SSI NOME NUGGET
OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
VOL. LVIII No. 53NOME, ALASKA, FRIDAY, MAY 4, 1956 Per Copy—15^
Canada’s Bid for Corridors Across
Alaska Panhandle Wouldn't Have
Much Success in U.S. Election Year
handle is one of the basic factors
limiting mineral and hydroelec
tric development in the north
west section of British Columbia.
The area is reported rich in
mineral deposits.
Because the idea of corridors’ is
new and no official Canadian ap
proach has been made, there is no
settled State Department policy
on the question. Unofficial depart
ment thinking is that no country
can consider surrendering terri
tory to another without a great
deal of thought and discussion.
But Delegate Bartlett, Alaska’s
non-voting representative in Con
gress, says he is willing to ex
plore the idea. He has gone so far
as to write to J. A. Simmons, lib
eral member of the Canadian Par
liament for the Yukon, suggesting
Sgt. Lawrence Burrows
Retires After 26 Years
Service With the ACS
SEATTLE, dP)—M. Sgt. Lawrence
A. Burrow’s 26-year tour of duty
with the Alaska Communications
System is over.
Now, at retirement, he and his
wife Eileen, whom he met in Nome
while she was teaching school
there, plan to move from west j
Seattle to a farm on Whidbey Is- |
land, north of Seattle in Puget
Sound. They have four children.
Since March 1954 Burrow has
been chief operator of the Seattle
ACS station. He retired last week.
He joined the Wamcats, an
earlier name for the ACS, in 1930
and his first assignment was as
chief radio operator on the Army
cableship Dellwood.
His stations included Nome, Sit
ka, Candle, Ketchikan, Adak and
Fort Glen.
i they might get together to talk it
J over. Simmons first advanced the
i proposal.
Bartlett said the Simmons pro
posal is a “very reasonable sug
gestion which should command
attention and consideration.” If
Simmons thinks it worth while,
Bartlett plans to go to Ottawa to
discuss the matter with Simmons
and Canadian government offi
cials.
Bartlett suggested there should
be a “trading arrangement of some
kind”—that Canada should offer
some concession, territorial or
otherwise, to the United States.
He said he had nothing specific in i
mind, but added:
“I don’t think the United States
would want to provide a corridor
without some gain ”
WASHINGTON, iff*—Canada will
probably get a mixed reception if
she asks the United States for
corridors across the Alaska pan
handle to the Pacific Ocean.
She likely will find official
Washington reluctant, certainly in
this election year, to entertain any
thought of giving up American
territory, even to so close and
friendly a neighbor as Canada.
Alaskans, on the other hand,
may be willing to talk business,
especially if the Canadians offer
compensating concessions..
That, in brief, is the reaction
here to word from Ottawa that the
Canadian government is consider
ing whether to ask the U.S. offi
cially for corridors across the
panhandle, a 550-mile strip ol
Alaskan territory which cuts off
Yukon Territory and northern
British Columbia from access to
the sea. ,
Canadian mining interests say
the “fence” created by the pan
Last Legislature Held Responsible
For Poor Condition of Jobless Fund
JUNEAU, UP!—Two members of;
the Employment Security Com
mission and Labor Commissioner
Henry Benson blame the formula
enacted by the last legislature for
the “perilous” financial condition
of the Unemployment Compensa
tion Fund.
Joining Benson in criticism of
the law yesterday were ESC chair
man Herbert Rowland of Juneau
and C. W. Snedden, management
representative and publisher of
the Fairbanks News-Miner. The
commission will conclude a three
day meeting today.
Benson said the law suffered
because of “emergency condi
tions” under which it was enacted
and “good legislation cannot be
enacted under the conditions that
prevailed during the last legisla
ture.”
Rowland and Snedden said the
benefit payment formula has re
sulted in a current deficit of $1,
746,000 in the Unemployment
Fund.
The formula provides for higher
employer taxes, a new tax on em
ployes, and increased benefit pay
ments.
In the six-month period since
last November, benefit payments
have totaled $4 million while less
than $2 million has been taken in.
“Last August,” Benson said, “I
advised the governor this situa
tion was going to occur and I then
requested the governor to call a
special session of the legislature
to deal with that subject.
“Unfortunately, information was
withheld from the governor, and
the public was led to believe that
tax revenues were sufficient to
pay benefits. It is now apparent
that when the next legislature
meets, the fund will again be de
pleted and Alaska’s unemployed
will find themselves in the des
perate situation they were in last
winter when the benefit payments
were at a standstill.”
Rowland said: “It is obvious the
law must be changed if the fund
is to continue, and we will have
recommendations to make to the
next legislature.”
I
Detroit Widow, Foster
Mother to 45 Children,
Is America’s 195ti Mother
DETROIT, lff>—A Detroit widow
whose kind heart and 'busy hands
have brought love and a happy
home of 45 children is the Ameri
can Mother of 1956.
She is Jane Maxwell Pritchard,
who at 67 still spends nearly all
her waking hours making a home
for 17 lively girls who live in her
rambling brick house on Detroit’s
east side. All are children from
broken homes, placed under her
care by the Juvenile Court.
In years gone by Mrs. Pritchard
has been a foster parent to 17
other youngsters and reared 11
more, only one of them her own.
All call her mother.
Her oldest “child" is an adopted
daughter, now 43. The youngest
of her formally adopted brood is
a pair of 14-year-old twins. Her
own son, Dale, is 38.
Mrs. Pritchard was sorting
laundry when word came that a
jury of the American Mothers
Committee, meeting in New York,
had chosen her as the outstanding
mother of the year.
