THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday, Friday, by The Nome
Publishing Company, Nome, Alaska.
Telephone Main 114 P. O. Box 518
Entered in the Post Office in Nome as 2nd Class Matter
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MEMBER OF ASSOCIATED PRESS
Soldier's Opinion
_
The following letter was written by a soldier in a
training camp in the United States. It presents a prob
lem that comes up in every war. The soldier is an Am
erican citizen who is going to have to do his part ini
paying for the war after it’s over. He doesn’t like to
see the costs of the war mount up as wages climb.
At the same time, in order to secure men for jobs in.
war production, workers have been offered higher wag-,
es than they could get elsewhere. But there is no ques
tion in our mind but what every soldier who sees men
who are serving their country in a lesser capacity than
himself get many times more in return has a legitimate
reason for complaining.
The letter follows:
"A few days ago my brother, a 19-year-old college
sophomore, received from a friend a letter urging him
to go to work in a defense plant. He would receive $1.25
an hour for ten hours of work. Thus, at a job for which
he had no training or skll, my brother would earn a
weekly salary far beyond his most optimistic dreams.
"There is evidently an abundance of this kind of em
ployment, for I know scores of people who are ‘serving’
their country by holding down such defense jobs and
who are collecting similar boom-time pay checks. In
cluded in this group are many men who have been re
jected by the Army because of minor physical defects.
Resentful of Civilian Trend
"We men in the armed forces are disappointed and
resentful of this civilian trend. We certainly do not
object to serving, fighting and giving our lives for our
cause. But we do protest strongly against our brethern
who are filling our civilian occupations and who are
receiving much more money for their labor than we
did for the same jobs. Our very position as service men
in a country at war has made these jobs more valuable.
“Officers are continually asking how young men like
my brother can be persuaded willingly to join the
Army when they can earn very attractive wages at
home. And at home these men need not relinquish
their accustomed comforts, pleasures and privileges for
the inconveniences which accompany Army life.
"The only solution to this grave problem is immed
iately to place a ceiling on wages and prices. If they
can go no higher, then we may hope that wages and
living costs will begin to decrease and approach their
more normal pre-war level.”
The Priee (leilin^s
Considerable comment has been noted in Juneau re
cently. concerning whether or not Price Administrator
Leon Henderson’s practically universal price ceiling
order which was effective May 18 applied to Alaska,
and on what products.
According to our available information, the order
does apply to Alaska as it applies to practically every
nook and cranny of the United States. The companion
>rder v mh calls for ceilings on rents concerns only
302 defense areas.
The ceiling on prices means that beginning May 18,
ail retail prices, with a few exceptions, must not ex
it ! the highest levels which each individual seller
eged during last March. Similiarly, manufacturer
at 1 wholesale prices are halted to March levels. All
u . • lers, wholesalers and manufacturers are charged
v .th the responsibility of preserving their records for
March for maximum pricing purposes.
Controlled Commodities
Among the controlled commodities are almost every
proct... ed food — bread, cake and bakery products;
sug r. fluid milk and cream sold at retail; ice cream,
canned meats, soups, canned fruits and vegetables,
Canned-fish and other canned seafoods; cereals, lard
and shortening; coffee, tea, cocoa, salt and spices.
Also covered in the order are all clothing, shoes, dry
goods and yard goods; soap in all forms, every kind of
common fuel; pipes, cigars, cigarets and prepared smok
rtg and chewing tobacco; drugs, toiletries and sundries;
furniture and furnishings; appliances and equipment;
and hardware and miscellaneous agricultural supplies.
Items which are excepted from the order include
fresh meats and vegetables, eggs and poultry, all milk
products including butter, cheese, condensed and eva
porated milk (but not fluid milk sold at retail or ice
cream). j
Flour is excepted, but not packaged cake mixes and'
other similar mixtures. Books, magazines, newspapers,
motion pictures are not included in the order.
Hotels, bars, restaurants, soda fountains and other
similar establishments where commodities are prepar-l
ed and sold for consumption on the premises, are ex
I
France Cannot Die
Let us take a good look at France. It may help us to
see more clearly the issues of our war. France is a
nation of about 40,000,000 people — probably a little
less now. because the Nazi regime has sent the birth
rate down and the death rate up. It is a mixed people,1
and you might say that there is racially little in com-1
mon between the Britons or Normans in the north and
the Basques or the inhabitants of the old Provence in
the south. It is also a people which for some reason
has wanted to be a nation, and has fought to be such
from the time of Joan of Arc, five centuries ago, to I
the present day.
