Saturday, October 20, 1923. Kittens at the White House, Cover Art, Coolidge and Girl Scouts.

 

Tuesday May 22, 1923. Baldwin rises, Cavalry Bandits caputured, Bryan Anti Evolution Measure voted down, Mark falls, D.C. Golf.

 

Stanley Baldwin became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following Bonar Law stepping down due to rapidly failing health.

The Distillery Bandits, who were apprehended after a gun battle, were all veterans of the U.S. Army's cavalry branch.

William Jennings's Bryan's motion that the Presbyterian General Assembly cut off financial support for any Presbyterian body teaching evolution was voted down.

The Mark dropped enormously.

The President played in a newspaper golf tournament.

Saturday, November 18, 1922. Tragedies near and far.

It was Saturday on this date in 1922, and the Saturday Evening Post went to press with a female golfer, an odd choice for a time of year that's nearly winter in much of the country.

The Naval Academy formed up its midshipmen for a portrait.

United States Naval Academy Midshipmen, November 18, 1922.

On the same day, Greek residents of Gallipoli were being evacuated by sea, their city and region going over to a Turkish government that was not welcoming to Greeks, and which had entered into a treaty of population exchange with Greece.

Greeks being evacuated from Gallipoli.

While a huge tragedy was unfolding in Turkey, a smaller tragedy struck closer to home.

I know the Bolton Creek Road well, but I know of know oilfields on it, although I can think of a fwe abandoned wells.  Bear Creek enters the North Platte near where Bolton Creek does, but I don't know of any place that the Bolton Creek Road crosses it.  Having said that, there is a good modern bridge across Bear Creek, which is normally dry, on an improved road which just recently was the subject of controversy when the current owners of that ranch, the Martons, attempted to sell it to the Federal Government only to encounter the objection of the State.  Hopefully that will be worked out soon.

Anyhow, that would seem to be the probable location of this accident.

Georgetown and Bucknell played a football game.

Georgetown v. Bucknell football game.

Saturday October 8, 1921. Committees, Anthrax, Teasing, Football

The Park Site Legislative Committee in the Davis Mountains

 

Radio met football on this day when KDKA broadcast the West Virginia v. University of Pittsburgh game.

Michael F. Farley

Congressman Michael F. Farley died of anthrax acquired from an infected shaving brush on this day in 1921.  The incident emphasized an effort in New York to eliminate products made from infected animals, including shaving brushes and toothbrushes.

Farley was an Irish immigrant who had prospered as a barman before becoming a Democratic Congressman.

Judge ran an illustration of a lady golfer with a teasing caption.

The Saturday Evening Post ran a sad cover of an illustration of a boy with his St. Bernard for sale, but I can't find a clearly copyright free example of it to put up.

In the Midwest, it was the first Sweetest Day, which is apparently a thing.

Jin Young Ko is my favorite golfer. . .

 not because I'm a golf fan.  I'm not (and yes, I do know how to play it).

I love these ear muffs.

June 15, 1920 Killings

A mob lynched three African American circus workers in Duluth, Minnesota after rumors circulated that black men had raped a white woman. A subsequent physician's inspection of the accuser came to the conclusion that there was no evidence of rape.

A memorial to the victims of the lynching was built in 2003.  The horrific event is also recalled in the first stanza of Bob Dylan's Desolation Row.  While the recent death of George Floyd in Minneapolis has been termed a lynching, this horrific 1920 event stands out as the only mob lynching of blacks in Minnesota's history.  There are other instances of lynchings, including lynchings of Native Americans, but this one stands apart for that reason as well as its horrific nature.  It pretty clearly demonstrated that the horror of lynching, which had been much in the news in 1919, could occur anywhere in the nation.

Another homicide was making the headlines on one of Casper's two newspapers.  James Clark, well known Douglas area rancher, age 54, was shot and killed by Roy Benning, an automobile mechanic. 

The cause of the killing seemed to be an argument over Clark's very brief marriage to Benning's daughter, which had been of only a week or so in length.  It had then been annulled.  The putative Mrs. Clark was 16 years old.

