ON the front page of Marianas Variety’s first issue in Jan. 1974 was a news article regarding the Trust Territory government’s “standby plan for the rationing of gasoline on Saipan.” It involved the distribution of printed ration cards that “would identify the station from which each cardholder could obtain a weekly allotment of gasoline.” There were eight private gasoline stations on Saipan at the time. The news story noted that Guam “has begun to experience the same long lines of cars and closed gas stations that became a regular occurrence on Saipan during the past two weeks.”
In other news, “an outspoken critic” of the Rota municipal government said it wasted $84 — according to an online inflation calculator, worth $455.02 today — when it held a special session of the municipal council to elect its speaker. The critic was himself a member of the council and a political opponent of the mayor. Municipal funds were “in a critical situation” and there were “many other problems” on Rota, the outspoken critic said.
Back on Saipan, the capital of the Trust Territory government administered by the U.S., MV reported that the U.S. Department of Defense had reduced the daily military hospital rate charged for Trust Territory medical referrals from $126 a day to $66 a day ($682 to $357 in today’s dollars). “The action was taken after Interior Secretary Rogers C.B. Morton appealed to Defense Secretary James Schlesinger for a special rate for medical patients from both [the TT] and American Samoa who must be referred to either Tripler Army Hospital in Hawaii or the Guam Naval Hospital.”
Besides the Northern Marianas, the other TT districts were the Marshall Islands, Palau, Ponape (Pohnpei), Truk (Chuuk) and Yap.
MV reported that the TT government “referred some 600 patients to hospitals outside the territory during the past year; most of these went to either Guam Naval Hospital or to Tripler. Although the number of actual referrals is not very great, the expense is high since most of these patients require special, and therefore expensive treatment.” Their hospital bills were paid by the TT government.
In an editorial first published by the Micronesian Independent, a newspaper in the Marshalls, and reprinted by MV, the writer noted that “plans are already in progress to build a large military facility on…Tinian and local politicians there are scrambling for their own financial vantage points. For example, while the Marianas [political status] talks were in progress earlier this year, one commission member purchased adjacent land to the proposed U.S. military base on Tinian. At least one other member holds land in his name purchased by…businessmen.” The writer then quoted a Marshall Islands congressman as saying that the “real problem” in the TT islands was that the islanders “have the trust, and the Americans have the territory.”
On page 9 of the 10-page MV, the TT Division of Agriculture or DOA urged residents to “get agriculture moving.” On Saipan in 1973, “there was a serious water shortage which affected all activities but especially those who needed water most — the farmers. Then came the hog cholera restriction which banned pork exports from the Trust Territory for several months, and chicken feed failed to arrive so that many chickens had to be slaughtered. But the most drastic incident was the drop in the world price of copra which seriously affected [the TT’s] number one export crop. Of course the fuel crisis just makes things more difficult for everyone.” But according to DOA, 1974 should be a better year.
MV’s first issue in 1974 also carried a letter to editor from the TT district planning officer who was originally from the states. A previous letter, also published by MV, complained about one of the “appointed bureaucrats” of the district planning office. “Where does he think that he gets the power to tell the people of Saipan how many hotel rooms we may build? Maybe God came to him in a dream and told him he is our island savior? The people of Saipan are getting very tired of appointed bureaucrats, regardless of qualifications, telling us what to do.”
In reply, the district planning officer said Saipan’s master plan “is the responsibility of elected representatives and not appointed bureaucrats.” He advised the concerned letter-writer to “make [his] voice heard in the right place, the legislative hall…. You are concerned but don’t stop there.”
On MV’s editorial page, our columnist Jon A. Anderson said he wanted to “look ahead to what might be in store for [the TT islands] in the coming year.” He noted that the head of the Marianas political status commission was seeking re-election as Congress of Micronesia senator. Jon predicted that the coming elections “could be an interesting bellwether for a Marianas [status] plebiscite.” The senator would lose in a hard-fought election, but the status agreement he was “personally identified with” — political union with the U.S. — was overwhelmingly approved by NMI voters.
“Predictions are risky things, of course,” Jon wrote. “I think [mine] are pretty safe, but just in case they aren’t please don’t save this column.”
Oopsie.
Send feedback to editor@mvariety.com
The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands headquarters on Capital Hill, Saipan in the 1970s. Today it is the administration building of the CNMI government.
