12/7-12/13/47

12/7 Sunday After lunch for a window shopping walk to Fordham which Eugene enjoyed very much. At night Sylvia put on an apron which reached to her toes and helped Lillian beautifully. Then she ate her supper without a hitch. The kids always lick their saucers of apple-sauce clean. Played some chess and studied Sylvia as usual playing with the surplus pieces. Nicholas Murray Butler is dead at 85.

12/8 Eugene's mind is full of the comic book characters - Superman, Captain Marvel, The Green Lantern and dozens of others. Most of them turn invincible when they say some special word. Sylvia is overdoing "Good-bye folks" which she picked up from Lillian. Greece has ordered a maximum penalty of death for strikes. 50,000 partisans paraded in Rome while French trade union leaders failed to come to an agreement with the Labor Minister on an increase.

I guess Dad had heard "SHAZAM" from me. 

12/9 Eugene is slightly hoarse and Sylvia has a slight cough. The Foreign Ministers at London agreed to discuss Soviet British and French proposals on Germany. Finnish elections resulted in a rightward swing. Left wingers in the N.J. State C.I.O. walked out of the convention when they were refused adequate representation. Tank-led Army troops battled French coal miners. The Paris transport strike failed to come off.

12/10 When Eugene comes home from school at noon he reads the comics in P.M. and the D.W. before washing. Sylvia objects to wearing Eugene's old legging set because it makes her look like a boy. French strikes were called off after a Gov't ultimatum with only a cost of living bonus gained. City College banned a C.P. speaker. Leon Josephson's conviction was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals 2-1. The Haganah killed 70 Arabs. 750 visited Washington for rent and price controls and housing. Russia broke off trade talks with France and expelled a French Repatriation mission in reprisal for similar acts by France.

12/11 Sylvia helped clear a park path of snow this morning. Eugene misses "The Nebbs" in the D.W. which have jumped the paper in the hysteria. The "House" voted to bar aid to Communist countries. Lillian went down to the Union Square Optometrists where Eugene got an examination and new lenses $1.50 & $3.25. He has progressive myopia.

My progressive myopia finally stopped after my cataract operations a few years ago.  

 12/12 Sylvia's belly hurts her after every meal. Eugene made a waste paper basket in school. A half million started a general strike in Rome for a public works program to alleviate unemployment among other grievances. Police and troops attacked them. Hunter suspended student members from the student-faculty comm. as three other city colleges banned Howard Fast. A course on the Soviet Union was stricken off the Teachers curriculum. The Supreme Court voided a death sentence passed on a Mississippi Negro on the basis that Negroes had been barred from the jury. The "House" voted $590,000,000 to China, France, Italy, Austria. Wallace continues on his speaking tour warning of the path to war and suggesting a third party. 19 were killed in Palestine.

12/13 Eugene drew "The Tortoise and the Geese" - Fables by Bidpai "The Arabian Nights" edited by Wiggin and Smith "Trains At Work" by Mary Elting and Sylvia drew "Lullaby" by J. Bernhard. Eugene has made an aeroplane out of his tinkertoy which he zooms around. Lewis took his coal miners out of the A.F.L. because of the surrender to the Taft-Hartley Bill. N.Y.U. broke the solid front by allowing Fast to speak. Rome labor ended the general strike after a pledge of a large public works program and an unemployed bonus of unnamed amount. Strikers had been subjected to police brutality in the two day walkout. Lillian took the kids to Fordham and got them Chanukah presents. Sylvia got a tin doll house ($3.89) to replace her old cardboard house which was falling apart. Eugene got a metal game of shooting balls into various slots marked with different scores called "Big Shot" ($1.98). 7 hrs. O.T.