Friday, June 29, 1923. Poincaré replies, The Tribune notices the Klan, Harding in Montana.

Replying to the Pope's letter of earlier that week, but not naming him by name, French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré stated in a speech in the French Senate "the only screw that we have on Germany is her desire to recover the Ruhr. We have no thought of annexation, and we energetically refute all accusations of imperialism. France does not wish to confiscate the Ruhr. We will keep it, however, until Germany has paid her debt."

The Tribune finally got around to reporting on recent events in Glenrock.

Preisdent Harding visited Butte and Helena Montana, delivering this speech in Helena:

My Countrymen:

One of the greatest lessons which the World War taught to society was a realization of its stupendous producing capacity under modern organization. When the war started many of us, probably most of us, believed it could not last very long because we could not conceive that it could be economically and industrially supported for a long time. We had been taught to believe that as a whole the community annually consumed pretty nearly all that it produced, and that in order to maintain this ratio it was necessary to keep all the producers steadily at work. We were convinced that when the most efficient producers were taken by millions away from the fields, the shops, the mines, and the offices, and set at the business of armed destruction, they would very presently pull down upon themselves the whole fabric of our complex industrial system, and that the war would be smothered in the ruins. This view was the basis of what became almost an obsession with many people, indeed with most of the best informed people, during the early stages of the war. It was commonly and freely said that economic exhaustion would compel an end to the struggle before a year, and a much more popular limitation was six months.

The event showed how very little we understood either the tremendous producing capacity of the community as a whole or the strength and solidity of our industrial structure. When the first year of the war had passed, the world was just beginning to realize that in all probability the struggle was only in its larger beginning. Millions of men had been called from the fields, and yet still other men were being trained for it. At the end of two years the war was greater than ever, and after three years it had still further expanded until it actually involved, whether as combatants or as the sources of supply for the combatants, the whole world. The industrial, the agricultural, the financial, the social, and spiritual forces of the world were mobilized at last for the great final test of strength. In the end that test was both military and economic. Victory rested upon the banners which were borne by the side that represented the greatest number of soldiers, of ships, of guns; which represented the greatest capacity to bring together, control, and fabricate the necessaries of war and to maintain great civil populations behind the lines.

It became very early a war of conscription. Governments conscripted their men for service in the field; patriotism and public opinion conscripted everybody else for work at home. A new system of division and dilution of labor was introduced through which men and women, boys and girls, old men and old women—millions of people who under the old order of peace days had been rejected from the realm of skilled production—were quickly trained to the most intricate and technical tasks. So, in the midst of the most destructive storm that mankind had ever invoked upon itself, there was presented the marvelous phenomenon of a world producing at a greater rate than it had ever done before.

How was this gigantic industrial phenomenon wrought? By putting everybody at work. By inducing everybody to work to the limit of strength and capacity. By paying the workers at rates which enlisted their utmost eagerness to produce to the limit. Yes, if you please, by letting labor and capital and management all engage more or less in profiteering at the expense of society as a whole. Unheard-of wages were paid to people who in other times would have been considered quite incapable of earning them, but who, under the stimulus of the emergency, became effective and absolutely necessary factors in the industrial organization. Particularly was this true of the women, young and old, who took up tasks in the shop, the field, the transportation systems, and behind the lines of combatants, such as had never before been assigned to them. And the women made good so emphatically, so impressively, that as to-day we look over the whole field of the world mobilization and the world conflict we realize that something very much like a revolution was effected in the varied relationships of the industrial community.

Viewed in the retrospect we see more clearly than ever the sordid side, of war. I have said before, and I choose to repeat it very deliberately now, that if war must come again—God grant that it shall not!—then we must draft all of the nation in carrying on. It is not enough to draft the young manhood. It is not enough to accept the voluntary service of both women and men whose patriotic devotion impels their enlistment. It will be righteous and just, it will be more effective in war and marked by less regret in the aftermath, if we draft all of capital, all of industry, all of agriculture, all of commerce, all of talent and capacity and energy of every description to make the supreme and united and unselfish fight for the national triumph. When we do that there will be less of war. When we do that the contest will be aglow with unsullied patriotism, untouched by profiteering in any service.

