The Election of 1926, an off year, was held. The GOP emerged retraining a narrow majority in the Senate, and a decreased majority in the House.
It was a Republican sweep in Wyoming.
Locally, Republican Frank C. Emerson narrowly defeated incumbent Governor Nellie Tayloe Ross, ending her political career. He had been State Engineer.
Alonzo M. Clark was elected Secretary of State. Vincent Cartier was reelected State Auditor. William H. Edleman was elected Treasurer. Katherine A. Morton was reelected Superintendent of Public Instruction in a race that featured two female contestants.
Charles Winter took the House.
Winter was the author of the lyrics to the song Wyoming, the first official state song, which is now one of the two official state songs. He later ran for Senate but failed to secure election, but went on to be Attorney General and then Governor of Puerto Rico, after which he returned to Wyoming in 1948. I knew his son, who was a lawyer such as he was, and who lived to be nearly 100 years old.
French pediatrician Gaston Variot warned women not to dance the Charleston, because its "sudden wrenching movements" were "likely to produce internal conditions inimical to the proper conditions of childbirth.
Today’s action revoking access for journalists from CNN, POLITICO, and MSNOW violates the First Amendment. The implications extend beyond these organizations: a standard used to exclude one news outlet because of its coverage could be applied to any outlet in the future. The American people, through a free and independent press, must be able to scrutinize those elected to power, regardless of whether government officials view it favorably. That’s why courts have repeatedly held that once the White House provides access to journalists, it cannot deny that access arbitrarily or based on the content of their reporting. The WHCA calls on the administration to immediately restore our colleagues’ access.
Jacqui Heinrich, WHCA President
In a really remarkable event, the broadcast media is boycotting the Trump Administration after it banned some press outlets from covering King Donald.
Donny loves, and feeds on, the attention, and it'll be interesting to see how this pans out. Yesterday the White House blew the coverage on the opening use of the helipad so that nobody could really hear what King Donny had to say.
Today King Donny's admin tried to pass off the press ban as being in the interest of national security, which recently has been his default position on everything. That's why King Donny is building a ballroom, that's why we need a Triumphal Arch.
The bloom may be off the red stinkweed of Trumpism as by and large, the public just isn't buying it at all.
Good for the press to finally find its courage. It's been lacking. This Week expresses addressed the Trump ban.
Dr. John trotted out.
The GOP hauled out the uninspiring Dr. John Barrasso, majority whip, to justify the GOP's malfeasance.
Dr. John is a pretty uninspiring speaker. This was no exception. He attempted to justify the press ban saying that the press had an obligation to report fairly.
That's a really dangerous position for a local politician to take, quite frankly. He didn't sound like he really meant it as he knows that they do report fairly. What he also knows is that they don't report, locally, too deeply, at least they haven't until recently. They're starting too thanks to the online journals which have been a lot more proactive in digging things up than the print media ever was.
Barrasso is turning out to be a worthless Senator for the state. He has four more years to serve. My suspicion is that this will be his last term, if the 74 year old Senator lives through it. I think people are tired of him and he won't want to go down in defeat. He'll retire and move somewhere else, as he was never really from here to start with.
Dr. John was in Iowa where he was campaigning for a Republican candidate there. Wow, the Midwest must really like bland if somebody thinks Dr. John is going to help. Asked about what is going on, the doctor mustered up this reply:
Well, people all around the country are feeling the pain. I’m hearing it in Wyoming with our farmers and ranchers as well. But people vote about what’s going on in their life and their future. And we know we need to do more. We need to get more money into people’s pockets. That’s what Republicans want to do. But let’s talk about what we have done. And that is we’ve prevented a $4 trillion tax increase. We’ve gotten rid of taxes on tips and social security and on overtime. And we know what the Democrats would do if they were able to take over. They would put all those taxes back on for the purpose of paying for health care for illegal immigrants. So they want to put on taxes on waitresses, on nurses who work overtime, firefighters, and on our seniors. I mean, there’s a huge difference between where Republicans want to take this country and where Democrats want to take this country. Those Democrats that are so unpopular in your poll, why? They want to eliminate Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They want to defund the police. They want to get rid of the military. They want to open the borders. They talk about opening the prisons and putting these prisoners back in our communities. That doesn’t make us safer, it doesn’t make us more prosperous. And that is the difference between common sense and the craziness. And I think that’s what this election is going to be about.
