The 62nd United States Congress convened with a Democratic majority.
The Japan-United States Treaty of Commerce and Navigation ratifications were exchanged at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, as the Emperor Meiji, Prime Minister Katsura, and Foreign Minister Komura welcomed Ambassador O'Brien.
Former bandit and later revolutionary Antonio Carrasco died of wounds sustained in the fight over Juarez.
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President Taft ordered the reassignment of the all-African-American U.S. 9th Cavalry out of San Antonio, Texas as the unit's northern-born soldiers had defied the city's segregation laws. Indeed, two white streetcar conductors had been beaten up after insisting that the soldiers move to the "colored" section of the cars.
They'd only recently been deployed there due to the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution.
Draft registration became mandatory in New Zealand for all males aged 14 to 20.
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Porfirio Díaz opened anew session of the Congress of Mexico outlining his plans for reform, including limiting presidential terms to one.
Tsinghua University opened in Beijing.
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Emiliano Zapata led a group of armed men in commandeering a police station in Villa de Ayala. They then enlisted 100 townsmen in their revolutionary army.
The Mayor of Jerusalem, Raghib al-Nashashibi, and 150 prominent Arabs in Palestine sent a cable to the Turkish parliament, urging the Ottoman nation to stop further sales of land in Palestine to Jewish immigrants.
A prominent Palestinian figure, he would figure in successive regimes, and his second wife would be Jewish, and from France.
Perhaps love conquered all.
He died at age 71 in 1951.
A common sight in cities at one time:
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In 2024 we noted this:
The Colt M1911 is a John Browning designed semi-automatic pistol that can legitimately be regarded s the greatest handgun ever made, although there are, or perhaps more accurately were, a few other contenders. Other than the mostly John Browning Designed Hi Power, none of the other contenders remain in service somewhere however and the M1911 has by far the longest period of service.
Adopted by the U.S. on March 29, 1911, in 1923 the handgun received some minor modifications, the most significant of which is a curved spring housing which changed the profile of the grip. The trigger was also shortened. In 1924 the modified design started to ship, this month, from Colt. The M1911A1 designation came in 1926.
When we posted this, we actually thought we might have noted the adoption of the M1911 when the centennial of the pistols adoption came up, in 2011, but we didn't. We covered a fair amount of ground regarding it in the thread above, but not really it's whole history.
Of course, that would require a book.
Given the ostensible purpose of this blog, however, we really ought to cover this.
Lex Anteinternet?
The Consolidated Royalty Building, where I work, back when it was new.What the heck is this blog about?The intent of this blog is to try to explore and learn a few things about the practice of law prior to the current era. That is, prior to the internet, prior to easy roads, and the like. How did it work, how regional was it, how did lawyers perceive their roles, and how were they perceived?Part of the reason for this, quite frankly, has something to do with minor research for a very slow moving book I've been pondering. And part of it is just because I'm curious. Hopefully it'll generate enough minor interest so that anyone who stops by might find something of interest, once it begins to develop a bit.
The 1911 is part of the history we're covering, and moreover, it was a brand new pistol in that period.
Vast amounts have been written about the M1911 over its century plus history. Most of that starts right around 1900, when the very first tests of semi automatic pistols took place. But in order to really grasp the M1911 you need to start earlier. . . in 1873.
1873 was the year that the Army officially adopted its first cartridge using revolver, the legendary Colt Single Action Army Revolver. The M1873 replaced a series of cap and ball revolvers that had been the standard sidearms dating back to 1846. We won't get into those, but Colt managed to pioneer really effective revolvers with this series which were widely used by civilians as well, and very well liked. When cartridges started to come in, particularly during the Civil War, it was obvious that soon revolvers would be adapted to take them, and very soon after the war Colt introduced what would become and remain the premier single action revolver, chambered in .44-40. The cartridge closely approximated the black powder load taken by the earlier cap and ball revolvers. The M1873 did have competitors, even in military service, with the primary one being the Smith & Wesson No. 3, which had the advantage of being a break open design allowing for more rapid reloading, but nothing really challenged the Cold Peacemaker for dominance in the U.S. Army, or for that matter, the civilian market.
