Showing posts with label Indian Army. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indian Army. Show all posts

Friday, March 15, 2024

Wednesday, March 15, 1944. The destruction of Monte Cassino.


Allied aircraft dropped 14,000 tons of bombs on Monte Cassino and fired 195,000 rounds of artillery.  British, Indian and New Zealand troops tried, and failed, to take the abbey.

The Red Army crossed the Bug.

US troops held off a Japanese assault on the American beachhead at Bougainville.

Additional cavalry landed on Manus Island in the Admiralities.

The Japanese crossed the Chindwwin River in Burma.

The U-653 was sunk in the North Atlantic by the Royal Navy.  The British submarine Stonehenge was lost in the Indian Ocean.

The State Anthem of the Soviet Union replaced The Internationale as the anthem of the USSR.

Last prior:

Tuesday, March 14, 1944. Isolating Ireland

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Tuesday, March 14, 1944. Isolating Ireland


Winston Churchill told the House of Commons that the Allies intended to completely isolate Ireland to prevent military secrets leaking to the Axis, thereby hinting that the Ulster border would soon be closed.

Sir William Davison (by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the refusal by the Government of Eire of the American request supported by Great Britain that Axis Consular and Diplomatic representatives should be removed from Eire having regard to the serious danger to the Allies in connection with the forthcoming invasion of Europe in having a centre of espionage within the British Isles, he is satisfied that the steps recently taken to minimise the danger are adequate, and if not what other measures the Government have in view.

The Prime Minister: The initiative in this matter was taken by the United States, because of the danger to the American Armed Forces from the presence of Axis missions in Dublin. His Majesty's Government were, however, of course, consulted throughout by the United States Government, and gave the American approach full support. We have for some time past taken a number of measures to minimise the dangers arising from the substantial disservice to the Allied cause involved in the retention by Mr. de Valera's Government of the German Minister and the Japanese Consul with their staffs in Dublin. The time has now come when these measures must be strengthened, and the restrictions on travel to Ireland announced in the Press yesterday are the first step in the policy designed to isolate Great Britain from Southern Ireland and also to isolate Southern Ireland from the outer world during the critical period which is now approaching.

I need scarcely say how painful it is to us to take such measures in view of the large numbers of Irishmen who are fighting so bravely in our Armed Forces and the many deeds of personal heroism which they have kept alive the martial honour of the Irish race. No one, I think, can reproach us with precipitancy. No nation in the world would have been so patient. In view however of the fact that both British and British Dominion lives and the lives of the soldiers of our Allies 37are imperilled, we are bound to do our utmost to obtain effective security for the forthcoming operations.

There is also the future to consider. If a catastrophe were to occur to the Allied armies which could be traced to the retention of the German and Japanese representatives in Dublin, a gulf would be opened between Great Britain on the one hand and Southern Ireland on the other which even generations would not bridge. His Majesty's Government would also be held accountable by the people of the United States if it could be shown that we had in any way failed to do everything in our power to safeguard their troops.

§Sir W. Davison: May I ask the Prime Minister whether he does not think it essential that the frontier between Ulster and Eire should be closed, in view of the activities of the I.R.A., who have declared war on Great Britain and have riot long ago been apprehended with papers giving particulars of the American Forces at present in Ulster and certain plans of their operations?

The Prime Minister: I prefer to confine myself to a statement in general terms today. All necessary measures, within the limits which I have described, will, of course, be taken as they are deemed to be necessary.

Mr. Vernon Bartlett: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether this decision was taken after prior consultation with the other Dominions, because that would seem to be really important to bring home to the Irish people?

The Prime Minister: Complete unity on that prevails throughout the British Commonwealth, as far as I know.

Sir Ronald Ross: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the chief emphasis in the United States' note to the Government of Eire was on the dangers to United States' bases in Northern Ireland, and that it was chiefly, or largely, to protect them from espionage that this request was made? Is he not further aware that nothing that has been done up to the present has had the slightest effect to that end, and that while censorship is still applied between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, there is no censorship between Northern Ireland and Eire?

The Prime Minister: As I say, all these matters are receiving constant and vigilant attention.

Professor Savory: I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the retention of these accredited representatives of the Axis Powers in Dublin is consistent with membership of the British Commonwealth of Nations?

The Prime Minister: The whole question of the position of Southern Ireland is anomalous from various points of view, and I can conceive that high legal authorities might have very great difficulty in defining the exact relationship which prevails. At any rate, I shall not attempt to do so at the end of Questions.

:Captain Strickland: In deciding the limits of the prohibition on travel between Northern Ireland and this country, would the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the position of British soldiers serving in Ireland but due for leave? Will it be possible to make any concession to see that those soldiers are permitted to come back to this country?

The Prime Minister: I must leave the administration of the Act to the Ministers responsible. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will answer questions on the subject in detail.

Mr. Gallacher: I would not like to say anything that would make more difficult a very difficult situation, but I would like to ask if it is not possible, in any further approaches to Eire, to suggest that the question of partition will be a subject for discussion when peace is being decided.

The Prime Minister: I could hardly think of a more ill-conceived approach to the unity of Ireland.

 


Primary elections for the 1944 races began in the U.S.  Wilkie and Roosevelt took top position in their respective races in New Hampshire.

The 17th Indian Division began a withdrawal in India.  The 20th Indian Division had already started its retreat.

The Red Army continued to take ground in its southern offensive.


Last prior:

Monday, March 13, 1944. Bougainville counterattack.


Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Monday, March 13, 1944. Bougainville counterattack.

US troops regained most of the ground lost on Bougainville in a counterattack.

37th Infantry Division soldier firing Thompson submachinegun on Bougainville, March 13, 1944.

Light tank in action, Bougainville.

Artillery in action, Bougainville.

U.S. forces overrun the small Japanese garrison at Hauwei.

In northwest Indian, the 17th and 20th Indian Divisions were authorized to pull back to Imphal. Mountbatten requested American aircraft to supply the Chinese and to redeploy the 5th Indian Division from the Arakan.  

Japanese aircraft attacked the Broadway airfield being used to supply the Chindits.

The Kingdom of Italy and the Soviet Union restored diplomatic relations with each other.

The Red Army took Kherson.

The U-575 was sunk in the Atlantic.  The Japanese cruiser Tatsuta was sunk off Hachijō-jima by the American submarine Sand Lance.

Last Prior:

Sunday, March 12, 1944. Derailed.

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Sunday, March 5, 1944. The Uman–Botoșani Offensive, Yeager shot down.

A member of No. 9 Commando at Anzio, equipped for a patrol with his Bren gun, 5 March 1944.

The Red Army began the Uman–Botoșani Offensive in Ukraine.  It would become one of hte most successful Soviet offensives of the war.  On this day they took Iziaslav and Yampil.

The 77th Indian Infantry Brigade, the Chindits, was inserted in Burma by glider.

Flight Officer Chuck Yeager was shot down by Unteroffizier Irmfried Klotz, east of Bordeaux, France, on his eighth combat mission.  Russ Spicer, who would, like Yeager, remain in the Air Force after the war, was also shot down.  Unlike Yeager, Spicer did not live a long life, dying at age 59 just after he retired from the Air Force as a Maj. Gen.

Irmfried Klotz did not survive the war.  He was actually a fairly green pilot, and the FW190 he was flying was shot down by another P51 in the same dogfight.  He bailed out, but his parachute did not open.

Yeager would escape to Spain by March 30, and then return to action.  Spicer spent the rest of the war in a POW camp.

Monday, February 5, 2024

Saturday, February 5, 1944. The Battle of Admin Box

 

Sikh troops fighting in the Battle of Admin Box.

The Battle of Admin Box, so named as it was in a rectangular shaped area of the Indian Army's 7th Division administrative area, began, with the British Indian Army defending its position against a Japanese offensive in Burma which was calculated to draw off British troops from a larger Japanese offensive.

The Chindit 16th Long Range Penetration Brigade left Ledo and marched south toward the "Aberdeen" area in Burma.

The Red Army took Lutsk and Rovno in the Ukrainian sector.

The Germans withdrew to a smaller perimeter within the Korsun Pocket, which the Germans were able to resupply by air.


Friday, May 12, 2023

May 12, 1943. The Afrika Korps Surrenders.

 Axis forces in North Africa surrendered.

This was the first full theater collapse of an Axis army during World War Two.

Regarding this event, Sarah Sundin notes:

Today in World War II History—May 12, 1943: 80 Years Ago—May 12, 1943: German and Italian troops surrender in Tunisia, ending the campaign in North Africa; Allies take 225,000 prisoners.

The Axis surrender was affected by Colonel General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim and General Giovanni Messe, commanders, of the German Army and the Italian Army in North Africa.  Von Arnim refused to surrender the terms of the unconditional surrender, although his troops were surrounded and in fact were surrendered.

Messe.

Messe had experience in armored warfare, and had served on the Russian Front prior to being posted to North Africa.  This is all the more remarkable when you consider that Messe was an Italian Royalist and would go on to serve as Chief of Staff of the Italian Co-Belligerant Army after Italy switched sides in the war, making him a unique figure.  He was popular with the Italian people and went on to serve in the Italian Senate.

Messe wearing Iron Cross and inspecting Italian troops in Russia.

He may be the only figure to have fought with the Germans on two fronts, and then against them in his homeland, as well as perhaps being the only commander to have fought against the Soviets on Soviet territory to go on to fight in an army allied to them.

He died in 1968 at age 85.

The Trident conference between Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt commenced in Washington, D.C.  It would run for sixteen days.

Sundin, in her blog, also notes that the Indian Army evacuated Maungdaw.

The massive Battle of West Hubei commenced in China between the Nationalist Chinese Army and the Imperial Japanese Army.  The Japanese offensive would fail, with each army loosing about 25,000 casualties.