Of course, we are striving to make conditions of foreign relations and so fashion our policies that we may never be involved in war again. If we are committed to universal service—that is, the universal commitment of every American resource and activity—without compensation except the consciousness of service and the exaltations in victory, we will be slower to make war and more swift in bringing it to a triumphant dose. Let us never again make draft on our manhood without as exacting a draft on all we possess in the making of the industrial, financial, commercial, and spiritual life of the republic.

If we had been in a state of mind to philosophize about it all, I think we might have recognized that women have been for a long time preparing themselves for this tremendous incursion into the field of industrial production. For a long time before the war began there had been evidence of a reaction among the women against the old ideals of the Victorian period. For three or four decades, the more venturesome women had been timidly breaking away from the old-fashioned home and its old-fashioned ideals. Even those who viewed the new-woman movement with greatest misgiving and least approval had already been compelled to recognize that a new and revolutionary idea was taking possession of them. We might iterate and reiterate, and theorize and dogmatize, upon the old thesis that the place for woman was in the home; but we will have to admit that despite all our preachments, all our urgings, all our misgivings, woman wasn't staying there. She was teaching in the schools, she was accounting for perhaps a majority of the graduates from the high schools, and a big and increasing minority of the student community in the colleges and universities. She was practicing law and medicine, preaching sermons, working in the shops, the offices, the factories; she was, in short, becoming a competitor with her brother in almost all the departments of productive effort and activity.

Then came the war, and all at once even the most dubious among us realized that the women, everywhere, constituted the first line of industrial reserves upon which society must fall back in its great crisis. They volunteered for every service in which they could be useful, and at once established their right to a new and more important industrial status. They built ships, they operated munition factories, they learned to perform the heaviest and most difficult tasks; they tilled the fields, filled the offices, largely conducted the hospitals, and even served as most useful auxiliaries to forces on the battlefield. Not as a boon, but as a duty, full partnership in the conduct of political affairs was conferred upon them.

All this has inevitably worked a profound change in the relation of woman to the social and political organization. We may approve it or disapprove it, we may view it with satisfaction or with misgiving, but the fact is before us that woman has taken a new place in the community. And just as her participation in the industrial sphere expands, so her relations to the home and its interest is necessarily contracted. Whether we account it wise or otherwise, we must recognize that the tendency is to take the modern mother more and more away from the control, the training, the intellectual guidance and spiritual direction of her children. The day nursery, and after that the kindergarten begins to care for her children in the earliest years; after that come the public school, the high school, the college and the university, taking over from her more and more of the responsibility and influence over the children. We may entertain the old-fashioned prejudices against this development; but we are compelled to recognize that under modem conditions a large and increasing proportion of women are bound to be at the same time mothers in the home and industrial producers or professional workers outside the home, or else they must be denied the service and responsibility of motherhood.

Frankly, I am one of those old-fashioned people who would be glad if the way could be found to maintain the traditional relations of father, mother, children, and home. But very plainly these relations are in process of a great modification. The most we can do, to the utmost possible extent, is to readapt our conditions of industry and of living so as to enable the mothers to make the utmost of their lessened opportunity for shaping the lives and minds of their children. We must hope, and we must make it possible, that mothers will not assume, when their babes of yesterday become the schoolboys and schoolgirls of to-day, that the responsibility of the mother is ended, and that the teacher, the school authorities, the college, the state, will henceforth assume it. Rather, we must recognize that no other influence can possibly be substituted for that of motherhood; and we must make it possible for the mothers to cooperate with these social institutions of the new order, to give the children so far as possible the privileges of a home atmosphere which will supplement the advantages of mere education and training. It must be made possible for the mothers to familiarize themselves with the problems of the people, the school superintendents, the college authorities, the health and sanitation officials. In short, the mothers must be placed in such position that despite their obligations outside the home they shall not have to surrender their domestic responsibility. Rather, means must be found to enable them, through the varied instrumentalities which, society affords, to equip themselves for the better discharge of their responsibility toward the children of the land.

