The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, October 28, 1949, Page 1

VOL. LXXIII, NO. 11,336 “ALL THE NEWS ALL THE TIME” THE DAILY ALASKA EMPIRE JUNEAU, ALASKA, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1949 MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS PRICE TEN CENTS MILLIONS AREGIVEN TO ALASKA Approprialk:_n; by Con-| gress for Northland Sets | New High, Says Bartlett | | WASHINGTON, Oct. 28—(P— Delegate Bartlett of Alaska fig-| ures that the last session of Con- | gress appropriated a total of $248,~ | 159, 780 for expenditure in the Ter- | ritory. ‘The amount, he said through his | office today, is a new high, be- ing $34,000,000 above last year's to- tal. | The largest appropriation was $103,091,922 for the Armed Services. Next came $58,647,858 cash and | contract authority of $25,637, 500 | for the Interior Department. | Appropriations for the Civil Aer- | onautics Administration Alaska pro- | jects totaled $21,504,000, whije the p——— et boxes at side. wheel. (P Wirentoto. New Explanatio Here’s what an Alaskan fishwheel (above) looks like. wheel similar to this on Discovery Island. Net revolves with the current and scope up fish which falls in The prospectors’ tent village which sprungup on the Yukon River it aptly named Fish- Gold Found! Gold was reportedly discovered in the axle of Coast and Geodetic Survey was al»‘ lotted $2,000,000. Bartlett's statement listed these other appropriations for Alaskan activities: Army Engineers, $4,334,- | 000; Agricultural Research pro- zram, $675,000; Alaska University, | | $875,000 for its Geophysical Labor-' | atory; $1,000,000 cash and contract authority of $4,000,000 for an Al- aska Public Works program, and' | $5,206,412 for Post Office Depart- ment operations. i In addition to appropriations | Aleuts Are Dy: Not Peons; ng of Drink Well (ared For NOTABLES ARE Inferior Depf. Says; Sealers KILLED, C(RASH FRENCH PLANE made for this fiscal year, which be- WASHINGTON, Oct. 2.—P—An | clothing and other necessities, they Forty - Elght Believed fo, TWO GOLD RUSHERS AT Tell of Heartbreak af Hasty Gamble-Ugly Rumors of "Plallted" FISHWHEEL, Alaska, Oct. 28— P—A couple of “cheechako” gold rushers from Alabama and Minne- sota told today of the heartbreak of hasty gambles on the Yukon River. Andrew Morrison, 23, of Mont- gomery, Ala., and James Cartier, 24, of Duluth, Minn, were among the outsiders (Alaskans call them cheechakos) who spent their money {on a wild gamble at the word of |nuggets being found in the bleak wildérness where this tent camp sprang up. They still hadn’t heard how Al- aska mining officials were advis- ing inexperienced men against the gamble; how one called any nug gets in the area “a freak occur- rence”; how a geologist found one of the first of four “nuggets” to be ibrass instead of gold. | Ugly Rumors But they were aroused by ugly rumors that nuggets might have been “planted” or “salted” in the area by some one who might have lexpected to gain by a gold seekers' rush, even though oné veteran pms— pector commented - in disbelief: {“How can you salt a whole river | bank?"” As the gold seekers fed the fires | NEW FIND | —Eldorado or oust? dud? Bonanza wheel on the Yukon River, {up in subzero temperatures over 10t Fishwheel is the wide spot in the Zukon River, a mile from the Arc: tic Circle and 165 miles northwe: of here, where Clifton Carroll re- ported a couple of weeks ago he ound pea-sized gold nuggets in the muck on the axle of his fishwheel, v net-equipped waterwheel to :atch fish. Wednesday prospectors in the | irigid tent town demanded that first specimens of nuggets be sent | ‘o the University of Alaska here or assay. Yesterday geojogy professor Rich- ird Ragle examined them and de- clared: “Three of the nuggets are gold and one is brass.” | view. As this is written, results of his have not yet got back to Fishwheel, which “awaits the assay .rcporL with jangled nerves.” FIGHTING STARTS