Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Palestine, British troops armed with tanks, mortars and machineguns, had entered six Jewish villages, including Shefayim near Tel Aviv, to search for individuals who had attacked with arms and explosives two Coast Guard stations the previous Saturday night, wounding fourteen officers. Unofficial reports stated that four Jews had been killed and 50 wounded, as hand-to-hand combat occurred frequently. Thousands of Jews, shouting, "All Jews to the rescue," were converging on Shefayim. Other villages involved were Rishbon, Enhahoresh, Kfar Kegiah, Kfar Haroeth, and Givath Haim, all north of Tel Aviv and close to the coast.

The motive for the attacks on the Coast Guard stations was believed to be the British seizure of a ship with 200 illegal Jewish immigrants aboard seeking refuge in Palestine.

In Java, the last of the Indonesian Nationalists were fleeing southward toward Malang from Soerabaja. New fighting meanwhile erupted in Batavia, as the Nationalists employed a tank and armored cars to attack a British Gurkha unit, killing two Indian troops and suffering five losses of their own. In another engagement in Batavia, the British forces had killed at least half of a Nationalist force comprised of about 100 troops.

In China, Chiang Kai-Shek proposed a five-year new deal, to be implemented by a Supreme Economic Council, chaired by Premier T. V. Soong, Chiang's brother-in-law, with the purpose of effectuating "internal order and security" to enable the quest for a higher standard of living. Chiang took personal responsibility for the new program to rebuild the economy of China.

It was confirmed from Saturday that Chinhsien in Manchuria, 100 miles south of Mukden, had been occupied by the Nationalist troops.

At Nuremberg, evidence in the form of documents was adduced to show that the Germans had incited Japan to attack at Pearl Harbor, including evidence of discussions between Hitler and Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka several months preceding December 7. One document told of plans to assassinate a German envoy in Prague to provide a pretextual "incident" to justify invasion of Czechoslovakia. Other documents provided the pretexts for invasion of Poland, the Low Countries, and Russia, the latter based, according to a document prepared by a German General Thomas, on the need to feed the German Army, from the wheat of the Ukraine—a fact understood since 1941. The Germans had planned systematically to starve the Russians.

The joint committee of Congress investigating Pearl Harbor heard further from former Secretary of State Hull, testifying that the Japanese were "hell-bent" for war in November, 1941, in rejecting his November 26 ten-point peace proposal, which, he said, any peace-loving nation would gladly have accepted. He implied that the Japanese who had called it an "ultimatum" had misrepresented its contents and intent, and that the Army Pearl Harbor Board, which stated that the document may have caused the war, suffered from ignorant misinformation about the nature of the peace tender.

The ten points, he clarified, represented demands on which the United States had insisted throughout the diplomatic negotiations, ongoing since April, 1941, five of the points having extended the offer of direct benefits to Japan. The note containing the ten points was delivered after a decision not to provide a modus vivendi to the Japanese. (Mr. Hull regarded a modus vivendi to be a temporary agreement, pending a more permanent resolution. The term may also refer more generally to a permanent compromise arrangement. The ten points were meant as a final set of terms, thus regarded by the Japanese as an "ultimatum", albeit an ultimatum only in the sense of its finality, not bearing any threat of force by the United States for its non-acceptance, the usual condition for a final offer to bear the connotation of "ultimatum", or "line in the sand".) The ten points, Mr. Hull testified, had been offered in response to the November 20, 1941 demands made by the Japanese, the most extreme to that point.

"The three musketeers of the monarch," according to posters proliferating in Rome, referring to Pietro Badoglio, the Premier serving at the leisure of King Victor Emmanuel after the deposition of Mussolini in July, 1943, Ivanoe Bonomi, Badoglio's successor, and Emmanuel Orlando, the apparent successor to Ferruccio Parri, who had resigned the previous week, were perceived to be equally of one order, all for one and one for all. Orlando, 85, was the choice of five of the six parties ruling Italy.

President Truman awarded the oak leaf cluster to the Distinguished Service Medal won by General George C. Marshall in World War I. General Marshall had just retired as Army chief of staff. The General provided praise to the President's leadership in the last phases of the war, both in Europe and the Pacific.

Joseph Fox, the president of the White House Correspondents Association, had sought from press secretary Charles Ross publication to reporters of the intended itinerary of the President. The President had managed to fly to Grandview, Mo., to visit his mother on her 93rd birthday and return to Washington without the press becoming aware of the trip until his return. Mr. Fox wanted to know who had paid for the trip. Mr. Ross said that he was checking into the matter.

Mr. Truman replied to reporters, when asked whether he had an explanation for the unannounced trip: "I don't need to give an explanation. I don't intend to. I wanted to go out to Grandview and see my mother. I just took a notion I'd go out and see her, and I did." He also stated that he had a good time and that his mother had enjoyed herself also.