And
Well, we’re always looking for ways to put more money in people’s pockets. And I hear it in Wyoming all the time at the grocery store, at the gas station, people are paying more. And we need to do more. And that’s why we need more American energy production, we need to get rid of regulations, we need to do more with permitting. That’s legislation we’re working on now. The president and the Republicans are focused on all of those things at the time that Democrats have gone so far to the left that they don’t want to do those sorts of things. And I’ll tell you, once this war in Iran is over, diesel prices are going to go down and stay down under President Trump. But they would stay up forever under the Democrats and specifically diesel in Wyoming, I was in Meeteetse, Wyoming last week, talking to ranchers and farmers there, diesel’s over $6 a gallon now. But in California, it’s over $8 a gallon. And the difference is the rules, the regulations, all the climate issues in California. If the Democrats took over, prices would go up to those levels which are over $2 higher in California than they are in Wyoming right now.
So, inflation is going up and fuel prices are killing us, but the Democrats are bad because Dr. John says so.
Not very inspiring.
Not only that, but Barrasso has joined the GOP liars club. Raise taxes so we could give healthcare to illegal immigrants. Bullshit. Taxes do need to be raised, but because we aren't paying for the government.
It's almost as if Dr. John had a list of things he had to say, so he made sure he said them all as quickly as possible.
And diesel being $6.00/gal in Wyoming isn't made better by it being $8.00/gal in California. Oh, we feel so good about that here.
Beef
A popular Trump line right now is that you don't mind paying more for fuel as you don't want Iran to have a nuke.
M'eh.
Secretary Rollins took a similar tone on the price of beef.
Instead of eating less beef as the price continued to rise, Americans began to eat more beef. And even though the price of a pound of ground beef was $6.50, most Americans say, 'I'm good with that. I want this protein for my family.' So they continue to buy.
Um, sure.
When, by the way, did everyone start calling meat "protein". Knock it off.
Huge
The video footage of the helipad unveiling reveals it to be huge.
I didn't really have an appreciation of its size until I saw the video.
I really don't know what to make of the helipad. In some ways it makes sense and it was well done. I also think that the President doesn't need a giant Sikorsky helicopter and that all the prior Marine Corps 1 helicopters were gigantically overblown as well. One of the smaller business helicopters would be plenty large enough, quite frankly.
They wouldn't have all the countermeasures, I know. Well, too freaking bad. The President is supposed to be the chief executive of limited powers, not an emperor. Flying around in an armored helicopter just gives that much more of a delusion of the opposite.
Speaking of monumental works, I had an exchange, on Twitter, with a MAGA over the ballroom. It was interesting, as her mind was so completely closed and she was utterly incapable of realizing it.
Besotted
She was convinced that anyone opposed to the ballroom had to be a "liberal" who "hated" Trump. I'm opposed to it. I hate what Trump is doing to the country, but I don't hate a living soul. We are required in Christianity to exhibit agape towards our enemies, and frankly Trump is the enemy of decency in a lot of ways. We should pray for his well-being and salvation.
In the exchange I gave my reasons for opposing the ballroom. Well, some of them, not all of them. The list would be large.
The principal reasons I detest the ballroom, I'll note, is because of the illegality of its construction and the illegality of the destruction of the wing where it is located. I'm not a fan of the wings of the White House in general. I think the whole thing ought to be restored to some prior appearance.
I also think the bunkers that were put in and those being built ought to go. As with the helicopter, building a bunker is something that shouldn't be done unless it's done for every single American.
I didn't go into it but I also detest the overblown size and the intended interior embellishments are in horrifically bad taste.
The latter, of course, can and will be removed, if the monstrosity stands.
Anyhow, while I have very wide ranging views, I'm generally very conservative. Indeed, Trump and the MAGAs are not conservatives at all. At this point, they're populist of the fascist variety.
Her argument, lifted from Trump, was that the ballroom would benefit future Presidents. I asked how, and she couldn't provide how. Even though I don't believe it will benefit a living soul, and that it will rightfully be blown to the ground by a future administration, I could make up reasons to support that argument.
Most revealing, however, is that her basic worldview, which came through very clearly, is that if you claim to be an American you have an absolute duty to love Donald Trump. If you don't, you are a traitor.
