™l NOME NUGGET
OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS_
VOL. LVI No. 134 NOME, ALASKA, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1954 Per Copy—15^
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Publisher Tells Alaska Chamber
Statehood Will Bring New Burst
Of Expansion and Development
ANCHORAGE, WL-Ralph D.«
Paine Jr., publisher of Fortune
Magazine, predicted here Satur
day that when Alaska gets state
hood, things will start to happen.
He told the All-Alaska Cham
ber of Commerce that “Americans
have always shown a burst of
creative energy when they are
released from political and social
conditions to which they were op
posed.”
Paine said that Time, Life and
Fortune favor statehood for what
he called “the great frontier terri
tory of Alaska.”
The publisher declared he shares
the general American respect for
General Eisenhower’s military
.judgement but he cannot believe
that the President has been ade
quately informed on Alaska. In
Paine's words: “If there are any
real military advantages to terri
torial status, I have never seen a
convincing case.” He added: “If
Hawaii presents no military prob
lems, it is hard to see how Alaska
could.”
Paine said two things should be
considered in the matter of Alas
ka as a state—first, the impor
tance of land policy, and second,
whether conservation policies that
are valid in the U.S.A. should be
applied to a frontier like Alaska.
The publisher said while he did
not feel competent to specify land
policies for Alaska, he does be
lieve the objective should be to
get land into private hands as fast
as possible. He commented that
Alaska is so large and varied that
many methods will be needed to
get a substantial amount of land
into private hands. Paine declared
the idea of the 160-acre home
stead seems to him to be “totally
obsolete.” He said the economics
of modern agriculture require
great investments in machinery
and equipment and large acreage
to use them on.
Turning to conservation, Paine
asserted he is in complete sym
pathy with sound conservation
policies . . . that he is even in sym
pathy with deliberate preserva
tion of great tracts of wilderness
. . . just for the sake of wilderness.
And he also favors reasonable
regulation of private exploitation.
Then Paine went on to say that
Alaska should make every effort
to attract the great corporation,
because today’s corporation is
prepared to make the tremendous
investments that Alaska needs.
The Fortune publisher told his
audience that if Alaska wants
statehood, Alaska should have
statehood. And he declared "Alas
ka’s present dependence on Wash
ington is not healthy—it is cer
tainly not healthy for Alaska and
it’s not healthy for the union.”
McCarthy, Watkins
Have Angry Words
On Peress Action
WASHINGTON, (jW—Sen. Mc
Carthy accused Sen. Watkins <R
Utahi today of being “derelict in
his duty” in saying he didn’t know
if anyone was at fault in the Per
ess case. Watkins fjred back: “I
don’t believe you can ever be sat
isfied unless you can find some
body who could be shot or hung.”
The two big figures in the Mc
Carthy censure row confronted
one another at a suddenly called
hearing of McCarthy’s investiga
tions subcommittee.
McCarthy said he scheduled it
to find out whether Watkins could
throw any light on who was re
sponsible for the promotion and
honorable discharge of Maj. Irv
ing Peress, Army dentist who had
. refused to say whether he had
Communist connections.
Watkins told the Wisconsin sen
ator the way to fix the responsi
bility was to question 30 Army
officers whose names were sub
mitted to the McCarthy subcom
mittee last June by Secretary of
the Army Stevens.
Watkins said Stevens had ad
vised that the list included all
officers involved in the Peress
case.
In a hearing spattered with
sharp words and caustic phrases,
Watkins refused to be budged
from his position that perhaps no
one was “criminally culpable” for
the Peress matter.
Bishop Chides
Indian Bureau
In St. Patrick’s
NEW YORK, lift—The most Rev.
Thomas J. McDonnell, Roman
Catholic coadjutor bishop of
Wheeling, W. Va., said Sunday
the federal Indian Bureau has
“violated” faith so often that
“ruin is seriously threatened” for
tribes in the United States and
Alaska.
Bishop McDonnell made the
statement in a sermon at a sol
emn pontifical mass in St. Pat
rick’s Cathedral in observance of
the golden jubilee of the Mar
quette League, Catholic Indian
mission-aid organization.