It was the first time, according to veteran White House correspondents, that a President had traveled so far from Washington without first announcing the trip to the press, even though FDR had not taken journalists with him on some of his wartime trips to Hyde Park and to war conferences. The late President had informed the press of where he was headed.

Hal Boyle, returning to the front page, reports from Shanghai of Francis Xavier Filan, 41, a person who appeared as "an energetic woodpecker about to foreclose on a worm", short and lightweight, an Associated Press photographer who had accompanied 16 amphibious landings in the Pacific during the previous three years of warfare. He had always carried 200 pounds of equipment with him, mostly cameras, and thus stood out from the crowd during any landing operation.

Once, in 1942, he had been listed as dead after a small plane in which he rode, taking night training photos, crashed near Victorville, California. It was the first time in a hundred flights he had worn a parachute. A trailing bomber suddenly had surged forward and clipped the tail off the plane. Mr. Filan had been knocked unconscious but regained himself long enough to pull the ripcord and sail to the ground, again lapsing into unconsciousness. The other occupants were killed. Seven hours after being pronounced dead, he stumbled out of the darkness with two broken bones in his back, still dragging the parachute because he believed that the Army might want it back.

On another occasion, he was trailing three Marines as they landed on Parry Island in the Marshalls. One stepped on a mine, killing two.

He had also been part of the bloody landing on Tarawa in latter November, 1943. His boat had been sunk and, neck-deep in water and in the line of enemy fire, he dragged a wounded Marine 150 yards to shore through an underwater barbed-wire barrier. Because of a steady tide washing his efforts away, he had to dig seven foxholes in two hours to accommodate himself and the wounded man. Three days later, he snapped a photo of dead Japanese on the island, a photo which won a Pulitzer.

Mr. Boyle leaves the case of Frank and "Flags", the psychopathic, not psittopathic, parrot, to impart another day.

We think, however, that we may know what Flags had to say: "I am the egg man. They are the egg men."

In Wenatchee, Washington, a school bus traveling in a blinding snowstorm at 8:00 a.m. careered down a 50-foot embankment into 50 feet of water at Lake Chelan, drowning fifteen or sixteen of forty students aboard.

Such is why cancellation of school in case of snow is always the wisest step, no matter how tough the population perceives itself to be. The laws of physics and gravity make no exception for the tough or stout of heart.

In New York City, a crime wave had been on the rise, with 68 persons killed in 76 days, roughly equating to the period since a month after the end of the war, August 14. The latest victim was entertainer Edward Corrigan, found strangled and stabbed the previous day in the driveway of a police officer's home. Someone did not like the performance.

One Vincent Giaraffa, 23, had been arrested on murder charges after admitting his part in a four-person hold-up of boxer Al (Bummy) Davis the previous Wednesday, shot in a Brooklyn bar and grill.

It wasn't Bummy's night. Sometimes, it goes down like that. He was out of rounds and got knocked out.

Another youth, 17, Donahoe, was being held in Kansas City on suspicion of participation in the crime, after he told police that he had been shot in a Brooklyn tavern during a hold-up, apparently that of Bummy. It was unclear how Donahoe got to Kansas City, either through Jimmy or the brother of Bummy.

They may need to talk to Bummy's brother, probably named Charlie, and look down at the waterfront, 437 River Street, to be precise, for further evidence. That's just our guess. The rest of the evidence probably is hidden in the Garden.

In Mobile, Ala., the police chief informed New York police that two youths, age 15 and 18, were being held in connection with the recent Brooklyn shooting murder of a young woman, age 16. Her body had been found in a junkyard the previous Wednesday. The police chief, possibly on loan from a little town in Mississippi, had extracted a confession from one of the boys while the other had admitted loaning a pistol to the confessing youth.

In twelve hours starting Saturday night, 45 persons had been arrested, 402 felony arrestees having been taken into custody the previous week, a 20 percent increase over the prior week. Mayor La Guardia appeared to blame the wave on a lack of police officers, seeking the discharge of 750 former N.Y.P.D. members from the armed forces.

There were eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been nine or ten of them.

In Los Angeles, an elderly man turned himself into police after bludgeoning to death his elderly wife with a pipe, saying that she could not sleep and he could not stand to see her suffer any longer. After the police discovered the bloodied corpse sitting in a chair, providing the corpus delicti needed after a confession, he was arrested for murder.

A Pan American Airways flight left La Guardia in New York, bound for Hurn, England, on the maiden flight with a new lower trans-Atlantic fare, $495 round trip. The previous fare had been $572 one way.

Get your tickets while the bargain lasts.