The "Fido" acoustic homing torpedo came into action in the North Atlantic, being used by a Royal Air Force B-24 to damage the U-456.

Thursday, April 27, 2023

Tuesday, April 27, 1943. Hill 609.

The Battle of Hill 609 commenced, in which the U.S. II Corps took on and defeated the Afrika Korps in the first clear-cut US victory against the European Axis of World War Two. The II Corps in Tunisia by that time was commanded by Omar Bradley.

Bradley entered the military only due to the education opportunity West Point afforded, having originally intending to go to the University of Missouri to study law.  Born into poverty, with his father dying when he was 15, he was employed as a boilermaker prior to entering West Point. Taking the admittance examination was suggested by a Sunday School teacher.  An excellent athlete, he was offered positions in professional baseball while in West Point.

Heinrich Himmler directed concentration camps to cease murdering inmates capable of working in order to use them for labor.  The mentally ill incapable of working were moved to priority execution status.

Chindits, 3d Indian Infantry Division, unit patch.

Sarah Sundin notes on her blog:

Today in World War II History—April 27, 1943: Radar-jamming devices become operational in eastern England. British & Indian Chindits cross the Chindwin River in return to India from raids in Burma.

The Chindits were a special long range penetration unit made up of British, Gurkha and Burmese soldiers.  They were officially the 3d Indian Infantry Division.  They were named after lions, using a corruption of the Burmese name for lions, Chinthe (Burmese: ခြင်္သေ့).  Lions are a popular symbol in Burma.  Asiatic Lions do still exist, although we do not tend to think of lions in Africa, but in fact they once had a much wider range.

A tornado hit Akron, Ohio. 


Friday, February 17, 2023

Saturday, February 17, 1923. Indianization


The Country Gentleman ran a J. F. Kernan illustration depicting, I guess, an example of homey music.  I have to wonder what the Scrapbook of Fakery related.

The Saturday Evening Post had a Cole Philliips illustration.

The British government, under increasing pressure from Indian independence movements, announced its Eight Unit Scheme of Indianiszation of the Indian Army, under which those units were to be moved towards being under the command of King's Commissioned Indian Officers.

The British Indian Army is a really confusing topic.  It was very large, under British control, but administered fairly separately from the regular British Army.  This could lead to conflicts.  For example, during World War One the eastern part of the Middle East was a zone for the Indian Army, which pursued a somewhat different goal from the British Army out of Cairo.

Today In Wyoming's History: February 17The Legislature was also set to come home, something that every citizen holds their breath for . . .
1923  Seventeenth state legislature adjourns.

Thursday, February 2, 2023

Tuesday, February 2, 1943. No common law marriages.

The Soviet Union announced its victory at Stalingrad.  This date is regarded as the epic battle's date of conclusion.

Surrendered German soldier at Stalingrad.  His coat is non standard and probably adapted from a civilian coat.  By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-E0406-0022-011 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5362314

Approximately 11,000 German soldiers continued fighting, with some still fighting until mid March.  A post war analysis of letters from German soldiers in the city showed that most of them expressed faith in an ultimate German victory and in Nazism, so it is not safe to assume that they continued on because they knew their chances as a Soviet prisoner were poor.

General Maharaja Sir Ganga Singh, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, GBE, KCB, GCStJ (13 October 1880 – 2 February 1943), ruling Maharaja of the princely state of Bikaner, and only non British member of the Imperial War Cabinet during World War one, died at age 62.


The Wyoming Supreme Court made an important decision that continues to have repercussions to this day:
Today In Wyoming's History: February 2: 1943  The Wyoming Supreme Court determines that it is not possible to contract common law marriages in Wyoming.
Indeed, the way the issue arose, in the context of an estate, is something that people still inquire about now, when the situation is too late to fix.  The opinion, Roberts v. Roberts, 133 P.2d 492 (Wyo. 1943), stated:
Wyoming Supreme Court

Roberts v. Roberts, 133 P.2d 492 (Wyo. 1943)
Wyoming Supreme Court

Filed: February 2nd, 1943

Citations: 133 P.2d 492, 58 Wyo. 438

Docket Number: No. 2253

Author: Fred H. Blume

This case arose out of a proceeding instituted in Natrona County in the matter of the estate of Ora P. Roberts, deceased, who died in June, 1940, to determine the heirship of the deceased. The petitioners claimed to be the brothers and sisters of the deceased and his sole heirs at law. Barbara Kaiser Roberts, theretofore appointed administratrix of the estate, claimed to be his widow, and, as such, entitled to all the property of the estate, since its value was said to be less than twenty thousand dollars. She claimed to have been married to the deceased on November 1, 1934, in Natrona County, Wyoming, by a so-called common law marriage, that is to say, that she and the deceased, on that day, in the presence of one William Holliday, a lawyer, now deceased, and one McKenzie, declared to each other that they would then and there be husband and wife, and that pursuant thereto they, thereafter, cohabited with each other as such. The petitioners denied that any such marriage took place. The court found against Barbara Kaiser Roberts and in favor of the petitioners, on the ground that the so-called common law marriage had not been proved and on the further ground that no such marriage is recognized under the laws of this state. Judgment was entered accordingly, from which Barbara Kaiser Roberts, hereinafter called appellant, has appealed.

We shall not pause to set out the testimony tending to show a common law marriage between the deceased and appellant, nor the testimony in contradiction thereof, but proceed at once to determine whether such marriage, when entered into in this state, is recognized as valid under our laws. That has not heretofore been determined, a few cases in which common law marriages are mentioned, as Weidenhoff v. Primm, 16 Wyo. 340, 94 P. 453; In Re Kiesel, 35 Wyo. 300; 249 P. 81; Willis v. Willis, 48 Wyo. 403, 49 P.2d 670, having *Page 443 been disposed of on other grounds. Connors v. Connors, 5 Wyo. 433,40 P. 966, has at times been considered as holding such marriages valid, but in that case there was a ceremonial marriage, a license had been issued, but it had not been recorded. This was held not to make the marriage invalid. The court by way of dictum stated that the marriage would have been valid if no license had been issued. That dictum is supported by other authorities, though there are cases to the contrary. The point is not involved herein. In the case at bar, there was a total absence of compliance or attempted compliance with the regulations prescribed by our statute. For our present purpose it is sufficient to say that a so-called common law marriage is said to be entered into by words of present assent (per verba de praesenti). In other words, it is an informal contract by the parties declaring that they are then and there husband and wife. Some of the courts require subsequent co-habitation; others do not. The subject before us has given rise to many discussions, even acrimonious in character, and to many opposite opinions. Bishop strenuously maintains the validity of such marriage, not even shrinking from the fact that it might be called concubinage. Section 396, Bishop on Marriage, Divorce and Separation. Others, on the other hand, have deplored or wondered at the fact that the contract of marriage, the most sacred of all contracts, should be treated so lightly. 2 Pollock Maitland, History of English Law, 369; Judge Redfield, in his edition of Story, Conflict of Laws, Section 112; Dunbarton v. Franklin, 19 N.H. 244; Note 17 Eng. Ruling Case Law, 168. In the face of such different views it would be vain to hope that anything which we might say on the subject would convince anyone having the contrary opinion. But inasmuch as the ultimate authority to declare the law in this state is vested in us, we shall state our opinions and conclusions as *Page 444 dispassionately as possible, knowing that if we are wrong, the Legislature has power to correct whatever errors we may commit. It has been said that the law on the subject in the United States is in a state of chaos. We cannot hope to put it in order, but if we can furnish one ray of light to penetrate the gloom, we shall be satisfied.

It has been many times stated that the idea of the validity of a common law marriage comes to us directly from the canon law and through it from the Roman law. Marriage is an institution common to the human race, and a glimpse at part of its history, momentary only as that must necessarily be, will perhaps aid us in keeping our mind at equilibrium on so controversial a subject. If the facts left to us on the pages of history have been correctly stated and if we are not amiss in the interpretation thereof, it may be safety stated that we have strong grounds for believing that at least in the last twenty-four centuries, in countries pretending to any civilization, marriage without any formality aside from the agreement of the parties has at times been tolerated but has never met with general approval. Formalities in connection with marriage did not always consist of ceremonies, though they were usual, but might, for instance, consist of written contracts, generally relating to dowry rights. In ancient Greece, ceremonies, particularly among the higher classes, were much more elaborate than with us. A dowry was thought to be necessary to be brought to the husband by the wife to mark the distinction between a wife and a concubine. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 3rd ed., Vol. 1, p. 692, and Vol. 2, p. 136. See Schouler, Marriage, Divorce, etc., 6th ed., Sec. 28. In ancient Rome marriages were attended by religious ceremonies performed under the auspices of the pontiff, and the idea of the sanctity of marriage, even in Ovid's day, may be gathered from *Page 445 the superstition that the month of May and the first half of June were deemed unlucky for the rite. 1 Smith, supra, 142, 143. Marriage, soon, from a legal standpoint, came to consist of a mutual agreement, and the only thing necessary was to place the woman in the control of the husband. With it came the logical accompaniment of the theory of such contract, namely, divorce by agreement of the parties. Buckland, Textbook of Roman Law, 112, 117. Notwithstanding that, ceremonies, formal betrothal, and dowry instruments, were usual. Corbett, Roman Law of Marriage, p. 1; McKeldy on Roman Law, Dropie Translation, Sec. 549; Code Justinian, 5, 1; Girard, Manuel Elementaire de Droit Romain, 7th ed., 161; 1 Smith Cheatham, Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, 458. It may be gathered from Code Justinian 5, 4, 23, 6, which provided that marriages without dowry instruments should be valid, that an opinion to the contrary had prevailed. Corbett, Roman Law of Marriage, 94. In fact, the Emperor Marjorian had enacted a law to that effect. Nov. 6, 9. Concubinage, in its outward form, was not distinguishable from marriage by agreement of the parties. Girard, supra, 161, 162. Mainly doubtless on account of slavery and because soldiers were not permitted to marry during the early part of the empire, concubinage came to be recognized since the time of Augustus as legal, without giving the woman the rights of a wife and without making the children legitimate. Constantine denounced concubinage, but, partly through the influence of the Christian Church, subsequent emperors made numerous laws on behalf of the children of such unions, and even some provisions for the concubine. Code, 5, 27; Nov. 74 and 87. The evil, or supposed evil, of concubinage, had become so great that Justinian, in Nov. 74, Ch. 4, felt himself impelled to make a new law compelling men to execute a dowry instrument or have the marriage ceremony performed *Page 446 in the Christian Church, stating among other things, significantly: "It was provided by former and by our laws that marriage entered into without written marriage contracts and through mere marital intentions, should be valid and enforced. By reason of that, the Republic has become filled with fictitious contracts and witnesses come forward who lie with impunity that men and women living together have called each other husband and wife, and in this manner invent marriages which in fact were never contracted." He exempted from the law "rustics and common soldiers and the lowly and obscure." He was later compelled to modify the law, lessening its scope. Nov. 117, c. 4. Less than a century later the Visigothic Code made elaborate provisions on the subject of marriage, providing among other things that no marriage should be entered into without written dowry instruments, because "marriage is recognized to have greater dignity and honor" in such case. Translation by E.P. Scott, p. 75. And the thought that contracts of marriage by mere agreement would not be good for the interests of society, and, partially at least, to get rid of concubinage, led Leo, the philosopher in the East, about 900 A.D., Charlemagne, in the West, about 800 A.D., and King Edmund, in England, about 940 A.D., to make religious ceremony of marriage mandatory, as had been customary from early Christian times. And that, too, appears to have been true among the Visigoths. The popes, also, strove to get rid of concubinage. Beamish v. Beamish, infra; Smith Cheatham, Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, Vol. 1, p. 422; Vol. 2, pp. 1105 and 1107; Glueck, Pandecten, 25, 428, de concubinis.

