Prime Minister Daladier orders the military to take over all French railroads to prevent a strike by rail employees. Édouard Daladier gave a radio address to the French people saying he would use all means necessary to break up the scheduled general strike and claiming that the labor agitation was a plot to set up a leftist dictatorship. The French republic sailed head on into what may prove one of the stormiest periods of its recent history tonight when Premier Édouard Daladier, taking up the challenge flung at him by organized labor and leftist political groups, warned that he would use all available means to break the general strike of 5,000,000 workers which has been set for next Wednesday.
Since among the means at the premier’s disposal is the power to declare a state of siege, recalcitrant workers may find themselves marshaled to work under military conditions — and with military penalties for disobedience — unless they cancel the strike. The walkout was called as a protest against recent governmental decrees, including one to lengthen the forty-hour work week.
Speaking over a nationwide radio hookup, Daladier branded last week’s sit-down strikes and the scheduled general strike as political blackmail. “I have decided to put an end to such methods,” the premier warned. Brushing aside charges that his government was heading toward a Fascist dictatorship, Daladier asserted that the strike agitation itself was a veiled attempt to set up a radical dictatorship over the French proletariat. Anatole de Monzie, minister of public works, also warned the workers in a radio broadcast. He said the government would consider the labor contracts of the railroad workers broken if they participate in the walkout. Those who refuse to work will be discharged, he said.
Spanish insurgents indicated today that systematic attacks on strategic government ports would be Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s main weapons during the coming months when winter snows cover the front lines. Attacks yesterday along the northeast Mediterranean seaboard, they said, were a “sample” of the regular pounding Franco’s navy plans to give government ports during the winter. Insurgent naval bases on the northwest coast were reported busy arming all available merchant craft and fishing boats with the heaviest guns they can carry. Such vessels will be auxiliaries to the war fleet now based at Mallorca. One insurgent report, however, indicated that Franco might try again. to seize Minorca, the lone government stronghold in the Balearics. The little island has become vulnerable to attack, since Franco easily can transfer troops from the mainland to the island.
Hungarian Regent Horthy refuses the resignation of Premier Imrédy and asks him to form a new government. He was instructed to resume his functions as premier by Admiral Nicholas Horthy, regent of Hungary. Horthy in effect reconsidered his acceptance of Imrédy’s resignation and announced it would be disregarded. Imrédy and his entire cabinet quit after the government had been voted down on a test ballot, 115 to 95, in the lower house of parliament. Dissatisfied National unity deputies have been clamoring for Czechoslovakia to cede eastern territory to Hungary so the latter could obtain a common frontier with Poland, an aim opposed by Germany.
Poland completes its occupation of Czech lands. The Czechs evacuate early to stop border skirmishes, but lethal violence still occurred. A Polish army major was reported killed and a noncommissioned officer seriously wounded today when Polish troops moved into the last area — about twenty square miles in the valleys of the Carpathian Mountains — of the territory ceded to Poland Ly Czechoslovakia on November 1. Completion of occupation of the annexed territory had been scheduled for December 1. Poland, however, demanded and received approval of earlier action after an alleged attack in Czechoslovakia on a Polish demarcation commission.
An official communique said that a Major Rago was killed and the noncommissioned officer wounded during a conference between Czech and Polish officers. The communique said the conference was arranged when the advancing Polish troops encountered a detail of Czech troops and that the shots were fired from an unstated source as the officers talked.
Anti-Semitic rioting leads to a bomb blast at a theater in Timișoara in the Banat region of Rumania, killing three and injuring 40.
Poland agrees to admit Jewish refugees over 65 years old.
British troops in Palestine now concentrate on clearing terrorists and seizing arms from small Arab villages rather than the large cities. The only reported violence is the continued Arab shootings of Arab opponents of the Mufti of Jerusalem, al-Husseini.
President Roosevelt confers with returned U.S. Ambassadors from Italy and Germany. The Ambassador to Germany will be reassigned by the State Department.