Jack Daum, staff writer for the Fairbanks News-Miner, who flew |0 the strike area and staked him- self a claim while covering gan July 1, Congress made $12,033 - | Interior Department survey IOUP |“enjoy an economic security on a of suspicion by talk and rumor, 548 available in deficiency appro- !said today that natives in the Aleu- priations for last fiscal year. They ;tian Islands and some other parts | included funds for. thé Alaska|of Alaska are drinking themselves | ito death. ! It said that by contrast the Prib- 28, P !ilof Islands, north of the Aleu- 'tians, have no destitute families, i esterday authorizing $166,500,- | 1° neglected welfare cases and no | tion > . 8 crime or liquor problem “with the 000 for defense construction in Al- 2 lexception of home brew.” | aska and Okinawa. % | There is absolutely no basis, it Th roject: include housing, ' 3 7 said, for charges that Pribilof na- sewers, roads, electric power equip: ment and other improvements need- | tiVes—custodians of the Govern- herds that | ed to maintain defense forces, | Ment-owned fur-seal } summer on the islands—are “held 28—(® lin slavery, bondage or peonage.” Statements that the Pribilof Is- landers are held in “peonage” have | Housing Authority. WASHINGTON, Oct. | President Truman signed legisla- WASHINGTON, Oct. President Truman signed a bill .vesterday extending to Alaska the! | par with the highest income group | |of any native people in all Alaska.” Tt said hespitals and medical fac- |ilities at the Pribilofs are adequate, | | school systems on both islands com- pare with the best native schools in Alaska, and housing is bettgr than that found in many white communities. Oldroyd and Dawber signed the main report and filed a supple- mentary concurring report “so there may be no charge of our being in any way limited or influenced by the other members of the commis- sion or its consultants who are empleyed officials of the govern- ment or who in any way involved benefits of certain laws relating to D°¢n made in recent months bY i, the present administration o > agricultural experiment stations, | Yarious individuals ~and groups. Ajaeka Y Miss Fredericka Martin, a former The Association on American® {Alaska resident now living in New | York City, gave testimony to that cffect hefore the Senate Interior BUSY WEEKEND; BIG . e, e o [ | The report by the Interior De- parment survey group said the Prib- (ONFERE“(E looMs ilof inhabitants are better off than any other Alaskan natives, with 5 AP the possible exception of those at! By Associated Press Metlakatla. However, it added: CIO President Philip Murray will | “Along the Aleutian Chain the be in Cleveland over the weekend natives are on the decline through for meetings with representatives of | disease and impoverishment, much two left-wing unions—the Long- of it brought on by the unbridled; shoremen and the United Electrical |and excessive use of liquor.” Workers. They are among the 11 For the entire Territory, the re- | or 12 left-wing unions that face a | port said, ‘the most deplorable con- | showdown when the CIO's national ‘dmuns among the natives exist in, convention opens on Monday. those communities and vmages Longshoremen’s boss Harry Bridg- | where liquor is available.” es has declared that his union will| The three-week survey, recom- leave the CIO only “if we're boot- ed out.” Mark A. Dawber, New York City, The Washington Merry - Go- Round s oo or' <% "ot ’mended by the Interior Depart- imencs advisory committee on In- [dian affairs, was completed early |this month. The survey group included Dr. |royd, extension direction for the By DREW PEARSON !university of Alaska; Albert M. iCopyrignt, 1949, by Bell Syndicats, Inc.) |Day, Director of the Fish and | wildlife Service, and Indian Com- ASHINGTON—U. 8. diplo- missioner John R. Nichols. mats from the iron curtain coun- | Highest Income Group tries meeting in London this week! mThe report said that since Prib- had before them conclusive evidence |jiof Islanders get cash compensa- that Stalin now plans a showdownmon ranging from $265 to $923 a with Tito. The showdown will be|year plus free food, shelter, fuel, undertaken, as far as possible with- | out leading to war, but if war is necessary the Kremlin npparenuy‘: ® 0 0 0 0 0 0 0o has decided to risk it. L4 Here are the factors which led : TIDE TABLE o American diplomats to this con- 4 clu;::;n i . OCTOBER 29 . 