How, then, did it come about that after the struggle with concubinage above mentioned, the idea was formed or retained that marriage by mutual consent without ceremony was valid? Since that was contrary to Edmund's law, it was, in England, doubtless due *Page 447 largely to the canon law, part of which at least, as ecclesiastical law, became a part of the common law of England. That, on first impression, may seem strange, but it is not so after full consideration. The law of Edmund and of Charlemagne (though the latter was confirmed in a church council in 909 A.D.) finally fell into desuetude. The Church had, almost from the beginning, encouraged marriages with religious ceremonies. Marriages entered into otherwise were, and gradually became more and more, odious to the prelates of the church. They had detested and even prohibited them. Beamish v. Beamish, infra; 2 Smith Cheatham, supra, 1105, et seq; Kurtz, Church History, Secs. 39-1, 89-4, 104-6. But the Christian Church arose under the Roman Empire. The canon law was modeled after the Roman law, and the latter permitted so-called common law marriages and even concubinage. Christian feeling was divided between the fear of recognizing what might seem half marriages only on the one hand and the desire to sanction any union which fulfilled the primary condition of marriage on the other. It desired to convert to its faith the heathens of France, of England and of Germany, and found, during the dark and middle ages, disorganized society, free and easy marriages, and concubinage. Due partly, doubtless, to Roman tradition, partly to anxiety to keep people out of meretricious relations and to make children legitimate, and doubtless partly to the fear of driving men out of or not retaining them in the church, it recognized many clandestine unions as valid, though irregular, and presumed everything in favor of the validity thereof. Bryce, Marriage and Divorce, 3 Selected Essays in Anglo-American History, 810, 813; 1 Smith Cheatham, supra, 422; 2 Pollock Maitland, 366-370. And it did not prohibit marriages without religious ceremony until the Council of Trent (1545-1563). The proceedings of that Council were not accepted *Page 448 in France or England. However, under Henry III and Henry IV of France (1574-1606) religious ceremonies in connection with marriage became compulsory. Beamish v. Beamish, infra. And it appears that that was true as well in Protestant countries on the continent. Glueck, Pandecten, 24, p. 357. It is, however, agreed among the authorities that up to the time of the Council of Trent the canon law was that a marriage with words of present assent (per verba de praesenti) was valid. Was this part of the canon law fully accepted as part of the common law of England? The question was answered in the affirmative in Dalrymple v. Dalrymple, 2 Hadd. Const. 54 (1810), 17 Eng. Ruling Cases 11; 161 Eng. Rep. 665. The question was answered in the negative in Reg. v. Millis, 10 Cl. Fin. 544, 8 Eng. Rep. 844, 17 Eng. Ruling Cases 66, a case carried to the House of Lords on appeal from the Irish courts, and decided in 1844. The case was referred by the House of Lords to the judges of Common Pleas, who held unanimously that the canon law of continental Europe was adopted only as modified by the customs and usages of England, a doctrine which sounds familiar to the American lawyer. Not only cases decided in the civil courts but also ecclesiastical usages, mandatory in form, were cited. And it was accordingly held that a marriage by words of present assent without intervention of the clergy was void; in other words, that a so-called common law marriage was never valid in England. The Lords voting on the question were evenly divided, but according to procedural rule, the law of that case became as mentioned. It was re-affirmed in Beamish v. Beamish, 9 House of Lords Cases 274, 11 Eng. Rep. 735. The three cases here mentioned constitute a complete treatise on the subject before us, to which little can be added. We take it that intervention of the clergy was required because no statute regulating marriage was in existence after *Page 449 the law of Edmund had fallen into desuetude, leaving no other course if marriages by mere agreement were not to be upheld. The judges of the Common Pleas have been accused of being ignorant of the ecclesiastical law, and the opinion of Lord Stowell in Dalrymple v. Dalrymple has been highly extolled. Many think that the opinion in the latter case is correct and that of Reg. v. Millis unsound. 2 Pollock Maitland, 374, et seq., argue at great length that the decision in the latter case is erroneous. We do not feel that we are competent to contradict so great an authority, and yet repeated careful comparison of Dalrymple v. Dalrymple and Reg. v. Millis may well cause one to hesitate to pronounce an unqualified judgment that the latter case, in so far as the question before us is concerned, is unsound, though we may regret the results in that case under the special facts therein. A number of authorities cited therein are hard to explain on the theory that common law marriages were recognized, and one is almost tempted to believe that the doctrine of the validity of such marriages took its main beginning from the dictum of Lord Holt in Collins v. Jessot, 6 Mod. 155, 87 Eng. Repr. 913, decided in 1705, a century after the 4th year of James II, as of which time we adopted the common law. Sec. 26-101, Wyo. Rev. St. 1931. The canon, or ecclesiastical, law was a subordinate and inferior part of the common law, and applicable in so far, and in so far only, as recognized by the courts by usage and custom. Hale, Common Law, 5th ed., 31, 32; 1 Blackst. Comm. 84. And the judges of the Common Pleas should have been in at least an equally good position as the ecclesiastical judges of knowing the extent to which the canon law had been adopted as part of the common law. Dalrymple v. Dalrymple concerns Scotch, not English, law. It attempted to state the rule under the latter, but the discussion in that connection was but incidental and *Page 450 far from thorough. The only case cited which was decided before the 18th century is Bunten's Case, 4 Coke 29, 76 Eng. Repr. 950, much discussed in Reg. v. Millis. And that case, so far as we can see, in no way sustains Lord Stowell, but is, fairly construed, to the contrary. However that may be, it seems beyond question that a contract of marriage with words of present assent was at most an imperfect marriage, if it was a marriage at all. 1 Blackst. Comm. 439, states that "any contract per verba de praesenti, or in words of the present tense, and in the case of cohabitation per verba de futuro also, between persons able to contract, was, before the late act (Marriage Act of 1753), deemed a valid marriage to many purposes, and the parties might becompelled in the spiritual courts to celebrate it in facieecclesiae (in the face of the church)." The words put by us in italics, unfortunately not elucidated by Blackstone, appear to have been almost entirely ignored by the courts in this country, and yet seem of importance. The purposes mentioned were, perhaps, those discussed by the Lord Chancellor in Reg. v. Millis, supra, which, as he held, gave no reciprocal property rights and did not make the children legitimate. In any event, all the authorities agree that under a marriage of that kind the parties received no reciprocal rights in the property of the other, even after death, so that, even if a common law marriage were held to be valid in this state, we could not, if we should follow the common law, give the appellant herein any rights in the property of the deceased. See 10 Law Quarterly 49; Reg. v. Millis, supra.

The opinions above mentioned, that the decision in Reg. v. Millis, supra, is unsound, are by no means unanimous. The author in 2 Univ. of Cincinnati Law Review 127, who himself appears to favor the recognition of common law marriage, but who appears to have given careful consideration to the law on the subject, states *Page 451 that the so-called common law marriage in our states is not derived from the common law of England; that the rule of Reg. v. Millis is "native law," that of Dalrymple v. Dalrymple "foreign and exotic"; that the rule of Reg. v. Millis had been sustained during 700 years without exception by the common law courts; that there were in England two species of marriage, one a marriage performed with religious forms recognized and enforced by the common law courts to the exclusion of the other, and the other a contract of marriage without religious forms, but enforced in the ecclesiastical courts by compelling, under penalty, observance of religious forms thereafter. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in 1810, in the case of Milford v. Worcester, stated that "when our ancestors left England, and ever since, it is well known that a lawful marriage there must be celebrated before a clergyman in orders." The colonial law in New York of 1684, hereinafter mentioned, bears eloquent testimony to the correctness of Reg. v. Millis. Dennison v. Dennison, 35 Md. 361 (1871), is one of the few cases in this country which have by careful examination attempted to examine the common law at the time when this country was settled, and is one of the clearest cases on the subject. It quotes at length from Swinburne, Treatise on Espousals, written in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and from Park on Dower, which show that by the common law, marriage by consent per verba de praesenti did not make the issue lawful, nor confer reciprocal property rights on the parties. The court approves the rule in Reg. v. Millis, supra, and gives an additional reason why the canon law cannot be held applicable in this country:

"The ecclesiastical polity of England forms no part of the common law as we have adopted it. We have in our system no tribunal as in England, clothed with power and jurisdiction to enforce the solemnization of marriages between the parties contracting per verba *Page 452 de presenti. Unless, therefore, there can be something in the law of this state, apart from the common law of England, to render such contracts valid without solemnization, it follows, necessarily, that they can at most only be valid to the extent that they are good at common law without solemnization; and as we have seen, such unsolemnized contracts are incomplete, and are not effective to confer legitimacy upon the issue, nor the rights of property upon the parties — a right that is attempted to be enforced in this case."

