Tuesday, November 7, 1922. The Election of 1922.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 7:1922.  Democrat William B. Ross won election to the Governor's office, defeating John W. Hay, a Republican who had defeated the incumbent Republican Governor Robert D. Carey for the GOP ticket.

Ross.

The Republican Party was split due to the extremely contentious primary race and Ross was able to use this to appeal to Carey's supporters through his strong Prohibition stance.  The 48 year old Carey was a lawyer by profession.

Democrat John B. Kendrick won a second term to the Senate, defeating Congressman Frank W. Mondell who was the Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives at the time.

Replacing Mondell was Charles E. Winter, a lawyer from Casper who had also been a State District Court judge.

Winter.

Winter would serve in that role until 1929, as in 1928 he reprised Mondell's path and attempted unsuccessfully to move to the Senate.  He was thereafter the Attorney General of Puerto Rico and then returned to Casper, where he died in 1948.  One of my aunts worked for him in his later years, and his son, who lived to be nearly 100, was a lawyer who practiced in the office building which I do and still was when I first worked there.

Winter wrote the lyrics for the song Wyoming, which is one of the two state songs.  He was also a novelist.

Nationwide, in the same year, the Democrats made big gains in the House and Senate. 

Saturday, November 4, 1922. Ottoman vestiges.

The Country Gentleman appeared on the stands with an election themed issue.

I don't know if women really had to give their ages. They don't know, of course, except I suppose at the time of their registration.

A young maid with kittens made up the sad cover of the Saturday Evening Post in a Rockwell illustration.

Ahmet Tevfik Pasha resigned as Grand Vizar of the Ottoman Empire, there no longer being the post following its elimination by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, and there also no longer being an Ottoman Empire.

The position was essentially that of Prime Minster by power of attorney through the Sultan, who also no longer existed.

On the same day Ali Kemal, former Turkish Interior Minister, was kidnapped from a barbershop in Istambul under orders of the military governor of Izmir.  He'd be murdered two days later.

Colorado was hit by severe weather:

The Colorado killer tornadoes of November 4, 1922

British archeologist discovered the Tomb of King Tutankhamen.

This story has never fascinated me the way it does other people.  This is not to say that it isn't significant, it certainly is, but many people are fascinated with it, which I'm afraid I am not.

Wednesday, March 29, 1922. Washington Naval Treaty ratified and a familiar name enters Wyoming politics.

On this day in 1922, the Washington Naval Treat was ratified by the U.S. Senate, with there being only a single no vote.

And attention was being gathered around a possible campaign for Governor by Patrick Sullivan.  He would not become Governor, but his grandson, Mike, did.

Sullivan was a Creighton educated lawyer originally from Nebraska who practiced in Casper, and then later in Laramie.

Today In Wyoming's History: January 6, 1919. Robert D. Carey takes office as Governor.

This starts off as a simple one line entry on our companion blog for this day (which will inevitably be updated following the publishing of this item.  That item is:

Today In Wyoming's History: January 6: 1919 

1919  Robert D. Carey takes office as governor.

This even was a big local event, of course, but will be very much overshadowed in history by another event taking place the same day which also will appear here momentarily and which will also appear on Today In Wyoming's History, that being the death of President Theodore Roosevelt.

Carey makes an interesting contrast to Roosevelt in some ways and parallels him in others.  He was born in Cheyenne in 1878, the son of legendary prior Governor Joseph M. Carey.  His father had been a prominent Republican businessman, rancher, lawyer and politician.  That Carey had been close to Theodore Roosevelt and had followed him into the Progressive Party when the GOP split.  Joseph Carey had also been a Democrat at one point due to a split in the GOP in Wyoming.

His son was Yale educated and came back to Wyoming where he became a businessman and rancher.  By World War One he was already a prominent figure in the Republican Party, and had like his father been in the Progressive Party for a time as well.  He's served on various state board and commissions, and he was by this time the President of the still powerful Wyoming Stockgrowers Association (which he would be until 1921).  Governor Frank Houx made the savvy move offering Carey command of the Wyoming National Guard, which Carey at first declined.  By the time he accepted it the position was filled and the 39 year old Carey did not serve in World War One.

When he ran for office in 1918, that fact was used against him, and it's no wonder.  The United States, while it had its share of objectors to the war, had leaped into the Great War with earnest.  Amazingly, Carey won the race none the less, which says something about the spirit of the time, the state's view on Houx, or its view on Carey, or all of those.  I don't really know, but 1918 was a banner year nationally for the reunited Republican Party which was resurgent.  So Carey became the Governor of Wyoming on this day.

Carey served only one term as Governor.  As one of the many forgotten aspects of the post war world, Wyoming's economy was very badly hit by the recession/depression that followed the end of World War One, with the prices of every single commodity in Wyoming falling.  While Carey was not responsible for this by any means, that fact attached to his administration and he was amazingly not re-nominated for the Governorship.  Indeed, William B. Ross, a progressive Democrat, took the Governor's office that year.

Carey returned to private life but came back into politics and was elected as U.S. Senator for Wyoming in November 1929.  While he remained personally popular, history repeated itself for him in that office as the Great Depression had commenced and he went down in defeat in the 1936 election when Democrats swept national office.  Carey died the following year at age 58.