1. Tito's nose- thumbing at the ® Low tide 1:50 am, 241t Kremlin has become contagious, ® Hight tide 8:45 am., 128 ft. of Other satellite countries are fi3- ® Low tide 2:27 pm., 68 ft. o uring that if Yugoslavia can get|® High Tide 8:23 pm, 129 ft. o away with it, they can too. Tito, . e o0 00 0000 0 once trained as an NKVD agent,| ® ICOMDR; MISQUOTED Iwar head. I thought McCain ans-, (were affirmatively. I must concede | Affairs praised the survey report as “constructive.” Oliver Lafarge, association presi- dent, urged that the recommenda- tions in the report he acted upon immediately, particularly that which would give the islanders full wages instead of part compensation ! and part free housing, food and services. He also urged, as did the report, that the charter and constitution approved by Secretary of the m-! terior Krug last Septemhér, be ac- cepted by the islanders and put nto effect. ' iSUBS CAN'T CARRY! AWM BOMBS, SAYS| PEARL HARBOR, Oct. 28.—(®— Comdr. Johns McCain, Jr., was misquoted by the Associated Press) this week in a dispatch reporting submarine-launched missiles could carry an atomic bomb. The dispatch dealt with a Nflvy announcement of plans to launch missiles from two submarines off | Hawaii Nov. 7. The Associated Press zonfronted with Commander Mc-| Cain’s denial, today conceded hel misquoted him. The reporter said: “When Commander McCain fin- ished answering questions concern- ing the plan to launch missiles from two submarines, he was asked if they would contain an atom bomb reporter, | I misquoted him.” “The fact is Commander Mc-‘ Cain said yesterday in his denial of the AP report, “I don’t know anything about the atom bomb. In has sent his own agents out to work | TR ;my naval experience, I've never | against Moscow in Hungary, Czech-l‘: ® ® o o o o o o o elhad anything to do with atomic; oslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania. ® | experiments.” H 2. The end of the Greek clvu" SUN RISES - BETS ®! Commander McCain is in charge war was not because the guerrillas | ® by e ® | of submarine guided missile devlop- were defeated, but to rest them OCTOBER 29 ® ment. What he said was: “The for an attack on Tito. Seven thou- ‘o Sun rises at 8:05 am. ® submarine, with guided missiles, ® Sun sets at ... 5:18 pm. e has become a siege bombardment (Continued on Page Four) ® e 06 0 0 s 00 0 0 .‘weapon.” Have Perished as Ship ]1t was the newcomers who first ! way for a title bout scheduled De- Falls in Flames | rghent. Morrison, a construction worker, |said: ‘T've got my whole summer’s SANTA MARIA, The Azores,|savings tied up here, and if it's a Oct. 28—(M—An Air France Con- phoney I'm going to know who stellation plane with French boxer started it.” Marcel Cerdan and 47 others| Gold Fever—Dope aboard fell in flames today on a! Cartier was lured all the way | rocky island in the Azores. /from Seattle by the first gold re-| Witnesses said they saw the\ports He had spent the summer plane fall flaming over a moun- there at work as a stevedore, and taintop in the Algarvia district saved $450 to enroll next spring at near Sao Miguel Island's northeast | Northwestern University. He said coast. Possibly because of bad he had sunk his entire savings cn weather and poor visibility, the|:quipment, “grub” and plane fare, Constellation hit a peak while| “This gold fever is like some kind heading for Santa Maria airport, ‘nl dope,” he commented. “I didn't 90 miles away in the Azores, wu-neally think of what I was doing nesses said. |until T got up here alone and start- | Some of the 37 passengers and|ed to dig into this frozen ground. 