THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday. Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome. Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 618
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W. A. and EMILY BOUCHER.Editors
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at the postoffic*
at Nome. Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Monday, July 28, 1947
Wallace And Alaska
(Fairbanks News-Miner)
WHILE THE SPEECHES of Henry Wallace in recent
months have contained some strange ideas about Rus
sia, the former secretary’s words on Alaska and Siberia
in his Seattle talk recently seem no more rational.
Wallace seemed to have nothing new to add to what
has already been said time and again by people who did
not have to use Siberia as an illustration of what Alas
ka should become. Wallace has viewed Siberia, how
ever, so we can’t blame him for speaking though in
the press reports was at the point where he said Rus
sia’s current activity in Siberia should not alarm the
United States. There we differ with him.
There seems to be two schools of though about Rus
sia, if you take the arguments for what they are evi
dently intended to mean. One school says in effect,
“Russia is a treacherous nation.” The other retorts:
“Not a bit; Russian pople are just like us.”
The fact is, these statements are based upon two dif
ferent conceptions of what Russia is. One would have
us believe the government is the people; the other that
the people are the government. Either one could be
right, for the exact status has never been determined
in Russia itself, let alone by the rest of the world. The
uncertainty has a great deal to do with the present
era of distrust and fear.
That s why we think it is just as well to be alarmed
about Russia’s expansions in Siberia, at least to the
extent that this feeling belabors us to keep peace in
Alaska.
We also think that Wallace should have been speak
ing in Russia when he urged the exchange of students
between our University of Alaska and Russia’s univer
sity of Irkutsk. We could have applications on his desk
tomorrow if there were any chance of getting students
into Siberia, so he doesn’t need to blame us for that
“iron curtain.”
Griswold’s First Job
(The Denver Post)
GREEK AID ADMINISTRATOR Dwight Griswold
is going to find more than military problems when he
arrives in Athens. He will find that the Greeks expect
him to arrive as a new messiah, bringing shiploads of
American manna to save their country from political
and economic destruction.
Of the 300 million dollars in aid, one-half will go for
military supplies. This pleases the Greek government.
The other 150 million dollars is what the people of
Greece are waiting for. They are in desperate need of
food and clothing. They need new roads, new harbors
and new villages to replace those destroyed by the Ger
mans and in the subsequent civil war.
Since the announcement of the American aid plan,
thousands of guerrillas have come down out of the
mountains, weakening the position of the Communist
controlled guerrillas. How long those people stay out
of the mountains depends on the administration of
American aid and on that alone. Most of the guerrillas
are not Communists. They are Greeks who have been
persecuted by the rightist goverftment, or Greeks who
can see no livable future under the present regime.
Many of them are still in the mountains. They, but
not the Communists, would come down if they could
be sure that they would not be harmed.
When the former governor of Nebraska arrives, he
must take some action to help those people. He must
insist that the government offer a real amnesty; for in
the past the government’s amnesties have been as hoi
I COFFEE TO KEEP ONE AWAKE NIGHTS
low as its promises of reform.
Mr. Griswold must herald an immediate program of
reconstruction with adequate publicity. Many Greeks
are living on hope until they see how the American
j plan will work.
He must insist that the cases of the thousands of
Greeks exiled on Aegean islands be reviewed. In the
past the Greek government has pailed and exiled thou
sands on little or nothing more than suspicion. Other
wise the people who have tramped down out of the
mountains will turn back, taking others with them.
i
When Mr. Griswold arrives in Greece he will find a
small, hard core of Communists who will be implacable
toward his aid program. They are in the mountains and
! working underground for destruction of the present
Greek states. These few are not important. They can
be treated with after the sovereignty of Greece is as
sured. But the American aid program must show con
crete results in reconstruction if it is to prevent a popu
! lar civil war.
I
; News To Us
(Cincinnati Enquirer)
ABOUT THIS TIME six years ago a man named Ru
dolf Hess took flight from Germany to England in an
airplane on a personal, private mission of peace. A
transcript of his conversations with the Duke of Hamil
ton has just been issued bv the War Department as the
final volume of its series of Nazi aggresssion.
Among other things, Hess said, “If we (meaning Ger
many and Great Britain) made peace now, America
would be furious. America really wanted to inherit the|
British Empire.”
