"Fredericksburg's controversial slave auction block removed early Friday morning." But was that the right thing to do?

The newspaper article notes:

UPDATE 9:10 A.M.: Fredericksburg removed its controversial slave auction block early Friday morning to minimize pedestrian and vehicular conflicts later in the day. 

Stabilizing straps, weights, and mechanical equipment were used to lift the freed stone onto a custom-designed pallet intended to support the approximately 800-pound artifact. Dovetail Cultural Resource Group, a Spotsylvania County cultural resources management firm, provided oversight of the removal operation.​ 

“The auction block had become a focus of local protesters over the past week, serving as a way stop along procession routes on multiple days of demonstrations. ‘Move the block!’ became a chant of those protesting the death of George Floyd in Minnesota. The block was spray-painted with graffiti twice over the course of the days of protest,” according to a city news release. ​

But was that the right thing to do?  That is, remove it?

The block was a sandstone block in Fredericksburg, Virginia, which according to the article:

Research indicates the auction block, which is made of Aquia sandstone, was installed between 1844 and 1845, when Joseph Sanford constructed what’s now known as the Knoxana building at 401–405 William St. 

The three-story brick building was known first as the United States Hotel, and later renamed the Planter’s Hotel. It was the site of many public auctions in the mid-19th century, including those where enslaved people were sold or hired out.

Now, I understand the comment about it being a traffic and pedestrian hazard, but it seems to me that removing the block does more to wipe out the memory of the horror of slavery than to honor those who were enslaved.

Out of sight, out of mind, as it were.

And if not completely out of mind, at least the conditions in a "oh my gosh, do you see that?" way.

I'd have left it there.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, seeing something in person is worth even more.

Today In Wyoming's History: The Rock in the Glen, Glenrock, Wyoming.

Today In Wyoming's History: The Rock in the Glen, Glenrock, Wyoming.:

The Rock in the Glen, Glenrock, Wyoming.

The Rock in the Glen, in Converse County, Wyoming is one of the numerous places along the Oregon Trail that served as a register and a marker for those traveling on the Oregon Trail.  It shows up in the earliest guide books for the trail and like other sites in Wyoming, those who camped here often carved their names into the rock.

The location is near the North Platte River, as the trail itself is in this portion of Wyoming, and ultimately the areas features lead to the foundation of the town in the late 19th Century.  Upon formation, the town was named for the rock.

The actual location of the rock belonged to the Continental Pipeline Company up until 1982, when it donated the land to the Town of Glenrock.

The location today is a town park which is currently undergoing improvements.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: First Catholic Mass in Wyoming

Churches of the West: First Catholic Mass in Wyoming:

First Catholic Mass in Wyoming

This entry would also probably make more sense in our Today In Wyoming's History entries, but here is the location of the first Catholic Mass in Wyoming, which was offered by Father Pierre DeSmet in 1840.

Governor Gordon's First Signed Bill. Women's Suffrage Day.

Governor Gordon's first bill signed into law. An act establishing December 10 as Women's Suffrage Day.

ORIGINAL SENATE ENGROSSED

JOINT RESOLUTION

NO. SJ0003

ENROLLED JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 1, SENATE

SIXTY-FIFTH LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING

2019 GENERAL SESSION

A JOINT RESOLUTION recognizing December 10, 2019 as Wyoming Women's Suffrage Day.

WHEREAS, Wyoming is often referred to as the "Cowboy State," its more apt sobriquet is the "Equality State"; and

WHEREAS, women, like all persons, have always inherently held the right to vote and participate in their government; and

WHEREAS, Wyoming was the first government to explicitly acknowledge and affirm women's inherent right to vote and to hold office; and

WHEREAS, this inherent right, at the founding of the United States, was inhibited; and

WHEREAS, women, at the founding of the United States, were also prevented from holding office; and

WHEREAS, women's suffrage — the basic enfranchisement of women — began to burgeon in the United States in the 1840s and continued to gain momentum over the next decades, despite the oppressive atmosphere in which women were not allowed to divorce their husbands or show their booted ankles without risk of public scandal or worse; and