The Indian has “long been Am
erica’s most neglected American,”
he said.
“The old, and very old, strug
gle for justice and a chance for
life for the American Indian is
still going on. We are told by
those who know, the struggle was
never so intense as it is at the
present hour. Probably the need
for help was never so acute.”
Bishop McDonnell read to some
3,000 persons attending the mass
a statement edited by the office
of the Marquette League, which
said lack of schools has given the
Indian the highest illiteracy rata
of any group in the United States,
and lack of medical care gives
him the worst health record.
Chinese Nationalists Plan
“Severest Blows” for Reds’
Sinking of Destroyer
TAIPEH, Formosa, (At—1The De
fense Ministry said tonight the
Nationalist navy was determined
to deal the “Communist bandits
severest blows” for the sinking
Sunday of the 1,800-ton destroyer
escort Taiping by four Red tor
pedo boats.
Of the Taiping’s 130-man crew,
28 officers and men are missing,
a communique said. The rest were
picked up by rescue ships.
The ship appears to have con
ducted a running battle for six
hours, when she went down 12
miles off Tachen port she had
sought to reach. Chinese reports
said she sank with “guns blazing.”
The sinking marked the Com
munists’ first use of torpedo boats
and was interpreted here as a
stark warning of stronger Red
measures to come.
Explorer-Archeologist
Says Unalaska to Become
Central Point for Science
SEATTLE, liP)—A MicHigan ex
plorer-archeologist says historic
Unalaska, once the gateway to the
Bering Sea and long a trading
center, will become a central
point for Alaska scientific explor
ations.
Ted Bank, executive director of
the newly-formed Institute for
Regional Explorations, has re
turned here after a summer of ex
plorations in the Aleutians. The
institute is sponsored by the Uni
versity of Michigan.
Bank said he uncovered several
potential archeological sites dur
ing his most recent trip. One, on
Eider Point near Unalaska Vil
lage, is a treasure of such remains
and is nearly 30 feet deep.
On other islands of the Aleutian
chain, he said, he excavated burial
sites and probed ancient burial
caves.
The oldest date he has estab
lished so far for human activity
in the Aleutians places man there
500 years before the birth of
Christ, he said.
Moscow Urges U.S.
To Renew Old Trade Ties
With Soviet Union
LONDON, liP)—A Moscow radio
commentator urged the United
States today to renew its old trade
ties with the Soviet Union.
“The U.S.A. and this country
have long-standing traditions of
mutually advantageous com
merce,” the speaker said in an
English language broadcast for
North America.
“Listeners will remember how
successfully many U.S. companies
manufacturing machine tools,
equipment for the building trades
and mining and textile industries,
farm machinery and other items
traded with the U.S.S.R. in the
’30s and ’40s.
The commentator said the Rus
sians are satisfied “peaceful and
fruitful cooperation between our
countries” is something “the com
mon people of the U.S.A. want as
much as any other peace-minded
people.”
, V
Seward Peninsula’s 11 Gold
Dredges Shut Down for Season
-- <
Key West Deluged With
19.88 In. Rain in 18 Hours
KEY WEST, Fla., (IP) — Key
West, although it rapidly “shed
water over the side” of the island,
was still in the middle of a huge
cleanup Monday after record
shattering weekend rains.
A unique weather formation
dumped 19.88 inches of rain on
the city of some 50,000 during an
18-hour period Saturday and Sun
day.
Water lifted iron man - hole
covers when sewers were unable
to handle the deluge.
First Flight
Completed In
Transpolar Route
WINNIPEG, IIP — Scandinavian
Airlines’ Royal Viking landed
here at 8:15 a.m. today after com
pleting the first flight on the new
transpolar route between Los An
geles and Copenhagen, Denmark.
The Los Angeles - Winnipeg
flight was completed in 5 hours
and 43 minutes, but the pilots
circled for 10 minutes to arrive at
the scheduled time.
Word from the pilots before
landing that the outside tempera
ture was 31 brought shudders
from the Southern Californians
aboard.
