Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the First Army, beginning an hour prior to dawn, at 5:00, had this day expanded the width of the Remagen bridgehead on the east bank of the Rhine by a full mile, eleven miles by 4.5 depth, moving beyond Ginsterhahn, three miles east of Linz and intersection with the autobahn running to the Ruhr. The forces also were fighting 4.5 miles south of Linz after taking Hargarten, 3.5 miles east of the Ludendorff Bridge.

German artillery, tank, and occasional air assault still sought to destroy the bridge while men and supplies continued to pour across it, with some limited amounts crossing via boats. Gains of a few hundred yards into the hills overlooking the bridge on the east bank had pushed back the German artillery capability and prevented a direct German sight line to the bridge. Better weather, however, was necessary before American and British planes could effectively attack the German perimeter and eliminate the continuing enemy threat to the bridge. Thus far, a dense, smoky haze hung over the countryside.

Howard Cowan reported from the front the previous day that empty Wehrmacht uniforms had been discovered on the east bank since the establishment of the bridgehead, indicative of attempts of German soldiers to blend with the civilian population--or, maybe, that they had fled to the beaches in the South of France for the winter, maybe to do battle with Harry James, the trumpeter. Food for civilians was becoming an acute problem and it was believed that the populations of Linz, Erfel, and Honnef would be sent to the west bank.

The Germans stated that the American forces now numbered four divisions, two tank and two infantry, or about 40,000 men. The men were deployed between Honnef, 44 miles southeast of Duesseldorf, and Hoenningen. Among them had been Lt. General Courtney Hodges, commander of the First Army, who had crossed the bridge on Sunday, with a German shell landing just 50 feet from his position. The General spent an hour on the east bank and then returned to headquarters on the west side of the river.

Berlin now lay 274 miles to the east.

A large force of 2,100 American planes, 1,350 of which were heavy bombers, struck northern Germany and the Baltic Coast in support of the Russian drive. Stettin and Swinemuende, 35 miles northeast of Stettin, were the targets of 650 of the bombers. Other bombers in the raid hit Frankfurt and the Ruhr, including Siegen, Setzdorf, Dillenburg, Wetzlar, Friedburg, and Marburg.

On the Eastern Front, large parts of the Second White Russian Army were said to be in the process of transfer from Pomerania and Poland to the Oder, there to join with the First White Russian Army of Marshal Gregory Zhukov, in preparation for the final thrust to Berlin, some 16 to 25 miles distant. Moscow reported that the Second Army had advanced to Koelin, eight miles from the Bay of Danzig, threatening to sever Danzig and Gdynia. Only small pockets of enemy resistance remained before the Baltic flank to Berlin would be cleared of enemy troops.

About 3,400 British and American prisoners, previously freed from their German captivity by the Russians, were being sent home. Another 10,000 were awaiting transport from Odessa.

Yet another giant 300-plane B-29 raid this date struck Nagoya on Honshu in Japan, complementing the raid of the same size striking Tokyo on Saturday night. Flames from fires set from the incendiary bombs had raged for ten hours. One of the Superfortresses flew low enough to make a direct hit on an enemy searchlight. Nagoya was a manufacturing center for railway equipment and aircraft, responsible for 40 to 50 percent of the country's airplane production.

Another force of 40 B-29's struck again at Singapore on the Malay Peninsula. A similar raid was reported Saturday.

On Mindanao, American troops of the Eighth Army had overrun Wolfe Airstrip a half mile inland from the point of invasion on the southwest tip of the island. They were driving toward San Roque Airfield against relatively light opposition. Resistance was expected to stiffen as the Americans reached Zamboanga.The coastal towns of San Mateo, San Jose, Calarian, and San Roque had been captured in the advance.

On Iwo Jima, the remaining Japanese on the northeastern tip of the island were confined to an area one mile by two miles. Otherwise, the entire coastline of Iwo was in American hands. On Sunday, the Marines had made their way into the area of the high butte on which most of the remaining Japanese troops were believed to be holed up, in caves and pillboxes. Sniper and artillery fire of the enemy continued. Two patrols of the Fourth Division had reached the beach and found mines and boobytraps but no enemy troops.