WHEREAS, during the 1850s, activism to support women's suffrage gathered steam, but lost momentum when the Civil War began; and

WHEREAS, in the fall of 1868, three (3) years after the American Civil War had ended, Union Army General Ulysses S. Grant was elected President, and chose John Campbell to serve as Governor of the Wyoming Territory; and

WHEREAS, Joseph A. Carey, who was thereafter appointed to serve as Attorney General of the Wyoming Territory, issued a formal legal opinion that no one in Wyoming could be denied the right to vote based on race; and

WHEREAS, the first Wyoming Territorial Legislature, comprised entirely of men, required consistent and persistent inveigling to warm to the notion of suffrage; and

WHEREAS, abolitionist and woman suffrage activist, Esther Hobart Morris, was born in Tioga County, New York, on August 8, 1812, and later became a successful milliner and businesswoman; and

WHEREAS, Esther Hobart Morris, widowed in 1843, moved to Peru, Illinois, to settle the property in her late husband's estate and experienced the legal hardships faced by women in Illinois and New York; and

WHEREAS, Esther Hobart Morris married John Morris, a prosperous merchant, and in 1869 moved to the gold rush camp at South Pass City, a small valley situated along the banks of Willow Creek on the southeastern end of the Wind River Mountains in the Wyoming Territory just north of the Oregon Trail; and

WHEREAS, William Bright, a saloonkeeper, also from the once bustling frontier mining town South Pass City, was elected to serve in the Territorial Legislature and was elected as president of the Territorial Council; and

WHEREAS, the Territorial Legislature met in 1869 in Cheyenne and passed bills and resolutions formally enabling women to vote and hold property and formally assuring equal pay for teachers; and

WHEREAS, William Bright introduced a bill to recognize the right of Wyoming women to vote; and

WHEREAS, no records were kept of the debate between Wyoming territorial lawmakers, although individuals likely asserted a myriad of motivations and intentions in supporting women's suffrage; and

WHEREAS, the Wyoming Territory population at the time consisted of six adult men for every adult woman, some lawmakers perchance hoped suffrage would entice more women to the state; and

WHEREAS, some lawmakers may have believed that women's suffrage was consistent with the goals articulated in post-Civil War Amendment XV to the United States Constitution guaranteeing the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude"; and

WHEREAS, some lawmakers inherently knew that guaranteeing the right of women to vote was, simply, the right thing to do; and

WHEREAS, the Territorial Legislature advanced a suffrage bill stating, "That every woman of the age of twenty-one years, residing in this territory, may, at every election to be holden under the laws thereof, cast her vote. And her rights to the elective franchise and to hold office shall be the same under the election laws of the territory, as those of electors" and that "This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage"; and

WHEREAS, when invited to join the Union, demanding that women's suffrage be revoked, the Wyoming Legislature said, "We will remain out of the Union one hundred years rather than come in without the women"; and

WHEREAS, in July 1890, Esther Hobart Morris presented the new Wyoming state flag to Governor Francis E. Warren during the statehood celebration, making Wyoming the 44th state to enter the Union and the first with its women holding the right to vote and serve in elected office; and

WHEREAS, the United States did not endorse women's suffrage until 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; and

WHEREAS, despite the passage of the 19th Amendment, women of color continued to face barriers with exercising their right to vote, as American Indian men and women were not recognized as United States citizens permitted to vote until the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, and ongoing racial discrimination required the passage and implementation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; and

WHEREAS, achieving voting rights for all women required firm and continuing resolve to overcome reluctance, and even fervent opposition, toward this rightful enfranchisement; and

WHEREAS, Wyoming, the first to recognize women's suffrage, blazed a trail of other noteworthy milestones, such as Louisa Swain, of Laramie, casting the first ballot by a woman voter in 1870; and

WHEREAS, in 1870 the first jury to include women was in Wyoming and was sworn in on March 7 in Laramie; and

WHEREAS, Esther Hobart Morris was appointed to serve as justice of the peace in February 1870, making her the first woman to serve as a judge in the United States; and

WHEREAS, Wyoming women become the first women to vote in a presidential election in 1892; and