The Royal Viking took off from
the fogbound Los Angeles airfield
at 12:05 a.m., PST. It was the first
plane to take off from the field in
six hours.
Aboard are film actors Jean
Hersholt and Walter Pidgeon,
public officials and 24 newsmen,
including this writer.
Shortly before the takeoff, act
ress Cyd Charisse chistened the
Royal Viking with the traditional
champagne bottle. ,
At 8:10 p.m. today, a similar
plane—and likewise loaded with
newsmen and dignitaries—will
leave Copenhagen headed west.
The eastbound plane’s flying time,
for the 5,800-mile “short course,”
is 22 hours. But the westbound
craft, due to prevailing westerly
winds, will be in the air about 25
hours.
The arctic route, only about 30
per cent of it over water, is 600
miles shorter than the usual fly
ing path via New York.
Cardinal’s Father, 96,
Gets Own Life Insurance
ABINGTON, Mass., UPI—William
S. Spellman, father , of Francis
Cardinal Spellman, the Catholic
archbishop of New York, enjoys
the rare experience today of col
lecting on his own life insurance.
Spellman, who is 96, has out
lived the policy. Insurance experts
say that happens to only one per
son in 100,000.
Union 'Central Life Insurance
Co. said the cardinal’s father
would be handed a check for sev
eral thousand dollars represent
ing full payment of the policy.
Spellman said he is “very
healthy and feeling fine.”
> By SEN. HOWARD LYNG
The last of the U.S. Smelting,
Refining and Mining Company’s
four giant 9-cubic-foot bucket
dredges is scheduled to shut down
in a day or two, signalling the end
of another mining season, for it
is the last of Seward Peninsula’s
11 gold gredges to suspend opera
tions for the year.
In addition to the U.S. Smelting,
Refining and Mining Co.’s fleet,
which operates within sight and
sound of Nome, the following
dredges have been layed up for
the winter in the Seward Penin
sula country:
In the Council district, operat
ing at the mouth of Ophir Creek,
a 3-cubic-foot bucket dredge
of the Coplan Consolidated En
terprises of Nome is managed by
Frank Coplan.
Lee Brothers of Nome run two
dredges, one with 5-cubic-foot,
the other with 3V6-cubic-foot
buckets, on Solomon River east of
Nome. These dredges have been
in operation on the Solomon River
since 1936 with the exception of
the war years.
Ten miles back of Nome, Straub
and Towner, of Nome, have been
hydraulicing on Buster Creek, a
tributary of Nome River, for
(Continued on Page Two)
Diesel Locomotives
To Be Used in Yukon
SCHENECTEDY, N.Y., m—Die
sel electric locomotives are being
introduced in the Yukon.
The General Electric Co. has
sent two specially winterized lo
comotives to -be operated on the
111-mile White Pass and Yukon
route, a railroad between Skag
way, Alaska, and Whitehorse,
Canada, where temperatures drop
to 65 below zero in the winter.
The locomotives, which will be
put into operation this winter,
must go from sea level to an ele
vation of 2,885 feet in one 20-mile
stretch. Each is expected to pull
260 tons compared with 160 tons
hauled by the steam locomotives
now in service.
Japanese Politician
Disapproves of Russia’s
Force-Feeding of Chickens
TOKYO, IfP)—What a Japanese
politician saw on a Soviet collec
tive chicken farm near Moscow
last summer has convinced him
he said, that Communists “will
stop at nothing to gain their
ends.”
Isamu Imaizumi, right wing so
cialist, writes in a newspaper that
he saw a food pipe thrust into a
chicken’s stomach.
“An operator steps on a pedal
and one portion of food is sent
into the stomach of the bird. Sud
denly the stomach swells up and
the hen screams. This is indeed an
outrage of chickens’ rights, as it
were,” says Imaizumi.
“I asked the woman in charge,
‘Why do you do such a mean
thing?’ She explained to me: ‘Our
primary objective is not to raise
chickens, but to get eggs . . . we
do not care about the will of
hens.’ ”