This reasoning of the case was approved in Furth v. Furth,97 Ark. 272, 133 S.W. 1037, Ann. Cas. 1912 Dall. 595. Parsons in Contracts (6th ed.) 84, referring to Roper on Husband and Wife, in a note, states that "I cannot but think that he places upon strong grounds his conclusion that a contract of marriage per verba de praesenti without ceremony or celebration of any kind does not constitute a valid marriage at common law."

The question of the validity of the so-called common law marriage came before the courts of this country for the first time (1809) in Fenton v. Reed (N.Y.) 4 Johns. 52. The decision is per curiam, but it is generally attributed to Chancellor Kent, then Chief Justice of the appellate court. He held that "no formal ceremony of marriage was requisite (at common law). A contract of marriage made per verba de praesenti amounts to an actual marriage and is as valid as if made in facie ecclesiae." He cited Collins v. Jessot, 6 Mod. 155, 86 Eng. Repr. 913; Wigmore's Case, 2 Salk. 437, 91 Eng. Repr. 380; and Reed v. Passer Peake 303, 170 Eng. Rep. 164, which in Reg. v. Millis, supra, were held not to express the common law rule on the subject or were explained on some other ground. It has been said that he was influenced by Dutch law, which was derived from Roman law, and by the fact that he was learned in the Roman and the Civil law. But that is not likely to be the correct explanation, in view of his personal attitude towards the rule announced by him. *Page 453 Great scholar that he was, he simply, apparently, took at correct the rule announced or apparently announced in the English cases above mentioned, without further investigation. His decision is the beginning and at least partially the foundation of the doctrine of other cases as to the validity of common law marriages. It probably has had more influence in establishing that doctrine than any other case. See, for instance, Becker v. Becker, 153 Wisc. 226; Lefkoff v. Sicro, 189 Ga. 554,6 S.E.2d 687, 133 A.L.R. 738; Hall in 30 Col. Law Review 1, 6; Black in 2 Univ. Cin. Law Rev. 131. But it would seem that the decision in Fenton v. Reed, supra, was wrong. The Colonial Assembly of New York (Laws of the Colony of New York, 1665-1719, p. 150), on October 23, 1684, passed an act reciting:

"Whereas By the Law of England noe Marriage is lawfully consumated without a Minister whose Office is to joyne the partyes in matrimony after the Bands thrice published in the Church or a Lycence first had and obtained from some other person thereunto authorized all which formality cannot be duely practiced in these parts yett to the end a Decent Rule may be therein observed Bee It Enacted by the Generall Assembly and by the authority of the same" etc.

And the Assembly then provided that the intention to marry should be publicly read in the parish church or usual meeting place and might be solemnized, upon producing a license, by any minister or justice of the peace, and then provided further: "Bee it further enacted by the authority That if any man Shall p'sume to marry contrary to the Law prescribed the person offending shall be proceeded against as for fornication."

It has been thought that the colonial laws of marriage fell into desuetude. See an interesting discussion thereon in 10 L.R. App. Cas. (1805) 728 et seq. The law had not been printed in 1809, but, as stated in the preface of the volume above mentioned, remained in *Page 454 force until 1828, and, together with other colonial laws, not repealed, became the law of the State of New York upon the adoption of the first Constitution in 1777. Hall in 30 Col. L. Rev. p. 3. Chancellor Kent evidently overlooked the law. He was not in favor of the rule as announced by himself in 1809, as a matter of public policy, for in his Commentaries, Vol. 2, p. 88, he referred to common law marriage as "the loose doctrine of the common law." In view of the fact that he was in favor of greater solemnization of marriages than by the mere agreement of the parties, it is altogether improbable that Fenton v. Reed would have been decided as it was had the existence of the colonial law been known. Thus, judging from the subsequent reliance on Fenton v. Reed and Kent's Commentaries, the remarkable fact appears in our jurisprudence that the doctrine on so important a subject as the validity of common law marriages in this country is at least partially based on false premises, the extent of the falsity of which being, of course, difficult to measure at this time.

The court in Reed v. Clark (1841), 8 Paige (N.Y.) 574, 579, states that "by ancient common law in England it seems that a marriage was invalid unless it was celebrated in facie ecclesiae" (citing cases), but that it was changed at the Reformation or before. The Reformation wrought changes on the question before us. In England the Church of England was substituted for the Catholic Church. Among Nonconformists and Dissenters in this country, as during Cromwell's time in England, religious ceremony was not deemed necessary or was partly condemned. Milford v. Worcester, 7 Mass. 48; 2 Univ. Cin. L. Rev. 128. The ceremony required or usual in England was, as already stated, religious, but too much stress has been laid by Bishop and others on that element. It must be conceded, as they hold, that the American rule is against compulsory *Page 455 religious ceremony. However, the religious factor was but incidental. Ceremony was introduced in England, in part at least, for the purpose of publicity, and after the law of Edmund had fallen into desuetude, religious ceremony was deemed necessary because of the absence of any regulation by the temporal power. See Beamish v. Beamish, supra. If the colonists coming to this country had made no regulations, to take the place of religious ceremony in England, it might be plausibly urged that they approved the so-called common law marriage. But that is not the case. It is true, as Bishop, supra, Sec. 442, states, that "there must have been between the legislation and the first coming of the emigrants a time intervening when marriage without statutory help was possible." But, during that time, these emigrants would, of course, and naturally — at least wherever possible, no matter what the technical status of the common law in England may have been, adopt a ceremony according to the custom which they knew, be that according to the established church of England, or of a particular group of religious denomination, or according to Cromwell's law, which permitted magistrates to perform the marriage ceremony. In all these cases some public ceremony was usual or required. Every colony or state at some time, and some of them very early, made or adopted a substitute for — more or less variant from — the religious ceremony in England, and it would seem that the logical holding should have been, as it was in some of the states, that the marriage laws of England applied with that substitute standing in place of the religious ceremony required or at least usual in England. That would have been the logical adoption of the common law in that connection in so far as applicable to the conditions in this country. Instead of that, many courts cut the common law on this point to the bone, holding statutory regulations directory, *Page 456 and leaving what they have been pleased to call the canon law. The course taken by some of the courts is particularly strange when we bear in mind, as already stated, that when an agreement to marry by words of present assent was made, the ecclesiastical authorities in England could, under the rules of the canon law, compel the parties to properly solemnize the marriage. No such authority ever existed in this country. Denison v. Denison, supra. Little attention has been paid to this difference by the courts in this country, though it would seem that it should have had considerable bearing in determining the common law applicable in this country. A contractual marriage, the solemnization of which is enforceable, is one thing; one without such enforceability is another; to discard the element of enforceability, putting nothing in place of it, and leave the bare element of natural law, was a procedure which had little regard for the sanctity of marriage. The court in State v. Samuel, (1836), 19 N.C. 177, said on this subject:

"The rule of the common, or rather the canon law, respecting marriages de facto, contracted in verbis de praesenti, might well be adopted at a time and in a country, in which an ecclesiastical establishment was a component part of the government, with authority, by imposing temporal penalty, and pronouncing spiritual denunciations, to compel the celebration of such a marriage in facie ecclesiae, as a specific and formal execution of a contract, partly performed, and binding on conscience, though not complete in law. * * * When, however, this function of the spiritual judges was abrogated in England, there arose an exigent necessity that some other fixed mode should be established by which marriage should be publicly celebrated, and some solemn memorial thereof preserved. * * * In this state there never was a jurisdiction similar to that of the spiritual courts of England; and it is plain from the earliest period of our legislation, that in consequence thereof, it has been constantly required as an *Page 457 essential requisite of a legal marriage, that it should either be celebrated by some person in sacred office, or be entered into before some one in public station and judicial trust."

In view of the fact that the so-called common law marriage in this country is devoid of the element of enforceability of the canon law above mentioned, the former cannot, in reality, be said to represent or be based on the latter, and Black, in 2 Univ. Cin. Law. Rev. 131, seems more nearly correct in saying that it finds its concept, its basis, in the Roman law, in which, as already pointed out, was inherent the danger of concubinage and easy divorce. We half suspect that if the non-conformists, dissenters and Puritans had been told that they were adopting such a rule of easy marriages, they would have met the charge with vigorous protest and denial. It might not be profitless to re-read Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter."

If we should admit that marriage by mere agreement as above mentioned was valid at common law, still we must examine the provisions of our statute governing marriages. The main provisions were enacted by Ch. 71, Session Laws of 1869, now contained in Chapter 68, Rev. St. 1931. Section 1 of the original act states that "in law, marriage is considered a civil contract to which the consent of parties capable of contracting is essential." Section 2 relates to the required ages of the parties to be married, Section 3 provides that no marriage declared void under the divorce laws of the State may be solemnized. This referred to Chapter 10 of the Session Laws of 1869 hereafter mentioned. Section 4 states that previous to the solemnization of any marriage, a license for that purpose "must" be obtained from the county clerk wherein the marriage is to take place. Section 5 relates to consent of parents of minors; Sections 6 and 7 to investigation as to the competency of the parties. Section 8 provides that "every judge *Page 458 and justice of the peace and every licensed or ordained preacher of the gospel may perform the ceremony of marriage. Section 9 provides as follows:

"Sec. 9. In the solemnization of marriage, no particular form shall be required, except that the parties shall solemnly declare in the presence of the magistrate or minister, and the attending witnesses, that they take each other as husband and wife, and in any case there shall be at least two witnesses beside the minister or magistrate, present at the ceremony."

