Spanish insurgent headquarters tonight announced the capture of Artesa de Segre, key to loyalist communications in Northern Catalonia and the first major prize of Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s 12-day-old offensive. At the same time Franco’s armies at the southern end of the 90-mile Catalonian front claimed to have driven into the environs of two loyalist strongholds guarding vital highways — Borjas Blancas and Falset.
The capture of fortified Artesa de Segre on the bank of the Ebro, 66 miles northwest of Barcelona and 29 miles north of Lérida, cut the highway leading north to Puigcerda and the French border over which great quantities of war supplies have reached the government armies. The insurgents also gained control of a highway leading to Barcelona by way of Cervera. Artesa fell after an encircling movement by three Navarrese and Galician columns under General Juan Solchaga, who found that the loyalists had blasted all bridges across the Segre.
Pontoon bridges were thrown across the river and Navarrese drove into the town from the north, near Vernet, while another column crossed from Ana on the northern bank. The insurgent advance on Borjas Blancas and Falset threatened the two chief highways to Tarragona and the Mediterranean coast from the west. Falset is 22 miles inland from Tarragona and Borjas Blancas is 34 miles northwest of the Mediterranean seaport.
Italian Black Shirts supported by Spanish troops on the flanks also entered Castelldans late in the afternoon and pressed on to bring the highway to Tarragona under fire. Loyalists admitted intense fighting around Borjas Blancas and said the enemy is being held five miles outside the town near the village of Cervia. The insurgents are said by the loyalists to have used tanks and bombing planes in the drive on Borjas Blancas.
Spanish insurgents arrest the British consul and his wife in connection with the recent espionage incident.
Forty thousand Corsicans who died in World War I defense of France are remembered.
The French protest against Italian Premier Benito Mussolini, preferring “death to servitude.” French Prime Minister Daladier vows to fight, if needed, for the French Empire.
Josef Beck, Polish Foreign Minister, is expected to arrive in Berchtesgaden on Thursday for a consultation with Chancellor Adolf Hitler on German-Polish relations. The visit, which was agreed upon some time ago, will be devoted to a general survey of the development of the Central European situation following the Munich four-power conference. The redrawing of frontiers and other issues growing out of that reshuffle have threatened to ruffle the stability of German-Polish relations. Competent Reich spokesmen have rejected such inferences, but it has been apparent that the Polish Government has believed itself “overlooked” in the decisions reached at and after Munich.
Germany permits Quakers to provide relief to “non-Aryans.”
Walther von Brauchitsch was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus of Italy.
Youth in Greece are required to join Greek National Youth, modeled on Germany’s program.
The Ruthenian government adopts the name of Carpatho-Ukraine through a German initiative.
Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini exchange New Year messages and renew close cooperation.
An Irish parliament member attempts to promote a plan to relocate one million German Jews to Palestine.
The talks on Palestine issues between the British Government and Arab representatives will begin January 18 in London with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain presiding, according to information received today by Premier Mohamed Mahmoud of Egypt. Premier Mahmoud has invited representatives of all Arab governments to a preliminary conference in Cairo. Acceptances have been received from King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia and Yahya Muhammad Hamid ud-din, King of Yemen. Other replies are expected in a few days.
Arab terrorism in Palestine has considerably increased recently. For a period, the terrorists had directed their activities almost entirely against Arabs who refused to cooperate, but Jews and Britons are again victims in the campaign of kidnapping and murder. Three Jews were killed and two were severely wounded today. An Arab woman was killed in the bombing of her home. Two terrorists were killed in military searches for arms.
The 76th U.S. Congress convenes its opening session. The Seventy-Sixth Congress convened today, set up its working structure and then recessed until tomorrow, when President Roosevelt’s annual message will start the lawmakers on their legislative tasks. The routine was cut and dried in both houses. Representative William B. Bankhead of Alabama was reelected speaker of the house by a vote of 250 to 167 over his Republican opponent, Joseph W. Martin of Massachusetts. Martin thereupon became minority leader. The senate took only thirty minutes to swear in new members. Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky and Charles L. McNary of Oregon were reelected as majority and minority leaders, respectively.
A resolution for the impeachment of Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins will be laid before the House of Representatives. It will be based on evidence submitted to Congress today of “unbelievable laxity” in the Labor Department’s enforcement of the deportation laws. That was announced by Representative Parnell Thomas (R-New Jersey) after the Dies house committee, of which he is a member, placed on the speaker’s desk a 40,000-word report on its five-month investigation of un-American activities. Thomas said he would introduce the impeachment resolution within a week and that he would cite specific cases of Secretary Perkins’ failure to carry out the laws in deporting aliens known to be plotting to overthrow the government.
Despite the length and detail of its report, the committee headed by Representative Martin Dies (D-Texas) declared that it had only scratched the surface in its inquiry into the subversive activities of groups inspired by the communist, Nazi, or Fascist ideologies. The committee asked that the investigation be authorized to continue for two more years and for $150,000 to finance a thorough inquiry. The members complained that they had been hampered by a comparatively small appropriation of $25,000 and the refusal of the Roosevelt administration to lend the slightest assistance to the inquiry despite the specific request of Congress that investigators and clerical help be supplied from government departments. The report recited at length the facts concerning the failure of the Labor Department to deport Harry Bridges, west coast CIO organizer, and other aliens engaged in activities aimed at the governmental structure of the United States.
President Roosevelt is expected to address the need for a defense budget, unemployment relief funds, and railroad rehabilitation.
A report, from the House Committee on Un-American activities reports the existence of 135 organizations that are regarded as fascist.
