Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
Saturday, March 30, 2024
Sunday, March 30, 1924. Camp Carey
Saturday, November 11, 2023
Thursday, November 11, 1943. Armistace Day.
It was Armistice Day for 1943.
The Moscow Conference came to an end.
French security forces raided the homes of President El Khoury, Prime Minister Riad Al Solh, and all but two members of the Cabinet, including future President Camille Chamoun, in reaction to the unilateral Lebanese repeal of the League of Nations' mandate over the country.
High Commissioner Helleu suspended the Lebanese constitution and appointed Émile Eddé as the new President.
The dissolution and unraveling of the French Empire had commenced.
In France, Armée Secrète Resistance fighters led by Colonel Henri Romans-Petit placed flowers at the foot of the memorial for the dead of the Great War in an act of bold defiance of the Germans.
The Red Army took Radomyshi.
Allied bombing of Rabaul ended following a final raid, with nearly every Japanese ship there disabled or destroyed.
Sarah Sundin notes something about that raid:
Today in World War II History—November 11, 1943: In Rabaul raid, US Navy Curtiss SB2C Helldiver makes its combat debut. US Eighth Air Force activates “Carpetbagger” squadrons to deliver supplies to resistance.
The film Sahara, with heroic Allies stranded in the desert, and even a sympathetic Italian character, holding off the Germans, was released.
Three Allied transport ships and a tanker are sunk east of Oran in a major Luftwaffe raid.
Friday, October 20, 2023
Tuesday, October 17, 2023
Wednesday, October 17, 1923. Germany acts against the Proletarian Hundreds.
The Reichswehr was ordered into Saxony and Thuringia and the Saxon police force federalized. It's commander, General Alfred Müller demanded that Saxon Prime Minister Eric Zeigner order his economics minister Paul Böttcher to disavow a statement that called for the arming of the communist paramilitary organization Proletarian Hundreds.
Mrs. Coolidge enjoyed some cookies with the Girl Scouts.
Monday, April 17, 2023
Tuesday, April 17, 1923. Scouting in Casper.
I'm putting this edition of the Casper Daily Tribune up for one reason.
The article on the Boy Scouts.
It notes its explosive growth at the time, and that there was a troop in Mills. There's no troop there today.
Indeed, church troops, which this article notes, have really dwindled, although they still exist. I know that in the 30s, St. Anthony's Catholic Church and St. Mark's Episcopal Church both had troops. They no longer do, although St. Mark's retains a cub scout troops.
According to the short search of it I did, today the local troops are:
Troop 1035 American Legion George W Vroman Post 2
Casper WY 82601
Contact: Devin Hutchinson
Phone: (307) 337-1185
Email: devin930@hotmail.com
Boy Troop
Online Registration available for this unit.
Meets on Thursday nights at the church.
Troop 1167 Elks Casper Lodge
Girl Troop
Troop 1167 Elks Casper Lodge
Casper WY 82601
Contact: Richard Summerton
Phone: (307) 259-8878
Email: rlsummerton@gmail.com
Boy Troop
Online Registration available for this unit.
Meets on Tuesday nights in the basement of the Elks Lodge.
Troop 1094 Casper Five Trails Rotary Club
Casper WY 82601
Contact: Craig Dutcher
Phone: (307) 258-9379
Email: craigdutcher@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.wytroop94.com
Boy Troop
Online Registration available for this unit.
Troop 1094 is dedicated to provide an educational program for boys and young adults to build character, to train in the responsibilities of participating citizenship, and to develop personal fitness. Our Troop camps during most months of the year, participates in several community service projects, and meets every Tuesday evening for regular meetings.
Troop 1113 First Christian Church Of Casper
Girl Troop
Troop 1013 First Christian Church Of Casper
Casper WY 82601
Boy Troop
Online Registration available for this unit.
Great Troop! Great fun! Meets on Monday nights at the church.
A few things to note.
Two of these are associated with a church, that being the First Christian Church. Way back in antiquity when I was briefly a Boy Scout, even though I'm Catholic, that was the troop I was in. I think this was solely because somebody we knew was in it, and I was invited. In retrospect, I'm surprised that my parents didn't suggest I look at the St. Anthony's troops, which was still around at the time, although its members were no doubt mostly alumni of St. Anthony's school.
The George Vroman legion troop actually meets at College Heights Baptist Church, based on that address. So is it a church troop? That's not clear, but probably not. That Legion post meets at the National Guard armory, so it doesn't have its own meeting site, which might explain it partially.
Two of these troops are associated with service organizations, the Elks and Rotary. Service organizations are on the decline as well, although both of those seem to be doing well in Casper.
Most of these troops have a girls troops associated with them. The introduction of girls into what had been the Boys Scouts happened a few years back, and when it occurred it took all the LDS troops out of the organization. They'd had a big presence in it. The move also irritated the Girl Scouts, for obvious reasons.