During World War Two there was a Marine Corps officer who received the Silver Star for heroism. He was later killed in the war. He was also a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and was an admitted communist.
I have no doubt he loved his country.
For that matter, Sterling Hayden, the famous actor, also was a Marine Corps officer, and a member of the OSS, who was briefly a member of the Communist party.
I have no doubt that he loved his country.
I doubt that Donald Trump loves his.
And I know that those who love Donald Trump so much they see everything he does as correct do not love their countrymen. And if you hate your countrymen because of their political beliefs, you hate your country.
Fairytale balls
One of the interesting things about the "benefitting future Presidents" line is that it fits into the Trump narrative perfectly. Trump sees himself as a sort of monarch and the White House as a palace.
It's just supposed to be a house.
No. 10 Downing Street doesn't have a ballroom. 24 Sussex Drive doesn't have one either. The Hôtel Matignon doesn't have one either. Even the Novo-Ogaryovo Estate doesn't have one, and its quite lavish.
The Kremlin does. So does Buckingham Palace.
Hmm. . . . .
That really shows us a glimpse of Trump's mindset. And contrary to what MAGAs like to imagine, no prior President has ever asked for a dedicated ballroom.
It's all just a weird fantasy and a glimpse into the American inferiority complex. We may have rebelled against a king, but in some ways we never got over being besotted by them. Even to this day we follow what the British royal family is doing as if it matters to us at all.
So here you have it.
Abolitio nominis
Back during Roman times, the Senate could issue a decree of abolitio nominis, although it's pretty unclear to me if they called it that. It was an abolition of a leader's name to the full extent possible.
The Roman Senate well knew that it couldn't really erase an Emperor's name from history, so it was symbolic. But it is worth noting that some very early societies effectively nearly did achieve just that. The purpose was to express maximum public disdain for the disgraced person.
It's easy to think the US never attempted anything like that, but perhaps it slightly has in the case of the removal of Confederate monuments which started some years ago, and then generally stopped under Trump, whose world outlook doves relatively well with a lot of Confederates or at least Dixiecrats, which is what he really is. At the time, I was of mixed view as erasing history bothers me, and that reflected the history of the attempt at reviving Confederate reputations. I find that effort horrific, but I thought having a reminder of it served a purpose. And, also, quite frankly as times change the views of various persons from the past change as well. Thomas Jefferson was a great man, for instance, but it's pretty clear that he was also screwing his late wife's enslaved half sister when she was only 14. He was 44. She was his youngest daughters nanny. The children from the illicit union were born into slaver.
That's warped.
So, suffice it to say, leaders of the past have some warts on them.
But things like rebelling for slavery or ignoring the legalities of things while in office that are open and obvious at the time are another matter. Jefferson was a domestic creep, and there's no defending that, but the weird mores of his culture made that less weird than it would seem now, although there were plenty of rumors at the time and it's hard not to regard the liasons as starting off, at least, as a type of rape. Anyhow, the Confederate monuments came up mostly in the 1910s. It's my view now they ought to all come down. Trump has brought me to that.
Trump is such a horrific person that some sort of decree of abolitio nominis needs to be made when he's gone. The American instinct is always "well, let's all reconcile".
Let's not.
Recognizing mistakes is one thing. Lots of MAGAs who should have known better are now crossing over into sanity as their own wallets are looted by Trump's policies. I don't care what brings them back into some sort of reality, I think they ought to be welcomed back. But diehard MAGAs and people who are going to serve Trump until the last days of his administration, not so much. Karoline Leavitt, for example, can be forgiven, but not readmitted to decent society. Vance and Rubio should be made to retire from politics.
But because Trump has shown such disdain for the law, he should be made an example of. And the first part of that is to declare his second presidency a legal nullity. Given his status as an insurrectionist, there's a legal grounds to do that. Every order, commission, appointment and whatever that depended on his signature should be immediately declared to be null, void, and of no effect by the next President, irrespective of the impact. Every "agreement" entered into should be declared a nullity, including agreements with foreign powers. The ballroom should be blown down, and the triumphal arch as well, but the next administration immediately.
Yes, it's extreme, but the correction to fascism is extreme.
Real balls
The first inaugural ball was held for George Washington in 1789 in New York. Washington D.C. did not exist yet, of course. It was an unofficial ball which, if we must have these, is how they should be in my view.