While exactly what occurred was unclear at the time, what seems probable is that the Benning family wasn't thrilled by their very young daughter marrying the middle aged rancher at a time at which 54 wasn't middle aged, it was old.  Clark and Benning had engaged in an argument over that event and both men were armed. Clark was armed with a .45 revolver which appeared to have misfired several times before Benning shot and killed him with a small caliber pistol.

Candidate Harding's household cook was photographed for the news wires.

  Inez P.McWhorter, Harding family's cook.

Things seemed to be slow in Washington D. C., where weekday summertime golfing at Chevy Chase was being enjoyed.

Senator Howard Southerland, just recently a candidate for the Republican nomination, and then a Harding supporter, playing golf.

Justice Vandevanter and Justice McKenna of the United States Supreme Court enjoying watching golf at Chevy Chase.

North Schleswig and Southern Jutland were transferred to Denmark from Germany, as part of the post World War One territorial adjustments, although the Allies provisionally retain sovereignty of Jutland. Denmark was granted sovereignty over Southern Jutland on July 15 and then back dated it.  Schleswig was the only territorial adjustment made concerning Germany which the Germans didn't dispute following the rise of the Nazis.

And a famous radio broadcast took place in the UK.

Dame Nellie Melba's voice was broadcast from the Marconi Company station at Chelmsford in Essex, United Kingdom, for a period of thirty minutes

June 14, 1920. The woods.

Fire tower on Cherokee National Forest

The Cherokee National Forest was established on this day in 1920.  The Tennessee National Forest contains over 600,000 acres within its boundaries.

Candidate Hoover went golfing at Chevy Chase.

Today is Flag Day, that holiday honoring the adoption of the pattern of the flag we have used all these years.  Here's an item about that day in 1920 from the One Tube Radio blog:

Flag Day 1920.

A Twitter Tour through the Superficial Zeitgeist

I have a Twitter account that really just serves as an advertisement for this site.

I don't know that a person should feel proud of that. Twitter is really stupid.  And one thing that having a Twitter account does is expose you to the really superficial Zeitgeist of the moment. . . every day.

When I checked in this morning a big Twitter story is that Jimmy Fallon was apologizing for a Saturday Night Live appearance he did in black face a decade or so ago.  I'm not going to look that up, but Fallon is an entertainer and Saturday Night Live has been bad for decades.  Black face should have gone out before it came in, but as this apparently has been around for a really long time, blowing up about it now seems a bit late.  Perhaps it might just be better to note that Saturday Night Live should be Exhibit A in the trial of the People v. Harvard Lampoon Not Being Funny.

Indeed, if that trial were to occur, one of the primary expert witnesses would have to be a sociologist on the topic of how, at any one time, alleged comedic geniuses are such only by societal acknowledgement, as many of them are truly never funny.  Charlie Chaplin is a good example.  Not funny.  Not even once.

Chaplin.  Not funny.

In the category of funny is Kathy Griffin, who is also blowing up Twitter today for a comment she said about injecting President Trump with air.

Griffin is occasionally funny.  I didn't hear the comment but it doesn't strike me as funny.  It also doesn't strike me as something that serious people need to waste much air time on.

President Trump for his part ought to stay off of Twitter, but was on complaining that Michelle Obama had gone golfing at the same time that he, Trump, is taking flak for golfing.

I don't golf and it strikes me as boring.  I realize that not everyone feels that way.  My mother was a superb golfer when young and taught me how to golf as a child.  It didn't take.

Rants about golfing, by whomever is making them, are really about something else.  Americans of both parties like to complain that the President is insensitive and lazy whenever he's seen not doing something that seems to be work. Democrats are complaining about Trump golfing as its an opportunity to complain about Trump.  Republicans complained about Obama golfing while he was President for the same reason.  

Driving by the golf course every morning I always look out upon it, but not because I like golf, but because I'm hoping the foxes will be back.

This year, it seems, Mr. and Mrs. Fox have chosen to have their brood elsewhere.  So, instead, I see that Americans are out golfing.

