THE NOME NUGGET'
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome. Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 818
>1.50 PER MONTH$16.00 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.
Monday, August 27, 1945
SHALL WE LET JAEaH OFF EASY?
(Bremerton Sun)
We are hearing occasionally that the
word “unconditional” should be stricken
out of the term “unconditional surren
der” as applied to Japan.
Those who make this suggestion argue
that Japan should not be reduced to total
defeat, because then we should lose a
valuable bulwark against a growing
China and an ambitious Russia.
Why we should fear a strong and pros
perous China is hard to understand. On
the contrary, our dreams of “400,000
000 customers,” cannot come true until
China’s standard of living has been
raised. A developed, industrialized China
may well prove the world’s greatest mar
ket place, contributing to the well-being
of all other nations.
As for Russia, we do not know that she
will ever bother us. Japan has done so.
We should be making a poor gamble in
exchanging a possible aggressor for a
certain one.
Russia has no creed 2,000 years old de
manding that she conquer the earth.
Japan has.
Russia has plenty of elbow room.
Japan has not.
Russia has no bone to pick with the
west. Japan, after surrender, will be in
flamed with an abiding resentment.
To rely upon a sworn enemy to help
us curb a present and probable friend,
one of the three chief pillars of world se
curity, would seem to be the last word
in follly.
“But,” say our businessmen who used
to trade with the Orient, “we want Jap
an after the war to be able to buy from
us. If you destroy Japan we will have no
business.”
How about business with the rest of
the Orient? We most in the #lortg run
choose between business With Japan and
business with Asia.
This is true because an unchecked Jap
an would certainly resume her program
of monopolizing Asiatic trade. American
ousiness was rapidly being squeezed out
before the war. There could be no objec
tion to this if it were based upon fair
competition. But Japan used wage slav
ery, government subsidy and military
force to achieve her ends.
To let Japan off easy would be to per
petuate this system. Japan should have
a fair chance to make a decent living—
but there is no road to this goal except
by way of complete defeat and interna
tional control maintained long enough
to teach her how to live and let live
0
There is no such insect as the last
housefly. Kill him a thousand times and
he comes back, meaner than ever.
—The Toledo Blade.
We’re a trifle lame on the internation
al stuff, but as far as we can make out, a
buffer State is one that’s in the middle,
between two biffer States.
—George Ryan in Boston Herald.
INTO THE FINAL*
I
%<mBKm*Maucm
tkdJwl of Wiilnt Cslsfi
Ssaicy. Arkansas
i i '"
employment rWrtT
People who work it! the fields,
in mills, mines and shdps, on rail
roads and in industry generally
are to be congratulated upon
President Truman’s choice of Fred
M. Vinson, the new Secretary of
the Treasury of the United States.
His under*akinff Is enormous, del
icate and vital. But it is my belief
that nobody else in eovemment is
quite as well qualified to handle
the job as Vinson. j
The new cabinet member knows'
taxes. Things he has said already
prove that he is keenly aware of
two things that are currently the
most important facts about taxes.
(1) High taxes are necessary, now!
and for some time to come. <2>
Wrongly devised taxes in the
United States can wreck the fi
nancial structure of the entire
world in a few months. Dark Ages
might visit the earth again.
A Dependable Thing
The “yankee dollar” is one of
few known quantities left in the
financial world. While this condi
tion lasts, there is a way for weak
and depleted countries to gain in
dustrial and then financial
strength. The dollar will remain
good so long as Uncle Sam keeps
meeting his obligations promptly,
fulfilling promises and paying the
interest on his stupendous nation
al debt.
Our debt is so big and Ameri
ca’s moral obligations are so ex
acting that taxes must be high af
ter the war, much higher than
they have ever been in peaceful
years before. Government has no
way to get money except by tax
ing its citizens. Consequently the
citizens have to be prosperous.
There must be full employment,
plenty of jobs at good wages—
otherwise not enough taxes.
Holding Our Ground
The world is relying on the
solvency of America, on the
soundness of the dollar, and it all
depends on jobs. Mr. Vinson said:
“Taxes should be levied in such a
wya that they have the least
harmful effect on the expansion
of business investment and the
creation of jobs because produc
tive emplyoment is the source of
. . . revenue which the govern
ment collect from taxes.”
The Secretary’s eye was not on
taxes alone. In a recent published
report he made it clear that pro
ductive employment is the foun
dation of America’s living stand
ards (highest in the world), the
source of all income and the basis
of prosperity for business and ag
riculture. We may be assured that
Vinson will always do his best
to prevent ruination of jobs by
taxing business to a standstill.
A Rational Economy
Here is a powerful and rational
sentence from Vinson’s pen: “The
sooner uncertainties in the post
war tax structure are removed,
the sooner business management
will be inclined to make firm com
mitments for expansion and the
faster men can be put back to
work following the wholesale can
“Alaska Doesn’t
Expect Statehood
In Near Future”
WASHINGTON, Aug. 25-^tf*)—
Alaska will eventually demand
and should have statehood, but
few residents expect it in the near
future, Representative Johnson
said. “Sourdoughs and oldtime
residents do not favor statehood
nOW or spending Alaskan money
fbr roads, hospitals and schools.”
The chairman of the Interior
A p p r oprlations sub-committee,
which recently returned from atn
inspection trip said “but newcom
ers to Alaska are generally for
statehood as soon as possible. Any
of them will tell you there will be
several hundred thousand more
people in Alaska in a few years,”
while rich minerals and other re
sources are in the Territory, they
are spending “very little” of their
taxes to improve the area.
One told a reporter “some
places such as Matanuska and
the Homer area, where land is
fertile and the climate similar to
some parts of northern United
States, where there is a limited
amount of homesteading, but the
Territory generally, except for
mining, fishing and trapping, does
not offer any great possibilities to
returning GI Joes.” He believes
the Territory has been brought
much closer to the United States
and will have an influx of tourists
because of wartime construction
on the Alaska highway and mod
ern airfields.
cellation of contracts that have
occurred with the unconditional
surrender of Japan.”
Persons who would like to see
America in chaos, people who
would like to see a dictator climb
to power over America’s wasted
estates, may call the new Tras
ury head a friend of big business.
He apparently is, to whatever ex
tent such a friendship means jobs
for workers, prosperity on the
farm, customers in the store and
food on the table for America’s
plain people.
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