The Supreme Court refused to grant a petition for writ of certiorari from the Government seeking immediate review in the high Court of the U.S. District Court decision out of Chicago, ruling that the prior plant seizure by the Government of Montgomery Ward was illegal for the fact that Ward was a catalogue sales house and not involved in essential war industry. The Government had argued that the collateral effect of Ward not following the directive of the War Labor Board to honor a closed shop contract would resound through the economy and thus impact adversely the authority of the WLB to have its orders obeyed, debilitating thereby the war production effort generally.

The Supreme Court ruling merely refused on procedural grounds yet to hear the case for its being premature, until the Circuit Court of Appeals could determine the matter. The petition had been filed prior to the acceptance of the appeal in the Circuit Court.

The British Home Office confirmed that entertainer Maurice Chevalier had been initially denied a visa to enter England from his native France, but the matter was still under review. M. Chevalier had been recently cleared of suspicions of collaboration with the Germans and Vichy during the period of occupation.

"Comes a Time", from the end of that note for YOU, incidentally, is now here, in the never-ending song of musical chairs.

On the editorial page, "All at Once" refers to the article on Saturday's inside page by military analyst Max Werner, opining that the collapse of Germany would mean inevitably the collapse of the Wehrmacht, as it would have nowhere to seek refuge, no means of supply, and so could not effectively wage war in the Southern mountains of Germany or in Northern Italy, as had been speculated could occur even after Berlin fell.

So, as soon as the Eastern and Western fronts became one, the Wehrmacht was finished.

The piece points out that the escape across the Rhine, to avoid entrapment, had left behind tons of supplies, ammunition, and vehicles, so badly needed by the German war machine, with its supply lines severed in so many places and its manufacturing facilities, those not underground, now completely demolished from the two years of incessant Allied bombing.

The hope was that it would not be long, with the apparent change in attitude of the German, disabused of his Pavlovian-induced Übermensch self-image, until he laid down his arms en masse.

The piece by Mr. Werner and the editorial, of course, were entirely accurate. The final surrender would come May 8, eight days after Der Fuehrer and Herr Doktor Goebbels did the world the favor.

"Labor's V-1" comments on the new secret weapon of labor: royalties. The practice had started with James Caesar Petrillo. The concept had first been put forward in Harper's in late 1942 by Bernard B. Smith, a New York lawyer, who wrote that, to resolve the conflict whereby Mr. Petrillo had banned non-union musicians from playing on the air, leading to his ban on recordings being played on the air, a royalty system should be put in place. Control of the fund from the royalties would be shared by the radio industry, the public, and the musicians.

"Privilege Abused" discusses the wine bill proposed by Governor Gregg Cherry, finds it to be class legislation in that it limited to first class hotels and restaurants the right of sale on the premises of wine to be consumed thereon. It would also enable the ABC to limit the sale of synthetic wine or artificially fortified wines, those which had an artificially injected alcohol content, exceeding the 14 percent which was the limit of naturally fermented wines.

"A Rat Hole" relates of the praise provided to the Latin American republics by Secretary of State Edward Stettinius at the Pan American Conference in Mexico City, for their agreement to hunt down war criminals within their jurisdictions.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Representative Robert Rich of Pennsylvania, in debate over the crop insurance bill with Representative Harold Cooley of North Carolina—the same who had questioned in early 1943 why there were wooden dummy guns atop the Capitol Building, how they could act effectively as a decoy to protect against attack by enemy aircraft, thus defeating their purpose.

Mr. Cooley, who enjoyed considerable respect nevertheless for his command of agricultural issues through time, questioned Representative Rich having suggested that the Crop Insurance program had lost 37.5 of its 40 million dollar original allocation and that such was the result of mismanagement.

Mr. Cooley demanded evidence that the money had been "squandered", to which Mr. Rich replied that it was clear that the loss was the result of poor management, for any corporation which lost so much of its initial capitalization in five years had to be engaged in "deliberate inefficiency". Mr. Rich wanted the head of the corporation, Mr. Wright, investigated.

Mr. Cooley reminded that the House had recently passed a new measure to afford another allocation of 30 million dollars for the crop insurance program.