Well, at least that's being out, which seems to me to be okay.  The argument that we should shelter in our basements for the rest of eternity doesn't seem to me to be a sound one.  I get it, if you are in the former cow pasture that New Yorkers now call Central Park there's going to be a lot of people, as New York is crowded, and you ought to be careful and wear a mask. And that advice goes for other places as well, and I'm not saying otherwise.  

I'm just not too worked up about the golfing.

Or Griffin.

Billie Eilish is apparently worked up about body shaming which caused a lot of people to engage in virtue signaling by supporting her for being against body shaming.  

This is in some ways associated, I think, with a song (I think) in which the words "not my fault" appear" somewhere where she decries people who have judged her based on her clothing or appearance.  I'm not in that category as, perhaps to my discredit, I don't really care about Eilish at all, other than she's pretty clearly an object of fascination for being a certain sort of teenage/twentysomething idol in the same way that James Dean was, whom I also am pretty disinterested in.

What are you rebelling against? 

What have you got?

M'eh.

Eilish has been the subject of a lot of fascination because she wears bulky clothes.  In the video for her comments, song or whatever it is, she apparently strips down to a tank top in reaction to being the subject of a lot of fascination about what her wearing bulky clothing may mean.

The problem with that is that its almost guaranteed that a lot of her juvenile, and probably not so juvenile, fans will stop in to see the video not to bond with her statement, but because now they get to find out what she looks like under those threads.  It's sort of like protests here and there in which women go topless, but not nearly as extreme.  The message gets mixed.

That gets into the topic of decent clothing, of which there's an entire cul de sac on the web where people rage on that topic, some with really extreme views.  It's a tough topic to engage in, in regard to women, as standards applying to female dress change every few seconds, or so it seems.  Having said that, if you dress really oddly it tends to be the case that, no matter what you're saying, you're doing it to draw attention, in which case some of the attention will be unwelcome.  Eilish may deserve credit for slamming body shaming, but simply dressing in a less "look at how oddly I'm dressed" fashion right from the onset would probably have accomplished that more effectively.  Well, her video probably doesn't hurt. . . except to the extent juvenile males are checking into it the same way that they check into Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions.

All of which brings us back to this.  In this era of COVID 19 introspection, American culture, as reflected on Twitter, isn't looking too great.

April 10, 1920. Palmer campaigns, others golf.

Attorney General Palmer, campaigning for the Democratic nomination for President, was campaigning on this Saturday in April, 1920.

Other officials in the government were golfing.

October 8, 1919 The Sox Take Another, Aviators Take Off. And Wool.

On this day, the Sox won again, and with Cicotte pitching.

This caused real concern among the gamblers.  Prior to the series commencing the common thought that the Sox could win two Series games back to back simply by willing to do so, and now it appeared that was true. The Sox were back in the game and it looked like they might take the series.

As a result, Lefty Williams was visited by an enforcer of the gambler's that night and his family was threatened.  The order was that the Sox were to lose the next game.

While the Sox appeared to be rallying, news of the giant air race, with varied accounts as to the number of aircraft in it, started taking pride of place in the headlines.  The race had already been marred, however, by early loss of life.

Cities on the Lincoln Highway that had only recently hosted the Army Transcontinental Convoy now were getting set to look up and watch the air race.

And there was news of a woolen mill coming to the state, something that would well suit a state that, at that time, had millions of sheep.

The Gasoline Alley gang went golfing.

Golf returns to the Olympics for the first time since 1904

Silver medal winner in Olympic Golf, U.S. Golfer Chandler Egan.

Golf is returning as a sport to the Olympics.  It hasn't been one since 1904.

I don't care for golf. That doesn't mean that I don't know how to play it.  I find myself curiously like the Matthew Quigley character in Quigley Down Under, who in the final scene (spoiler alert) guns down the evil opponent with the opponents own Colt Navy revolver, which that character has provided to him, in a duel, and then states "I said I never had much use for one. . . not that I didn't know how to use one."  I know how to play golf, I just don't like playing it.

It's not like I hate the sport either, I just find it sort of dull.  I suspect that in its original version this wasn't so.  The origin of golf is murky, but nobody doubts that the modern game had is origin in Scotland.  Oddly, the first mention of it is when King James II banned it as a distraction to practicing archery.  King James IV lifted the ban.  He was a golfer.

