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
Speed Is Important
Donald M. Nelson, chairman of the War Production
Board, seems to have put into practice one of the fun
damental precepts of modern war — that speed, and
not price, is what pays off in producing war materials.
Nelson has suspended competitive bidding on mili
tary contracts in order to speed delivery of planes*
tanks, ships and equipment and to give more war
contracts to smaller manufacturers.
This is an order — not talk of a plan for “bits and
pieces” or “farming out.”
Of course, it will cost more.
Small companies just can’t, in many cases, produce
articles of war as cheaply as mass production indus
tries. Last fall, for instance, the Washington Merry
Go-Round reported that one company submitted a bid
for $1100 for a gun which bigger companies were
making for $600.
It was not a question of profiteering. The disparity
was due to the fact that the smaller company was not
experienced in mass-production methods.
Under Nelson’s order, the small company will get
the order despite the added cost and United States
fighting men will get the guns.
This does not mean there will be an orgy of spend
ing, or that there will be a return to the wasteful cost
plus price system of th.e first World War.
The Government will watch contracts closely, just
as a businessman would, for signs of profiteering. If
an industry slips something over, the Government
can make adjustments on the next contract—adjust
ments that will make the profiteer wish he hadn’t
tried to be too smart in wartime.
But the vital point is that precious time will be
saved in awarding contracts by avoiding the complic
ated bidding system, and by putting to work more of
the nation’s 200.000 factories. —Daily Alaska Empire.
e'okvn Shoe!
i
It is obvious that Governor Ernest M. Gruening of
Alaska has lost nothing of the agressiveness that dis
tinguished his career as a publicist and crusading
newspaper editor before he entered government ser
vice. Visiting the United States for the last fortnight,
the Territorial official has been outspoken in emphasis,
on the offensive possibilities of Alaska.
Governor Gruening has told reporters he is not
nearly so interested in the purely defensive character
istics of his territory as in its advantages as a base I
for delivering direct blows at the Pacific enemy. “Tt
is our offensive that needs bolstering,” he said after
a talk with the President, amid strong indications that
his requests for intensified offensive preparations in
Alaska would be speedily fulfilled.
A casual look at the map is all that is necessary to
put Dr. Gruening’s point across. We tend to think of
the Pacific as the ocean of immense distances, and those
10,000-mile convoys to the present fighting zones do
nothing to contradict the notion.
But the northern Pacific is a far different matter.
Here the farthest United States outpost—the island of
Attu. in the Aleutians—is less than 600 miles, or two
hours by bomber, from the big Japanese naval base at
Paramushiro, off the tip ot the Kamchatka Peninsula.
Tokyo itself is but a couple of thousand miles from
our base at Dutch Harbor, Unalaska. Back in 1924,
the famous round-the-world flight by American Army
airmen followed the Aleutian chain out over the Pac
ific. and the airmen were never out of sight of land
for more than three or four hours at a time, even
with the slow equipment of those days. As a matter
of fact, the Aleutians sit right on the great circle
route from Alaska to Tokyo.
Even if the distances involved were twice as great,
Dr. Gruening would be talking the language of the
man in hte street when he plugs for offensive warfare,
in preference to that of the defensive variety. “Hit
’em where they live” is the common man’s principal
war aim, and the sooner a few shells and bombs si.art
dropping in Mr. Moto’s front yard, the better John Q.
is going to feel about the whole thing.
—Chicago Daily. News.
“What is to be found on the menu of practically
■every inn in this country?” asks a temperance advo
cate. Thumbprints, perhaps.—Punch.
We want to be here a few years hence, to see what
happens if someone tries to marry a Dionne without
permission of the copyright owners.
—Portland Oregonian.
Farmers Irritated Over Farm Prices
Bernard Baruch Warned of Dancer
c
WASHINGTON — Inside fact about the current
quarrel over inflation and the farm bill is that sage old
Bernie Baruch long ago warned the President, Leon
Henderson and the inner circle that they could not
stop inflation if they put the brake onlv on prices.
“Price-fixing is like a four-legged chair,” Baruch
warned them. “It won’t stand on two legs or even
three.”