What was a challenge, however, was that it became pretty clear in the last quarter of the 19th Century that double actions had arrived. Indeed, double action cap and ball revolvers had been produced and used during the Civil War, albeit not in large numbers. The fact that the Army didn't go straight to a double action revealed its real conservatism after the Civil War, which also showed itself in the long arms that it adopted.
By the 1890s black powder was being replaced by smokeless powder, which also yielded higher pressures and therefore higher velocities. As this occurred, a movement towards smaller projectiles occurred, with the thought that the same or better lethality could be achieved with a lighter cartridge. In rifles, this proved to be quite true. Pistols, however, are another matter.
This led to the military adopting the Colt M1892 "New Army" in that year, which was a very well designed double action revolver. The basic design would be used by Colt for decades. Slight improvements to the design would occur over time, leading to the Models 1892, 1894, 1896, 1901, and 1903 for the Army, the Model 1895 for the Navy and the Model 1905 for the Marine Corps, although they were all very similar. Manufacture of the basic design for civilian shooters as well as policemen, in various cartridges, would continue until at least the 1950s, although the original New Army pattern went out of production in 1908..
What the problem would prove to be was the cartridge.
The M1892 took the .38 Long Colt cartridge.
The new handgun was first used in the Spanish American War where there were no complaints regarding it. Soon thereafter, however, it was sent with U.S. troops to the Philippines where it proved to be pretty much completely inadequate. In the hardscrabble guerilla wars that followed U.S. troops landing there, the pistol simply lacked stopping power.
This lead to a series of emergency responses by the Army, part of which was to reissue M1873s, often with barrels refitted to the 5.5" length. The M1873s immediately proved successful, and as a result the Army adopted the Colt New Service civilian double action revolver, a massive .45 Long Colt, as the M1909. Like the New Army, the New Service was a very well designed modern double action revolver, and it was produced for military and civilian use over its long life, with production ceasing in 1946.
As good as the New Service revolver was, it was a stop gap when adopted. The Army was already looking for a semi automatic pistol. Trials had started in 1900 with John Browning's Model 1900, Mauser's C96, and Mannlicher's weird M1894 having been purchased for evaluation. The Browning design was by far the best, and in 1906 it came back in a new version, the Model 1905, to compete against submissions by Bergmann, Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken (DWM), Savage Arms, Knoble, Webley, and White-Merrill. Some of the new pistols, such as DWM's Luger and Savage's John Pederson designed automatic were very good indeed. The Colt 1905, hwoever, wa the best. Browning improved the M1905 and came out with the M1910, and the M1910 and the Savage went on to the final test.
The M1911, the final Colt design, was adopted on this day in 1911. The Navy, and hence the Marine Corps, would not adopt the pistol until 1913.
A fire broke out at the library of the New York State Capitol in Albany at 2:00 am, hours after legislators had adjourned for the night destroying more than 600,000 books, and manuscripts, many of them irreplaceable. A night watchman was killed in the fire.
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I had no idea that this is what this train was called. Thanks go out to MKTH for letting me know!
I've been looking into local passenger train travel as part of my efforts with a novel. What I found is that I knew very little about it. Probably more than your average bear, but that's about it. I'd long assumed that a person could board a train in Casper in 1916 and take the train to Douglas or Cheyenne, and then return that evening, but the more I looked into it, that was just an assumption.
I'm not the one who figured out how it really worked. That goes to MKTH. the result is fascinating.
It turns out I was right sort of. The Burlington Northern ran a train from Denver Colorado, to Billings Montana, and vice versa, daily. This article takes a look at it.
What I imagined, for novel purposes, was boarding in Casper, and traveling to Douglas. I may, as I work at it, make it Cheyenne.
Anyhow, this is a really interesting article and give a really good look at what traveling on the Denver to Billings night train was like, complete with stops for food, which is something I hadn't considered. It also picked up mail, and my source indicates, cream, something I also hadn't figured, but that may explain why the creamery my family owned was just one block from the Burlington Northern. In fact it probably does.
The trip took 19 hours. It take 8 hours today by car, assuming good weather conditions, and not figuring in stops for food, etc. The train moved about 34 miles an hour.
We'll look at the return trip first. The train having come up from Cheyenne boarded there at 12:49 in the morning. Uff.