I suspect that the origins of the game probably had something to do with bored Scottish sheepherders, and maybe Scotch Whiskey.  But that's just my theory.  In the modern era it became associated for a time with wealth, and then later with a sort of WASPish culture, but that was probably always somewhat unfair.  To the extent that reputation was warranted it probably stemmed from social conditions in which only the fairly well off had leisure, and golf takes quite a bit of time to master and play.

Woman's champion golfer, Katherine Harley, 1908.

Still, it had that reputation sufficiently by the 1920s that the occupation of female golfer was used for one of the well to do, Jordan Baker, in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.  Of note, Tom Buchanan, the old money figure in the novel who doesn't really do anything, is defined by his college sporting activity of football and his present sport, polo, which sort of shows their position at that time.  But whether or not (and I think not) all golfers were well to do, it certainly also became as port widely played by professionals and businessmen at one time.

President Taft and his golfing pals.

Around here, when I was growing up, it seemed like golf was pretty popular generally.  At that time Casper had three golf courses and my mother played golf.  She was very good at it, and had one a trophy when she first moved here from a championship that involved people working in the oil and gas industry.  My father never played it, but it seemed like quite a few of the men that he knew did.  Golf was certainly played by a wide variety of people and by that time it didn't cost a great deal to do it, unless, like all sports, you wanted it to cost a great deal.  

I never developed an affinity for it, however, in spite of my mother's efforts to teach it to me. As a kid I spent one whole summer learning it and golfing fairly regularly.  I still know quite a few holds on the golf course by heart.  But it never took.  After that one summer I gave it up (I must have been in junior high at the time) and never looked back.

When I was first practicing law, however, my lack of golfing status was almost unusual.  Lots of lawyers played golf and the association with lawyers and golf, which doesn't come from Wyoming (where a golfer is just as likely to be an oilfield roughneck) is so strong that in some places not being a golfing lawyer is a surprise to outsiders. Recently, for example, I went to Florida on depositions and the area I was in, Naples, is apparently well known for its golf courses.  I didn't know that.  At the depositions the court reporter asked if we (me, and the opposing lawyer) golfed.  "No", came our reply and I noted that the same area is apparently noted for tarpon fishing, and I do fish.  No matter, the court report expressed surprise and went on to list the many undoubtedly fine golf courses in the area.

As an other example, some years ago I had a case with an older lawyer from Cheyenne, and every time we were anywhere in the case he asked if I golfed.  "No" came the reply, and each time he replied "oh, you should take it up" and a listing of the local courses.  

Well, I'm not going to take it up I think, unless I get lucky enough to retire and have some of my good friends also retire and they take up golf, something that appears unlikely to ever occur.  I'd rather fish and hunt, or do other outdoor activities.  Golf doesn't interest me that much.  I sometimes joke that a golf course is a waste of a good hay field, but in all honest I"m glad golf courses are t here, as when they disappear, they tend to turn into housing developments.  And there are now four courses here in town, although the one, on edge of the river, on the edge of town, has so many geese I also sometimes joke that it should be opened up for goose hunting in the Fall.

Golf seems to have fallen a bit on hard times recently as a sport in the US, and at least by my observation that is reflected in the professions.  Younger lawyers I know don't golf.  When I first was practicing law in our firm, all but one of the lawyers golfed (or all but two, if I include myself).  Now, only one does.  Nobody younger than me, and I'm not young, golfs. The county bar association used to put on an annual match, but it's given it up and hasn't held it now for years.  I think all of this is associated with a decline in leisure time in the US, and frankly that isn't good.  Leisure it self has been defined by a wide variety of philosophers as the basis of civilization, with that thought being so wide that it has been stated by both Eastern and Western philosophers.  But in recent decades, at least in the US, time for anything but work has tended to evaporate for a  large number of people.

Well, back to golf in the Olympics.  I'm glad its returning, and I'm quite surprised, really, that it ever left.  Its an individual sport that a lot of people in a lot of places play. Good decision, Olympics, to restore it.