There is no use regulating consumer prices, he said,
unless you also regulate profits, also wages, also farm
prices. If one of them gets out of hand, the others
will too. Baruch, who was head of the War Industries
Board in the last war, has been harping on this point
for months. He urged Congress more than a year ago
to adopt a very high excess profits tax to take away
all the war profits from industry; and at the same time
he urged the President to clamp down on wages as
well as prices.
The President actually got a little irritated at Ba
ruch’s pounding away on this theme. Today, how
ever, chief resentment of the farm belt is not'so much
against Roosevelt’s urging that farm prices be kept
down, but over the fact that labor’s income has sky
rocketed while the farmer’s hasn’t. Furthermore, the
farmer complains that he has to pay a lot more for
his labor—when he can get it at all—but be can’t in
crease his farm prices proportionately.
JAP SUB TOURS PEARL HARBOR
One amazing incident of the Pearl Harbor attack
can now be told. Already announced in the Roberts
Report was the fact that a small Japanese submarine
was sunk off the entrance of Pearl Harbor at 6:33 a.
m., about one hour before Jap airplanes came over.
The submarine has since been raised, and its navi
gation chart log, translated into English, showed a
remarkable voyage. The submarine had actually made
a complete tour inside this vital naval base, had es
caped unseen, and the captain had noted the location
of each U. S. vessel together with the time he passed
it.
The chart showed the Jap sub had arrived off the
entrance of Pearl Harbor at 1:50 a.m., Dec. 7—a few
hours before the air attack. It waited at the harbor’s,
mouth until 4:20 a.m., when the net was lowered to
let a garbage scow out. Then the sub sneaked in. The j
commander noted the location of the battleships Utah
and the West Virginia —the former announced sunk, i
He marked down the positions of twelve destroyers, j
whch he said were huddled close together: also three j
gunboats, and the cruiser Trenton. In another place'
he noted “large white man’s house.’’
The chart showed that he passed out of the harbor
unseen at 5:25 a. m. and apparently lay off the har
bor’s mouth for the next hour while he radioed the ex’
act location of each ship to the awaiting Jap carriers.
About the only thing the Jap commander failed to put:
in his log was that at 6:33 a.m. he was sunk.
j
BRITISH RED TAPE
“There’ll always be an England,” but U. S. fliers
now trying to save India are wondering why. British
officials in India don’t want them to enter india until
31 days after they have taken yellow fever shots. By
that time the Japanese, who don’t have to observe the
31 days rule, may obviate the need of U. S. fliers to go
to India at all.
—Washington Merry-Go-Round by Drew Pearson & Robert S. Allen
I
PIONEER LINE
Bases At
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PASSENGER INSURANCE CARRIED
FREIGHT ~ EXPRESS — MAIL
WIEN ALASKA AIRLINES
AP AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING PHOTOGRAPHY
This is the silver-and-oak plaque on which names of
the winning AP member paper and photographer will
be inscribed in the national newsphoto contest to be
held annually, beginning in 1942, to select the best of
the pictures winning top places in state contests con
ducted by Associated Press newspapers throughout the
country.
YOU CAN'T I^LTT ADVERTISING
you're talking to a paiupk
*
■>
36 Coal
-
Miners Praise
Roosevelt
Springfield, 111., March 31
—Thirty six men sentenc
ed to prison in 1937 for
mine war bombings said
thanks a million tonight to,
President Roosevelt.
Federal Attorney How-,
ard Doyle declared Mr.1
Roosevelt ordered t h a 11
$350,000 in fines be return- j
ed to the coal miners. The
fipes were imposed at the
time the men were sent to
prison on charges of con
spiring to dynamite rail
i road trains during a south
ern Illinois mine war.
! The members of the Pro'
' gressive Miners union have,
t completed their sentences, i
Doyle said President Roose
velt asked that the fines
not be collected in the in
terests of justice.
---
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DESTROYER LEADS WAY FJR CONVOY IN PACIFIC
' .. ■r"' ■ ■ 1 -rrrfBUi-mi . . ■ ... .
The log line of convoy (top) “somwhere in the Pacific” stretches across the J
horizon. Merchantment of every size and description make up the convoy. Below
a destroyer, one of the units of the convoy’s escort, leads thevv ay for some of the
vessels.