I don't know if It's helped the Boy Scouts or not. They've certainly been in decline, but I suspect that the introduction of girls hasn't helped. Mostly what it probably has served to do is to create one more way in which it's impossible for boys to be with men in a formal way. Scouting was reeling under homosexual rape/seduction scandals at the time, although I'm sure that some would object to that characterization, even though there really is no other way to accurately describe it given as it was obviously male on male. I'm not claiming, of course, that male on underage female, and for that matter female on underage male, sexual abuse does not occur. Indeed, in the last year there's been a host of female on underage male abuse reported nationwide from public schools, school teachers in general being the number one sexual abusers of the underage. Something, suffice it to say, is really amiss in our society, as it is likely that all of this reflects a big increase in this conduct, not merely the discovery of it.
At any rate, the introduction of girls into the organization wouldn't seem to be directly related, but in a way it was, designed to show that Scouting was cleaning up its act and becoming inclusive. It could have addressed that in another way, as it really undercut the basic nature of the organization.
As noted, my connection with Scouting is thin. I was only briefly a Boy Scout. I shouldn't, therefore, really care too much about its decline, but still, it says something about the evolution of American society over the past century, and whatever it says, it isn't really a good thing that it's a shadow of its former self.
Scouting no doubt has a lot to compete with these days. However, the irony of that is that when it was first formed, it did to, and in some ways was formed expressly for those reasons.
Friday, January 8, 2021
January 8, 1941. Death of Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts.
Today in World War II History—January 8, 1941
Day 496 January 8, 1941
Friday, September 21, 2018
American Service Organizations During the Great War
Gov. C. E. Milliken addressing new soldiers at Y.M.C.A. Hut 24, Fort Devons, Massachusetts. August 5, 1918.
The Red Cross came to provide an ambulance and hospital service that existed very much in a military support role. Red Cross ambulance drivers, all male, wore military uniforms and many, but not all, of the men who volunteered for that duty saw it as volunteering for a type of military service prior to the United States having entered the war. Indeed, Ernest Hemingway's famous "military service" was actually Red Cross service as an ambulance driver in Italy, a role in which he was wounded.
The Young Men's Christian Association and the Young Women's Christian Association.
Given the lack of service organizations that aided and supported soldiers prior to World War Two, it shouldn't surprise us, even though it tends to, that the YMCA started filling this role fairly early. There are some instances in the United States of it taking this role as early as the Civil War, but it really commenced them in a dedicated fashion during the Spanish American War. So it should be no surprise that it stepped up to the plate again during World War One.
During the Great War the YMCA took up its service organization role in spades, occupying a role that again would be occupied by the USO during World War Two. Like the Red Cross, it provided aid and comfort to soldiers serving in the war in the form of what we'd regard as canteens. It also undertook to provide entertainment, assistance with writing letters (in an era in which the literacy rates were not as high as they'd later be.
The YMCA and the YWCA were Protestant organizations, of course. Given that, it's not surprising that we'd find the major Catholic organization in the US also involved in the war effort, that being the Knights of Columbus.
The Knights of Columbus
Or maybe it is surprising. It cannot be fairly stated that there is a religious element to World War One. All the warring nations in Europe were Christian nations. And confessionaly we would find that there were Protestant and Catholic nations on both sides, more or less. The United Kingdom, at that time comprised of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and therefore was the home of two of two official Protestant faiths and one large unofficial Catholic one. Germany was likewise split between Lutheran based Protestantism (it's somewhat more complicated than might be imagined in that area) and Catholicism, although Protestantism was heavily favored by the German crown. The Austrian Empire, on the other hand, was nearly uniformly Catholic save for some regions that were Orthodox. Italy was uniformly Catholic. France was a Catholic country in culture and in faith although the French governments had been aggressively secular for a long time. Imperial Russia was officially Orthodox but it had, on its western fringes, a large Catholic population. The United States had no official religion at all, but had a majority Protestant population with a large Catholic minority (and of course minorities in additional Orthodox and Jewish populations).
The National Civil Federation
The National Civil Federation was a business organization that was founded in 1900 as a business organization dedicated towards working to resolve labor disputes. Gigantic labor disputes have become so rare in the United States over the years that we've forgotten they even existed in the form that they once did. We've seen some of that story here, but suffice it to say they could be quite extreme in comparison to what we've seen for the past several decades.
The National Civil Foundation and the American Red Cross together formed the wartime National League for Women's Service which contributed the Women's Motor Corps to the war effort. Perhaps the Women's Motor Corps is what it is best remembered for in the Great War context.
The WMC wasn't the only thing the National Civil Foundation did during the Great War, however. It also operated domestic support facilities for soldiers.
Youth Organizations
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*This strays way off topic, but the corrosive influence of large cities had long been noted and indeed was observed to be a primary facdtor in the destruction of democracies by Thomas Jefferson, who felt that large cities always gave rise to mobs and always ended up destroying democracies. Indeed, in his writings he felt that the American democracy would ultimately fall prey to that fate and that it could only be staved off so long as most Americans were Yeomen Farmers.
The same factors noted by the founders of the YMCA and the YWCA lead to the formation of a
German Catholic organization with the same (male) focus, but whose name I unfortunately cannot now recall. It also lead to a vareitiy of movements that sought to address or even redirect the forcdes that were in play.