Through such effort as this there will be opportunity for a great service. Those mothers who have the advantage of the best material and intellectual opportunities will, if they make the most of these advantages, help greatly to improve the conditions of children that come from families and homes less fortunately situated. They will be able to help in lifting up the poorer, the less fortunate children, to a higher level. The mother who tirelessly seeks rightly to train her own children, to instill into them that indefinable essence which we know as good breeding, will be performing this service not alone for her own children, but in only less measure for the children who come from homes less blessed with the finer things of life. Herein is the supreme advantage of the public-school system. I have never been able to find much satisfaction in die good fortune of families who, when they are able to do it, prefer to take their children out of the public schools and give them the doubtful advantage of more exclusive educational methods. I think we should cling to the democracy of the public schools.

The teacher, and the authorities back of her, must be equally ready to cooperate with the home and the mother. In the home must still be performed the duty of instilling into the child those fundamental concepts of religion and of faith which are essential to rightly shaping the character of citizens, and therefore of the nation. It would be an irreparable mistake if in surrendering to society a larger responsibility for the child's intellectual and physical well being, we should forget the necessity for proper religious training. That duty must be performed in the home; it will always be peculiarly the duly of a mother.

Mankind never has stood more in need than it does now of the consolations and reassurances which derive from a firm religious faith. We are living in a time of many uncertainties, of weakened faith in the efficiency of institutions, of industrial systems, of economic hypotheses, of dictum and dogma in whatever sphere. Yet we all know that there are certain fundamental truths of life and duty and destiny which will stand eternal, through the evolution and the revolution of systems and societies founded by mankind. There must be no mistake whereby we shall confuse the things which are of eternity with those which are of time. We must not let our engrossment with the things of matter and of mind distract us from a proper concern for those which are of the spirit and the soul.

It must be kept ever in mind that the higher and finer attributes of humanity will rarely be developed from a human seedling planted in a soil adapted chiefly to the production of that which is selfish and sordid, in which it will be forced by special circumstances to struggle unduly for the bare continuance of existence. We will not grow strong minds in unsound bodies, nor may we hope that illuminated souls will often seek habitation in human frames weakened and tortured by disease and malnutrition. To an astounding and alarming certainty it has been demonstrated that a large proportion of school children, and even of adults, suffer from undernourishment. I may congratulate you that there is little of it in the West. Perhaps it is true that as to most of the adults the fault is of the individual rather than society. Whether that be true or not we can at least agree that the children are not to be blamed for their share in such misfortunes. If society has permitted the development of a system under which the citizens, of to-morrow suffer these deprivations to-day, then the obligation is surely upon society to right the wrong and to insure justice to the children who are not responsible for being here.

But we can not expect to bring full justice, full equality of circumstances and opportunity to the children, unless we shall make it possible for the parents. We are all too much given, I suspect, to a rather unthinking admiration for our highly mechanized social system under which we have so abundantly produced wealth and the possibilities of comfort and culture. We have not thought enough about the evils attendant upon the great inequities which mark the distribution of our stupendous product. But we are coming into a time when more and more we are giving thought to these things. Our satisfaction in the material achievements of our industrial age is being qualified as it never was before by our questionings along these lines. We are thinking of the weaker links in the social chain. We believe the equality of opportunity must be attended by a fitness to embrace it.

Here, again, the war was responsible for a great broadening of our social vision. It made its demand upon the highest and the lowest, the proudest and the humblest. It demanded a sacrifice that was just as great in the case of the poor man as the rich man. What was more, it brought a realization of the fact that men and women were of real service to the community just in proportion as they were capable of producing the things that were needed. So the workers, the builders, the producers attained a new sense of their dignity and importance. Contemplating its supreme crisis, the community was willing to render to those who were capable of serving it effectively in this juncture a greater share of their product than they had formerly been accustomed to receive. Wages, the world over, went to new high levels, salaries and fixed incomes shrank to lower levels of actual exchange value. There was a leveling up from the lower strata and downward from the higher. On the whole, despite many instances of injustice and of maladjustment in this process, its results marked a long advance on the road to equity and justice as among all elements of the community. A few years of civilization's desperate grapple with destiny brought to the working masses of the world an aggregate betterment of conditions, a general improvement of circumstances and opportunity, which otherwise would, have been possible only through the slow processes of generations.

