Saturday, December 11, 1915. The last peacetime Christmas.

Field Marshall John French was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Home Forces in Great Britain.

An Allied column in the Sahara survived a Senussi attack which was repulsed by superior firepower and Australian mounted reinforcements.

The Bulgarian army captured Bogdanci.

It was a Saturday:

Leyendecker's cover was a Christmas theme.  There would not be another peacetime Christmas in the US until 1918.

Last edition:

Friday, December 10, 1915. 1,000,000 Fords and the high cost of living.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Clothing, Constitutionalist Army, Food, German Kriegsmarine, Imperial Russian Navy, inflation, It was because of World War One, Mexican Revolution, Nobel Prize, Ottoman Navy, Science, World War One

Saturday, December 10, 1910.

 

Last edition:

Wednesday, December 7, 1910. Arresting your enemies.

Labels: 1910, 1910s, Bolivia, Constitutionalist Army, Francisco I. Madero, Maderistas, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Peru, Porfirio Díaz, Writers

Saturday, December 5, 1925.

 

Last edition:

Thursday, December 3, 1925. Spain, Ulster and Romania.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Ireland, Moldova, Northern Ireland, Romania, Spain, Spanish Civil War

Saturday, November 28, 1925. Grand Old Opry premiers.

Nashville's WSM radio premiered the WSM Barn Dance which became the Grand Ole Opry.

It was a Saturday.

The French government reigned after failing to reach a settlement with the US over war debt.

Last edition:

Friday, November 27, 1925. Hill Packing.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1928, 1930s, Afghanistan, Diplomacy, Economics, Equine Transportation, Feral Horses, Germany, Imperial Russian Army, Industry, Russian Civil War, USSR, Wyoming (Casper)

Saturday, November 21, 1925. Lava Beds.

It was a Saturday.

Last edition:

Thursday, November 19, 1925. First lighted high school football game.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, football, Introspection, J.R. Williams, Nostalgia, Sports, technology, Wyoming, Wyoming (Casper), Wyoming (MIdwest)

Saturday, November 17, 1945. Charles De Gaulle says Non to the Communists.

Charles de Gaulle made a broadcast to the people of France announcing that he rejecting the position of president of FRance due to the "excessive demands regarding ministerial posts."  He further announced that he would continue serving but would refuse to appoint any  Communist to "any post related to foreign affairs."

Communist had done extremely well in the recent election and were a major component of the coalition government, taking more votes that any other party.  The French Section of the Workers International, a French Socialist Party, had done very well also, coming in third.  Coming in just behind the Communists, however, was the Catholic Popular Republican Movement. All three parties were in coalition that dates back to the election, with the coalition having De Gaulle's support at the time.

France was, quite frankly, on the very verge of becoming a Communist state, given the strong left wing turnout in the election.  If it had, it would have been a disaster of epic proportions for the West.  Most people looking at it objectively would have supposed that France would fall to the Communist.

This helps put in context, to a certain extent, the degree to which French military and political figures were proactive in trying to reestablish French colonialism, which was cast, with some credibility, as a war between Western ideals and Communism, although only imperfectly so. That France didn't go into a civil war is in no small part due to DeGaulle.  DeGaulle would whether the leftist Third Republic, after which France would pull back from the brink. Still, having said that, why France fought it out in Indochina, and Algeria, makes a lot more sense if that history is grasped.

Josef Kramer, Irma Grese, Dr. Fritz Klein and eight others were sentenced to death by a British military court as Nazi war criminals for their roles in the concentration camps.  

Kramer had come up in the concentration camp system, having been in the SS prior to World War Two.He was the Commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen Belsen.

Grese was 22 years old making her the youngest person to die under British law in the 20th Century. She'd joined the  Bund Deutscher Mädel in 1937 at age 13, causing a rift with her father who did not approve of the Nazi Party. She left home at age 14 and entered the SS at age 18, having already worked for Karl Gelbardt by that time.  In the camps she gained responsibility and became incredibly sadistic as well as extremely perverted perverted sadistic bisexual who had affairs with imprisoned Jewish women, and who is rumored to have a had one with Josef Kramer, until he learned of that. She was a sadist, and clearly an extremely tortured soul mentally. 

