Site Ed. Note: The front page reports the fall to the Red Army of Dnepropetrovsk, key metallurgical manufacturing city in the upper Dneiper River bend, complementing the taking of Melitopol reported Saturday. The city, having been held by the Nazis since August 20, 1941, was overcome by a pincer movement of the Soviets.

Meanwhile, the Red Army closed to within six miles of Krovoi Rog, the taking of which would entrap half a million to a million Nazis.

As the Russian press expressed favor for a coalition post-war of Britain, the U.S., and Russia, Josef Stalin met with Secretary of State Cordell Hull in Moscow, having met separately the previous week with British Foreign Minister Sir Anthony Eden. The Moscow diplomatic conference entered its seventh day.

The Fifth Army in Italy advanced three miles to take the important rail and road junction of Sparanise, heading east to Pignatore and Maggiora. The advance threatened the entire German defensive line along the Massico Ridge.

The Eighth Army along the Adriatic coast widened a bridgehead across the Trigno River, threatening Isernia and the eastern end of the Massico Line.

Hal Boyle relates of the short-range missions being flown over Italy from forward airbases, so close to the targets making way for the troops crossing the Volturno River that the men at the airfield could actually hear the bombs falling. Each squadron was flying three missions in a single day.

American bombers attacked in daylight the previous day from shorter range bases out of Italy into Southern Germany, Austria, and Hungary to complement the previous night's RAF Mosquito raids which took place in the Ruhr and Rhineland.

Bosnian Partisan forces in Yugoslavia captured 2,000 German prisoners, the most yet during the guerilla campaign, as they took the town of Kosarac. The Partisans under Tito clashed with rival Yugoslavian forces under the command of General Draja Mihailovic, fighting under the aegis of King Peter, claimed to be supporting the Germans.

The Charybdis, a British cruiser, was reported sunk in a battle with the German Navy in the English Channel. The Limbourne, a destroyer, also was damaged so badly that it had to be sunk.

Following walk-outs from the bituminous coal mines of Alabama the week before, half the soft coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky struck, in defiance of union requests that they return to work while negotiations were ongoing to settle their contract before the War Labor Board. Miners in Illinois were also on strike.

A report from Nassau tells of the trouble with Sir Harry.

On the editorial page, "The Last Days"--not to be confused with The Final Days--speaks confidently of the end nearing for Nazi Germany, that the winter of 1944--not to be confused with 1974--would be its last.

The editorial premised its optimism on the success of the Russian offensive and considerable rate of attrition which the long offensive, ongoing since the previous November without respite, had inflicted on the Wehrmacht, as well as the increasing frequency of Allied bombing of Germany, now made the more effective by the availability of closer bases in Italy.

Yet, while the piece correctly suggests that it would be unlikely that the Allies would launch a land-based offensive in Western Europe before spring, it engages in over-optimism as to the celerity with which the collapse of Nazi Germany would be effected by the Allies.

"Moonshine" reports that Treasury statistics showed popskull being manufactured at a greater rate than ever in the South, even if the average size of individual stills had decreased. War had not diminished the South's taste for the copper kettle's product.

Nor for Senators with a taste for it.

"Ah, Politics" finds the Connally Resolution before the Senate on approval of U.S. participation in a post-war international organization to preserve the peace and prevent aggression to be milquetoast which the average soldier dying on the Russian front or in Italy would likely eschew as unworthy of the supreme sacrifice which they were daily laying down.

The lack of specificity in the resolution which Senator Connally, Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, had indicated had to be to avoid undue wrangling before the chamber, was merely a political compromise which promised a piece of paper of questionable viability after the war.

"For Progress" notes the exceptional recommendation by Governor Broughton that the State fund the arts, music, and libraries to afford advances in cultural attributes of the State in which progress, he had bragged, had already substantially taken place. The editorial commends this thinking, appearing to place cultural progress ahead of or at least at parity with that of material progress.

Raymond Clapper also criticizes the Connally Resolution as being too general to have any real impact or power. He cites to the fact that not only Senator Claude Pepper of Florida, a progressive advocate of a strong United Nations organization with an international police force, was in support of the resolution, but also so were Senators Gerald Nye of North Dakota and Bennett Champ Clark of Missouri, two of the foremost isolationists before the war. Enjoying such diverse support, concludes Mr. Clapper, the resolution could not have any real teeth to it.

The group led by Senator Ball, a proponent of a strong measure, wanted more specificity, especially language stating that the international organization would have "power, including military force" to suppress aggression and preserve the peace. The resolution as it stood was better than nothing, but would offer little to foreign allies seeking certainty in understanding the stance of the Senate on post-war policy.

Samuel Grafton believes that most American internationalists were seeking collaboration with Russia on the rationale that Russia was becoming more capitalistic in its approach. They might find it surprising, he suggests, should the primary concern of Russia at the Moscow Conference turn out to be the opening of the second front rather than how the U.S. and Russia would relate after the war.

The tendency, he says, in America, as reflected by the Senate debate on the Connally Resolution, was to look to the future as a way of dodging the pressing issues of the present war effort.

But while the internationalists remained general in their ideas about Russia, the isolationists had become specific in seeking from Russia the use of Siberian bases from which to attack Japan.

Mr. Grafton hopes that the Administration policy was sounder than to seek any such demand at a time when Russia was enjoying so much success on the Eastern front. But, the while, he finds it hard to discern precisely what the Administration policy was at this juncture on the Soviet Union.

Drew Pearson reviews the speech of Wendell Willkie given recently to a hundred Republican Congressmen in Washington in which he stated his frank understanding that he was the favorite of the rank-and-file member of the Party across the country for the 1944 nomination but would not accept it unless the Party were willing to adopt a stance of internationalism and collaboration post-war with the nations of the world, as well as abandon its anti-labor positions endorsed in the past.

When asked whether he would support the nominee of the Party whoever it turned out to be, he replied that he would not. He would not support Robert McCormick, publisher of The Chicago Tribune. He would not support Congressman Ham Fish of New York. Though a good number in his audience were isolationists, he nevertheless received a loud ovation for these remarks.

Mr. Willkie gave praise to the directness of Josef Stalin, with whom he had met in 1942, and stated that the Soviet system had been effective in modernizing Russia. The 1940 nominee of the Party criticized both FDR and Churchill for thus far not keeping their promise to Russia to open a second front.

Overall, his audience found his candor refreshing.