There you have it in a nutshell from a nut. One ques
tion that has been troubling a great many people all
along, and that is, “What were we fighting for?” Hess’s
statement thus clarifies everything. Apparently the
Nazis were our best friends, but we did not know it.
The world at the moment, it is true, is in a pretty
sad state. There is not consolation, however. Hess and
his crowd of madmen are no longer in circulation.
Pressure On Sweden
(By Barnet Nover)
_ 4*1__ _
Russia is unlimbering her heav
iest artillery and is about to begin
an assault on the Marshall plan
for European recovery which
promises to be unexampled in its
ferocity.
Before adjourning, the sixteen
1 nations that took part in the recent
Paris conference made a friendly
gesture in the direction of the
Soviet Union, whose absence from
the meeting everybody deplored.
They voted unanimously to leave
the door open to Russia and her
Satellites.
This gesture will not appease
the men in the Kremlin. Undoubt*
edly they regard it as a sign of
weakness and timidity. Every-!
thing that has happened since
France and Great Britain invited
the nations of Europe to loin with
them in carrying out the Marshall
plan makes it clear that Russia
will remain aloof. Indeed, signs
are multiplying that she is deter
mined to prevent the plan from
even getting to first base.
There was, first of all, the Rus
sian crackdown on her satellites
who, from the viewpoint o," Mos
cow, had shown a most unhealty
interest in the Marshall plan.*
There followed Stalin’6 ultima
turn to Premier Gottwald and For
eign Minister Masaryk of Czecho
slovakia which forced that coun
try to abandon its original plan to
participate in the Paris parley.
Now the Russian heat is about
to be turned on the Scandinavian
countries so as to frighten ihim
into a retreat from the Marshall
plan. Russia believes them to be
more vulnerable to Soviet pres
sure than any of the other nit ons
participating in the European re
covery move.
The first target is Sweden. An
oblique warning to that country
to go slow’ in co-operating with the
western powers in general and the
United States in particular w'as
contained in a recent article in
Izvestia. The article assailed
“American economic penetration”
of Sweden,and expressed concern
over “the attack of the American
dollar on Sw’eden.”
Some days earlier, Sweden was,
by implication, accused of wel
coming and permitting an ideolo
gical campaign to be waged
against Russia by Americans.
Aware of Soviet resentment
over their participation in the
Paris conference, the Scandinavian
delegates have emphasized their
determination to keep the discus
sions on an economic level and
not to permit them to take any
political form. This will certainly
not disarm Moscow. The Russians
are as opposed to the economic
unification of Europe, except un
der Russian control, as they are
to political unification.
The Russians are not playing
for marbles. They know that the
stakes are tremendous. If they
succeed in making the Paris pro
gram meaningless, they will have
dealt American prestige a stag
gering blow. They will stop at
nothing to achieve that aim. With
equal realism, the American peo
ple and Congress must realize
that, no matter what it costs, the
carrying out of the Marshall plan
will be the cheapest kind of econo
mic and political insurance for the
United States.
One Man’s Opinion
(By Walter Kiernan)
This should be a quiet summer
from now on — the labor bill is
out of the way and Henry Wallace
is resting until August. . . . We
still have John Lewis, but there’s
a word of encouragement there,
too — a bituminous expert says
our coal will last only another
1,500 years. . . . Henry’s last shot
was that if the Democratic party
doesn’t stay liberal he won’t stay
with it — this came as a surprise
to many Democrats who didn’t
know he was with it now. . . . But
don’t underestimate Hank — he
packs ’em in like bank night at
his hoedowns, and when a politi
cian can get people to buy gas
that’s news. ... I hear Dewey and
Taft won’t go out now unless they
get 85 cents for the first four rows
and the balloon concession. . . .
There is some indication that be
fore the summer is over Hawaiians
will be entitled to share our joys
and tax rates. . . . The Republicans
are pushing the bill for statehood.
— Republicans can always use an
extra state going into an election
year. ... If they don’t get Hawaii
in ’48 they’ll try Alaska in 52 and
Staten Island in ’56. . . . Third
party talk is plentiful these days
— It is felt that a splendid ticket
could be made up of men who
couldn’t make any other ticket.
Arthur Brisbane was the high
est paid newspaperman in the
world, receiving $260,000 a year
for his columns, which reached, an
estimated audience of 30,000,000.