WHEREAS, in 1894 Wyoming elected Estelle Reel to serve as the state superintendent of public instruction, making her one of the first women in the United States elected to serve in a statewide office; and

WHEREAS, the residents of the town of Jackson in 1920 elected a city council composed entirely of women — dubbed the "petticoat government" by the press — making it the first all-women government in the United States; and

WHEREAS, in 1924 Wyoming elected Nellie Tayloe Ross to serve as governor of the great state of Wyoming, making her the first woman to be sworn in as governor in these United States; and

WHEREAS, all these milestones illuminate and strengthen Wyoming's heritage as the "Equality State"; and

WHEREAS, December 10, 2019 marks the 150th anniversary of the date women's suffrage became law.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING:

Section 1.  That the Wyoming legislature commemorates 2019 as a year to celebrate the one hundred fiftieth (150th) anniversary of the passage of women's suffrage. 

Section 2.  That the Wyoming legislature is proud of its heritage as the first state to recognize the right of women to vote and hold office, hereby affirming its legacy as the "Equality State."

Section 3.  That the Secretary of State of Wyoming transmit a copy of this resolution to the National Women's Hall of Fame in support of Esther Hobart Morris' induction into the Women of the Hall.

Section 4.  That the Wyoming legislature encourages its citizens and invites its visitors to learn about the women and men who made women's suffrage in Wyoming a reality, thereby blazing a trail for other states, and eventually the federal government, to recognize the inherent right of men and women alike to elect their leaders and hold office.

(END)

Speaker of the House			President of the Senate

	Governor
	TIME APPROVED: _________
	DATE APPROVED: _________

I hereby certify that this act originated in the Senate.

Chief Clerk

1

"‘Great War’ brought Catholics, bishops into mainstream of US society"? Not so much.

‘Great War’ brought Catholics, bishops into mainstream of US society

So claims the headline for a story in the website of   The Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau

The Roman Catholic Church of Southern Missouri.

Well. . .

I don't really think so.

One of the temptations when you study a certain era of history, or write a lot about it, or even look into it, is to attribute things to it that exceed the boundaries of where you ought to go.

Now, don't get me wrong, war brings about a lot of first.  Indeed, we've maintained here that War Changes Everything.  And that's true. But it doesn't change as much as we might think.

What this article touches on is something that we tend not to think a lot about today, even though it is still with us, that being the strong prejudice against Catholics that once existed in the United States.

On that, a little background. There was once a vast amount of prejudice against Catholics in the United States.   I've touched on this elsewhere, but the United States wasn't founded by a culture that wasn't tolerant of Catholicism in the first place, even if one of the colonies was, for a time, a refuge for English Catholics.  Indeed, contrary to what we tend to imagine about the founding of the American colonies, they weren't religiously tolerant in general.  England had gone from being a highly Catholic country prior to the reign of King Henry VIII (who no doubt always imagined himself to be a loyal Catholic of some sort in spite of everything) to being one that endured a long period of religious strife which broke out occasionally into open warfare.  By the time that the English planted their first colony in North America, the English were officially Protestant but it was still whipping around from one Protestant theology to another.  As noted, King Henry VIII basically thought of himself as the head of the Catholic Church in England, but still a Catholic.  More radical Protestant reformers were vying for position and would soon come into control with his passing, but not before the nation became Catholic again under Mary, and then ostensible reached a "religious settlement" under Elizabeth. Even that settlement wasn't really one. Things were muddy under King James I as a struggle between Calvinist and Anglicans went on during his reign over England and Scotland.  Puritans would come to be oppressed and flea to the Netherlands where they'd prove to be annoying and end up leaving later.  Various English colonies were strongly sectarian, so much so that Puritans coming down out of Rhode Island later would be tried and executed.  Religious tolerance was somewhat lacking early on.

Remains of the early church at Jamestown in the 1870s.  This was an Anglican Church, as the settlers at Jamestown were all members of the Church of England.  The Puritans (only part of the "Pilgrims") were not however, and in their Plymouth Rock settlement their church was not an Anglican one.  The two groups did not get along.