We know now that the advances which were thus effected in the direction of social justice and economic equality will not be relinquished without determined opposition. There were those who, regarding the injustices of the old order as inevitable, mistakenly assumed that by a simple process which they called the "deflation of labor" the old relationships would presently be restored. They insisted that "wages must come down"; some of them went so far as to sound the slogan that "organized labor must be crushed." These have forgotten the lesson in organization, in cooperation, in community of sacrifice, by which civilization had been able to rescue itself. They had forgotten that the right of organization, and of cooperative dealings, is not any longer the special prerogative of management and of capital. The right of men, and brains, and skill, and brawn, to organize, to bargain through organizations, to select their own leaders and spokesmen, is no wit less absolute than is the right of management and of capital to form and work through those great concentrations of interests which we call corporations.

Labor, indeed, is fast becoming one of the great builders of capital. Whether it concentrates its savings by depositing them in its own banks, of which the number is rapidly increasing, or pools them with the general savings of society by making its deposits in other banks, the result is the same. Labor is more and more coming to be the financier and backer of its own employment. We shall not go back to the time when considerable elements in the community were wont to assume that a sharp line of demarcation should be drawn between labor and capital. Labor is becoming more and more a capitalist on its own account, and capital is more and more discovering that it must work, must contribute, must give us, through some superiority of method and management, a justification for its existence as a sort of separate estate. Those to whom the management and investment of capital is intrusted must recognize, as I know most of them already do, that the right of organization, and the title to those special efficiencies which come to organization, is not the exclusive prerogative of capital. It is equally the prerogative of labor.

I am quite aware that there were some who imagined, before the present administration was voted into responsibility, that it was going at least to acquiesce if not definitely sympathize with projects for the deflation of labor and the overthrow of labor organizations. Before this time these have come to realize their error. Nothing has been farther from the purpose of the present administration than any thought of destroying the right of either labor or capital to organize, and each to deal in its organized capacity.

We have recognized that there are evils and abuses on both sides of the almost imaginary line which now is presumed to separate labor and capital. We have wished and sought to minimize these abuses, through better organizations and better understanding, without destroying organizations or the right to form them. We have not wished to compel men to work when they did not want to work; we have not wished to compel employers to keep men at work under conditions which were impossible; but we have earnestly sought to lessen the occasions for conflict between the two parties. We have tried to bring to both of them a realization that both owed in this connection an obligation to the great public interest which is always the great sufferer by reason of their conflict.

In this connection let me say quite frankly that I know there were some elements which hoped for a great and decisive conflict between organized employment and organized labor, and that those elements were not all on either side of the imaginary dividing line. On the capital side of the line were those who hoped that the administration would lend itself to their program of breaking down organized labor and sending it back to the era of individual bargaining for the individual job. On the labor side of the line were those who hoped, by exorbitant demands and an attitude of uncompromising insistence, to force the nationalization of some of our most important industries and services. Between these two extreme groups, confident we had behind us the overwhelming public opinion of the nation, we have tried to hold the scales even; to prevent on the one side the destruction of organized labor, and on the other side to frustrate those programs which looked to the ultimate destruction of private capital and the nationalization of all the instrumentalities of production.

How well have we succeeded? At least, we have saved the nation from the extremists of both sides. Those who were sure that our salvation lay in the destruction of organized labor and the precipitated reduction of wages have found -that the national administration was not disposed to Acquiesce in their program. For many months past they have noted that the demand for labor was greater than the supply; that instead of millions of men out of jobs, there were tens of thousands of jobs without workers; that instead of a sharp and progressive reduction of labor's wage, there has been now for a long time a steady; continuing, persistent increase in that wage. On the other side, those who would have been glad to drive the country into an industrial crisis through the stoppage of production, arid to force the nationalization or communization of industry, have been equally disappointed in the outcome.

