m NOME NUGGET
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OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS_ __
VOL. LV No. 142 NOME, ALASKA, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1953 v Per Copy—15^
First Test In Short
Creek Polygamy
Trial Starts Today
KINGMAN, Ariz., UPi—Arizona’s
case against the Short Creek poly
gamists comes up for its first big
test here today.
Twenty-seven of the 96 defend
ants will appear in Mohave
County Superior Court for ar
raignment.
How they plead is expected to
reflect the strength of the evi
dence against them, and it also
may determine whether the
charges will have to be fought to
a final conclusion in the courts.
The 27 are all men. The state
contends they are the guiding
force in the polygamous move
ment that has dominated the re
mote community of Short Creek,
astride the Arizona-Utah border,
for more than 20 years.
If they plead guilty, cases
against the other 69 defendants—
seven men and 62 women—may
be settled quickly. All have the
same attorneys.
If they plead innocent, a long
court fight is anticipated.
Two previous attempts to crush
the polygamists, in 1936 and 1944,
failed.
All of the accused are charged
with conspiracy to commit the
crimes of adultery, statutory rape,
bigamy, open and notorious co
habitation, contributing to the de
linquency of minors and marry
ing the spouse of another.
Arizona authorities maintain
some of the men had as many as
six wives.
Foreign Secretary Eden
Says Britain Looks For
Big Four Meeting Soon
LONDON, UP! — Foreign Secre
tary Anthony Eden said today
Britain looked forward to an early
meeting of the Big Four foreign
ministers and was confident the
United States shared this hope.
Eden told the House of Com
mons the Russian note of Nov. 26
means the Soviet government is
prepared to meet with the United
States, Britain and France “with
out conditions.”
Laborites quickly pressed the
Foreign Secretary on whether
Washington shared his view or
whether the U.S. State Depart
ment had taken a “discouraging
attitude.” Eden replied:
“I have naturally had communi
cations from the United States
and I have every reason to be
lieve that the answer I have just
given will be endorsed by the
United States government.”
Anchorage Man Is Candidate
For Rhodes Scholarship
SEATTLE, UP! — Four Washing
ton men, one from Anchorage,
and another from Nebraska have
been named the six Washington
States candidates for Rhodes scho
larships.
The Alaskan is Robert L. Pea
body.
They will be chosen Dec. 9 to
represent the state in competition
with candidates from Oregon,
Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and
North Dakota.
Alaska Amateur Radio
Emergency Plan Approved
By Civil Defense Agency
JUNEAU, [ff)—Alaska’s amateur
radio civil emergency service plan
■has received Federal approval.
Col. James C. Crockett, director
of the territory’s Civil Defense
program, said approval has come
from both the Federal Communi
cations Commission and the Fed
eral Civil Defense agency.
Alaska is divided into nine
areas under the emergency com
munications plans. Crockett said
it will enable amateur radio op
erators to provide communication,
for civil defense purposes on
local, regional and national levels.
James H. Heay of Juneau is top
radio officer for the program.
800 Sacks of Alaska Spuds
Offered to Fishermen But
Refused by Hendrickson
FAIRBANKS, UPl — An offer of
800 sacks of potatoes to relieve
the food shortage in areas suffer
ing from this year’s small-income
salmon run has been turned down
by Waino Hendrickson, Secretary
of Alaska.
Hendrickson said the potatoes
could not be used because of a
lack of warm storage facilities at
Anchorage or Bristol Bay, centers
of the distressed area. The offer
was made by the Fairbanks
Chamber of Commerce and Tan
ana Valley farmers.
Mother and Infant Girl
Disappear On 30-Mile Trip
From Moose Pass-Seward
ANCHORAGE, UP) — Fifty men
joined Saturday in a search for
a 24'-year-old Moose Pass woman
and her infant daughter.
The woman, Mrs. Lila Morri
son, wife of a civil engineer now
in the states, and their daughter,
Sheila, 15 months, left Moose Pass
for her parents’ home in Seward
Friday.
She never arrived at Seward,
30 miles from Moose Pass, and a
search was begun.