Anyhow, while Catholics were present in the colonies early on (and Catholics remained in varying stages of being underground in England but very much above grown in Ireland. . .and then there's the story of English crypto Catholics which I'll not go into as it complicates the story further) they were always a minority and knew it.  That might be, oddly enough, why the small Catholic population of the Colonies supported the Revolution in greater percentages than other colonists, in spite of the anti Catholic rhetoric of the Intolerable Acts.  Catholics remained looked down upon in the new nation even as it adopted a policy of prohibiting a state religion which morphed into officially accepting religious tolerance (the two aren't really the same).  And this continued on for a very long time.

Now, let me first note that it would be absolutely the truth to state that war, or more correctly wars, changed the view of a segments of American society and sometimes all of American society towards Catholics. But World War One wasn't really one of those wars. 

The Mexican War was.  By the time of the Mexican War, which ran from 1846 to 1848, lots of Germans and Irish were immigrating to the United States.  Indeed, the Irish were also immigrating in large numbers to Canada and some of them from Canada to the United States.  The Irish Great Famine (potato famine) commenced in 1845 and was driving millions of Irish from Eire causing a population that was already religious oppressed and living in primitive poverty to enter other lands where they were truly alien.  Political conditions in Germany were in turmoil which would break out in the revolutions of 1848, something that saw large-scale Catholic emigration out of Germany as Catholics sought to avoid living in a Prussian Germany.

A large number of Catholics therefore ended up serving in the American forces during the Mexican War as enlisted men, many of whom were Irish born or born in one of the various German states.  They were treated abysmally by their Protestant officers and particularly by Southern officers, who tended to detest Catholics.

They generally fought well however and their numbers caused the appointment of the first Catholic clerics to the U.S. Army.  That helped bring about a new relationship between the Army and Catholics, but what really did it is that the appalling abuse of Catholic enlisted men lead a group of them to desert and join the Mexican army, which formed its own artillery unit made up of American deserters.  That shock caused the Army to reevaluate what it was doing, and Catholics, particularly Catholic immigrants, found a home in the Army thereafter.

Mass hanging of captured members of the San Patricio's. The penalty for treason was death, but this would be the last act of its type and bring to an end outward discrimination against Catholics in the enlisted ranks of the U.S. Army.

That was built on during the Civil War, during which you can find several examples of very senior Catholic officers, such as Phil Sheridan.  Sheridan is notable in this context as he entered West Point in 1848, hard on the heels of the Mexican War, which shows how quickly things were changing.  By the time of the Civil War Catholics, and in particular Irish Catholics, were common in the Army.  The enlisted career Irish sergeant was a fixture in the American Army by that time.

Philip Sheridan, one of the most famous American officers of the Civil War and a Catholic.  By this time the oddity of having a Catholic general officer was gone. For that matter, William Sherman was married to a devout Catholic which is something that would have been held against him in an earlier era but was not, and he had converted to Catholicism but was not observant and sometimes disclaimed it.  His son would become a Jesuit Priest.

The Civil War brought about a wider change however as American society at large remained viciously anti Catholic prior to the Civil War.  Catholics may have found a place in the Army, but they were generally pretty isolated in every way otherwise.  Bizarre anti Catholic literature was common accusing Catholics of all sorts of things.

Following the war, however, this largely ceased. The country didn't grow suddenly tolerant, but rather open bizarre hostility stopped.  This was in part because the high degree of sectarianism also stopped due to the war. Going into the Civil War Americans not only tended to be strongly Protestant or Catholic (although the level of non observance was much, much higher than imagined, which is another story), but they also tended to strongly have opinions on other Protestant faiths if they were Protestant.

San Miguel Church in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Built between 1610 and 1625, this church is a contemporary to the Anglican church at Jamestown, but it remains in use today.  This Catholic church is emblematic of the act that with the large amount of Mexican territory taken in by the United States during the Mexican War, a Hispanic Catholic population was taken in as well.