11 crewmen are believed to hnvcu. haven't even found a color yet| survived. Rescue teams were rush-|and am beginning to believe these ing to the scene. The passengers stories about salting’.” were said by Air France to includeJ TR 10 Americans and two Canadia.ns} The plane had been missing torIBRITISH usl“G eight hours. | First reports had indicated there| u M E were some survivors. An announce- ! S N Y FOR ment by Air France in Paris that| } the wreckage had been spotted on| pERSONAl GAINS the peak made no mention of sur-| vivors, however. 1 (By ASSOCIATED PRESS) The Constellation, on a flight| A United States Senate subcom- from Paris to New York, also car- | Mittee plans to investigate a story ried the noted French woman violin|that Britain is using American virtuoso, Ginette Neveu, who isjdollars to Euild up her own oil | well known to American concert|industry in the Middle East. audiences, and Louis Boutet de| Chairman Allen Ellender of the Montvel, widely known French | Appropriations Subcommittee says painter and illustrator of children’s| the group will leave Rome for Is- books. | tanbul today to begin an on- -the- | Cerdan’s manager, Jo Longman, 5pot inquiry. g and his trainer, Paul Jenser, also! Ellender points out that Ameri- were aboard. Cerdan, former world{can interests have complained that middleweight champion, was on his | domestic cutbacks have been; forced because of forelgn compe-| | tition. And, he says, there is the | | contention that the British have | been capturing American markets, cember 2 at Madison Square Gar- den, New York, with Jake Lamot- ta, to whom he lost the title in De- troit June 18. underselling American producers by using overseas aid funds. | ALL ARE KILLED e & o o ® 0o ° 3 0 o PARIS, Oct. 28—P—Air France ® . announced tonight all 48 persons| ® WEATHER REPORT aboard a Paris-New York airliner ® (Thi; data is for 24-hour pe- @ were killed when the plane crashed| ® riod ending 7:30 am. PST.) e in the Azores. Victims included ® In Juneau—Maximum, 46; e French boxer Marcel Cerdan and/® minimum, 37. 4 10 Americans. 4 At Airport—Maximum, 48; e/ Air France said it received a|® minimum, 33. . cable confirming the disaster at ® . 5:10 pm. (9:10 pm. PST), K4 FORECAST . Rescue parties reached the re- ® (Juneau and Vielnity) . mote island of Sao Miguel where ® Mostly cloudy with inter- @ the plane rammed into a moun- ® mitent rain tonight and Sat- e tain side and found all dead, the|® urday. Low temperature to- o company said. e night about 38. High Sat- e e urday about 45. . . “HMERMOVEMMS ePRECIPITATION® @ (Past 24 nours ending 7:30 a.m. today @ Freighter Square Knot from Se- e City of Juneau—07 inches; e attle due 8 a.m. tomorrow. e since Oct. 1, 1198 inches; Baranof scheduled to sail from e since July 1, 3325 inches. e Seattle Tomorrow. e At Airport — Trace. ° Princess Louise scheduled to ® since Oct. 1, 539 inches; o sail from Vancouver Monday. e since July 1, 2069 inches e ' Denali from west scheduled south- e . bound 2 p.n. Monday. 060 0 @ 0 0 0 0 0 & |showed disiliusionment and discour- | story for his newspaper, last night that: “Arguments and near fistfights flared along the Yukon Wednes- day and yesterddy.’ “Gilbert Lord, Fort Yukon road- { touse proprietor, has taken per- sonal charge of the first nuggets | found and has been the most out- | :poken booster of this area as the -‘ggest thing since the Klondike. Prospecwrs who hnve 5pent ABOUT $5015 /GOLD YIELD, - NEW STRIKE { Interior De;i;lment ‘Offi- cial at Fairbanks ls- sues Statement WASHINGTON, Oct. 28—(P— | The Alaskan “gold strike” appar- ently has produced less than $50 | worth of actual gold, an Interior Department official has reported | iom the north. “The only persons making money | trom the gold strike now are bush | pilots,” Fred Weiler said in a tele- |3ram to the Department. Weiler, ‘who heads the Bureau of Land ;’Manngement office at F‘alrbanks, | 1dded: ! “Some nuggets have been found, Lut the value of all gold actually "nken from the ground probably | would not exceed $50.” Of the 300 persons who visited ‘Lhc Fishwheel strike area north- | east of Fairbanks, Weiler said, \“only about 50 are staying on the ground.” He said the others who ataked claims have returned to IFalrtank.s to await dcvelopmenm STOCK-QUOTATIONS NEW YORK, Oct. 28.