Meanwhile the Sfeward Terri
torial Police said it was investi
gating a report that an object,
possibly an automobile, had been
sighted in 75 feet of water near
the Pass. Snow had been falling
in the area continuously since
Thanksgiving Day and now is
about 18 inches deep, making the
search efforts difficult.
Elizabeth and Philip On
Three-Week Crossing Of
Pacific To Australia
BALBOA, C. Z., UP) — World
touring Queen Elizabeth II and
her entourage headed westward
into the Pacific Monday aboard
the 15,902 - ton cargo - passenger
ship Gothic after a one-day stop
in Panama and the Canal Zone.
The cargo - laden Gothic will
steam about 3,500 miles with the
royal party before a two-day stop
over Dec. 17 at Suva in the Fiji
Islands. It will touch again at
Tonga on Dec. 20 and arrive Dec.
23 — in time for Christmas — at
Aukland, New Zealand. The
queen next will spend nearly two
months in Australia.
Printing of Ickes
Diary Reveals Tart
Opinions of F.D.R.
WASHINGTON, OP—-Harold L.
Ickes, who seemed never to hold
his tongue for any man while he
lived, has come up after death
with some tart opinions of the
New Deal and Franklin D. Roose
velt.
The “Old Curmudgeon” found
the New Deal, of which he was a
moving spirit, spendthrift with
the taxpayers’ money and headed
by a man he felt he couldn’t trust.
Roosevelt’s Secretary of the In
terior wrote in 1936 that he had
been “sold down the river” by
the President.
Ickes regretted, in fact, that he
hadn’t walked out of Roosevelt’s
cabinet a year before.
He felt there was a “very real
chance” he could have been nomi
nated by the Republicans for the
presidency. And he thought that,
if nominated, he probably would
have won.
These opinions—sharply chal
lenged by one - time Democratic
National Chairman James A. Far
ley, among others—came to light
in “The Secret Diary of Harold
L. Ickes,” of which a first, 705
page installment will be published
tomorrow.
Ickes reveals that, for all his
misgivings about Roosevelt, the
president’s wife and chief aides,
and in spite of his own secret
presidential hopes, he stayed on
as a New Deal stalwart because
he feared the Republicans would
deliver the country to big busi
ness if they got the chance.
Ickes died early last year and
the six million word diary he kept
under lock and key is only now
being released piecemeal by his
widow—censored at that, to spare
the feelings of the living from
some of Ickes’ more sulphurous
comments.
This day by day record pic
tures the first four years of the
New Deal as dominated by a
large extent by struggles for
power among such officials as the
late Harry JL. Hopkins, then Sec
retary of the Treasury Henry
Morgenthau Jr., and, swinging
lustily in the midst of all this,
Ickes himself.
One surprise: Ickes says then
Secretary of Agriculture Henry
Wallace Jr., later much criticized
for overfriendliness toward Rus
sia, strongly opposed United
States recognition of the Soviet
Union early in the first Roosevelt
administration.
It was after Roosevelt did not
back him in an expansion of the
Interior Department, to take in
all conservation activities, that
Ickes lamented he had been
“double-crossed.”
Anchorage Has $6 Million Budget
ANCHORAGE, UHl — A $6,416,
179 budget designed to wipe out
the city’s deficit and “hold the
line” in all municipal spending
was presented to the city council
here last Friday night.
The proposed budget is $210,362
higher than the current budget
and is based on continuation of
the present 20-mill tax levy.
Korean Housewife Held
By Police Responsible
For Starting Pusan Fire
PUSAN, (ff) — South Korean
police said Monday night they are
holding a Korean housewife on
charges that her “carelessness”
caused Friday night’s disastrous
40-miliion-dollar Pusan fire—the
worst in Korean history.
The police would not say where
they are holding the woman and
refused to answer other queries.
A police spokesman said She' is
accused of leaving a small -char
coal stove burning unattended
when she left her home. It burned
down her house and high winds
spread the blaze over one sixth
of Pusan, a city of more than a
million people.
Fire Misses Army Finance Bldg.
