Spanish rebel artillery, again breaking the calm on Spain’s war fronts, hammered government fortifications today in the Tremp sector of the northern Catalonian front. The shelling was followed by air raids on government lines. Relays of dozens of rebel bombers dropped tons of explosives on government positions.
Generalissimo Franco today rejected the pleas of 30,000,000 French Catholics and 5,000,000 war veterans for a Christmas truce in Spain with the statement that such a concession might be interpreted as a “weakness” on the part of the insurgents. There were, however, reports from San Sebastián that floods and a cold wave which swept across Europe today from the Arctic might force postponement of Franco’s heralded offensive until mid-January.
The insurgents have 715,000 troops — the largest army assembled by Franco in nearly 30 months of civil war — and 140,000 men of the auxiliary services on full war footing in readiness for the new offensive in Eastern Spain. Both loyalist and insurgent soldiers were doomed to a third Christmas of bombardment, hunger and temperatures that fell to zero today in the Northern Pyrenees trenches when Franco sent word across the border that he could not listen to any proposals for a truce, even for a week.
The reply was communicated by Franco’s mission in France to Cardinal Verdier, acting on behalf of the French Catholics, and George Rivollet, former Minister of Pensions and leader of the French war veterans. The cardinal and Rivollet saw Foreign Minister Bonnet in Paris Saturday and asked him to bring pressure against both loyalists and insurgents on behalf of the truce proposal.
The insurgent mission explained that Franco was compelled to refuse because the war in Spain is on an issue of “life or death of the nation” and that it cannot be halted even temporarily because such an act might be interpreted as a weakness in Franco’s determination to destroy Marxism. The mission said that a truce might be taken advantage of by neutrals to propose mediation.
Poland demands that Czechoslovakia stop its anti-Polish activities, including the encouragement of Ukrainians in their plots against Poland.
Hungary aligns itself with the fascist axis, against Bolshevism.
Organized Hungarian terrorists slip across the Czech border at night.
1938 Slovak parliamentary election. On 6 October 1938 Slovakia declared autonomy, with Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party (HSĽS) becoming the dominant political party in Slovakia. Some parties were partially forced to merge with HSĽS, whilst others were forbidden (Jewish parties, the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party) or their activities were suspended (e.g., Slovak National Party which refused to “voluntarily” join HSĽS). New Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party – The Party of Slovak National Unity (HSĽS-SSNJ) then organized rigged elections to strengthen its position in Slovakia and for further negotiations with the central government.
The election took the form of a referendum, with voters asked only one question “Do you want a new, free Slovakia?” The elections were supervised by the Hlinka Guard, which had to find out how people voted. In many places, the government created separate polling stations for members of national minorities to trace their political preferences and “loyalty”. The campaign contained strong anti-Czech and anti-Jewish propaganda, with those seeking to vote against labelled as traitors. Of the 63 members of the United List elected, 47 were members of Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party, four were former members of the now-defunct Republican Party of Farmers and Peasants, two were members of the new German Party and one was a representative of the Hungarian minority. Josef Tiso used the results for the reconstruction of the autonomous government, thus weakening the influence of other former parties which “voluntarily” joined HSĽS. The first session of the new Diet of the Slovak Land was held on 18 January 1939, with Martin Sokol elected as its chairman and Jozef Tiso as Prime Minister.
Italy promises that the rights of American citizens in Italy will not be affected by new restrictions on Jews.
Benito Mussolini officially inaugurated the new Sardinian coal town of Carbonia.
The United States and Turkey complete a trade agreement granting most-favored-nation status.
Fakhri Nashashibi leads a pro-British demonstration of 2,000 Arabs near Hebron. Nashashibi is opposed to the terrorist tactics of the Mufti of Jerusalem. British airplanes and ground forces inflicted heavy casualties on an Arab rebel band near Athlit today while Arab residents of the town of Yatta, eight miles away, were engaged in a demonstration of loyalty to Britain. A Royal Air Force pilot and a soldier were wounded in the engagement, which came after months of comparative quiet in that area. The loyalty demonstration at Yatta was staged by a colorful array of 3,000 Arab villagers gathered just outside the bleak hillside community south of Hebron. High British military officers attended the demonstration, accompanied by a heavy guard of armored cars. The Yatta gathering was addressed by the Arab leader, Fakhri Nashashibi, who denounced terrorism and violence in the Holy Land. Nashashibi, one of the most bitter opponents of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, declared peace could be achieved only by nonviolent methods. The Grand Mufti, Haj Amin Effendi Al-Husseini, now in exile in Syria, has been charged with fomenting Palestine’s Arab unrest.
Sheikh Said al-Khatib is shot dead in Jerusalem, the second Arab associated with the Mosque of Omar (Dome of the Rock) to be killed in two days. Meanwhile, one passenger was killed and another wounded when an Arab band ambushed a Jewish bus on the Haifa-Tel Aviv Northern road. In the old city of Jerusalem, Sheikh al-Khatib, a cleric in the Mosque of Omar, was shot and killed by an assailant who escaped. The sheikh was among a group of Arabs who invited British troops recently to inspect the precincts of the mosque when it was alleged Arab snipers were hidden there.
