THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
NOME, ALASKA
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 618
$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, October 26, 1949
BUREAUCRATIC PLANNING AGAIN
(Alaska Sunday Press)
It is a truism that momentous decisions and historical
crises often come upon us without advance ndtice or
preparation. That is the situation with which Alaska is
now confronted, and many among our population are
not even aware of the events transpiring which will in
fluence the whole future of Alaska.
The powers that be in Washington, D. C., have appar
ently conferred on the brain trust level to decide just
what should be done about our Territory. And they have
come up with two undeniable and irrefutable truths.
First, Alaska needs money, lots of it. for development of
resources, for building, for all the things that will event
ually make Alaska able to take her place as a State. Sec
ond. Alaska needs more people.
Working from these basic needs, two major proposals
have been promulgated. And this is the place where
Alaskans must start to pay careful attention. We can go
along with the boys on what we need, but the way they
propose handing it to us is something else again.
First—let’s consider the people problem. The Peter
son House Bill No. 5880 provides for group settlement
of Alaska. Even a casual reading of this bill indicates
many provisions that will be unsavory to Alaskans—
that would be unsavory to independent people, any
where. The bill would authorize the secretary of interior
to set aside up to two million acres of land suitable for
settlement in the Territory and develop it under a re
stricted program of hand-picked settlers. There are ex
clusions—there are reservations and exceptions—and
throughout the bill, settlement administration is left to
the discretion of the secretary of agriculture or to
the initiative andxor discretion of the secretary of the
interior. It would seem that a primary objection to this
bill would be that too much power is left to people who
would be, in effect, ruling us from a distance, and surely
no one will deny that that is what we have too much of
already.
But this group settlement bill in all its faulty ramifi
cations isn’t anything compared to the manner in which
the money wants are to be supplied. The first inkling of
this has reached us in current conferences held around
the Territory by assistant secretary of interior Warne.
The bill, sponsored by the interior department, and not
yet officially introduced, calls for a billion dollar Alaska
Development Corporation, and, among other things, it
would provide industrial developments, built by the
federal government and leased to private individuals or
corporations, temporarily or until such time as private
capital becomes willing to carry the load.
Points of the act for the development of industries are
commendable but with the corporation bill set up, again
we would be confronted with bureaucracy and red tape
and discretionary reservations, a policy which has
found increasing disfavor in Alaska.
If it is true that this is the type ot legislation needed
in Alaska, then we are surely a long way from being
ready for Statehood, and even more important, if Alas
ka is ever saddled with such restrictive bills, its aspira
tions toward Statehood will be set back seriously.
The Development Corporation bill would serve to set
tle a structure of industry upon an unsound base. As
long as our freight rates prevent us from entering world
markets on a competitive basis, all the government
owned industrial projects in the world can’t really help
us, or, would all transportation too be under govern
ment control?
Alaska is rich and has great potentialities which have
hardly been explored, but even our wildest dreamers
don’t fool themselves into thinking that we can be self
sufficient now. We can’t support a huge population and
we can’t approach being self-contained. But if our tax
Scout “Family99 Finds Adventure
I
I
structure can be revised so it will bring adequate funds
without scaring away private capital, our industry will
be able to make sound development, without govern
ment coddling. And if industry thrives, the people will
come and settlement will go forward naturally without
the approval or rejection of some ananymous bureau
; crat in Washington.
One of the “scare words” which President Truman
( recently said is in current use without being really un
derstood, is “Statism.” Official definitions of this term
! show that it means government control of the major
phases of the economic and political life of the people.
[ That sounds exactly like what the department of the in
terior is proposing to do to us up here in Alaska. Could
it be they misunderstood us—what we want is STATE
HOOD, not STATISM.
FRIDAY IS BOY SCOUT FINANCE DAY
It is the one day of the year when the people of Nome
are asked to support the Boy Scouts of America by con
tributing to the budget of the Alaska Council along with
all other Alaskan communities with Scout programs.
No quota has been set.
The Alaska council has brought to Alaskan boys the
Boy Scout program from Point Barrow to Ketchikan. It
have increased the number of boys in Scouting from
251 to more than 1300 in four years. The lowering of the
entrance-age requirements by one year and the fact that
there are now more boys in Alaska means that the
Council is laying plans to bring these additional boys
into Scouting.
The money raised throughout Alaska by the various
communities is in turn spent throughout Alaska to
bring Scouting to more boys. The men who govern the
spending of the funds and plan to budget are Alaskan
business men, and Nome has representation among
them. Nome has received in the past adequate service to
its volunteer leaders, and will continue to receive it in
th future as long as Nome, along with the rest of Alaska,
participates in financing the organization that makes
Scouting possible.
Nome has benefited from the Alaska Council, in that
it’s Scout program has tripled. Nome has a Cub Pack,
Scout Troop and Air Explorer Squadron. The leaders
are trained, and as the leadership changes the new men
will receive training.
Fairbanks, Anchorage, Juneau and Ketchikan and the
other Alaskan Scout towns have helped support the
Palmer Doctors
X-ray Pupils
PALMER. — Two Palmer
Valley yhpsicians, working in co
operation with the Territorial de
partment of public health, made
chest x-rays of 740 valley school
children last week.
The x-rays, taken by Drs. C. C.
Baliey and R. E. Garrett were
made following school physical,
examinations which doctors said
uncovered extensive nutritional
deficiencies and postural defects
among the children.
The two doctors pooled fees from
the school examinations to rent
equipment for the x-rays. Dr.
Bailey said the chest examination
was the only positive method of
detecting cases of pulmonary tu
berculosis.
Yes, Atomic Bomb
Is Terrible Weapon
MEXICO CITY, (JP) — You do
have a chance against the atomic
bomb—if you are at least half a
mile away from the explosion.
Maj. Albert J. Bauer, of the U.
S. army surgeon general’s office
says if you're four miles away
when the bomb goes off your
chances of escaping without in
jury are almost perfect.
But from four miles in toward
I the center, the safety percentages
drop of sharply. From a half mile
out to a mile and a half from the
atomic blast, it is about 50-50 that
1 you will come out alive. In the
half-mile inner circle, “there will
be almost complete destruction”
with deaths very close to 100 per
cent,” Bauer says.
Bauer prepared this report with
Capt. John R. Hogness of the U. S.
army medical center for presenta
tion yesterday before the 12th in
ternational congress of military
medicine and pharmacy meeting
here. Military medical officers
from 28 nations are attending the
congrsss.
Basing their findings on the
' atomic explosions at Hiroshima,
Nagasaki and Bikini, the two
army medical men described the
effect of an atomic blast and how
! to defend a city against it.
Agreeing that “the atomic bomb
is truly a fearful and extremely
desructive weapon,” the report
emphasizes that the public must
realize “an atomic explosion is
not the end for all concerned.”
Bauer and Hogness regard wide
spread fire and sereve burns as
the greatest hazards of the bomb.
The intense flash of the blast
sends out heat waves that can ig
nite inflammable materials a mile
and a half away.
What to do about a bomb at
tack? Bauer and Hogness recom
mend preparedness measures no!
much different from those for any
other kind of bombing.
Council service to Nome, while
Nome has not supported the Coun
cil budget and its own service
since 1947.
Friday is the time for Nome to
rejoin the brotherhood of Scouting
in Alaska through adequate sup
port to the Boy Scouts of America
and its authorized program in
Alaska, ont only to help its own
Scouting program, but to join
with other Alaskan towns to make
Scouting available to all Alaskan
boys. Nome must pack its own
weight, and help others pack theirs
until they too, can carry on and
join with Nome in still helping
others.