It got to Casper at 6:20 in the morning, having made a couple of stops along the way.
What I imagined?
Not really. And I also had no idea that there was a major cafe right off the railroad. This article deals with the early 1960s, but I can see that some variant of it was there decades prior. That makes piles of sense, really. Of course there would be. How else would people eat if they were making the long journey?
It simply hadn't occurred to me.
In my imaginary trip., that'd be it. If I stuck with the Douglas variant of this, my protagonist would be boarding the train in the early, early morning hours and get in a couple of fitful hours of sleep, probably interrupted by a stop in little Glenrock. Indeed, this train stopped everywhere to pick up mail, and a few passengers.
What about the other way around?
Well that was a day trip, but as we can see, the 19 hours the train traveled in total meat that it took a good 6.5 hours to travel just from Cheyenne to Casper. Going the other way would mean the same thing, and likely a bit in reverse. The 6.5 hour trip from Cheyenne to Casper was the second major leg of the trip (it'd still stop in numerous small towns in between), the first being Denver to Cheyenne. Going the other way around meant that the Cheyenne to Denver leg was about five hours. The article notes that the train actually arrived from Billings 40 minutes before its 7:00 p.m. departure. So it arrived, more or less, at 6:00 p.m. and changed crews. That would have meant that it left Cheyenne, on the way to Denver, at about 1:00 p.m. or so, which makes sense. Passengers traveling all the way to Denver would have eaten lunch there.
By extension, however, that meant that the train left Casper at about 6;00 in the morning, approximately.
These times are almost unimaginable now. When we had good air travel to Denver I'd frequently board United Express here about 6;00 a.m. and be in Denver about 8:30, and take the train downtown and be to work by 9. I'd be back in Casper on the redeye about 10:00, or if I was lucky, 6:00.
And when I go to Cheyenne, I drive. Normally that takes me a little under three hours. I haven't stayed overnight in Cheyenne for years, although I recently had an instance which should really cause me to.
Anyhow, if I'm looking at 1916, why not just drive?
Well, in 1916 most Americans, including most Wyomingites, didn't own automobiles, and those who did, didn't normally make long trips with them. They frankly weren't that reliable, even though they were simple. Roads also tended to be primitive, and not really maintained for weather. Could a person have driven from Casper to Cheyenne in a Model T, the most likely car they would have had? Yes, but it wouldn't have been any faster. It may well have been slower, quite frankly, as well as much riskier.
There's precedent for it.
When Woodrow Wilson, after campaigning on keeping us out of war, committed us to the greatest one in the world's history at that time since the Napoleonic Wars, he was faced with the problem that his pacificist Attorney General was of the view that National Guardsmen could be Federalized only to spats within the United States. That's what kept them on the border, but not over it, during the Punitive Expedition.
But somebody came up with the brilliant idea that as the U.S. was introducing conscription, the entire Guard could just be conscripted. . . so it was, on August 5, 1917, specifically.
ICE already acts like an occupying military force, and it dresses like one. It's familiar with weapons, as we all know. If troops are needed for boots on the ground, draft them en masse.
I'm not joking. Those who signed up for ICE had to be comfortable with MAGA extremism. Let them go fight for MAGA. Draft them into the Army, and if boots are going in, send them.
I'll note I've seen a similar idea posted elsewhere:
I feel the same way here. I'm tired of the rah rah MAGAs who are were against war until Trump was for it, and support anything that Trump supports. Over half of the American public feels Donald Trump is a demented twat waffle. Let those who admire him go fight and if necessary die for their beloved. They portray Trump as a hero. . . well here's there very own chance to be one themselves.
Let the Trumps go first. Barron is of military age and, based on the life history of his family, is more likely to be a boil on the butt of humanity than something benefitting it. Service would do him, and his two brothers, and heck his sisters good. Maybe the Trump family will pull itself out of the world it lives in and inflicts on the rest of us if they see a little of the rest of it that isn't so rich and gaudy.
Let them go fight, and if necessary die, in their father's war.