The American Civil War had come in the wake of the Second Great Awakening, although its technically outside of the time period for that which historians have assigned it and instead in what they have framed as the Third Great Awakening.  The Second Great Awakening saw the rise of the a lot of American Protestant denominations including some that had strong millenialism beliefs.  Catholics weren't part of this in the United States, of course.  But the very strong sectarianism that came up in the period came to a bit of a hiatus due to the Civil War.  Prior to the Civil War Americans were ready to cite religion in support of their fighting positions.  Mexico's Catholic status had been a cited reason to fight it in some Protestant sermons prior to the Mexican War.  The United States had fought a small scale war with the Mormons in the 1850s.  Going into the Civil War both sides cited religious grounds for going to war, with both of those sides citing Protestant religious grounds at that.

Let's be clear.  Neither the Mexican War nor the Civil War were wars over religion by any means.  Protestant ministers who cited Mexico's Catholic nation status as a reason to fight it were sincere, but at the end of the day the Mexican War was fought because Mexico couldn't stomach the thought that it had lost the province of Texas and they couldn't agree to the border with the newly American Texas being where it was claimed to be by the United States.  Religion didn't have much to do with that. And the Civil War was about slavery, plain and simple. There were certainly religious overtones to the positions taken by both sides in the Civil War, and religion strongly informed some of those positions, but the war itself was not a religious war which is attested to by some of the oddities of the topic on both sides of the war. The Union had huge numbers of Catholic troops including some who were outright Fenians, but that impacted those units only within them.  The Confederacy, which had  much higher religious uniformity than the North; it was overwhelmingly Protestant except in Louisiana and many of its senior generals were devout Episcopalians including one who was an Episcopal Bishop found itself taking a position on slavery that had already been condemned by the Catholic Church in Rome but its president toyed with Catholicism throughout his life and the Confederate cabinet included a Jewish member.

But because of the Civil War Americans really backed down on citing religion in an extreme prejudicial way like they had before.  Indeed, it wasn't all that long, in spite of ongoing prejudice, that there would be a United States Supreme Court justice on the bench who was both a veteran of the Confederate army and a Catholic.

Which doesn't mean that the prejudice had ended.  Well into the 20th Century to be a Catholic was to be subject to prejudice.  Catholics were mostly blue collar or agriculturalist, with medicine and the law, two professions always occupied by minorities, the exceptions. They couldn't attend Ivy League schools and remain faithful to their faiths and they largely didn't go on to upper education at all.

Which was the status when the United States entered World War One.

And the status after the war as well.

St. Joseph's Polish Catholic Church, an active church in Denver Colorado today, was built in 1902 as the Polish Catholics wanted their own church separate from the southern Slavic (Balkans) Catholic church one a block away. This is a bit symbolic of the degree to which Catholics lived in ethnic Ghettos at the time, but it was also contrary to the policy of the Catholic Church to attempt to integrate all Catholics into non ethnic congregations. This church was built in 1902 just as Slavic immigration was becoming significant in the United States and obviously various diocese yielded to pressures on occasion.  This same neighborhood contains a Russian Orthodox cathedral of the same vintage, reflecting the Slavic nature of the neighborhood. At the time this church was built, Poland wasn't a state and was part of both Russia and Germany.

Indeed, going into the war there were real reasons to worry about some of the Catholic populations of the United States and their receptive loyalties.  At the time, Catholicism was heavily represented in Irish, German, French, Italian and "Mexican" demographics.  Irish populations identified heavily with their ethnic fellows in Eire, which remained part of the United Kingdom but which was struggling with obtaining home rule and which was suffering under the long impact of religious oppression that had come to an official end only in the 19th Century.  German Americans retained a strong sense of pride in their ethnic origin and openly celebrated their Germaness in various ways throughout the year.  Hispanics, who were of various origins but whom most of, at that time, traced an origin to from Mexico or Spanish Mexico, were a suspect people both because of their ethnicity and because there were fears that they may sympathize with Carranza who, it was feared, might be sympathizing with the Germans.

Only French Americans, who were mostly Acadians, Cajuns, or Creole's, and Italian Americans, were not suspect. But the French population was so remote from France that it had no real sympathies with France itself and was highly concentrated in Maine and Louisiana.  The Italians were recent arrivals who did sympathize with Italy, an Allied power in World War One, and were not accordingly suspect.