The first official one was in 1809 for James Madison. It was held at Longs Hotel. Balls didn't occur at all in 1853, 1913, 1921, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, and 2021. I don't think they should be held at all anymore, but when they are, there are numerous official balls. Clinton had fourteen one year, which is absurd.
Inflation
The GOP is seriously worried about inflation as everyone is seriously worried about it. It's flopping around like a fish on the deck trying to explain high fuel prices to MAGA bases like agriculture and truck transportation.
It's not going to work.
It took hitting their own pocketbooks but all of a sudden truck drivers are mad at Trump. Well, they ought to be, but it's too late. Trump's not able to help.
Farmers and ranchers, who started to be angry a while back, are angry once again for the same reason, and in the case of farmers they're upset about potash, most of which comes from Canada, now being tariffed.
Oops.
King Donny tried to claim that we were going to get potash from Belarus. That claim survived a few hours until the Belarusians said, nope, we don't have any to sell you.
The claim on fuel, of course, is that it'll all go down when the war is over. Given as the war is getting worse, not over, there's not much stock that can be put in that claim. And the potash situation can only be solved by not being an asshole to Canada.
Even there, the diehard MAGAs are convinced that the Canadians have been picking on us for decades. This is just flat out false. The border was basically duty free until Trump came in and tore up the very deal that he'd arrived upon with Canada during his first term.
The entire thing has caused now desperate Republicans to ponder taking extreme measures on topics they don't grasp. There's a move, for example, to ban the exportation of diesel fuel.
The refining of petroleum products doesn't work the way people think it does and the price is very heavily dependent upon the cost of the raw product. The refractions that become diesel and jet fuel are there no matter what. There's pretty good reason to believe that banning the export of diesel fuel doesn't do anything to its price, and might just raise it.
We may, of course, get to find out.
Frankly, at this point, my prediction is fuel prices are never coming down. The wars gone on too long, and too much damage has been done to Middle Eastern infrastructure to change that.
This might have some good side benefits, however. One might be the acceleration of the switch to electric vehicles. I actually overheard somebody whose family is employed in the petroleum industry discussing a desire to get an electric vehicle yesterday. Another may be a switch to rail transportation, which is a much better means of transporting goods in the first place. In agriculture, there are means of relying on petroleum less, and that may start to occur more and more in livestock production at least. A lot of the television farmers and ranchers that are interviewed look like they've never walked a day in their life, they might start to. The end of ATVs and driving everywhere may start to arrive.
Maybe a slight "think this out" trend might start to. Truckers and farmers who voted for Trump are getting exactly what they deserve. Unfortunately, the rest of us have been dragged along with them.
Bartiromo managed to go from being a credible mainstream reporter to a Trump talking head after leaving going to Fox in 2014. Her departure would indicate that we've entered the "Hunt for the Golden Pheasants" stage of the Trump regime in which there's localized uprising. The recent resignation of the Secretary of the Army fits into that as well.
I seriously thought that by this point the 25th Amendment would have been invoked and we'd have a President J. D. Vance trying to cut his own path. People like Hegseth would be gone. There'd be no Iran war and the tariff experiment would be over. What didn't count on wa the administration being made up of radical right wing Confederates and Seven Mountain adherents, as well as members of the Waffen Grenadier Brigade of the SS Charlemagne that have no place to go. So it appears my prediction was incorrect, although there's still hope. Having said that, those who plan on surviving the regime are beginning to make their exit, or are being tossed overboard.
Well, Bye Felicia.
Trying to sell.
Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum announced that the Trump Admin will begin a further vandalization project this upcoming week and very clearly he knows nobody wants it, and therefore is trying really, really, hard to sell it. He took to Twitter trying to show that Presidents have so dearly wanted an arch Witness:
Secretary Doug Burgum@SecretaryBurgum
We are pleased to announce that after a very long wait (over 125 years!), we are preparing to start, over the next two-week period, the excavation work necessary for the Great Triumphal Arch and Military Observation Deck, at Memorial Circle on Columbia Island between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. This will be one of the Great Pieces of American Architecture, honoring the history and significance of Arlington Cemetery and befitting the most powerful Capital in the World.
For over 125 years, Congress and various congressionally chartered commissions decreed that a monumental work should adorn Columbia Island. In 1902, the U.S. Senate’s “McMillan Commission” called for “a concourse suited to memorial treatment be established” on the westerly terminus of the Memorial Bridge.