PUSAN, Korea, (ff) — American
soldiers who watched one - sixth
of this jammed port city burn
last weekend perked up somewhat
today — they found out the fire
missed the finance building.
Today’s pay day.
Truman Has Nothing More
To Say On White Case
NEW YORK, (ff)—Former Presi
dent Harry S. Truman came into
town Monday, apparently in no
mood to talk about political
feuds.
He arrived by train and was
met by his daughter Margaret,
and Edwin K. Hastings, vice presi
dent of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel,
where he will stay.
As he walked briskly from a
train to an elevator, and thence
to a waiting limosine, Truman
said he had no further comment
*
on the Harry Dexter White con
troversy.
Asked if he had anything more
to say about Sen. McCarthy and
their radio-television exchange of
charges and counter-charges, Tru
man said:
“No further comment on that.”
Asked what his schedule was
for Monday, Truman pointed his
thumb at his daughter and said
with a grin, “Here’s my schedule.”
Nixon Receives Cool
Welcome In India
NEW DELHI, India, iSfl — Vice
President Nixon arrived in New
Delhi Monday for informal talks
with Prime Minister Nehru.
Questioners in parliament tried
in vain to pin down Nehru on
whether he would take up with
Nixon the hot issue of possible
American military aid to Pakistan.
The official attitude of the In
dian government toward Nixon
appeared to be cool but correct.
Cabinet ministers made no secret
of their lack of enthusiasm for the
visit from the globe-girdling Am
erican vice president. India’s
press mirrored the ministers’ atti
tude.
NEW ANS HOSPITAL AT
ANCHORAGE NOW OPEN
ANCHORAGE, UR — The $10,
000,000 Alaska Native Service
hospital here has been officially
opened to the public with top
local ANS and staff officials play
ing host.
Russia Probably
Will Participate In
Korea Peace Talks
PANMUNJOM, (ff» — The Com
munists today offered a broad
proposal for a Korean peace con
ference — some of it new and
some of it old—but most of it got
a cold shoulder from U.S. delegate
Arthur H. Dean. Dean in turn of
fered the Reds a compromise plan
to let Russia sit in on the con
ference as a “neighbor of Korea,”
taking part as a “third party”
with full voting privileges.
■ “We expect the law of gravity
will operate to take care of that
situation and we would not be
surprised if Russia would show
up as the chief spokesman for the
Communists.”
Both sides agreed to take a day
off to study the new proposals. •
Communist efforts to woo back
anti - Red Korean and Chinese
prisoners remained at a stand
still, with the Reds charging that
the U. N. Command is ruining
their explanations. The Commun
ists have not held interviews for
more than two weeks.
The 90-day explanation period
ends Dec. 23.
A reliable source said he be
lieves the Allied Command will
begin interviews next week with
22 Americans, 1 Briton and 328
North Koreans who are listed as
unwilling to return home.
A statement released by the
Prisoner Repatriation Commission
Sunday night indicated the Amer
icans expect to meet the U.N. ex
planation teams but are “deter
mined not to go back.”
Ask Prevention
Political Meddling
In Tax Collecting
WASHINGTON, UP) —Hard and
fast laws to prevent Treasury De
partment favoritism and political
meddling in federal tax collections
was demanded today by House
investigators.
The Ways and Means subcom
mittee, in the fourth installment
today of a final report on two
years of investigating tax fraud
and irregularities, recommended:
1. Enactment of changes in the
Internal Revenue Code to curb
authority of the Secretary of the
Treasury over actual administra
tion of the tax laws to “prevent
political meddling in the future.”
2. Giving the Internal Revenue
Commissioner direct authority
over tax collections in all matters
not involving national fiscal pol
icy.
The report observed:
“Corruption, of course, is pos
sible at any level of government,
but political influence conceiv
ably would be less strongly felt
by career employes of the bureau
than by politically appointed
Treasury officials.
“If the Treasury no longer has
ultimate control over personnel or
matters personally affecting Bu
reau employes, Treasury officials
will possess less power to influ
ence what should be administra
tive decisions in the Bureau.”