—(—Clos- ing quotation of Alaska Juneau Can 97, Anaconda 28%, Curt Wright 7%, International Harvest- er 27%, Kennecott 49, New York Central 10%, Northern Pacific 14, U. 8. Steel 25, Pound $280. Sales today were 1,480,000 shares. Averages today are as follows: ities 38.61. LENOIR ARRIVES The ACS cable barge Lenoir ar- rived in Juneau this morning lluzr |ther cable work In Southeast Al- 'aska. n About Yellow Metal Find "All Is Not Gold That- Fights Starting as Miners Demand Assay of Fmdmgs FAIRBANKS, Alaska, Oct. 28— ‘hundreds of dollars All Alaska was wondering m_dny Lord that he send the nuggets to what actually is going on at Fish-| the University of Alaska in Fair- where | banks for assaying. Lord was re- the 20th Century 49ers are heating Juctant to send the gold out I Veteran miners generally agreed]off but not polished. Pockets {his entire report took a negative pokes wear off the secondary metal the radioed | | i ! i spent on the affair than will ever| mine stock today is 3%, American industrials 190.16, rafls 4828, util-|Ed Farrell, senior member of the Iprospecuug fraternity, is still hope- a cable repair and maintainence ' said. trip to Skagway and Haines. The | Cheechakos vessel will leave tomorrow for fur-|nuggets to whistle at them from l GOLD MAY BE FROM WRECK, RIVER BOAT Art Glover ms New Ver- outfitting Or themselves and flying here to this | bleak valley * * * demanded of sion 0' Fishwheel Dis_ covery Along Yukon Oct. 28— at| first but after implications of his| FAIRBANKS, Alaska, whether thely've got something or | refusal were pointed out to him, he (M—Art Glover of the Territorial | consented to release the nuggets Department of Mines cited an old in the custody the Fairbanks river boat wreck story today as a News-Miner. | possible explanation for the few “The nuggets, worth about §2,|E°ld nugeets found in the new Yu- were sent to Fairbanks late W('&I-‘k“n River “Goilt Ml siep. nesday "afternoon . " ! He emphasized there is no evi- dence that would permit the de- NUGGETS TOO SHINY | partment’s endorsement of the gold Now the scene shifts to Fair-|reports as “the real thing” or even banks. as a reasonable gambling chance. The glass vial containing the He advised against ahyone going nuggets were examined by experts after gold unless able to write off of the University of Alaska. | his costs as a total loss if neces- “Three of the nuggets are gold Sary. and one is brass,” Ragle reported,| In citing the old toat wreck ‘and one large and one small nug- | story as of undetermined origin get appear to have been pocket or and unconfirmed authenticity, he pcke-worn for several months.” sald “it is at least a most plausi- He explained that when trans-!ble explanation to account for ported in water, gold is.rounded presence of the few meager nug- or gets so far discovered.” Years ago, he related, a small coating on the gold, and smootn river boat was reported to have and polish the surface, | Lroken up and sunk in the Yukon Ragle also said two of the small-| River in that area. A small amount er nuggets were from entirely dif-|0f gold among the passengers’ pos- ferent vein’sources and too deli-|sessions was lost. cately structured to have becn] Action of the river current and transported any appreciable dis- ice during subsequent years could tance by the Yukon River, tm‘have distributed a couple of hand- could have been carried by ice. | fuls of nuggets over several miles. He said nitric