The report of the Sheppard committee on campaign expenditures sustaining many charges of the employment of relief workers and funds on behalf of Democratic candidates for office and revealing other irregularities fell like a bombshell upon Congress today. The unanimous findings of the committee, consisting of four Democrats and one Republican gave the Roosevelt administration one of the severest jolts it has experienced and presaged consequences of a varied and far-reaching character. Senator Morris Sheppard (D-Texas) is chairman of the committee. Disclosure of the extent to which the New Dealers have used WPA appropriations as political campaign funds gave fresh impetus to the drive for returning control of relief administration to the states accompanied by legislation penalizing the playing of politics with human misery.”
Although the committee did not directly blame Harry L. Hopkins for political manipulation of the Works Progress administration from which the President last month transferred him to the cabinet as secretary of commerce, it sustained many charges he had pronounced baseless and left his responsibility for the conditions to be inferred. Senator Charles L. McNary of Oregon, Republican leader of the senate, gave notice that he would move reference of the report to the commerce committee in connection with consideration of confirmation of the appointment of Mr. Hopkins to the cabinet.
A House committee urges pure water legislation.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee will not hold hearings on any phase of neutrality legislation for at least a month, said Chairman McReynolds of Tennessee, today. He has been ordered by his physicians to take a rest as part of treatment for a heart ailment. Mr. McReynolds said the Neutrality Act was his “baby” and he wanted to be present when any legislation affecting it was considered by his committee. “I feel the same as ever about the act,” he said, “that it is about as good a bill as we can get. My idea is that the Congress probably will extend Section 2, the cash-and-carry provisions which expire next Summer.”
Gene Cox becomes the first girl page in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Hepburn Board of the U.S. Navy submitted a request to the U.S. Congress for the expansion to Midway, Wake, Johnston, and Palmyra Atolls in the Pacific Ocean. Adequate naval air and sea bases in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to enable American fleets to defend the United States and its possessions were urged tonight in a special report to congress. These bases also would allow the fleets to keep an eye on the western hemisphere against possible foreign aggression. The report, prepared by a board of five naval officers headed by Rear Admiral Arthur J. Hepburn, was sent to Congress by Secretary of the Navy Claude A. Swanson.
As the report went to Capitol Hill, President Roosevelt revealed that his national defense program, which puts the United States in the role of guardian of the new world, will be put before congress in a special message next week. He said his message to Congress will say a special message on national defense is on its way. The budget message will carry only the regular appropriations for the War and Navy Departments. Increases will be outlined in the special message. The most significant item in the report was a recommendation for a major fleet base at the Island of Guam in the Pacific. The board urged that the base be capable of maintaining at least the major part of the fleet to provide Philippine immunity against hostile attack. The proposal to establish a base at Guam indicated the navy is determined to defend the Philippines in the event of a Pacific war.
The navy has a base in the Philippines, but this is not large enough to accommodate heavier vessels. For this reason, the Navy Department recently arranged with the British government to use the British naval base at Singapore. The board awarded priority to Chesapeake Bay defenses. Enlargement of the Hampton Roads naval base in Virginia was recommended. The capital area and the east coast are poorly defended because the navy, until recently, has been without an Atlantic fleet.
The Supreme Court may rule on the constitutionality of the Tennessee Valley Authority power program.
Diggers of the Panama Canal pressure the government for pensions.
The cigarette industry is very strong, with 163 billion cigarettes produced in 1938.
The oil industry is down by 50 percent.
New Attorney General Frank Murphy is sworn into office on his mother’s Bible.
The tuberculosis death rate decreases 9 percent.
Sulphur shows promise in medicine and sanitation; it is a potential tool in fighting pneumonia.
Pure oxygen is shown to combat seasickness.
An x-ray unit small enough for hospital installation is invented that weighs only 4,000 pounds.
The 2,000th anniversary of the Roman emperor Augustus’s birth is honored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
New York film critics name “The Citadel” best movie.
Television is expected to become a “prominent industry.”
16,000 people turn out to watch an indoor tennis match at Madison Square Garden between Donald Budge, the first man to achieve the tennis grand slam in 1938 (US, French, Australian and Wimbledon championships), making his professional debut and Ellsworth Vines. Budge wins.
Punishment is promised for Chinese who assist the Japanese government. Usually well-informed Chinese said today that a “considerable number” of persons had been executed in Chungking, with “hundreds more” under arrest following the, expulsion of Former Premier Wang Ching-wei from the Chinese government party for “deserting his post and suing for peace in contradiction to national policy.” The “purge,” first reported on Sunday, was said to be continuing secretly, but nonetheless effectively in a campaign to try to block any further defections.
The international famine relief committee reported today that 3,000,000 Chinese farmers were homeless and 9,000,000 more were threatened as a result of new Yellow River floods. The committee reported breaks in the dikes twenty miles east and forty miles west of Kaifeng and said the flood was sweeping through lakes and canals toward the coast, following the course of the disastrous flood of 1887.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 153.64 (-1.12).
Born:
Bobby Hull, Canadian NHL and WHA left wing (Hockey Hall of Fame 1983; Stanley Cup 1961 Chicago Black Hawks; WHA Champions-Jets, 1976, 1978; 3 x Art Ross Trophy; 2 x Hart Memorial Trophy; NHL All-star, 1960-1965; 1967-1972; NHL: Chicago Black Hawks; WHA-NHL: Winnipeg Jets; Hartford Whalers), in Pointe Anne, Ontario, Canada (d. 2023).
(Gwendolyn) Dianne Brooks, American R&B, jazz, session and touring vocalist (Three Playmates – “Sugah Wooga”; solo – “Walking On My Mind”; Anne Murray), in New Jersey (d. 2005)
Naval Construction:
The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) Type 37 torpedo boat T15 is laid down by F. Schichau, Elbing, East Prussia (werk 1403)
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