Regarding her, inmate Auschwitz Romanian Jewish gynecologist Gisella Perl stated:

She was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Her body was perfect in every line, her face clear and angelic and her blue eyes the gayest, the most innocent eyes one can imagine. And yet, Irma Greze was the most depraved, cruel, imaginative sexual pervert I ever came across.

Perl relocated to Israel after the war with her daughter, whom she hid from the Naizs, and died there on December 16, 1988, at the age of 81

Kramer and Grese, August 8, 1945.

Frankly, a lot of Nazism was an absolute perversion.

News of Grese's death sentence hit the front pages in the United States. The Sheridan newspaper used one of her two common nicknames, the Beast of Belsen (the Hyena of Belsen was the other), its story on her.

The ongoing investigation on Pearl Harbor also made the front news, as did the French political scene.

A selection of Saturday cartoons from the paper:

The Saturday Evening Post ran a cover with a hunting and puppy theme.

This would be subject to copyright, but we run it here under the fair use exception to note how common hunting themes were at the time.

Last edition:

Friday, November 16, 1945. UNESCO founded. USS Laramie decommissioned.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, boats and ships, Dwight Eisenhower, Iran, Scientific and Cultural Organization, The Cold War, United Nations, United Nations Educational, USSR

Saturday, November 14, 1925.

 

Last edition:

Thursday, November 12, 1925. Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, boats and ships, Jazz, Music, Royal Navy, The Jazz Age, The Roaring Twenties

Saturday, November 7, 1925. Crabby Coolidge.

It was Saturday.

Coolidge delivered a crabby press  conference.

Press Conference, November 7, 1925

Date: November 7, 1925

Location: Washington, DC

I keep having inquiries about the coal strike. I don’t know just why I keep having them. I suppose the press would like something to write about. There isn’t anything that I can say about that, and I don’t know of anything at the present time that I can do about it. Now, if you will just keep that in mind perhaps it will be in an indication of what slant you ought to take when you hear rumors.

I don’t know of anything about Commissioner Haynes’ connection with the Government other than what I have seen in the press. I have indicated, I think a good many times, to the conference, that I had a very high regard for Major Haynes. I think he was a very good officer holding a very difficult situation. I am sure that he can be very helpful by continuing. Now whether it is going to be thought best by General Andrews and Secretary Mellon and Mr. Blair to continue him in office, I don’t know. From all I know, I suppose they are going to do so and receive the benefit of the vary vast knowledge he has of the situation and use him in a great many ways.

I haven’t in contemplation any action in regard to Commissioner of Immigration, Curran, of New York. I don’t know what his views are about immigration. I know that he has extensive views that he has voiced in the press, but if there is a difference between him and the Immigration Department, I don’t know just what the nature of the difference is. The only rumor that has ever come to me seemed in a way a reflection of Mr. Curran, and I don’t know that that was warranted, was the fact that he seemed to be making a good deal of criticism of his superior officers. He may have a very good plan of running his office over there that is better than the Department has. Of course, it is always unfortunate when a subordinate starts out publicly to criticize his superiors. I have understood that Mr. Curran was a first-rate public officer. He is a man of intelligence. I think he is a graduate of Yale some time back. It looks as though he was well trained to administer that office. Now I imagine that there have been rumors about it, but that the facts are rather inconsequential.

Press: The matter hasn’t been referred to you by the Labor Department?

President: Not that I know of. I heard something to the effect that a letter of reference had come over here, but I have never seen it and don’t think it has come.

Here is another veteran rumor about my position on the World Court. If you want to know what my position is in relation to it, read the two or three statements that I have made. The first one in my message of 1923, next in my message of 1924, and in an address I made at Arlington the 30th of May, 1924. I haven’t changed my position at all. Nobody has suggested that there should be any compromise. What I want is some practical resolution that will carry out the necessary purpose.

Senator Borah didn’t mention and I didn’t mention the Italian debt or the foreign debts, when he was in here. I sent for him to consult with him as I am consulting with a great many now, to find out if anything had occurred to him in his experience or his studies that would be something that I ought to touch on in my message. I learned from Senator Smoot and Secretary Mellon, who was in here just now, that they seemed to be making very good progress. I haven’t any details. If I did have them, I wouldn’t want to disclose them. But they are making progress. There is every indication I think that an agreement can be reached. That is the general impression I get from my conference with those who are on the debt commission. There seems to be a disposition on both sides to try to make a settlement and I think from such information that comes to me that both sides are approaching the problem with the utmost candor. When that is the case we usually expect that candid minds can meet and agree.