Sections 10 to 13 provide for the certificate of marriage and the report of the marriage to the county clerk and the recording thereof. Sections 14 and 15 provide for exceptions to the act. The former provides that if the person performing the ceremony, professing that he is one of the persons who, under the statute, has the power to do so, does not actually have such power, still the marriage shall be valid "provided the marriage be consummated with a full belief on the part of the persons so married or either of them, that they have been lawfully joined in marriage." Section 15 provides that persons belonging to a religious society, which has its peculiar rites and customs, may be joined in marriage according to such rites and customs. Section 16 relates to the evidentiary effect of the certificate of marriage and of the record above mentioned and Section 17 recognizes the validity of marriages which are recognized as valid in other states. Further provisions were made in Chapter 10 of the Laws of 1869 relating to divorces and alimony. These laws, with some intervening changes, are now found in Chapter 35, Rev. St. 1931, and provide among other things that marriages shall be void in certain cases, for instance, when either party has a husband or wife living at the time of contracting the marriage; when either party is insane, or stands in certain relation to the other. Section 35-102, Rev. St. 1931, provides that when a marriage of a minor has *Page 459 been solemnized, it may under the conditions stated in that section be deemed voidable, and provisions are made in the succeeding sections for the annulment of marriages. In 1915 the legislature passed the Workmen's Compensation Act. It provides for compensation to a surviving widow or widower only if "he or she has been regularly married by a marriage duly solemnized by a legal ceremony." Sec. 124-120(1), Rev. St. 1931. In 1921 (Sec. 103-227) the legislature provided that:

"Every male person securing a marriage license must produce a certificate dated within ten days before the date of the application for such marriage license from a licensed physician practicing in the state of Wyoming showing applicant to be free from any venereal disease in a communicable stage."

In 1931 (Sec. 68-106) the legislature required that an application for a license should not be granted till after a lapse of five days, but that the requirement might be waived in an emergency by order of the judge of the district court. This provision was repealed by Ch. 3, Session Laws of 1935, but was in force when the claimed common law marriage in this case took place. The statute, while mandatory in form in several sections, as noted, does not declare marriages entered into contrary to its provisions to be void. Bishop, supra, Sec. 424, states that a common law marriage is valid notwithstanding the existence of a statute, unless the statute contains express words of nullity. 2 Greenleaf, Ev., Sec. 460, is similar. The authors, singularly enough, do not appear to distinguish between marriages which are void because of total absence of compliance with the statutes, and marriages in connection with which some irregularity merely appears. They assume, apparently, that the slightest omission of the statutory requirements must either render the marriage wholly void, or none of the requirements are mandatory. That is not necessarily true. In many instances *Page 460 some statutory provisions may be mandatory, and others, on the same subject, may be directory. A result which is reasonable is sought. Some of the cases relied on by the authors might well be regarded as presenting mere irregularities. In others the rule above mentioned was applied out of necessity. Thus in Rodebaugh v. Sanka, 2 Watts. (Pa.) 1, it appears that an early law of Pennsylvania required solemnization of marriages in presence of fourteen witnesses. The court, holding the statute directory, stated that "it is not too much to say that rigid execution of them would bastardize a vast majority of the children which have been born within the state for half a century." Dumaresly v. Fishley, 2 A.K. March (Ky.) 368, 10 Am. Dec. 76, presents a similar situation. We are not, we think, confronted with any such situation in this state which might induce us to distort the ordinary meaning of our statute, and which was a factor or contributing factor in inducing courts in other states, as, for instance, in Pennsylvania, in recognizing the validity of common law marriages. We think that our people have generally complied with our statutory provisions. In a number of states statutes similar to ours prescribing the form of marriages have been held mandatory, in part at least, though the statute contained no express words of nullity. Denison v. Denison, 35 Md. 361; Morrill v. Palmer, 68 Vt. 1, 33 A. 829, 33 L.R.A. 411; Dunbarton v. Franklin, 19 N.H. 257; Beverlin v. Beverlin, 29 W. Va. 732,31 S.E. 36; Furth v. Furth, 97 Ark. 272, 133 S.W. 1037, Ann. Cas. 1912 Dall. 595; Offield v. Davis, 100 Va. 250, 40 S.E. 910; Huard v. McTeigh, 113 Or. 279, 232 P. 658, 39 A.L.R. 528; In Re McLaughlin's Estate, 4 Wash. 570, 30 P. 651, 16 L.R.A. 699; Milford v. Worcester, 7 Mass. 48, (1810); Bashaw v. State, 1 Yerg. (9 Tenn.) 176. Milford v. Worcester was the first case on marriage, considered in the light of the statute on the subject, and *Page 461 might have been accepted by other states as the law had it not been for Fenton v. Reed, supra, and for cases which had to be decided otherwise on account of necessity. The case, however, recognizes that mere irregularities will not render a marriage invalid. In 2 Parsons on Contract (6th ed.) 81, it is stated that "the essential thing seems to be the declaration of consent by both parties, before a person authorized to receive such declaration by law." Such seems to be the law in some cases. We need not decide the point.

Turning to the various provisions of our statute, we find that Section 1 of C. 71 of the Act of 1869 provides that marriage is a civil contract. It is that, but it is also, or the contract leads to, a status, so that it is more than the ordinary contract (35 Am. Jur. 183); if it were not, then, as stated in Collins v. Hoag Rollins, 122 Nebr. 805, 241 N.W. 766, it would be dissoluble at pleasure, which is not true. Too much stress should not be laid upon the first section of the act alone. The remaining sections, as we view it, provide the manner of entering into the contract, leading to the status of marriage. An attempt was made to provide for every contingency and situation, and the provisions heretofore mentioned, considered as a whole, seem to constitute a complete code on the form and requisites of marriage. Hence there is no room for the contention that statutory provisions in contravention of the common law must be strictly construed. If, as in this case, a statute covers the whole subject matter, as apparently at least it does, the abrogation of the common law on the same subject will necessarily be implied. 59 C.J. 1126. Again, it may be noted that the statute provides for cases in which a marriage will be recognized as valid notwithstanding the form prescribed in ordinary cases has not been followed. Thus a marriage according to the rites and usages of a religious society is recognized as valid if entered into by members thereof. *Page 462 And though a person assuming the authority to perform the ceremony has in fact no such authority, nevertheless if the parties believe in good faith that they have been lawfully married, such marriage will be recognized. These provisions constitute exceptions. "Where a general rule is established by statute with exceptions, the court will not curtail the former, nor add to the latter by implication; and it is a general rule that an express exception excludes all others." 59 C.J. 1292. The rule was applied in In Re McLaughlin's Estate, supra; Beverlin v. Beverlin, supra; Furth v. Furth, supra. In Bashaw v. State, supra, the court applied the rule that an affirmative implies a negative — a rule mentioned in 59 C.J. 1076. In Holmes v. Holmes, 1 Sawy. 99, 1 Abb. (U.S.) 525, Fed. Cas. 6638, the court had under consideration a statute reading as follows:

"In the solemnization of marriage no particular form is required, except that the parties thereto shall assent or declare in the presence of the minister, priest, or judicial officer solemnizing the same, and in the presence of at least two attending witnesses, that they take each other to be husband and wife."