The Advisory Council on Social Security publicizes recommendations to expand the program to cover domestic and farm employees. The Advisory Council on Social Security in a report made public tonight also recommended that the so-called reserve fund set up under the federal old age retirement law be reduced to about 4 billion dollars. Under the present New Deal system the reserve fund ultimately would reach the fantastic sum of $47 billion. In this recommendation the nonpartisan council of twenty-five members takes a wallop at one of the New Deal’s big sources of revenue, raised by payroll taxes levied ostensibly to build a reserve. The council has been studying social service legislation for fourteen months. The payroll taxes now provide more funds than are needed to pay the cost of old age retirement annuities. The surplus, called a reserve by administration spokesmen, is put into the general revenue fund and used. for current spending. The “reserve” consists of government bonds representing the amount of surplus social security taxes already spent.
As a safeguard for the 4-billion-dollar fund recommended, the council would have receipts from taxes on salaries put into a trust fund to be administered by trustees instead of being spent for general governmental purposes. The “reserve” long has been under attack by critics of the Roosevelt administration who have called it merely a government debt which must be paid by new taxes covering principal and interest.
Two thousand picketers parade before New York station WMCA, over its refusal to broadcast Father Coughlin’s radio show. A booing, shouting crowd of 2,000 persons picketed radio station WMCA for more than two hours in protest against the station’s refusal three weeks ago to give Father Charles E. Coughlin time on the air when he failed to submit a copy of his scheduled broadcast. Many of the marchers carried anti-Semitic signs as well as those denouncing the radio station.
With time off for good behavior, Al Capone could be released from Alcatraz to serve a one-year sentence in Cook County Jail. However, he is dangerous and delusional due to advanced syphilis. A conference with prison officials and Capone’s family will decide his fate. It was learned tonight that the Department of Justice is making arrangements with members of Capone’s family to have them waive the one-time gang lord’s return to Chicago and agree to him serving the year in Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay, where he now is confined. or in the federal detention jail at Los Angeles. The department is seeking to keep Capone in California so that treatment for paresis, from which he has been suffering for almost a year, may be continued. It was reported that if Capone remains in the prison hospital for a year, he probably will be rid of the mental disorder on final release.
The department also is concerned lest Capone be accorded special privileges in the Cook County or nearby Illinois county jails. Officials recalled that Terry Druggan, beer baron, was treated like a hotel guest when he served a contempt sentence in the old Cook County jail. Other notorious prisoners of the same era looked out through lace curtains on the cell windows of the jail at Sycamore. The suggestion that Capone be kept on the coast was presented to Capone’s family through Abraham Teitelbaum, Capone’s attorney. Teitelbaum was in Washington recently seeking to learn what plans the department of justice was making for Capone’s release. Teitelbaum was asked to report back on the family’s decision this week. It is expected that the family will acquiesce, not only out of regard for Capone’s health, but because the department can force them to do so. The department could make him serve his full sentence of ten years, plus a year in jail.
Serial killer Anna Marie Hahn wrote a full confession before her recent execution. It was printed in this day’s Chicago Tribune. Hahn had maintained her innocence at trial.
At a Zionist association dinner, Interior Secretary Ickes condemns Nazis as “brutal dictators” who commit “crimes against humanity,” and says Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and any Americans who have accepted medals from them have forsworn their birthright.
The Soviet Union sets midnight as the deadline for a response from Japan on fishing rights in Siberian waters. Japan wants the old treaty renewed without change; the Soviet Union wants to withdraw 40 areas from the treaty.
Reporter Arthur Scholes writes for the Chicago Tribune: “Returning to Canton for the first time after the strenuous days of bombing and its attendant confusion and six weeks after the fall of the city to the Japanese, one is impressed with the complete silence which reigns. Always throbbing with life, it is difficult to imagine Canton without the noise that accompanied the coming and going of so many people as usually thronged the streets and shops of a city of a million and a half population. But today the population of Canton is no more than 9,000. First of all, the absence of the thousands of small craft was very noticeable, there being only a few boats close to the retaining walls of the island of Shameen, the foreign settlement. There were no rickshas to jostle those entering the streets of the city, and there were of course no buses. Only a casual private car flying the flag of some foreign nation and the occasional Japanese trucks, rushing through the streets, now break the silence of Canton.”
Five Japanese divisions of troops are transported from Shantung, Hopeh, and Shansi provinces to Manchukuo to fight both the Communist Chinese Eighth Route Army and the threat of Soviet invasion.
Born:
Roger E. Mosley, actor (TC- “Magnum, P.I.”; “Leadbelly”), in Los Angeles, California.
[Bryan] Chas Chandler, English rock bassist (The Animals – “House of the Rising Sun”) and artist manager (Jimi Hendrix), born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, United Kingdom.
Riley Mattson, NFL tackle (Washington Redskins, Chicago Bears), in Portland, Oregon.
Mike White, MLB centerfielder, second baseman, and third baseman (Houston Astros), in Detroit, Michigan.
Joe Szura, Canadian NHL and WHA centre (NHL: Oakland Seals, WHA: Los Angeles Sharks, Houston Aeros), in Fort William, Ontario, Canada (d. 2006).
Naval Construction:
The Regia Marina (Royal Italian Navy) Soldati-class (First Group) destroyer Lanciere is launched by Cantiere navale di Riva Trigoso (Riva Trigoso, Italy).
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