But what is a nation? Surely it is not the political!
leadership at any given moment. France was recogniz
ably France under Louis XIV, under Mirabeau, Marat *
and Robespierre, under the first Napoleon, the Citizen;
King, the Second Napoleon and am*i the ups and
downs of the Third Republic. The corruption of her
Government did not make her the less France. The
failure to plug the gap at Sedan in 1940 and the fail
ures behind that failure did not put an end to her na
tional life. Petain could not destroy her by weakness.
Laval by treachery. Hitler cannot destroy her unless
he kills or scatters all her people. Even then a kind of
spiritual entity called France would survive.
Tradition of France
The spiritual quality of nationality is tougher than!
armed forces, though when rallied under arms it in
spires victory. Joan rallied it when France was a gross-i
er sink of corruption than she has ever been since. The
men of Marseille rallied it in 1792 when they marched
north to the tune of their tremndous song. It was ral
lied at the Marne and at Verdun. In 1939 and 1940 it
never had its chance or found its voice. The men whom 1
political intrigue had thrown into power in Paris in!
those days seem never to have understood it. Some of,
them seem to have feared it more than they feared i
the enemy, perhaps even hated it more. We have heard
but one echo of it on the soil of European f'rance since
June, 1940 — and this was when Frenchmen were
brought before a French court at Riom to answer charg;
es to treason. This was what the great tradition of
France had become in the eves of Vichy—a species of i
disloyalty. But the tradition did not die. It will not die
with Blum and Daladier or any living man.
The wrong kind of nationalism can be a disease. It
is so in Germany today. It can become so at times in
almost any nation. The right kind is a contribution to
civilization. In France this contribution was illustrat
ed in a language of wonderful clarity, in a beautiful
sense of logic and proportion, in delicate irony, humor
and tolerance, in an idealism that was sometimesi
earthy and sometimes hea'venly. The Frenchman valu
ed himself. He had, as in Indo-China and Africa, his
imperialistic moments. But he was civilized. You
could see the future mellow in his thoughts. Remain
ing passionately a Frenchman, he could be a good citi
zen of the earth.
War Upon Civilization
Hitlers war is only partly a war upon the territory,
of France and of other nations sharing the French sort
of culture. It is a war upon the kind of civilization1
France has represented, wherever that civilization can
be found. Frenchmen have been found who will join in
this war. By so doing they cease to be Frenchmen.
France itself remains what it always was.
i France, in short, is a proof that we are engaged in a
i world-wide civil war, though the enemies on our own
territory are too few to bring it home as such to us.
It is a war of ideas. The ideas for which we are fighting
are certainly cherished by the majority of Frenchmen,
and, indeed, by most of the people of Europe, includ
ing not a few Germans. What is done in such a war
;n the name of France need not shake the citadel of I
French civilization. France can never become our en
emv, whatever the words or actions of men speaking
the French language but acting according to the im-!
pulses of Nazi hearts.
Dedication of United
Service Organizations
Building May .'JOth
—
Dedication of the new United i
Service Orgamzations club build
ing for the enlisted men of Ladd
I Field is set for Memorial Day,
May 30.
Date for the ceremony mark
ing ^ the opening of the $33,000
i 10-room structure was announc
l ed by John J. Caragher, USO
i director.
The dedicatory program will
be staged in the Empress Theater
I in conjunction with the annual
Memorial Day ritual of Dorman
H. Baker Post No. 11, American i
Legion.
Open To Public
Doors of the USO building, lo
cated on First Avenue, overlook'
ing the Chena River, will be j
thrown open immediately after j
the Memorial Day ceremony and
dedication. Invitation to the pub-!
lie to inspect the soldiers’ club
will be extended throughout the
day.
Official opening date of the
USO and its program of recrea
tional activities for enlisted men
is Monday June 1.
Assistant director to Caragher
will be Miss Marjorie C. Stark
weather and Maurice “Duke”
Marshall, both long experienced
in recreational work.
cepted. Farmers whose commodities are grown and 1
processed on his farm, if the total of such sales do not i
! exceed $75 a month, are excepted,
j Apparently the enforcement of this order will not'
j come in Alaska until the new-appointed Administrator1
! Mrs. Mildred Hermann has time to set up office. Dead
lines on other orders of the Office of Price Administra-'
tion have been extended for Alaska in other instances.'
—Juneau Empire.!
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Lieut. Edward II. O Hare, the navy’s ranking air hero
who shot down six Jap homhers in one action off the
Gilbert Islands, was reunited in Phoenix, Ariz. with
his bride, the former Rita Wooster. O'Hare has been
summoned to Washington and Hew the Pacific in a
Clipper plane.