The grave deficiencies in trained personnel and equipment of the army for adequate defense of the United States, recently reported in dispatches to the Chicago Tribune, were admitted in the annual report of Secretary of War Harry H. Woodring, made public today. While dwelling upon the progress made in the last five years in the reorganization and reequipment of the army and the formulation of plans to step up production of army materiel by private industry in time of war, the secretary concurred in the report of General Malin Craig, chief of staff, which detailed the deficiencies in personnel, infantry, and artillery arms and aircraft. “I would be remiss,” said Woodring, “did I leave the impression that we now have a completely modernized and thoroughly efficient defensive establishment. There remain deficiencies in organization, equipment, and personnel which must be corrected before we can be assured of maintenance of a military force fully adequate for our defensive needs.”
Earl Browder and other officers of the communist party of the United States are liable to fines of $1,000 and imprisonment for two years for failure to register their party with The State Department as the American agency of the communist International and the Russian Soviet Union. This is the position of a letter, made public today, which Representative Martin Dies (D-Texas), chairman of the house committee investigating un-American activities, addressed yesterday to Secretary of State Cordell Hull.
Mr. Dies also transmitted two volumes of the testimony before the committee from which he quoted to prove his charge that the communist party is violating the new law requiring registration of American agents of foreign governments, political parties, and other groups and institutions. The chairman cited testimony showing that the German-American Bund also is liable to punishment for failure to register as agent of the Nazi party of Germany. He suggested that Mr. Hull should invoke the aid of the Department of Justice in enforcement of the act and in further investigation of a number of “front” organizations which the chairman believes are equally subject to the law, though their relationship to foreign principals is disguised.
WMCA and two other stations refuse to broadcast Father Coughlin’s radio show, but many stations carry it. The priest rebroadcasts his previous address, relying on it to defend himself against exaggerated charges.
Chicago White Sox pitcher Monty Stratton accidentally shot himself in the leg while hunting rabbits on his mother’s farm near Greenville, Texas. He never played in the majors again.
Thirty thousand Chinese workers begin work to convert marshy land near Shanghai into a large air field for Japan. Construction has also started on a large military base for the Japanese at the mouth of the Whangpoo (Huangpu) River, near Shanghai. Japanese construction of a vast military base near Woosung, at the mouth of the Whangpoo River, downstream from Shanghai, added today to foreign apprehension over Japan’s future plans in China. Foreign observers said Japanese military authorities were constructing a gigantic airfield two miles from Shanghai’s North station. They said about 30,000 Chinese laborers were laying a carpet of crushed bricks over the marshy ground and probably would have the field completed within three months. It was said squadrons of bombers and planes for the newly established air mail service to Tokyo already were quartered on finished parts of the field.
All foreigners have been barred from Woosung, where, besides another airfield, it was reported that the Japanese were rebuilding the devastated town into a military defense base with nearby barracks to accommodate 20,000 men and emplacements heavy enough for twelve-inch cannon. The Japanese themselves report that work has begun on a vast industrial and shipping zone along the river between Shanghai and Woosung. Foreigners expressed fear that such a development might enable Japan, if she desired, to squeeze out all foreign interests in Shanghai.
Along the battle lines, Chinese declared they had recaptured Yingcheng, fifty miles northwest of Hankow, in vigorous counter attacks while still blocking the Japanese advance south from the former provisional capital. Japan’s army has dug in at Chikiapu and Wukiang-kiao, about fifteen miles southeast of Yochow on the Canton-Hankow railroad, Chinese declared, and another column also has been stopped in the mountains along the border of Hupeh and Honan provinces.
Japan stages three air attacks on Hengyang in Hunan, and one on Ichang, and on Chuki in Chekiang province. Heavy damage and casualties were reported in the air raids on Hengyang. Japan claims ground victories near the Shansi-Hopeh border.
Japanese shells fell inside British territory and Chinese troops fired on a British border garrison today as Japanese continued a mopping up process at the very edge of the British crown colony of Hong Kong. The Japanese captured the village of Shumchun, just over the British frontier on the Kowloon-Canton Railway. Shells which fell into British territory during the operation caused no damage.
Born:
José Tartabull, Cuban MLB outfielder and pinch hitter (Kansas City-Oakland A’s, Boston Red Sox), in Cienfuegos, Cuba.
Tom Gilburg, NFL tackle and punter (Baltimore Colts), in Bronxville, New York.
Tom Kennedy, NFL quarterback (New York Giants), in Maywood, California (d. 2006).
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