acid dissolved one It would likewise explain, he said, of the small, sharp “nuggets” show-'the unorthodox occurrence of rela- ing it to be not gold but brass, tively coarse gold on top of the which is a combination of copper gravel, miles from any m.neralized of and zine, a man-made alloy. ' MIGHT BE FROM BOAT ! “This might have been mmgs from the housing of one of the oid| stern wheelers,” the professor sald, ‘though what it is doing on top of silt is hard to explain.” Ragle said he found one of \hc particles of brass contained grass, roots which indicated the filing| had been, close to the surface dnd‘ aot in its environment very long., ‘Brass, like gold, tends to sink to sedrock,” he said. “The presence of two or more, lifferent typés of gold would be; possicle, but brass would have to 1ave been brought in by human 'aving been transported by the| Zukon to the position in whlch' hey were found, we must accept a| /olume and velocity of water which | Ledrock exposure. If in sinking ‘prospect holes, it is found that gold does not .occur !at an appreciable distance beneath the surface of the gravel, then the boat wreck story gains support, Glover asserted. He expressed the belief that | more money already has been spent by excited gold seekers than ever will ke taken from all the claims cumhmed QOUSTING OF v “If we accept these nuggets asl RESENTED would have been sufficient to have| flushed silt and gravel ut of the vicinity. “The density per unit of surface of gold is €0 high that a| current of water sufficiently strong | to move gold will also carry gravel! many tons heavier than the metal. “CONDITION§ NOT THERE" “In other words, it is like asking us to believe that a balloon and an fron ball weuld fall through the air at the same rate of speed. The professor said that placer conditions accumulate under cer- tain physical laws which are ob- viously not present in the new ‘Klond ke.” Meanwhile, reports from the Ter- “itorial Department of Mines also take a dim view. B. D. Stewart,| Commissioner at Juneau, expressed ‘grave concern over the unjusti- ied excitement.” Art Glover, department repre-| sentative at Falrbanks, said ot/ #.ishwheel that “there's absolutely ao evidence that would permit ts endorsement as the ‘real thing’ or even as-a reasonacle gambling hance.” He concluded that in his opinion| ‘more money has already been| se taken out of all claims com-| sined.” Returning to reporter Daum at Fishwheel, he wound up his dis- | pateh: | “PFishwheel awaits the assay re-| port with jagged nerves.” { He reported newcomers were expressing bitter disappointment with fruitless panning. But he said ful. “] saw one nugget panned with my own eyes and 1 know the gold was there in the muck,” Farrell “It’s this way in every rush. (tenderfeet) expect entirely | the | Navy Enligl—e—d Men Key- note Angry Response to Firing Made by Truman By ELTON C. FAY WASHINGTON, Oct. 28—P— Admiral Louis Denfeld told a dem- onstrating crowd of 250 Navy en- listed men today that although he has teen ousted as Chief of Naval Operations “no service and no in- dividual will stop” the Navy. The sailors—irom offices and i | | (Continued on Page 2) v SAYS DENFELD OUSTING NOT “REPRISAL" WASHINGTON, Oct. 28—— Secretary of Defense Louis John- !son denied | today that Admiral Louis Denfeld was ousted from the Navy's top job as “reprisal” for his criticism of high defense policies. He implied that Denfeld lacked qualifications for the post. Johnson made his denial in a letter to Rep. Bates (R.-Mass.), one of several Congress members who had volced protests against “reprisals” for ‘‘testimony in the recent congressional investigation of differences in the armed serv- ices. Johnson's office made the let- ter public. It came amid plain signs that the action against Denfeld had shocked a big part of Congress and rocked the Navy itself right down to the the gravel. Prospecting is nothing but hard work.” newest “boot” in traning.