The court stated that the section was strongly indicative of the mandatory nature of the marriage laws. Our present statute (Sec. 68-109) is similar. We have set out the section (Sec. 9, c. 71, Laws of 1869) as originally enacted and as it stood till 1931. While the meaning has not been changed, the original section sounds somewhat more imperative. The phrase "and in any case there shall be at least two witnesses beside the minister or magistrate present at the ceremony," leaves little room for construction. To hold that in spite of this, no witnesses and no minister and no magistrate need be present, and that a simple contract between the parties suffices — in other words, that the negative of the provision is just as true as the positive *Page 463 — would seem to be the merest mockery. There may be an excuse for other courts to so hold, who feel themselves bound by earlier precedents, but there would be none for us, when we find no precedents in this state. As stated by the Supreme Court of Washington in the well-considered case of In Re McLaughlin's Estate, supra: "In order to sustain the validity of common law marriages in many of the states, the courts have practically overruled the statutory law upon the subject, and we do not feel justified in following them when it results in the violation of the most ordinary rules recognized in construing statutes, nor do we think the true interests of the people lie in that direction. It is important that publicity should be given to such contracts, to guard against deceptions and to provide accessible evidence to prove the relationship." It has been said that "the construction of mandatory words as directory should not be lightly adopted, and never when it would in fact make a new law instead of that passed by the legislature." 59 C.J. 1073. To adopt the construction which appellant wants us to adopt would practically nullify our statute. In the ironical words of Chancellor Kent: "The regulations amount, therefore, only to legislativerecommendation and advice. They are not laws, because they do not require obedience!" 2 Kent Comm. 89, note (a). In 1843 the question of the validity of common law marriages in South Carolina came before the Supreme Court of the United States in Lessee of Sarah J. Jewell et al., 1 How. 219. The court was evenly divided and expressed no opinion. There were statutes in South Carolina regulating marriages. Subsequent to this decision (see 2 Parsons, Contracts, 78), Chancellor Kent modified his Commentaries (2, p. 87) to read that a contract of marriage per verba de praesenti is valid in the absence of all civilregulations to the contrary, clearly showing that he did not consider statutory regulations *Page 464 to be merely advisory. Yet despite the fact that he was thereafter often cited, no attention, apparently, was paid to the statement here italicized. Counsel for appellant seems to think that, in view of the rule in so many states, for the court to declare our statute mandatory would be for us to declare a public policy which should be left to the legislature. We do not think so. We think the legislature has established that policy and that we are merely enforcing it. But if it be otherwise, still we cannot accept the conception of counsel as to the relation of courts to public policy. The law would be in a sorry state, if courts ignored it. The common law was developed from its beginning largely through public policy, as it was conceived by the courts to be and then by them declared. Holmes, Common Law, passim; see, e.g., pp. 78, 106, 154-156, 161, 181, 198, 202-205. He states on p. 35 that "every important principle which is developed in litigation is at fact and at bottom the result of more or less definitely understood views of public policy." Time and again courts have declared a rule of law as based on public policy, established, in their opinion, either by legislation, by custom or usage, or by general public opinion. True, courts have no right to establish such policy contrary to a statute. Innes v. McMichall, 59 Ohio St. 402, 53 N.E. 60. But law and morals, when the latter are involved, cannot be separated today any more than they have been able to be separated in the past, and that principle, itself evidently one of public policy of ancient standing, applies no less in the interpretation of statutes than in other fields, and courts will, if the statute permits, adopt that interpretation thereof which is inconsistent with neither. As stated in the Virginia case of Offield v. Davis, 100 Va. 250,40 S.E. 910, "when a statute admits of two interpretations, the one destructive of the foundation of society, and inimical to the peace, welfare and good order of a *Page 465 people, and the other conducive to their welfare, and adding strength and durability to the foundation of society, the latter, we unhesitatingly think, should be adopted." Courts, of course, may err at times as to what the welfare of the people requires. The main reason for upholding common-law marriage is that children should not be made illegitimate, and a contrary holding may occasionally visit misfortune upon them. The problem has been at least partly met by statute in West Virginia, by declaring children born of a common law marriage legitimate while at the same time rendering the marriage invalid. Kester v. Kester,106 W. Va. 615, 146 S.E. 625. On the other hand, there are evils which would arise if common law marriages were held to be valid. Most of the cases in courts on the subject before us seemingly have involved situations like that in the case at bar. In any event the choice between the evils here mentioned, or the remedy or amelioration thereof is a legislative, not a judicial, function. Common law marriage has been condemned even in states which recognize it as valid. In Baker v. Mitchell (Pa.Super.)17 A.2d 738, the court stated that "the law of Pennsylvaniarecognizes common law marriages. But they are a fruitful source of perjury and fraud, and in consequence, they are to betolerated, not encouraged." During the time when common-law marriages were still considered valid in Nebraska, the Supreme Court of that state in Sorenson v. Sorenson, 68 Nebr. 500, 106 N.W. 930, stated that the rule "is alien to the ideas and customs of our people. It tends to weaken the public estimate of the sanctity of the marriage relation. It puts in doubt the certainty of the rights of inheritance. It opens the door to false pretenses of marriage and the imposition upon estates of supposititious heirs. It places honest, God ordained matrimony and mere meretricious cohabitation too nearly on a level with each other." See also Collins v. *Page 466 Hoag Rollins, 122 Nebr. 805, 241 N.W. 766. In Ohio, where common law marriages are still valid, the court holds that "it contravenes public policy and should not be accorded any favor." Estate of Redman, 135 Ohio St. 554, 21 N.E.2d 659. A vigorous condemnation of such marriages is contained in an opinion in one of the lower courts of Ohio. Estate of Speeler, 6 Ohio Opinions 529, 22 Ohio Law Abstract 223. In a similar vein the Supreme Court of Oregon, in holding such marriages invalid, states (Huard v. McTeigh, 113 Or. 279, 232 P. 658, 39 A.L.R. 528, 537):

"In our opinion the doctrine of common law marriages is contrary to public policy and public morals. It places a premium upon illicit cohabitation, and offers encouragement to the harlot and the adventuress. We do not sanction loose marriages or easy divorces. Good government demands that our laws be obeyed in the solemnization of marriages as in all things else. An adherence to the law in this regard will tend to cause the parties to look with respect and reverence upon a contract which is the most sacred known to man, and which ought not be lightly cast aside."

The rule upholding such marriage arose in Texas by reason of sparse settlements, long distance to places of record, bad roads, difficulties of travel, and of access to officers or ministers. Chesney v. Johnson (Tex.Civ.App.) 79 S.W.2d 658. The same difficulties may have aided in establishing the doctrine in other states. Those difficulties do not exist in this state, at least at this time, and furnish no reason to adopt the rule here. There can be no doubt that under present-day conditions loose marriages are not favored. We find it stated in 29 Georgetown L.J. 869, that "the great weight of modern opinion advocates the abolition in this country of common-law marriage. The American Bar Association, the Commission on Uniform State Laws and practically all authorities in the field of social reform favor *Page 467 the abolition of common law marriage." To the same effect is 1 Vernier, American Family Laws, 108.

In 1875, in Hutchins v. Kimmel, 31 Mich. 126, the court cited 30 cases in support of the validity of such marriages. Twenty of these are from states in which such marriages are now illegal. While at one time it could be said that the great weight of authority in this country sustained the validity thereof, that can no longer be said to be true. Annotations and a complete collection of the cases on both sides of the subject before us are found in 39 A.L.R. 568, 60 A.L.R. 542; 94 A.L.R. 1000; 133 A.L.R. 758. In at least half of the states, and probably more, such marriages are not now valid. See 1 Vernier, supra, 106-108; 5 Ohio St. U. Law Journal 31. More than 20 years ago the court in Parke v. Parke, 25 Haw. 397, stated.

"The modern tendency, however, is to recognize marriage as something more than a civil contract for it creates a social status or relation between the contracting parties in which not only they but the state as well are interested and involves a personal union of those participating in it of a character unknown to any other human relation and having more to do with the morals and civilization of the people than any other institution. For these reasons there is a gradual tendency to protect the parties as well as society by reasonable requirements unknown to the common law but which at the same time are not burdensome nor calculated to discourage marriage among those who ought to assume that relation."

In Huard v. McTeigh, supra, the court stated:

"The trend of modern authorities is against the recognition of common-law marriages, and it is noteworthy, in those states where the courts have given approval to the same, legislation has subsequently been enacted declaring common-law marriages null and void."

Neither our statutes, accordingly, construed according to the usual standards of interpretation, nor public *Page 468 policy, would justify us in holding otherwise than that common law marriages, entered into in this state as in the case at bar, are invalid. The judgment of the trial court is accordingly affirmed.

Affirmed.

KIMBALL, Ch. J., concurs.

RINER, J., concurs in the result.

In other words, absent a will, no marriage, no inheritance. 

Thursday, January 12, 2023

Hero

By Ksh.andronexus - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=110096569
I am a soldier and get paid to protect citizens of this country. I could not sit back and watch as passengers were looted. I pulled out my khukuri and attacked the criminals. I succeeded in connecting with at least three of them. The blows were severe and they must have got themselves admitted to some hospital. By then, the criminals started fighting back. They fired a shot that missed me. At one point of time, the khukuri fell from my hand and I was overpowered. They picked it up and used it on me.

Fighting the enemy in battle is my duty as a soldier. Taking on the thugs on the train was my duty as a human being.
Bishnu Shrestha, in two different interviews, one from the Times of India, on his having gone into action on a train in Indian when he saw members of a party of robbers numbering over thirty begin to molest an 18-year-old woman with the intent to rape her.

He is a Gurkha. 

Monday, January 9, 2023

Saturday, January 9, 1943. First flight of the Lockheed Constellation and Nazi atrocities.

 The Lockheed Constellation flew for the first time on this day in 1942.

The plane was a major leap forward in transport aviation and reflected a remarkable advancement in which the US, which already was fielding the best transport aircraft in the sky, the DC3/C47, was making it effectively obsolete.

This Day In Aviation:  9 January 1943

It was a great airplane.

Heinrich Himmler visited the Warsaw Ghetto and came away irate that 40,000 Jews remained residents there.  He ordered SS Colonel Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg to wipe the ghetto out by February 15.

On the same day, Jews in the Khmelnytskyi Oblast in Ukraine were removed by the Germans from the towns of Ostropol, Krasyliv, Hrytsiv and Syniava and shot.

There's some tragic irony here that these events would happen on a Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.

Sarah Sundin reports on her blog:

Today in World War II History—January 9, 1943: British & Indian troops take Maungdaw, Burma, in the Arakan campaign. First flight of prototype Lockheed C-69 Constellation.

Friday, July 15, 2022

Wednesday, July 15, 1942. Watery graves.

SS Pennsylvania Sun after being torpedoed by U-571 on this date in 1942.  It did not sink but was taken under tow at first and the proceeded under its own power to a U.S. port.  The U576 would go down off Cape Hatteras after being attacked by aircraft and a merchant ship.

The Soviets abandoned Boguchar and Millerovo as Case Blue advanced.

The Akutan Zero was recovered.

New Zealanders take the western edge of Ruweisat Ridge outside of El Alamein but British armor does not arrive as planned, and they are forced back in a pitched battle.  The Indians take the east end of the ridge.

The German armed merchant ship Michel attacks the British passenger/cargo ship SS Gloucester Castle sinking it off of the coast of Angola.  The attack was without warning and devastating, and it led to its captain, Helmuth von Ruckteschell being sentenced after the war to a ten-year sentence for war crimes based on the attack having been without warning on an unarmed ship.  Having said that, the ship did pick up survivors who were later interned by the Japanese.

The U582 sunk the SS Empire Attendant off of the Canary Islands, and the U201 sunk the SS British Yeoman.  Both ships had been part of the dispersed OS-33

Von Ruckteschell did not serve the full ten years as he died of a heart condition, while imprisoned, in 1948 at age 58.

