Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that, still plagued by heavy rains and mud, British troops of the Fifth Army, held in the position for a week along the lower Volturno by enemy fire from Massico Ridge, had crossed the Regia Canal to take the town of Mondragone, placing them against Mt. Massico, western anchor of the German defensive line before Rome. Mondragone had been deserted by the Nazis who had moved into the hills.

American troops took the high ground at Pietravairano, five miles southwest of Raviscanina, twenty-one miles northeast of Mondragone, and also threatened Mt. Massico in the Upper Volturno valley, while providing observation posts for the surrounding roads leading from Capua to Rome.

Fourteen miles inland from the bridgehead just established in the San Salvo area, the Eighth Army captured Montemitro on the lower bank of the Trigno River.

A map on the inside page shows the two primary roads leading to Rome, the Appian Way along which the Fifth Army proceeded up the east coast from Naples, and the road from the Adriatic coast inland across the Apennine Mountains from Pescara, along which proceeded the Eighth Army, both armies now moving relatively at a snail’s pace because of the combined factors of the stubborn German defenses along the Massico line and the inclement weather.

Accompanied by future British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan, Pietro Badoglio appeared in Naples for the first time since the city had been liberated by the Allies from the Nazis. The appearance with British ministers suggested speculation that Badoglio's government in Italy now had the joint blessing of both the British and Americans.

In Russia, three Russian armies moved toward Nikopol, manganese manufacturing center on the lower Dneiper, as two other contingents spread out south and west of captured Melitopol, heading toward the objective of Perekop, seeking to ring the Nazis and prevent their escape through the Crimea.

Reinforced rearguard German forces at Krovoi Rog, 50 miles northwest of Nikopol, still held out against the Russian onslaught there, seeking to delay the taking of the city, to allow the bulk of the Germans to escape across the Ukrainian steppes around Nogaisk.

The Russian tactics were similar to those used at Stalingrad and by the Americans and British on the Cap Bon Peninsula in Tunisia, trapping the remaining forces of Rommel in early May.

In the Pacific, American paratroops had landed en masse on Choiseul Island in the Solomons.

Hal Boyle, still reporting from Algiers, relates of the complaints of American soldiers on the price-gouging ongoing in the streets. A silver bracelet, which one soldier from Chicago indicated he could obtain, and of better quality, for but $1.50 in Mexico City, was fetching eleven bucks. The shopkeeper selling the jewelry brushed off the complaint from the soldier with the wave of his hand, telling him to open his own shop in Mexico City.

A captain from Virginia informed that he had awoken recently to find that Arabs in the middle of the night had sneaked into his quarters and stolen all of his clothing right down to his underwear. The only thing they missed were his pajamas which he was wearing. Clothing was a sign of wealth to Arabs, presumably including underwear.

Mr. Boyle also notes that the Army's Guide to Italy warned soldiers that they should not seek to court Italian girls unless they were engaged to them, that families resented the practice and many a German who sought loose fraternization wound up with a knife stuck in his belly.

--Desiderate fin qui la mia sorella, voi Americano, venite a contatto della sua famiglia in primo luogo ed ottenete la nostra approvazione o fenderò il vostro orecchio della gola all'orecchio ed allora li alimenterò ai pesci. Capisca?

On the domestic front, the strike of coal miners spread to include more than 100,000, a number rising at the approach of the October 31 deadline set during the summer by John L. Lewis for resolution of the contract dispute. The President had implied that unless the miners returned to work by Monday, the mines would again be seized by the Government.

The House Ways and Means Committee boosted the tax on alcohol from $6 to $8 per gallon, refusing a move to raise it to $10, hiked the tax on cigars, raised from 5% to 25% the tax on electric light bulbs and vacuum tubes, and from 10% to 20% the tax on jewelry.

Why, a fellow these days couldn't drink a gallon of whiskey while smoking a fine cigar under the warmth of the electric light admiring his new diamond ring as he listened to his favorite radio program, without being taxed plumb to death.

On the editorial page, "War Phase" suggests that the true state of matters in Germany might best be gauged by returning American prisoners. Recent estimates had it that a million Germans were dead from the bombing raids, that another seven million were homeless, that hatred for Americans was rampant.

Those objective factors plus the news from the Moscow conference and other discussions of the war, as in the debate in Congress regarding the Connally Resolution, suggesting that the discourse among the Allies was now aimed, not at prosecution of the war, but rather at administration of the peace, spelled perhaps the end nearing of the war in Europe, maybe, it says, by spring.

"Of Syphilis" reports again on the problem in the South of the dratted disease infecting draftees, finds that, locally, the problem was confined almost wholly to black inductees. The problem was compounded by the fact that blacks were reluctant to be treated for the disease once diagnosed. Also, the local prostitutes generally were not found to be infected, except among the old pros.

The piece concludes that it took a very low sort of person to contract the disease--one worse than a prostitute.

"Social Security" argues that the rate of the Social Security tax should be frozen at 1% for the time being, as long as there was a substantial surplus in the fund. The fund had taken in a billion dollars in the previous year and had paid out only 130 million in benefits.

"A Disavowal" expresses the belief that the American people were likely prepared for more taxation than the House Ways and Means Committee was willing to approve for paying off the war debt.

Raymond Clapper puts the blame for the no-new-tax cry of the Congress on the Republicans. The Republicans first wanted trimming of war budgets before any new taxes would be imposed on the people.