Mr. Rich responded that it was all the more reason he wished the investigation, in an attempt to right the wrong in the further expenditure of taxpayer money on such a proven inefficient cause.

Drew Pearson remarks that the treatment by Americans of German prisoners-of-war had proved so humane that the Russian Government had requested that the four million Soviet civilians, who had been impressed as laborers by the Nazis, be treated as prisoners after liberation. Initially, when the first of these work battalions were grouped with prisoners-of-war, the Russians protested the classification, but reversed themselves after the Allies had complied, upon discovery that the rations for civilians were smaller portions than those provided prisoners. The prisoners received the same rations as American and British soldiers. The French had reacted likewise.

Samuel Grafton relates of an article appearing in The Christian Science Monitor, pointing up the great contradiction in Republican fiscal conservatism, seeking to maintain itself as purely conservative, without the involvement of the dragline of Southern conservative causes, inevitably, however, attracting the undesired support of same in defeating social legislation.

By all the rationale of the Republicans' enunciated tenets, their quest should have been to ally with Southern liberals, such as the Southern Conference for Human Welfare; instead, by their insistence on fiscal conservatism and thus opposition to Government social programs, they found themselves only in alliance with Southern conservatives and reactionaries, opposed to social progress based on preservation of the status quo of racial segregation. The Conference realized that advancing the cause of African-Americans in society required making better the life for everyone in the society.

To accomplish the latter purpose meant social legislation. But that was repulsive to the Republican Party. The resulting schism among Southern Democrats provided the Republicans with fertile ground for political exploitation, but also carried with it the risk of alienation of its traditional Northern base, which found racism anathema.

Mr. Grafton might also have referenced the Southern Conference of Writers and Editors, as mentioned in an editorial in the column of December 14, 1944, with the same enunciated goal and means as the Conference.

Marquis Childs, at Mediterranean Allied Air Force Headquarters, reports of the tremendous job which had been undertaken by the Balkan Air Force, flying from bases in Italy, to provide supplies throughout the Balkans, especially in Yugoslavia. The transports had not only flown in huge quantities of supplies to Marshal Tito's Partisans but had also evacuated some 15,000 of the wounded, otherwise stuck in mountainous terrain to be captured or left to die.

A piece from the camp newspaper EM of Big Springs Bombardier School in Big Springs, Texas, suggests that the USO had performed so well its responsibilities during the war, acting as a congregation point for service men in training, that the clubs should be transformed into community recreational facilities for teenagers following the war. The transformation, it asserts, would aid in stemming the rising and rolling tide of juvenile delinquency—not to mention that of adults in the society.

As to the Dorman Smith, there ye go. Those who want SOPA also would wish, no doubt, to give approbation to Caesar, and give a hearty "crucify him" to Caesar's solicitous representative in Judaea seeking to wash the blood from his hands. All of a piece, like it or not. Undoubtedly, you won't, should you not appreciate the bitter truth anent royalties. Why do you think they call them that?

We all like to be entertained by various forms of media, but not at the expense of our democracy, and, presumably, that would embrace the entertainers and their representatives earning the bloody royalties for past work.

Were about half of those royalties returned—to the homeless, to those who have had their homes stolen by greedy banks with their sleazy little lying lawyers, things might rapidly improve in the society, enabling consumers once again to purchase the items which fuel the royalties. Until then, expect from the greed exhibited nothing but a corrupted and broken system in which, ultimately, no one will be much able to afford to purchase those luxury items any longer, especially given their absurd price. Show us that generous artist and we present you with a thinker, not some solipsistic "me against the world" fool, out to promote him or herself as the people's maverick and vicarious representative, doing the while the people no more good than the most greedy of the collectors of corporate royalties.

The Duke Power Magazine presents a humorous aside, but one which, candidly, we have yet to comprehend fully, at least in terms of its more abstruse and esoteric inner workings. But, maybe by noon tomorrow or so, it will hit us, if we mind it awhile. Maybe it has to do with those fortified wines, or something like that.

We'll just sit here by the creek in the meantime, cooling our feet some more, and, sticking our pole in the water, see what we can catch in the by and by.