And the same for Wyoming mega MAGA Trumpites. Chuck Gray is still young enough to serve and hasn't had a real job a day in his life. He's not married and doesn't have any dependents either. Here's his chance. He can come back a veteran, maybe a hero, or, if in a body bag, well, there won't be a widow or orphan. Reid Rasner already has the crewcut, and he's single too. Let him go put his life on the line for Donald. He talks might big, let him put his mouth, and his body, where his words are. Yes, there's risk involved, but if that risk isn't accepted, well the words were just that.
Chuck and Reid, a recruiting station is a near as the mall.
And then there's all the "I'm a veteran" candidates out there who on the far right in Wyoming. Well, if there's one thing being a veteran qualifies you for its military service. Brent Bien. . . your chance to show us your mettle once again awaits. . .
Shoot, let non veteran John Barrasso go. Heck, make him go. He's been practicing the Patton "war face" for years. Yes, he's a geezer, but I'm confident if he asked Donny, Donny would let him go and shortly forget who he was.
Most Americans didn't want this war. Most Americans shouldn't have to fight in it. Perhaps only those who are willing to volunteer for it within the service right now should have to. We let servicemen with moronic objections to vaccinations out of the service during the Biden Administration. We should let those who have no desire to fight and die for whatever we're fighting and dying for now get out, if they don't want to serve. Their ranks can be filled by MAGA, ICE, and Trumps.
But it won't happen.
ICE will simply carry on as it is, until 2027. MAGAs will continue to support any dumbass thing Trump spews out of his decaying brain. People who have connections with Epstein Island will go on doing what they do.
And if we're still in it by fall and its turning to shit, well 9 out of the 10 "Trump was always right" crowed will deny they ever saw anything in him. They knew, they'll claim, he was a fraud all along.
Only the dead, Santayana tells us, have seen an end to war. It's a pretty good guess that no Trumps and no fire breathing MAGA politicians are going to see war at all. They're okay with Trumps war, but not so much that they'll ever seek out to fight in it.
Not that this is a surprise. Trump has always felt that servicemen are schmucks. He's loyal to no one other than himself, and perhaps to those who have something over him. The dead, well, you know, that just happens.
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The Germans advanced to Fabas, France, in their offensive at Verdun.
The French executed Phan Xích Long following an attempted prison breakout days earlier.
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More recently it figured here, as the owners of the building commissioned some murals on the fire escape doors:
So how on earth does it end up in a political campaign?
Frankly, I have no idea, but the entire idea of it being built by "a Democrat" is a real wild one. The principal figure in the building being built was B. B. Brooks, who served as a Republican Governor for Wyoming, as we noted above. Brooks had his offices on the fifth floor of the building.
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This building has been continually occupied since 1917, and some of the businesses currently in it have been in the building since the 1940s although as earlier noted, one of them might have been in the building as early as 1917. Of the other two sisters, one is now the Townsend Justice Center which houses Natrona County's courts, and Wyo. Bank Bldg is an apartment building with a cafe on the street level.
All three buildings originally had, fwiw, massive period style lobbies which are sadly now all gone although you can catch glimpses of them, particularly in the Wyo. National Bank Bldg. The ConRoy once had a cigar store and magazine stand on the street level, after the lobby was taken out, and into the 50s, which explains the current appearance of its very small lobby today. Basically, the ConRoy and the Wyoming National Bank building were victims of "modernization" concepts in architecture from the 1950s and 1960s, at which time those buildings were forty years old and less, and nobody thought of them being particularly historic. The Townsend probably retained its architecture the longest, as it was a hotel originally, and up into the 70s when it closed. By that time it was pretty much a flop house with a popular cafe. I recall it as my father had lunch there until the cafe closed, which many other downtown businessmen and professionals did as well. It made for an odd place to go as a kid, which I sometimes did with my father, as the cafe was really popular, as was the adjoined Petroleum Club, but in the lobby the working girls were recovering from their prior night.
The ConRoy, on the other hand, has hummed on much like it has since 1917, although some of the notable early tenants, like the Casper Star Tribune, have moved on. The building was recently featured in the Oil City News when some of the equipment for a new elevator, replacing the one from the 1950s that replaced the one from 1917, was lifted by crane into the structure.
Anyhow, this is baffling. Of course, I only know of this as somebody else whose familiar with the building pointed it out to me and was horribly amused by it. I don't know that I am, as I like things to be accurate.
But why would a person do this, and how would such a wild rumor get started?