The carrier Lake Champlain had eclipsed the Atlantic-crossing speed record previously held since August, 1938 by the Queen Mary. The new record, 32.048 knots, beat the previous record of 30.99 knots. The new record was the more impressive for its having been established along the 36th parallel, from Gibraltar to Norfolk, rather than the Great Circle route, from Bishop Rock off Southampton to Ambrose Light off New York, navigated by the Queen Mary.

In Philadelphia, a 400-pound piece of stone fell from the seventh floor cornice of a building onto a trolley, injuring two persons. Watch for falling objects.

And, there are only, as of Monday, 24 shopping days left until Christmas. Better hurry before it is all gone.

On the editorial page, "Stockings Are Still Empty" urges readers to contribute cash, toys and other items to the Empty Stocking Fund, the annual collection undertaken by The News to provide Christmas for the needy children of the community, a list of whom was being prepared.

"Whose Business Is It?" remarks on editorial condemnation of Frank Sinatra for his stand against the racism displayed by white high school students in Gary, Indiana, before whom he had spoken, urging them to end their strike from classes after imposition of an open admissions policy by the school's principal.

The Charleston News and Courier, a newspaper which had not advocated any policy more progressive than those of John C. Calhoun, had led the chorus of hisses against Mr. Sinatra in South Carolina, contending that he had press agentry assisting him to boost his public image, and that intolerance was none of a singer's business.

But the more moderate Anderson Independent had also joined the denunciatory refrain.

The piece expects that The News and Courier would likewise voice disapproval of Bill Mauldin for his cartoon comparing Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi with Hitler. He had stated to The New York Herald Tribune that the war was not won as long as such personages as Senator Bilbo, Congressman John Rankin, also of Mississippi, and Gerald L. K. Smith, the reactionary, made race and creed an object of American hate.

The editorial expresses some dismay at Mr. Mauldin's efforts because it had cast some aspersions upon the formerly unblemished records of his characters, G.I.'s Joe and Willie, always presented authentically during the war when he drew for Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper. Now, the comic strip had taken a somewhat bitter turn, losing the former sardonism which had served it well. His ad hominem attacks had cost him a good deal of his former influence as a cartoonist and might soon serve to remove him entirely from the occupation.

It attributed the fault to his immaturity, not any lack of sincerity, a veteran who was truly concerned about civilization's problems. Mr. Sinatra also was demonstrating the same sincerity of purpose.

In the end, the piece suggests it to be strange that a crooner and a cartoonist had seen fit to express themselves publicly on intolerance, indicative of a very real problem in the society, one which might have had an earlier remedy had journals such as The News and Courier upheld their responsibilities to the public to inform and lead.

"The Boss and the British" comments on the press coverage provided in London to Boss Ed Kelly of Chicago, having gone to London as part of the first flight from Chicago to London by a commercial airline.

A piece from the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, titled "The Badge of Authority", comments on two black police officers having been hired by the Norfolk Police Department, told by the City Manager that all eyes would be upon them, seeming to recall Napoleon's admonition to his men in Egypt: "Soldiers, from the summit of yonder pyramids, forty centuries look down upon you." He had also reminded that they were the servants of the people, not their masters.

Drew Pearson tells of the carefully guarded results of a Gallup-Roper Poll of Navy men for their nearly mutinous statements, severely criticizing officers and desiring release from the Navy, most resigned to the realization that they would not advance. Only ten percent of the regular Navy, those enlisted men who had been career Navy men before the war, wanted to remain. The poll, taken in late July and early August before dropping of the atom bomb, had been painstakingly representative of the entire Navy.

Mr. Pearson then provides samples of questions and responses from the poll, which ranged in points of dissatisfaction from the caste system to the desire by 85 percent of those dissatisfied with the uniform to be rid of jumpers, neckerchiefs, collars, flat hats and whites, to replace them with a shirt, necktie, pockets, and a jacket, similar to the uniform worn by chief petty officers.

Marquis Childs remarks on the failure thus far of Congress to pass any legislation proposed by the President, at least in the form which he had originally sought. Even the entourage from London accompanying Prime Minister Attlee had made the observation, their concern being that it would carry over to his foreign policy proposals as well. The parliamentary system had the advantage that any proposal by the Prime Minister automatically carried assurance of approval by the majority in Commons which he represented.

A letter to the editor complains that the newspaper had not gone far enough in starting a campaign to eradicate slums and the housing shortage, advocates that it show more courage.

The editors bristle and remind the author that the newspaper had for years, since the campaign of Cam Shipp in early 1937, sought to educate the public on the need for slum clearance, and would so advocate again when it became practicable to build more than a doghouse for replacement housing. The frustration regarding the housing shortage was not remedied by blaming local realtors and builders, for they had no materials and labor with which to construct new housing.