The submarine USS Grunion sank Japanese submarine chasers Ch-25 and Ch-27, and damaged the Ch-26, in an attack on their anchorage at Kiska.

In an odd event, two B-17s and six P-38s went down in Greenland when they ran into bad weather and had their communications jammed by U-boats. All of the crewmen survived and were rescued.

Wednesday, April 6, 2022

Monday, April 6, 1942. The Japanese strike India.



From Sarah Sundin's excellent day-to-day history of World War Two blog:
Today in World War II History—April 6, 1942: 80 Years Ago—Apr. 6, 1942: Japanese air raid on Vizagapatam and Cocanada, India, helps tip India to support the Allies. Germany cuts ration of bread, meat, and fats. Due to heavy Luftwaffe raids, British Royal Navy begins to withdraw surface ships from Malta to Gibraltar and Alexandria. Seven hundred Japanese-Americans are assembled at Santa Anita Racetrack. First group of Japanese-Americans are evacuated from San Francisco.

I'd draw attention to the first one of these items in particular. 

The British were trying to secure the support of India which, while it remained part of the British Empire, was increasingly moving towards independence and achieving it by default.  It would end up, however, contributing an army to the Allies which was the largest in the war, in terms of sheer manpower.

India had of course contributed manpower in the form of the Indian Army to the British Empire in World War One. But, like other parts of the Empire, it was increasingly reluctant to become as engaged in World War Two, and unlike Canada, Australia and New Zealand (as well as Ireland, which remained neutral in the war) it was not a self-governing dominion with de facto independence.  Indeed, in spite of ultimately fully committing to the Allied cause, a substantial number of Indians would end up in a rebel Indian army that served under the Japanese, although not terribly effectively.

The Japanese strike fit into a series of actions which caused people who remained subject to colonial rule in Asia to reject the Japanese as worse rulers, for the most part, than the Europeans had been, with Indonesia, where the Japanese were generally preferred, being the exception.  

The war ultimately accelerated the demise of colonialism, which was exposed as too hypocritical in light of Allied war aims, let alone propaganda, and the arming of local forces made it effectively impossible to keep on in the former role after the war.  A major impact of the war, therefore, was to complete the global death of empire, even if they'd linger on in various locations for decades.

Monday, March 21, 2022

Saturday, March 21, 1942. The "last" British cavalry charge.


On this day in 1942 the last British "cavalry" charge. . . maybe . . .  occurred at Toungoo Burma.

This is sort of a well known historical footnote, which means that it's often not really very well understood.  The unit conducting the charge was a Sikh element of the Burma Frontier Force and was part of the Indian Army, although it's sometimes asserted that this unit was in the nature of paramilitary police.  The Frontier Force still exists today as part of the Pakistani Army.  That categorization, however, is probably improper, and the various unis of the Frontier Force did see extensive combat during the war.

The officer in command of the charge, Cpt. Arthur Sandeman, was an officer of the Central Indian Horse.  The battle at Taungoo itself was actually principally between the Chinese Nationalist Army, which had been given the task of defending Burma, and the Japanese.  Indeed, the charge occurred when the unit, which was actually a column of mounted infantry, not cavalry, mistook a Japanese unit for a Chinese one while on patrol.  The patrol accordingly went to close with what they thought were their Chinese allies when it turned into a charge by necessity.  Sandeman and most of his men were killed in the ensuing charge.

The Frontier Force was not the only cavalry unit involved in the battle, which would prove to be a Chinese defeat, as the Chinese had committed a motorized cavalry unit to the action.

It could well be argued, of course, that this charge was not a British one, although it was British led.

Malta, which had been besieged from the air for months, suffered its heaviest air raid today.

Entrapped German troops at Demyansk attempt a breakout.

Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Sunday, February 15, 1942. The fall of Singapore


February 15, 1942: Fall of Singapore: British Lt. Gen. Arthur Percival surrenders to Japanese Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, 64,000 POWs taken.

As that entry goes on to explain, this was the largest British surrender, ever. 

Churchill addressed the British on the same day:

Nearly six months have passed since, at the end of August, I made a broadcast directly to my fellow countrymen. It is therefore worthwhile looking back over this half year of struggle for life-for that is what it has been and what it is-to see what has happened to our fortunes and to our prospects.

At that time in August, I had the pleasure of meeting the President of the United States and drawing up with him the declaration of British and American policy which has become known to the world as the Atlantic Charter. We also settled a number of other things about the war, some of which have had an important influence upon its course.

In those days, we met on the terms of a hard-pressed combatant seeking assistance from a great friend who was, however, only a benevolent neutral. In those days, the Germans seemed to be tearing the Russian armies to pieces and striding on with growing momentum to Leningrad, to Moscow, to Rostov and even farther into the heart of Russia.

It was thought a very daring assertion when the President declared that the Russian armies would hold out until the winter. You may say that the military men of all countries-friend, foe and neutral alike-were very doubtful whether this would come true.

As for us, our British resources were stretched to the utmost. We had already been for more than a whole year absolutely alone in the struggle with Hitler and Mussolini. We had to be ready to meet a German invasion of our own island. We had to defend Egypt, the Nile Valley and the Suez Canal. Above all, we had to bring in the food, raw materials and finished munitions across the Atlantic in the teeth of the German and Italian U-boats and aircraft, without which we could not live, without which we could not wage war. We have to do all this still.

It seemed our duty in those August days to do everything in our power to help the Russian people to meet the prodigious onslaught which had been launched against them.

It is little enough we have done for Russia, considering all she has done to beat Hitler and for the common cause. In these circumstances, we British had no means whatever of providing effectively against the new war with Japan. Such was the outlook when I talked with President Roosevelt in the middle of August on board the good ship Prince of Wales, now, alas, sunk beneath the waves.

It is true that our position in August, 1941, seemed vastly better than it had been a year earlier, in 1940, when France had just been beaten into the awful prostration in which she now lies-when we were almost entirely unarmed in our own island and when it looked as if Egypt and all the Middle East would be conquered by the Italians, who still held Abyssinia and had newly driven us out of British Somaliland.

Compared with those days of 1940, when all the world except ourselves thought we were down and out forever, the situation the President and I surveyed in August, 1941, was an enormous improvement. Still, when you looked at it bluntly and squarely, with the United States neutral and fiercely divided, with the Russian armies falling back with grievous losses, with the German military power triumphant and unscathed, with the Japanese menace assuming an uglier shape each day, it certainly seemed a very bleak and anxious scene.

How do matters stand now? Taking it all in all, are our chances of survival better or worse than in August, 1941? How is it with the British Empire, or Commonwealth of Nations-are we up or down? What has happened to the principles of freedom and decent civilization for which we are fighting? Are they making headway or are they in greater peril?

Let us take the rough with the smooth, let us put the good and bad side by side and let us try to see exactly where we are.

The first and greatest of events is that the United States is now unitedly and wholeheartedly in the war with us. The other day, I crossed the Atlantic again to see President Roosevelt. This time we met not only as friends, but as comrades standing side by side and shoulder to shoulder in a battle for dear life and dearer honor in the common cause and against the common foe.

When I survey and compute the power of the United States, and its vast resources, and feel that they are now in it with us, with the British Commonwealth of Nations, all together, however long it lasts, till death or victory, I cannot believe there is any other fact in the whole world which can compare with that. That is what I have dreamed of, aimed at, and worked for, and now it has come to pass.

But there is another fact, in some ways more immediately effective. The Russian armies have not been defeated. They have not been torn to pieces. The Russian peoples have not been conquered or destroyed. Leningrad and Moscow have not been taken. The Russian armies are in the field-they are not holding the line of the Urals or the line of the Volga-they are advancing victoriously, driving the foul invader from the native soil they have guarded so bravely and loved so well.

More than that, for the first time they have broken the Hitler legend. Instead of the easy victories and abundant booty which he and his hordes had gathered in the west, he has found in Russia, so far, only disaster, failure, the shame of unspeakable crimes, the slaughter or loss of vast numbers of German soldiers and the icy wind that blows across the Russian snow.

Here, then, are two tremendous fundamental facts which will in the end dominate the world situation and make victory possible in a form never possible before.

But there is another heavy and terrible side to the account, and this must be set in the balance against these inestimable gains.

Japan has plunged into the war and is ravishing the beautiful, fertile, prosperous and densely populated lands of the Far East. It would never have been in the power of Great Britain, while fighting Germany and Italy, two nations long-hardened and prepared for war, while fighting in the North Sea, in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic-it would never have been in our power to defend the Pacific and the Far East single-handed against the onslaught of Japan.

We have only just been able to keep our heads above water at home. Only by a narrow margin have we brought in the food and the supplies; only by so little have we held our own in the Nile Valley and the Middle East.

The Mediterranean is closed and all our transports have to go round the Cape of Good Hope-each ship making only three voyages in the year. Not a ship, not an airplane, not a tank, not an anti-tank gun or an anti-aircraft gun has stood idle. Everything we have has been deployed either against the enemy or awaiting his attack.

We are struggling hard in the Libyan desert, where perhaps another serious battle will soon be fought. We have to provide for the safety and order of liberated Abyssinia, of conquered Eritrea, of Palestine, of liberated Syria and redeemed Iraq, and of our new ally, Persia.

A ceaseless stream of ships, men and materials has flowed from this country for a year and a half in order to build up and sustain our armies in the Middle East, which guard these vast regions on either side of the Nile Valley. We had to do our best to give substantial aid to Russia. We gave it to her in her darkest hour and we must not fail in our undertaking now.

How then in this posture, gripped and held and battered as we were, could we have provided for the safety of the Far East against such an avalanche of fire and steel as has been hurled upon us by Japan? Always, my friends, this thought overhung our minds.