Indeed, the Italians were hugely celebrated during World War One in the United States.  The Germans, Irish and Mexicans were worried about.

For no reason, as it turned out. They were not disloyal to the United States at all and served loyally.  Prejudice against the Germans was vicious in the U.S. but the German population in the country reacted basically by burying their culture to such an extent that it was largely lost.  The Irish did not do that, but their service in the Great War, including the fact that they were well represented in the Regular Army and made up the bulk of some National Guard regiments, put aside any fears that people had.

But it didn't do much, indeed anything at all, to address the ongoing prejudice that remained in the country.  In that fashion, they found themselves in the same position, but to a much lesser degree, as African Americans. African Americans served very loyally during the war and, unlike World War Two, there were significant numbers of black combat officers in some all black units, but after the war, prejudice against them didn't abate at all.

It'd really take the Second World War to address all of that.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the East: Churches of the West: Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity, Toronto Canada

Churches of the East: Churches of the West: Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity, Toronto Ontario.

Churches of the West: Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity, Toronto Ontario.

This is the Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto, Ontario.  It was built in 1847, and is located in what is now the very downtown heart of Toronto.

I admit I'm pushing the geographic  nature of this blog with this one (not for the first time), as Toronto wouldn't normally be considered "the west", but perhaps its not quite as far-fetched as it might seem. While Toronto is a huge major North American city today, all Canadian cities in this region and further west were, at one time, part of the Canadian frontier, a frontier that lasted longer in some respects than the frontier in the United States did, even though the history of the Canadian West and the American West are part and parcel of each other.  This is an Anglican church,. and at one time Toronto was a very English town.

September 25, 1918. The Passing of Archbishop John Ireland

Archibishop John Ireland in his later years.

On this day in 1918, a towering figure in North American religion died, Catholic Archbishop John Ireland.  He had just turned 80 years of age.

The Irish born prelate is universally regarded as having been born and possessed of a great intellect.  It's been said of him, when he was right, he was very right, and conversely, as is the case with towering intellects, when he was wrong, he was very wrong.

Ireland was born in County Kilkenny in 1838 and came to the United States at age 10 with his family. This put him in the midst of the horrible Irish potatoe famine and the accompanying waive of immigration into the U.S., Canada and Australia that accompanied it, with his family, like so many others, choosing the United States for their second home.  This meant that he arrived in the country at the depths of Irish despair and the height of prejudice against the Irish in the United States, whom were regarded as an "alien race" at the time.  But it also meant, even though hew would have grown up in the "Catholic Ghetto" era, that he came to the country sufficiently young to effectively grow up as an American.  These various factors would define his views in profound ways throughout his life.

Ireland was sent to France by the French born Bishop Joseph Cretin at age 14, at which time he'd only been in the United States for a mere ten years.  He was ordained in 1861 at age 23 and became a chaplain to the Fifth Minnesota at that time, during the American Civil War.  He served in that role until 1863 when poor health forced his resignation.  Following that he became a pastor at Saint Paul's Cathedral in Minnesota, Cathedrals having pastors who serve as the Cathedral's priest, a role quite different than that of the Bishop of course.  He became a coadjuter Bishop at St. Paul's in 1875, at the fairly young age of 37.  He became the Bishop Ordinary in 1884 and an Archbishop in 1888.

As a bishop he was a towering figure and a uniquely original one in many ways.  He would become a central figure in American Catholicism as a result, and take positions that some would regard as contradictory but which, at their best, showed his independence in thought.

As an Irish ex-patriot he was deeply concerned about the fate of the Irish in America and encouraged direct colonization of areas in the West and Midwest, taking the view that settling the Irish in rural areas took them out of the vice of the crowded Eastern slums in which many found themselves.  Several towns in the Midwest were directly founded by Ireland for this purpose and his concern over what was occurring in Eastern ghettos was not misplaced.