In 1924, the congressional chartered Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission stated, “[Columbia Island] was always considered as a suitable site for formal park treatment, a fitting end for the Memorial Bridge, as well as an important feature in itself.” Specifically, the Commission called for “a plaza with fitting architectural adornment in a measure supplemental to the Lincoln Memorial across the river.”
Despite Congress’s intent, the site became and remains today a barren traffic circle lacking any monumental treatment and significant historic value. In fact, the passage extending from Arlington Memorial Bridge to Arlington National Cemetery was meant to serve as an Avenue of Heroes.
In the years after World War II, Ulysses S. Grant III— who was the grandson of the former president and Union general Ulysses S. Grant, executive officer of the Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission, and member of the National Capital Park and Planning Commission—decried the state of Columbia Island as a “temporary road with an informal circle.” He lamented that “the central plaza on Columbia Island had never been undertaken and seems to be absolutely essential to link together the two parts of the project, namely the main bridge itself and the entrance to Arlington Cemetery.”
Over 70 major cities/capitals around the world, from London, Paris and Rome to Madrid, Athens and New Delhi, all showcase beautiful arches. Interestingly, Washington, DC, is the only major Western capital without an arch. Now after 125 years of waiting, the most powerful capital in the world will be home of the most spectacular and beautiful arch of them all!
M'eh.
Nobody wants it except for King Donny. The irony of building a triumphal arch while losing a war is really rich for one thing, and this is a huge monstrosity.
Maybe if they were going to put something there, they could put up a small monument (not gilded) to Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. He could serve as an example to these guys.
Anything one government builds, another can rip down.
The U.S. Army blows the Swastika off of the Nuremberg parade grounds.
Anyhow, at last there's a really growing movement to rip this crap, including the ballroom, down as soon as Trump is out of office.
This from Senator Ted Lieu:
Here is my prediction: the Democratic presidential candidate who promises to restore the White House to what it looked like pre-trump will win the primary and the Presidency.
I"m seeing a lot of that now.
Just ripping it down might be illegal. But then the Supreme Court has already established that you can get away with building this crap even if it is illegal, and ripping stuff down takes a lot less time than putting it up.
On the White House, by the way, the wings were added in 1902. With one already gone, they ought to take the other out in my opinion and just restore the building to its original architectural integrity. The wings don't look great to start with and the ballroom looks absurd.
A trip down Trump's memory lane.
An Albert Dornei illustration of how bowling was once imagined in the urban world of the 1950s. Posted via fair use exception.
The Trump administration has announced its renovating the bowling alley in the White House as well.
The bowling alley story really brings into focus the way that the Trump administration, captured by the decaying mind of Donald Trump, is sort of a monument to an imaginary 1950s where everyone was urban, white, middle class, or maybe upper middle class.
I realize that people still bowl, but bowling reached the apex of its popularity in the 50s and 60s when automatic pin setters came in. Golfing peaked later, in the 90s and 2000s, but the mental image of golfing in a lot of ways, in terms of its popular image, is from an earlier era. Ballroom dancing was biggest in the mid 20th Century, basically from when the American population started to rapidly become urban and music, first jazz, and then later big band, dominated.
7up ad featuring bowling, 1963.
A popular study of the decline of American culture in some ways is titled "Bowling Alone". A person can look at this in a lot of ways, but the cultural evolution of the country, which has been negative in many, maybe most, ways has hit all of this stuff. One big factor, and yes here we go again, is that the demographic rabbit in the snake of the Baby Boomers changed all of this. Bowling, as noted, is still sort of a big deal, and its charmingly portrayed in The Big Lebowski, but even when I was young most young people didn't bowl, and regarded it as, well, square. Big halls where you had to rent shoes and dispirited older blue collar workers hung out, drank Budweiser, and smoked cigarettes lacked appeal. If you talked to our parents generation, however, you'd see that isn't how they viewed bowling when they were young at all.
Golf had a real reputation as an upper middle class sport when I was young. The sort of sport that lawyers and doctors engaged in and talked shop. I still sort of regard it that way, although that time has passed too, and now I think of it as a sport that is played by old lawyers and doctors. I know that's not really fair, but there's an element of truth to it.