There was, however, one hope and one hope only-namely, that if Japan entered the war with her allies, Germany and Italy, the United States would come in on our side-thus, far more than repairing the balance. For this reason, I have been most careful all these many months not to give any provocation to Japan and to put up with Japanese encroachments, dangerous though they were, so that, if possible, whatever happened, we should not find ourselves forced to face this new enemy alone.

I could not be sure that we should succeed in this policy, but it has come to pass. Japan has struck her felon blow, and a new, far greater, champion has drawn the sword of implacable vengeance against her and on our side.

I shall frankly say to you that I did not believe it was in the interests of Japan to burst into war both upon the British Empire and the United States. I thought it would be a very irrational act. Indeed, when you remember that they did not attack us after Dunkirk, when we were so much weaker, when our hopes of United States help were of the most slender character, and when we were all alone, I could hardly believe that they would commit what seemed to be a mad act.

Tonight, the Japanese are triumphant-they shout their exultation around the world. We suffer-we are taken aback-we are hard-pressed; but I am sure, even in this dark hour that criminal madness will be the verdict which history will pronounce upon the authors of Japanese aggression after the events of 1942 and 1943 have been inscribed upon its somber pages.

The immediate deterrent which the United States exercised upon Japan-apart, of course, from the measureless resources of the American union-is the dominant American battle fleet in the Pacific, which, with the naval forces we could spare, confronted Japanese aggression with the shield of superior seapower.

But, my friends, by an act of sudden violent surprise, long calculated, balanced and prepared, and delivered under the crafty cloak of negotiation, the shield of sea-power which protected the fair lands and islands of the Pacific Ocean was, for the time being, and only for the time being, dashed to the ground.

Into the gap thus opened rushed the invading armies of Japan. We were exposed to the assault of a warrior race of nearly eighty millions with a large outfit of modern weapons, whose war-lords had been planning and scheming for this day, and looking forward to it perhaps for twenty years-while all the time our good people on both sides of the Atlantic were prating about perpetual peace and cutting down each other's navies in order to set a good example.

The overthrow, for a while, of British and United States seapower in the Pacific was like the breaking of some mighty dam. The long-gathered pent-up waters rushed down the peaceful valley, carrying ruin and devastation forward on their foam and spreading their inundations far and wide.

No one must underrate any more the gravity and efficiency of the Japanese war machine-whether in the air or upon the sea, or man to man on land. They have already proved themselves to be formidable, deadly and, I am sorry to say, barbarous antagonists.

This proves a hundred times over that there never was the slightest chance, even though we had been much better prepared in many ways than we were, of our standing up to them alone while we had Nazi Germany at our throats and Fascist Italy at our belly.

This proves something else-and this should be a comfort and reassurance. We can now measure the wonderful strength of the Chinese people, who under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek have, single-handed, fought the insidious Japanese aggressor for four and a half years and left him baffled and dismayed. This they have done, although they were a people whose whole philosophy for many ages was opposed to war and warlike arts, and who in their agony were caught, ill-armed, ill-supplied with munitions and hopelessly outmatched in the air.

We must not underrate the power and malice of our latest foe, but neither must we undervalue the gigantic, overwhelming forces which now stand in the line with us in this world struggle for freedom, and which, once they have developed their full natural, inherent power, whatever has happened in the meanwhile, will be found fully capable of squaring all accounts and setting all things right for a good long time to come.

You know I have never prophesied to you or promised smooth and easy things; and now all I have to offer is hard adverse war for many months ahead. I must warn you, as I warned the House of Commons before they gave me their generous vote of confidence a fortnight ago, that many misfortunes, severe, torturing losses, remorseless and gnawing anxieties lie before us.

To our British folk these may seem even harder to bear when they are at a great distance than when the savage Hun was shattering our cities and we all felt in the midst of the battle ourselves. But the same qualities which brought us through the awful jeopardy of the summer of 1940 and its long autumn and winter bombardments from the air will bring us through this other new ordeal, though it may be more costly and will certainly be longer.

One fault, one crime, and one crime only, can rob the United Nations and the British people, upon whose constancy this Grand Alliance came into being, of the victory upon which their lives and honor depend: a weakening in our purpose, and therefore in our unity. That is the mortal crime. Whoever is guilty of that crime, or of bringing it about in others, of him let it be said that it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea.

Last autumn when Russia was in her most dire peril, when vast numbers of her soldiers had been killed or taken prisoner, when one third of her whole munitions capacity lay, as it still lies, in Nazi German hands, when Kiev fell and the foreign ambassadors were ordered out of Moscow, the Russian people did not fall to bickering among themselves. They just stood together and worked and fought all the harder. They did not lose trust in their leaders. They did not try to break up their government. Hitler had hoped to find Quislings and fifth columnists in the wide regions he overran and among the unhappy masses who fell into his power. He searched for them but he found none.

The system upon which the Soviet government is founded is very different from ours or from that of the United States. However that may be, the fact remains that Russia received blows which her friends feared, and her foes believed, were mortal; and through preserving national unity and persevering undaunted, Russia has had the marvelous come-back for which we thank God now.

In the English-speaking world we rejoice in free institutions. We have free parliaments and a free press. This is the way of life we have been used to. This is the way of life we are fighting to defend.

But it is the duty of all who take part in those free institutions to make sure, as the House of Commons and the House of Lords have done, and will, I doubt not, do, that the national executive government in time of war have a solid foundation on which to stand and on which to act; that the misfortunes and mistakes of war are not exploited against them; that while they are kept up to the mark by helpful and judicious criticism or advice, they are not deprived of the persisting power to run through a period of bad times and many cruel vexations and to come out on the other side and get to the top of the hill.

Tonight I speak to you at home. I speak to you in Australia and New Zealand, for whose safety we will strain every nerve, to our loyal friends in India and Burma, to our gallant allies, the Dutch and Chinese, and to our kith and kin in the United States. I speak to you all under the shadow of a heavy and far-reaching military defeat.

It is a British and Imperial defeat. Singapore has fallen. All the Malay Peninsula has been overrun. Other dangers gather about us afar and none of the dangers which we have hitherto successfully withstood at home and in the East are in any way diminished.

This, therefore, is one of those moments when the British race and nation can show their quality and their genius. This is one of those moments when they can draw from the heart of misfortune the vital impulses of victory.

Here is the moment to display that calm and poise, combined with grim determination, which not so long ago brought us out of the very jaws of death. Here is another occasion to show, as so often in our long history, that we can meet reverses with dignity and with renewed accession of strength.

We must remember that we are no longer alone. We are in the midst of a great company. Three quarters of the human race are now moving with us. The whole future of mankind may depend upon our actions and upon our conduct. So far we have not failed.

We shall not fail now. Let us move forward steadfastly together into the storm and through the storm.

President Roosevelt issued an address to the Canadians.

I am speaking to my neighbors of Canada this evening-in regard to something that is a Canadian matter-only because of a personal relationship, which goes back fifty-eight long years, when my family began taking me every Summer to spend several months on a delightful Island off the coast of New Brunswick. I hope that my privilege of free and intimate discourse across our border will always continue. I trust that it will always be appreciated as sincerely as I appreciate it tonight.

It is not merely as good neighbors that we speak to each other in these eventful days, but as partners in a great enterprise which concerns us equally and in which we are equally pledged to the uttermost sacrifice and effort.

In an atmosphere of peace, four years ago, I offered you the assurance that the people of this country would not stand idly by if domination of Canadian soil were ever threatened by an aggressor. Your Prime Minister responded with an intimation that Canada, whose vast territories flank our entire northern border, would man that border against any attack upon us. These mutual pledges are now being implemented. Instead of defending merely our shores and our territories we now are joined with the other free peoples of the world against an armed conspiracy to wipe out free institutions wherever they exist.

Freedom-our freedom and yours-is under attack on many fronts. You and we together are engaged to resist the attack on any front where our strength can best be brought to bear.

The part that Canada is playing in this fight for the liberty of man is worthy of your traditions and ours. We, your neighbors, have been profoundly impressed by reports that have come to us setting forth the magnitude and nature of your effort as well as the valiant spirit which supports it. If that effort is to be measured in dollars, then you already have paid out, in two years, more than twice as much as you spent in the whole four years of the last war.

Moreover, these reports show that one Canadian in every twenty-one of your entire population is now in the fighting forces and that one in every twenty-nine is a volunteer for service anywhere in the world. It should give us all new strength and new courage to learn that in the swift mobilization your Army has increased nearly ten-fold, your Navy fifteen-fold, your Air Force twenty-five-fold. We rejoice to know that the Air Training Plan which you commenced to organize two years ago is now the main source of reinforcements for Britain's air force and that its graduates are fighting on almost every front in the world. Other reports disclose in equally impressive terms an all-out effort which Canada is making in the common cause of liberty.

Yours are the achievements of a great nation. They require no praise from me-but they get that praise from me nevertheless. I understate the case when I say that we, in this country, contemplating what you have done, and the spirit in which you have done it, are proud to be your neighbors.

From the outset you have had our friendship and understanding, and our collaboration on an increasing scale. We have gone forward together with increasing understanding and mutual sympathy and good will.

More recent events have brought us into even closer alignment; and at Washington a few weeks ago, with the assistance of Britain's Prime Minister and your own, we arrived at understandings which mean that the United Nations will fight and work and endure together until our common purpose is accomplished and the sun shines down once more upon a world where the weak will be safe ; and the strong will be just.

There is peril ahead for us all, and sorrow for many. But our cause is right, our goal is worthy, our strength is great and growing. Let us then march forward together, facing danger, bearing sacrifice, competing only in the effort to share even more fully in the great task laid upon us all. Let us, remembering the price that some have paid for our survival, make our own contribution worthy to lie beside theirs upon the altar of man's faith.