Hiring for 2nd
And 4th Divisions
At All-Time High
FAIRBANKS, MB—Employment
in the Fairbanks area, bolstered
by large-scale hiring on remote
military sites and a large turnover
in civil service, hit an all-time
high for the month of April, and a
one-fourth boost over early May
1955, Mrs. Olga Reeves, Employ
ment Service office manager here,
reports.
During the past two months,
which normally are slow pending
opening of summer construction
and mining, employment here has
increased 15 percent with 1,498
■^persons securing jobs through the
Fairbanks office of the Alaska
Territorial Employment Service.
This figure covers the entire
administrative area, both the Sec
ond and Fourth Judicial Divisions,
but almost all the hiring was done
in Fairbanks.
51 Cows Being Flown
From Utah to Alaska’s
Matanuska Valley
ROY, Utah UP—A northern Utah
pilot is flying a herd of 51 regis
tered Holsteins from nearby Gar
land to Palmer, Alaska.
The cattle belong to Fred M.
Grover, Garland dairyman, who
is moving the herd to his new
holdings in Alaska’s Matanuska
Valley, about 40 miles northwest
of Anchorage.
Main reason for using a plane
to move the herd is because the
herd is currently in full milk pro
duction. A longer trip by truck or
boat might cause the milk flow to
stop. Milk brings $2.50 a hundred
weight in north Utah, $11.50 in
Alaska.
The Alaska milk retails for
about 65 cents a quart—something
of a heart-breaker for the crew
on the first trip: they had to milk
the cows in flight and then dump
the resulting 30 or 40 gallons of
milk.
Eisenhower Says Full Story of U.S.
Air Defense Will Show It To Be
In Relatively Powerful Position
WASHINGTON, UPV— President
Eisenhower said today the United
States will feel a lot better about
its air power position when the
full story has been presented.
Eisenhower told a news confer
ence the United States has a very
powerful navy with a powerful
air arm. He said that fact has been
lost sight of so far in comparing
this country’s relative strength to
that of the Soviet Union.
Eisenhower said this country
does not try to match Russia in
ground power. He indicated it
should not necessarily try to
match the Soviet Union in the
rate of output of such things as
intercontinental bombers.
The President’s remarks came
against a background of state
ments earlier this week by Gen.
Curtis LeMay, chief of the Strate
gic Air«Command (SAC) and Sec
retary of Defense Wilson that cur
rent U.S. production of intercon
tinental bombers capable of car
rying hydrogen bombs is lagging
behind Russian output.
LeMay predicted that Russia is
likely to surpass this country in
the intercontinental bomb field by
1958-60.
The SAC chief testified before
a Senate Armed Forces subcom
mittee which is looking into the
relative positions of the United
States and Russia as to air'frower.
Eisenhower was asked whether
he is concerned about that situa
tion. He replied that he believes
we ought to broaden our vision to
look at more than one part of the
whole picture.
Referring to LeMay’s testimony,
Eisenhower said it is disappoint
ing that some B-52 intercontinen
tal bombers have had to be re
jected temporarily because of de
fects which he said are being cor
rected.
But there still is much testi
mony to come in the Senate com
mittee’s investigation, Eisenhower
added, and said it should not be
forgotten that this country has
the most powerful navy in the
world and that it features one
thing—airpower.
No one, he commented, has
talked about that so far.
The President also spoke of this
country’s having air bases all
around the world as part of its
over-all defense setup.
| East - West Talks
I On Disarmament
End in Deadlock
LONDON, —The Western
powers announced tonight the
failure of the latest East-West dis
armament negotiations, but said
they believe an agreement with
Soviet Russia is still possible.
The five-nation U.N. Disarma
ment Committee, made up of rep
resentatives of the United States,
Soviet Russia, Britain, France and
Canada, ended in a deadlock the
sessions which opened here on
March 19.
The Western delegations issued
a declaration reaffirming their
“determination to seek agreement
on a developing program of dis
armament in accordance with
their mandate from the United
Nations.” They said the purpose
was to promote peace, security
and prosperity.
The final meeting was held this
afternoon.
Old Gold Rush Trail in B.C. Is
Humming With Activity as Canada
Strings First Super Power Line
VANCOUVER, B.C. UPU-The old
gold rush trail into the forbidding
and rugged Bridge River area 140
miles north of here is humming
today with the grinding noise of1
construction machinery: high-lev
el cranes, bulldozers and assorted
electrical equipment.
All this activity surrounds the
construction of Canada’s first
“super high-tension” transmission
line by the British Columbia Elec
tric Co., major supplier of utility
power in British Columbia.
The new $14,000,000 line will
operate at 345,000 volts, and will
provide the second power link
between the lower mainland and
the company’s 618,000-horsepower
Bridge River hydro development.
Where prospectors humped sup
plies 100 years ago in their toil for
gold, huge 200-foot towers are
being erected to carry the six IVz
inch cables over the rugged ter
rain of mountainsides, rivers and
canyons.
The cables used in the new
transmission line are aluminum,
steel-ccntered conductors and are
spaced in pairs. The standard
transmissios line uses only three
cables.
The new method, adopted from
a Swedish system, greatly increas
es the efficiency of transmitting
electricity by providing low re
sistance and consequently a low
voltage drop.
Electrical engineers compared
the new and old type line for ca
pacities up to 200 miles, maxi
mum distance at which the lower
voltage line will operate econom
ically.
Over that distance, the super
high-tension line will pack 533,000
horsepower, the old line 233,000.
The new line will also transmit
his power up to 500 miles at ap
proximately 10 percent loss, said
the engineers. This factor, they
1 agree, could revolutionize present
theories of limits on transmitting
distances.
Transmission of power over long
[ distances has been one of the ma
' jor difficulties in developing re
mote hydroelectric sources in
British Columbia.