"We will welcome any reader, with or without horsewhip, who comes forward with a suggestion for something we might start."

The Dixie-Dame Company, in a letter replying to the misinformation they contend had been put forth in the OPA response to their earlier letter, wished first to make clear that their company was named the Dixie Dame Co., not the Dixie Dame Pickle Co. The pickle packers admitted to the manufacture of fancy hors d'oeuvre pickles, selling them to practically all of the large purveyors, but, they proffer, their production was not limited only to packing their pickles. They did not promote their product solely to the wealthy but placed into the pipeline of commerce jams, jellies, marmalades, and preserves, affordable to the poor, at prices competitive.

Indeed, they got more sugar from OPA for their preserves and related products than for their pickles and, they contended, OPA quite comprehended the proposition. It was, in fact, "deliberate misrepresentation" by OPA to state, as it had, the contrarian contention in pretense of knowledge.

Canned tomatoes and "Orange Marmalade", apparently a special specie, were in fact their largest sellers during the war immediately past. "Orange Marmalade" had to be regarded as an "essential food" by OPA, as the Dixie Dames were allowed a carload of sugar for its production for civilians in December, 1943.

Furthermore, it was "fabrication of their imagination" for the OPA to claim that the Dixie Dames admitted that they had obtained profits in the first ten months of 1945 equal to all their margin on pickles and preserves in 1944. The public probably did not apprehend that during the first quarter of 1945, sugar allotment had been only 70 percent of that for the same period in 1944. Since that period had been the one in which the parties to contracts had to participate or not in formation of future obligations for purchase of produce on particular parcels planted, it had become very perplexing when OPA proclaimed a reduction of sugar to 65 percent in the second quarter, and to 50 percent in the third, when the Dixie Dames had to purchase the raw product for which they had entered, in contractual privity, in the first. Their plant position was in an acute pickle when, in the fourth, they again faced limitation to 50 percent.

So, concludes the Dixie-Dame pickle packers, they were well justified in asking for either an increase or advance on 1946 allotment of sugar to insure continued production of pickles and preserves, the latter equally accessible to the poor, even if the former were admittedly too fancy for lunch-toters.

The missive goes on to state that, to prevent closure of their plant, the Dames had, with particularity, stated that they were not seeking special privilege, merely proposing receipt of anticipated allotment six weeks prior to its scheduled disbursement. "An effort to create any other impression is a gross misrepresentation, and a flagrant injustice," probably not to mention a plain application of the principle, post hoc, ergo propter hoc, in the implication conveyed that the Dixie-Dame pickle packers were responsible for all the sugar shortage within the principality embraced by the local office of the OPA.

As proof of their point, they cite the fact presented by the OPA representative that a sugar seller had only 50,000 pounds of sugar at his disposal, whereas in mid-October, when the pickle packers had submitted their application, the distributor had 60,000 pounds in supply, thus showing that the public had only demonstrated predilection for 10,000 pounds of sugar in the previous five weeks, probative of the premise they proposed, that there was more sugar than people were able perchance to purchase.

The previous summer, the Dixie Dames had sought sugar to save the blackberry crop but were denied permission by OPA on the basis that it was not essential, even though plainly reported as a maker of spondulix for the primarily poor tenant farmers producing it. The pickle packers again insist that this purported inessentiality, rendering a negative pregnant, occurred in the same month, July, during which the country shipped 160,000 tons of sugar to Franco's Spain, a contention previously denied by OPA in the reply, mayhaps a bit precipitant, to the impudence and lack of prudence it claimed had been displayed by the prior entreaty of the pickle packers.

The OPA had engaged in "puerile" tactics, erecting "a smoke screen to becloud facts", playing upon the prejudices of the unthinking proletarians, particularly obnoxious to the pickle packers, as their business was predicated on democratic principles, paying, as they claimed, thousands of dollars per annum to their "farmer friends" who grew their onions, tomatoes, artichokes, gherkins, cucumbers, melons, apples, damsons, berries, grapes, quinches, strawberries, pears, and peppers, all for their various product of pickles and preserves.

OPA was deliberately seeking to prejudice the public against the Dixie-Dame pickle-preserve packers, "and its implication is plainly malicious" and a "sheer subterfuge".

The editors note, after this prolix prosodical prose, that, while impressive, it had not presented sufficient rebuttal to the OPA point that the Dixie-Dame present consumption was based on the 1941 quota and at near parity with it, and that during the war, they had been awarded additional sugar for the fact of their Army contract, enabling them to increase capacity of their plant. Allowing, after cancellation of these contracts, Dixie-Dame to have additional sugar would produce unfair competition with the other commercial consumers of sugar.

Well, even if sequels are never as pleasureful as the first experience, we hope that your stocking is now chocked full.