Ballroom dancing is something that was dead as a doornail by the time I was old enough to hit any kind of a dancefloor, by which I mean a high school gym. The 60s had killed it. Indeed, this was illustrated recently by a video going viral of elderly people dancing to AC/DC at a nursing home. I've wondered if that would occur. For years, if you went to a nursing home at certain times of the day, you'd hear The Lawrence Welk Show blaring.
I'll be that's not the case anymore.
Well, for somebody like Trump, who is old, wealthy and likes to golf, and is old, and has big structures, and is old, all this probably seems a lot like taking a trip back to the past, like watching American Graffiti. One thing about the really wealthy is that they hang on to certain social aspects of the past more than other classes, so a wealthy hotelier like Trump probably did grow up thinking ballrooms were cool, and probably still does.
Going back to the past is a pretty strong desire for the old, and particularly strong for the demented old. I'm told that my dying grandmother on my mother's side, as her dying words, noted that my grandfather "sure can play tennis" no doubt recalling what he'd been like when they were young. Trump's now fixated on his reputation and on building. He's building like crazy, and building his way back to the past.
Of course, most old people can't command the entire resources of the nation to attempt to reconstruct an imaginary past.
Sic transit gloria mundi
Trump's monuments in stone will only last as long as Americans tolerate their presence. They shouldn't tolerate them for more than one second after he's gone. The next administration should tear them all down on the very first day of the next adminsitration.
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.
Then Pvt. Wilburn K. Ross preformed the actions which resulted in his winning the Medal of Honor:
For The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Private Wilburn Kirby Ross, United States Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with Company G, 2d Battalion, 30th Infantry, 3d Infantry Division, in action near St. Jacques, France. At 11:30 a.m. on 30 October 1944, after his company had lost 55 out of 88 men in an attack on an entrenched, full-strength German company of elite mountain troops, Private Ross placed his light machinegun ten yards in advance of the foremost supporting riflemen in order to absorb the initial impact of an enemy counterattack. With machinegun and small-arms fire striking the earth near him, he fired with deadly effect on the assaulting force and repelled it. Despite the hail of automatic fire and the explosion of rifle grenades within a stone’s throw of his position, he continued to man his machine gun alone, holding off six more German attacks. When the eighth assault was launched, most of his supporting riflemen were out of ammunition. They took positions in echelon behind Private Ross and crawled up, during the attack, to extract a few rounds of ammunition from his machinegun ammunition belt. Private Ross fought on virtually without assistance and, despite the fact that enemy grenadiers crawled to within four yards of his position in an effort to kill him with hand grenades, he again directed accurate and deadly fire on the hostile force and hurled it back. After expending his last rounds, Private Ross was advised to withdraw to the company command post, together with eight surviving riflemen, but, as more ammunition was expected, he declined to do so. The Germans launched their last all-out attack, converging their fire on Private Ross in a desperate attempt to destroy the machinegun which stood between them and a decisive breakthrough. As his supporting riflemen fixed bayonets for a last-ditch stand, fresh ammunition arrived and was brought to Private Ross just as the advance assault elements were about to swarm over his position. He opened murderous fire on the oncoming enemy; killed 40 and wounded ten of the attacking force; broke the assault single-handedly, and forced the Germans to withdraw. Having killed or wounded at least 58 Germans in more than five hours of continuous combat and saved the remnants of his company from destruction, Private Ross remained at his post that night and the following day for a total of 36 hours. His actions throughout this engagement were an inspiration to his comrades and maintained the high traditions of the military service.
He rejoined the Army after the war and was wounded in Korea. He retired from the Army in 1964.
The Finnish Army took Muonio.
The Polish 1st Armored Division took Breda, Netherlands.
The Greek government banned the ELAS.
The US 24th Corps captured Abuyag in the Philippines and cleared Catmon Hill.
The U.S. Navy conducted air raids on Japanese targes in the Phillpines, with the Japanese responding with kamikaze attacks, hitting the USS Intrepid, USS Franklin and the USS Belleau Woods. They all remained afloat.
Indeed, if I had power for some thirty years I would see to it that people should be allowed to follow their inbred instincts in these matters, and should hunt, drink, sing, dance, sail, and dig, and those that would not should be compelled by force.
Isabel Perón was sworn in as the first female president of Argentina, replacing an ailing Juan Perón.