Perhaps almost paradoxically, however, Ireland was an extremely strong proponent of Americanization of American Catholics and he actively worked to prevent the formation of "national",  i.e., ethnic, churches.  His view left a heavy imprint on the Catholic Church in the United States and this may in some ways be his lasting legacy, although what he was working for had not been fully achieved at the time of his death in 1918.  He did not want Irish Catholics or German Catholics to be that, but rather wanted them to be American Catholics.  He urged and foresaw an American society in which Catholics were fully part of it, a dream never fully realized but perhaps principally realized (and maybe even in some ways over realized) after World War Two when American Catholics did in fact fully enter the American mainstream.  Ireland feared that if this did not happen Catholics in the United States would remain marginalized and the faith would loose adherents to Protestant denominations that were in fact mainstream.  His fears were well placed and his efforts would ultimately be successful to a large degree, indeed to such a large degree that some Catholics holding romantic views of the Catholic Ghetto of old essentially lament them even if they do not themselves recall Archbishop Ireland.

As part of this, he was a strong supporter of education but paradoxically, especially for a man who had benefited from a Catholic education himself, he supported state support of Catholic schools in some instances and even supported the municipal takeover of distressed Catholic schools even when it resulted in those schools retaining Priests and Nuns but found them unable to teach religion.  This was a phenomenal position to take at the time and it would be very unlikely to receive much Catholic support today.  Indeed, he had to travel to the Vatican to explain it at the time.  Ireland, additionally, was such a proponent of Americanization of Catholics i the United States that he opposed the use of foreign languages to instruct students, something that was common in immigrant Catholic schools at the time.

Perhaps as part and parcel of this, and perhaps reflecting his Civil War service, he was a Republican and friends with several Republican Presidents.  He was an outspoken proponent of the rights of blacks at a time when that was not a fully popular view by any means.

Conversely, these same doctrines made him a dedicated opponent of "national" or ethnic churches to such an extent that he's also remembered today for inexcusably alienating Ruthenian Catholic followers of Alexis Toth.  Toth, an immigrant Ruthian (Eastern Rite) priest received a cold shoulder from Ireland upon making a courtesy visit to him upon first arriving in his diocese. As an Eastern Priest with his own Bishop, he was not subject to Ireland's jurisdiction, but Ireland was open in his opposition to the Eastern Rite having a place in the United States and took the view, rather bluntly, that Eastern Rite Catholics should switch to the Latin Rite, which he was working to make non ethnic.  This view is completely contrary to the view of the Church today and at the time it lead to Toth, who is regarded now as an Orthodox saint, going into schism and taking his followers and taking a large number of them into the Russian Orthodox Church, to which additional adherents would later follow.  Ireland is sometimes jokingly called the father of the Orthodox Church in America as a result.

Ireland was a towering figure and more successful than not.  His impact on the Catholic Church in the United States was very large, and because of its nature, lasting.  Ironically, his impact upon the Orthodox in American proved to be very large as well, but for a different reason, and perhaps in some ways both churches owe their modern nature to Ireland.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Maria Lanakila Catholic Church, Lahaina Maui Hawaii

Churches of the West: Maria Lanakila Catholic Church, Lahaina Maui Hawaii

This impressive church is the Maria Lanakila Catholic Church in Lahaina Maui Hawaii.  The Church was established in 1846 with the present church having been built in 1873. Renovations were done in 1918, including the cleaning of the impressive paintings that are located within the church, gifts of Maui residents who might possibly be King Kalakaua or his sister, Queen Liliuokalani.

One of the very unusual features of this church is the chicken weather vane that is affixed atop the cross on the steeple.  I have no idea what the story behind this is.

 The name of the church means Mary Victorious in Hawaiian.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Lahuiokalani Kaanapali Congregational Church, Kaanapali, Maui, Hawawii

Churches of the West: Lahuiokalani Kaanapali Congregational Church, Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii

This is the Lahuiokalani Kaanapali Congregational Church in Kaanapali, Maui. Located just off the beach, the church dates back to 1840, indicating early missionary activity. 

Today In Wyoming's History: February 23. The Past as Prologue for the Future.

I was up rather early this morning, 3:00 am.  I should still be in bed, but as I was working on a rather large matter I concluded last night, and my mind was still on it, I woke up at the time that I have been waking up.  When I did I logged on and updated this blog and our companion Today In Wyoming's History Blog, for of course, this day.

