus
ceptible is entirely without foundation. Helping in the
task of destroying this enemy of man and of Alaska is a
duty that belongs tp us all. The surest way of doing so
is by having an x-ray.
Quite A y^eek »
(Rocky Mountain News)
'SOME PEOPLE may have thought it a dull week, as
August waned, vacations ended and Labor Day neared.
But quite a few things went on.
At Racine, Wis., Idle King tried to buy a postage
stamp by putting pennies in a fire-alarm box, and went
to jail for turning in a false alarm.
Otto Smith, a 67-year-old prospector of Cripple
Creek, Colo., paddled down the Hudson River on the
last lap of a cross-continent canoe voyage from Vancou
ver, B. C.
While David Solomon, former navy Seabee, was res
cuing two boys from drowning in Lake Michigan at Chi
cago, someone in the crowd on shore stole $30 from his
coat pocket. “Saving the kids was worth 30 bucks,” he
said.
The Chickasha (Okla.) Chamber of Commerce pro
duced a half-inch rain by spraying a cloud with dry ice
—but the wind changed and all the rain fell on Ana
darko, 19 miles east. Ernest B. Roller, at Newman, 111.,
also used dry ice; his rain measured an inch and a half,
and missed his farm by a quarter-mile.
A new vacuum hose process, tried out at Lewes, Del.,
unloaded a million fish from a boat in two hours.
Seven thousand native coconut pickers in the Solo
mon Islands went on strike for a 1200 per cent wage
raise, to $40 a week.
Governor Turner of Oklahoma came out against long
skirts and padded hips for women—said they would
bankrupt the country.
Guy Fox, 73, of Osceola, Neb., won the Polk County
Fair’s first prizes for embroidery and crochet work for
the third straight year.
Three men with a dump truck raided Florenino Gal
legos’ farm in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, and
NOW-THrfs
A PIN-UP
GAL /
CWEST X-RAY
ME HsmVOMEM
MM4»‘ <4>W»
stole a quarter-acre of chile peppers.
The St. Joseph (Mo.) board of health disowned two
women who, posing as “steak inspectors,” had been de
manding free sirloins at restaurants.
In the Brooklyn (N. Y.) municipal court, Justice
Wynne ordered a tenant evicted from an apartment so
the landlord’s mother-in-law could move in.
The Alcoholic Beverage Control Board of Washing
ton, D. C., asked the corporation counsel to rule whether
it’s legal for a 27-month-old baby to have a short beer in
a tavern. And Illinois state policeman Elmer Kapsa was
suspended after a handcuffed prisoner stole his scout
car and escaped in it.
It was, all in all, quite a week.
Last Tli roes Of Dying Bureau
ALTHOUGH THE DEPARTMENT of the Interior
stresses the withdrawal of the federal governm?nt from
the educational field in Alaska, the move is scheduled
as part of the Congressional action to curtail expenses.
In view of this discontinuance of a portion of the au
thority of the Bureau of Indian Affairs over the actions
of the natives, the same bureau is reaching out for fur
therance of their immense payroll. There is need for
something to busy the numerous departmental employ
ees who are no longer necessary in the educational pro
gram.
Some time ago, a Congressman stated that the entire
Indian Service program was a failure, and that he was
in favor of dropping the whole affair at once.
Now we have the Interior Department trying to get
further control of Alaska, which will in no way benefit
the natives, the reason given for the proposed reserva
tion. The reservation will not be free to all natives alike.
Only to the Shungnak natives will any benefit be de
rived.
Since the natives, like the whites, have a strong de
sire for personal liberties which are afforded those of
free countries, they do not willingly vote for a reserva
tion which will exclude some of their own people. There
was pressure brought to bear on those few natives who
have signed a petition favoring the reservation. Many
other things could be brought to light, proving that the
departmental land grab is merely a drowning bureau
grasping at the last straw to squeeze more money out of
an economizing Congress.
THAT’S THAT By bruce gustin
<6s- _ . -.
Talk about a drenching! Dallas,
Texas, really got one Tuesday
night. In a comparatively short
period of time, 9.18 inches of rain
fell.
i Tpying to explain the unex
plainable is a tough job. Natural
ly, the attempt of Peter V. Cacchi
one. Communist member of the
New York city council, to explain
why American Communists follow
the Russian party line, although
as he insists, they are not taking
orders from Moscow or any other
f >i eign source, fell as flat as the
proverbial pancake. •
Communist propagandists seem
to labor under the delusion that
there is no limit to the gullibility
of the American people. "The only
interest of Soviet Russia is the
welfare of its people." Cacchione
said. "In order to promote the wel
fare it must have peace. We. too.
want peace, so naturally we follow
the principles that will lead to
peace." The Communist "princi
ples" followed by Soviet Russia
before World War II certainly did
not promote peace. The Russo
German pact between Stalin and
Hitler for the partition of Poland
was the green light for the Nazi
invasion of Poland which started
the war.
Surveys by the National Opin
ion Research center of the Univer
sity of Denver show sentiment for
universal training is strongest in
the Rocky Mountain Empire and
Pacific Coast states. This is a
credit to the intelligence of the
people in these sections. And one
of the most significant things
about it is that isolationist senti
ment used to be so strong in these
districts. The most important les
son taught by World War II is that
there is no security in unprepared
ness.
When all is said and done, uni
versal military training is an eco
nomical system of national defense.
In the long run, it will be cheaper
than waiting until a fighting war
starts and then trying to enlist
and train a whole army at once.
General Chennault, wartime com
mander of the Flying Tigers, has
reminded, “it is a penny-wise and
pound-foolish conservatism that
would rather spend hasty billions
in wartime to catch up than invest
millions in peace time.” Another
thing that should be kept in mind
is that when the next *war breaks,
we may not have time to catch up.
Canadians have low sugar
prices but little sugar. The United
States has no price controls and
plenty of sugar. So Canadians
have been flocking across the
border to buy sugar, even though
the American price is 5V£ cents a
pound higher than in their coun
try and they have to pay a 3-cent
a-pound duty. Controls which
hold down prices on things they
can’t buy are no benefit to con
sumers.
American observers describe
the Hungarian elections as “the
greatest vote fraud ever perpe
trated.” Under the circumstances,
an honest election was not in the
cards. Although a small minority,
the Communists had seized con
trol of the government. They were
determined, by hook or crook, to
perpetuate themselves in power.
With the voting machinery in their
hands, it was a simple matter for
the Communists to disenfranchise
hundreds of thousands of opposi
tion voters and stuff ballot boxes
with fraudulent votes. The only
surprising thing about the Hun
garian elections is that the Com
munists didn’t make a better
showing.
Most European countries are
cursed with a multiplicity of po
litical parties. They are split into
so many factions that none has a
chance to command a majority. As
a result, government has to be of
the coalition type which satisfies
nobody. Next to a one-party sys
tem, such as Soviet Russia has, the
worst thing that can happen to a
country politically is to have too
many parties. Such a situation is
duck soup for the Communists.
Russia put one over on the
United States and Great Britain in
this troop withdrawal business. As
a result of Soviet ratification of
the peace treaties with Bulgaria,
taly, Hungary, Romania and Fin