I think that is all for the day.

(Newspaper men called back within a few minutes)

**** between the depression of the franc and the debt settlement failure. The suggestion is that the so-called Morgan credits to France have been held up at the instance of the Government. I don’t think there is any foundation whatever for any rumor of that kind. I don’t know of any proposal by France to get the credits here, and I am sure that our Government has not put anything in the way of any credit of that kind. I am very certain that no suggestion has been made for an additional credit.

Press: That was made a long time ago, Mr. President.

President: Yes. A credit of I think $100,000,000 was extended in the late spring.

Press: Has the administration any plans for a possible debt conference in Europe

President; no.

Theater in Berkeley, California showing the film "The Midshipman" (1925)

Movies were a big deal.

So was football.

Last edition:

Thursday, November 5, 1925. The Big Parade.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1925 at the movies, 1930s, 1933, 1936, actors and actresses, Alcohol, Cheka, Disease, Espionage, Japan, Personalities, Russian Civil War, United Kingdom, World War One

Saturday, October 31, 1925. Subpoena for Coolidge?

Billy Mitchell's defense was considering subpoenaing Calvin Coolidge.

It was Halloween, and the Mills Tavern was having a party, with lots of elk.

That's a real curiosity, as generally it'd be very difficult to find a restaurant in Wyoming serving elk now.  Hunters can't have their elk served in restaurants, and market hunting as well as game farming is illegal in Wyoming.  Market hunting was illegal in Wyoming at the time, and in fact by 1925, was pretty much everywhere in the U.S.

An oddity of advertising in Casper appears here, I'd note.  At the time, advertisers routinely failed to note their addresses.  Where was the Mills Tavern, other than in Mills?

It's actually a little hard to find out.

The tavern seems to have opened, or reopened, in 1924.  It was operating as a restaurant, and it had private dining rooms.  By 1930 its focus may have changed, as it issued cigarette books with illustrations of scantily clad women on the jackets, although that was quite common at the time and at least into the 1950s.  Early on, however, it emphasized nightly dancing and chicken dinners.  Apparently the bands were good enough that a band appearing in Glenrock noted that it was "from" the Mills Tavern.

The focus may have changed sometime prior to that, actually, as it was hit in a prohibition raid in 1926, although only a small amount of alcohol was found.  Given that the amount was small, not too much can be presumed.

When the tavern opened in 1924, it noted that it was in the former Mills Hotel. That provides a pretty good clue as to its location.  An old hotel building still exists in Mills, no longer used for that purpose.  That was likely the location, and would explain why it had private rooms.

The new Ajax  was out:

Ajax automobiles no longer exist, of course.  Neither does the town of Salt Creek.

Ajax was made by Nash and was offered only in 1925 and 1926.

And, well, Coolidge looked safe.

 It was a Saturday.

Last edition:

Friday, October 30, 1925. Not Guilty.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Billy Mitchell, The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell

Saturday, October 24, 1925.

 

Last edition:

Friday, October 23, 1925. Stray dog, beer and Billy Mitchell.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Alcohol, Billy Mitchell, Bulgaria, Dogs, Greece, Illinois (Chicago), League of Nations, Prohibition, Protestant, religion, The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell, War of the Stray Dog, Whatever It Is I'm against it

Saturday, October 17, 1925: When two ride one horse.

Hasan al-Kharrat' rebels entered Damascus.

Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Today -100: October 17, 1925: When two ride one ho...: French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand says the Locarno Conference lays the foundations for the United States of Europe. Hurrah! In Locarn...

This item contains an interesting one one regarding modification of the wedding vows in the Episcopal service. 

"What a Protection Electric Light is" advertisement for Edison Mazda . The Saturday Evening Post, October 17, 1925.

 

Last edition:

Friday, October 16, 1925. The Locarno conference ended with several agreements in place and an atmosphere of optimism.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Diplomacy, Europe, Locarno Conference