And Mr. Clapper agrees that economy should be undertaken to cut waste in war spending. It would be up to the Republicans, he continues, to do it, as neither the Administration nor the military would find it interesting. And the fact was that fewer ships were necessary to push down the ways, now that the submarine menace in the Atlantic had been brought under control. Yet the ships which were on order when the Atlantic had been so deadly during the first half of 1942 were still being built. The Republicans, he suggests, should turn off that spigot.

Samuel Grafton finds that the Connally Resolution was not likely to provide the world, as heralded, with a sense of the Senate regarding the post-war world to come. Rather, it was the Senate putting on its Sunday finery to impress the world with what the Senate wanted the world to think the sense of the Senate was. The true sense of the Senate, says Mr. Grafton, came instead from such antics as the call for investigation of Lend-Lease regarding the sloth with which it had been repaid by the Allies.

Drew Pearson explains why there was a change in attitude by the Senate regarding the debate of the resolution to approve membership in a post-war United Nations organization from the month before when Chairman Tom Connally of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee indicated that there would be no resolution passed by the Senate until after the war because open debate on the issue could interfere with relations with the Allies, especially Russia, and especially at the current moment when the tripartite conferences were beginning. Shortly thereafter, however, the debate began, without explanation of the change in attitude. The reason for it, explains Mr. Pearson, was that Secretary of State Hull had been selected by President Roosevelt to attend the foreign ministers conference in Moscow. Previously, when the issue was considered too tender for open debate, the presumptive designee for representation of the United States at the conference was Sumner Welles, recently "resigned" as Undersecretary of State.

Mr. Pearson also indicates that political leaders were now wondering whether the public dressing down of John L. Lewis to strip him of some of his nearly omnipotent influence over coal miners had been a wise thing in light of Mr. Lewis's inability now to get the bituminous coal miners to return to work despite his urgent pleas to do so.

Dorothy Thompson examines the imbroglio being investigated in New York City concerning the nomination of one Magistrate Aurelio to the New York Supreme Court (not the highest court in the State of New York as suggested by Ms. Thompson, but rather the equivalent of Superior Court in most jurisdictions). Mr. Aurelio was championed by underworld crime boss Frank Costello, said to be in charge of Tammany Hall, the long-time corruption ring in New York City politics, going back to the time of Boss Tweed in the Democratic Party of the mid-19^th century. Mr. Aurelio had been overheard in telephone conversations promising his "undying loyalty" to Mr. Costello.

Mr. Costello, however, contended that he was not interested in politics or exerting influence over judges, that he merely had a wide variety of acquaintances, from politicians to other underworld crime figures.

Ms. Thompson believes that, if true, it took all the joie de vivre from the matter to find out that there was no skullduggery or bribery involved, just socializing on a broad scale.

--Yeah, come ho detto, non ho interesse nella politica o in politici di controllo o nell'acquisto fuori di alcun funzionario. E, se non gradite i miei amici ed il mio senso di socializzare, avrò uno dei miei buoni amici sociali vengo sopra alla vostra casa e fendo il vostro orecchio della gola all'orecchio. Siamo tutti appena come la famiglia. È che cosa chiamate "la nostra cosa".

And the inside page also reports of the continuing saga of hapless Royal Canadian Air Cadet Wayne Lonergan, who had now confessed to New York City authorities the 9:00 a.m. Sunday strangulation and beating murder of his estranged wife, Patricia, an heiress to a brewery fortune. Mr. Lonergan had become enraged, he said, when his wife had refused to let him ever again see their one-and-a-half year old son.

As police continued to drag the East River to try to locate his shredded uniform, believed to bear the victim's blood, prosecutors hoped to pin the premeditation element of the crime of first degree murder with which he was charged on the evidence of his having retrieved a toy elephant from his friend's apartment and brought it to the apartment house at Beckman Hills, leaving it on the second floor landing of the stairway, a floor below Mrs. Lonergan's apartment, with their son's name, Billy Lonergan, inscribed on the package.

Prosecutors were trying to avoid the prospect of Mr. Lonergan escaping on conviction for a lesser offense of either second degree murder or voluntary manslaughter based on a claimed heat of passion killing.

The report left a little unclear, however, just how it was that this particular factor supposedly constituted premeditation, despite the fact that he had left the toy at the friend's apartment the night before the homicide. For Mrs. Lonergan was already dead at the time of the deposit of the toy on the steps--unless, 'ey all, the toy elephant somehow was to become symbolic of memory in the presentation before the jury, hence premeditation.

But, hey, maybe they did things a little differently in Manhattan in those days. Ye know?

Wait, wait, wait. We know. The toy elephant was to be his alibi, like in trying to say, ye know, "Hey, I didn't even know she was home, like, ye know?" Thus, having bought the toy the night before, there was premeditation.

But, then, what if his defense counsel should claim that he had tried to deliver the toy that morning, only to be frustrated by his wife in refusing to allow him to present it to their son, and, thus enraged, he did the deed in the heat of passion? Adequate provocation? Insufficient time for cooling off?

And what about that interior decorator who took Mrs. Lonergan to the nightclub the night before? Wasn't that some kind of provocation?

And why was the toy left on the twenty-sixth rather than the thirty-ninth step?

Maybe herein lies the elephantine answer.

In any event, we recommend to Mr. Lonergan that he give a call to Mr. Costello and seek to arrange a social visit.

Boo.

We told you, fifty years ago tonight, in the pouring rain, we went as a witch.