British and French troops landed on Tanna to end the attempted succession from the Anglo-French Condominium of the island in the New Hebrides.
President Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Brezhnev signed a ten year economic agreement in Moscow, and then flew on to Simferopal in Crimea for a trip to Brezhnev's beach home at Oreanada.
Mikhail Baryshnikov, Soviet ballet start, defected in Toronto.
Today in World War II History—August 23, 1943: Soviets take Kharkiv, Ukraine, the fourth and final time it changes hands during World War II, and the Germans lose the Donets Basin industrial area.
From Sarah Sundin's blog.
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=593872
And that was a big deal in the war, we might note.
We should also note that the Red Army took massive casualties in the Battle of Kursk and its independent subparts, and in the counteroffensive following it. While putting it oddly, an achievement of the Red Army by this point of the war was being able to sustain huge manpower and material losses and not disintegrate. On the other hand, while the Red Army has numerous fans, it was fighting in a style that simply tolerated losses at a level that anything other than a totalitarian state could not endure, something the Germans also would do, but with the Soviets taking much larger casualties.
Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky, a Polish born senior Soviet commander, had his illustration appear on the cover of Time. The painting, which we cannot put up here as it is copyright protected, featured the Soviet general looking forward with piercing blue eyes and the words "USSR" behind him. He was painted seemingly thinner than he was in real life. Rokossovsky had been arrested during the Purge but had amazing survived, and then was dragged back out of confinement when it ended and the Red Army was in need of experienced commanders, which he was, after the disaster of the Winter War. He never blamed Stalin for his confinement, but rather the NKVD, taking a politic, if toady, approach to both the horror and his ongoing servitude to the monstrosity of the USSR.
Orphaned as a child, he'd joined the Imperial Russian Army during World War One, then went over to the Reds during the Revolution. After the war, in 1949, he became the Polish Minister of Defense under Stalin's orders, showing the extent to which Communist Poland was a puppet. He was not popular with the Poles, which he knew, commenting; "In Russia, they say I'm a Pole, in Poland they call me Russian".
Rokossovsky and his wife Julia had a daughter named Ariadna. He cheated on his wife with Army doctor military doctor Galina Talanova during the war, with whom he had a second child named Nadezhda. He was fond of hunting.
He died in 1968 of prostate cancer in Moscow at age 71.
Life magazine, in contrast, had a black and white portrait of a young couple dancing the Lindy Hop.
Uruguay transferred German sailors of the battleship Graf Spee and auxiliary ship Tacoma to an internment camp at Sarandi Del Li after they violated the conditions of their internment in Montevideo boarding houses.
The Pasadena Post reported on the cast of Poppa is All touring military bases, which included Casper born and Lander raised former Miss Wyoming Helen Mowery.
Fairly forgotten in our present age, she was born Helen Inkster to parents who parents who owned the Quality Grocery in Casper, back in an age when Casper, like most communities, had a large number of local grocery stores. Her father worked at a local refiner as well, and died in an industrial accident there when she was five. Her mother then moved to her parent's ranch in Fremont County, while also giving birth to her only sibling at that time, the boy being born after the father's death. When of high school age, she was sent to Cheyenne to complete her public school education. Her popularity was notable even at that early age. She became Miss Wyoming in 1939 in a competition that didn't qualify for the national one, as it was essentially a rodeo queen competition, with riding part of it.
She attended the University of Wyoming for two years after graduating from high school in 1940, but became an actress after that. Never a big screen name, she acted as late as 1961, and died in 2008 in Pasadena at age 86.
Showing how far the invasion of Sicily already gone, British Gen. Harold Alexander was appointed the Allied Military Governor of Sicily.
For his first act, he banned the Fascist Party.
The U.S. airship K-74 depth charged the German U-134, which returned fire with its 20mm deck guns. The K-74 was shot down. The unsuccessful attack was the only such instance of an airship attacking a submarine during World War Two.
K class airship.
Japan's counteroffensive on New Georgia ended in failure.
MGM released Stormy Weather, showcasing a host of African American talent. The movie featured 20 musical pieces in 77 minutes.
This scene, we should note, is based on the classic dance scene from the 1964 French film Band a Part, which itself is an example of The Madison Dance,
Which, those attune to the blues, will recognize from the famous Elmore James song The Madison Blues.
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