It's interesting in that context how the past, truly, is the prologue for the future.   Consider some of the following:

Today In Wyoming's History: February 23:

February 23

1847     U.S. troops under Gen. Zachary Taylor defeated Mexican general Santa Anna at the Battle of Buena Vista in Mexico.

I'll note this as I was listening just yesterday to another inaccurate comment on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo.  I'm going to come in and post on that, but it strikes me that the Mexican War, perhaps the most forgotten of all U.S. wars, has been getting a little more press recently than it normally does, and as usually for that war, not very accurate press. This comes up, of course, in the context of discussion on the "wall" and immigration, which makes for a lot of inaccurate discussion of this event, to the extent its discussed at all.  The war turns out, of course, to really mater as its long reach is still with us, even if we think about it very little.

1941  Blizzard conditions stalled traffic in the state.  This was, of course, in the pre 4x4 days.  Prior to World War Two 4x4 vehicles were almost unheard of and were limited to industrial vehicles. Almost every vehicle was a rear wheel drive 2x4.

This item in particular is what caused me to link this day in here.

When I came home last night it was probably in the 50s.  A storm was predicated.  A bad one.

They were right. There's a titanic blizzard going on right now.  My guess is that there may not be school today.  We'll see of course.

Wyoming weather, what can you say?

1969  Gov. Hathaway signed into law a State severance tax bill. The bill had been extremely controversial, with there being strong arguments by the opposition that passing it would cause Wyoming's extractive industries to greatly reduce their activity. The arguments failed to stop the bill, and the severance tax did not greatly impact the
extractive industries.  Today, Wyoming's is nearly entirely funded by severance taxes.

This is the only item that got any comment on our This Day post.  But no wonder it did.  Governor Hathaway's 1969 actions revolutionized our schools here and gave us decades of solid educational funding.

Now, of course, coal is in real trouble and we're debating what to do. We haven't figured that out.

1985  The Bison adopted as the state mammal.

And a tasty one too.  I'll note.  My son, brother in law, and I are going to put in for licenses.

Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria died, November 21, 1916.

Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, died from pneumonia contracted only shortly before this date.  He was 86 years old and had been serving in that role for the Austro Hungarian Empire since 1848.

Franz Joseph in 1905

His death came, of course in the midst of the great tragedy of World War One, of which his nation was a central participant and the originating belligerent in some ways.   With his death, the throne would pass to his grandnephew Charles I who would carry forward until the death of the Empire in 1918.  

It's hard, in some ways, not to view the long reigning monarch's 1916 death as symbolic of the very death of the old order in Europe.

Wednesday, March 10, 1909. Field Gray.

The Imperial Russian Army adopted a new greenish-grey, single-breasted cloth tunic with five buttons.  The familiar uniform would remain in use at least until after the Russian Civil War. At some point an updated version, which really wasn't much different than it, would replace it prior to World War Two.

The uniform closely resembled a prior one, which didn't feature the field gray color.  I don't know a great deal about Russian uniforms, so I'll cease particular comment there.  

This era, the turn of the 19th into the 20th Centuries, saw almost all armies making a switch of this type, something brought about by the adoption of smokeless gunpowder, which changed battlefield conditions, bringing about a need for subdued uniforms. The British had used khaki in Indian since 1846 but went to service wide khaki in 1902, something that can be confusing in terms of the British as "khaki" has a broader meaning than the color tan in British military parlance.  The U.S. Army adopted khaki, i.e., tan, in 1898 for field use and then introduced an olive uniform in 1902.  The Prussian element of the Imperial German Army adopted field gray in 1907, and the rest of the German Army followed during World War One.  The French, however, were holdouts, retaining a colored uniform throughout World War One, with horizon blue being its wartime choice.

Thailand (Siam) ceded the Malayan peninsular states of Kelantan, Trengganu, Perlis and Kedah to the British Empire.

Jack Johnson fought Victor McLaglen, better known as a legendary character actor, to a draw in Vancouver in an exhibition fight.

Last prior:

Tuesday, March 9, 1909. San Bernardino.