I believe our policy, and its results, have reflected the sound judgment of the overwhelming majority of the American people. I believe this people is firmly and finally committed to the ideal of preserving the fullest rights of private initiative and private enterprise, together with the right of organization on both sides of the line between capital and labor, and always consistent with the right of the public to be served efficiently and at a reasonable cost.

We have come thus far, and thus fortunately, through the most difficult period of reconstruction that we have ever known. We have been sheltered against the world storm of tendency to social revolution. The best test of policy is by results. By that test, we ask no more than a fair and reasoned verdict on our program; We ask that its results be compared with the showing, in these after-war years, that can be presented by any other country on the face of the earth. We ask that you examine the contrast, thoughtfully and seriously, between the general state of the public weal in this country and in others. For our vindication, we point to a great nation, its credit preserved, its industries crowded to the point of capacity production, its people employed, its wage scales high beyond all comparison with any other in the world, its banking system standing as the final bulwark of sound money and the gold standard, and its average level of comfort and prosperity unexampled among the races of men.

If I could make the fortunate picture stand out by offering contrast, I would speak of Russia and the colossal failure of its mad experiment. The dissatisfied working forces of America, where there are such, and the parlor theorists who have yet to create a single, thing useful to aspiring human kind, will find there less of freedom, much less of reward, and little of hope in much proclaimed emancipation. Royal absolutism has been destroyed, only to be superseded by what appears to be despotism in the name of democracy. To a limited few of democracy's advocates has come vast power. Perhaps wealth attends. Undoubtedly a new Russia is in the making, and there is no doubt the present sponsorship will survive.

Apart from the tragedy of it all, I am glad Russia is making the experiment. If twenty centuries of the Christian era and its great story of human progress and the countless centuries before the light of Christianity flamed have been lived and recorded upon mistaken theories of a righteous social order, then everything is wrong, Christianity a failure, and all of civilization a failure. I think Russia is going to rivet anew our belief in established social order. Meanwhile we know ours is the best the world has revealed, and I preach the gospel of holding fast to that which has proven good, ever trying in good conscience to make it better, and consider and treat as an enemy every man who chooses our land as a haven in which to assail the very institutions which shelter him.

There are two phases of the commitment of the great human family.

It is of little use to advance unless we hold to the advanced position. It is useless to construct unless we preserve. In the recognized test which our civilization is now undergoing America's supreme task is one of preservation. I call upon America to protect and preserve.

His rail route took him through Idaho from Utah the prior day, so this was an example, really of extensive backtracking.

Thursday, March 15, 1923. Life on the prairie, snow in Omaha, German offer.

Life on Montana's prairie detailed.

Omaha, Nebraska endured a significant snowstorm, receiving 13" of snow.  That doesn't seem like a lot, but its still recorded as one of Omaha's biggest snowstorms.

Germany offered France and Belgium 20 billion gold marks to go home.

Saturday, February 27, 1943. Mining disaster in Montana.

"Freedom of Worship", the second in Rockwell's four freedoms illustrations, ran in the Saturday Evening Post along with an essay on the topic by Will Durant.

An explosion and resulting carbon monoxide poisoning killed 74 minders in Montana's Smith Mine No. 3.  The horrible incident remains Montana's worst mining disaster.

The final arrest and expulsion of Jews from Berlin and other large German cities commenced.

The British landed on the island of Herm in the English Channel, but found that it was not occupied.  Because of their landing spot, residents of the island were not aware that their countrymen had landed.

1943  Bishop Count Konrad von Preysing, Catholic Bishop of Berlin, made another in a series of outspoken attacks on Nazi rule. In a pastoral letter issued throughout Germany he protested against totalitarianism, the execution of hostages and the Jewish persecution, stating "It is a Divine principle that the life of an innocent individual, whether an unborn child or an aged person, is sacred, and that the innocent shall not be punished with the guilty, or in place of the guilty. Neither the individual nor the community can create a law against this."  Bishop von Preysing had gone on record early about his opinions on the Nazis, having declared "We have fallen into the hands of criminals and fools" when they came to power, and in 1940 he'd ordered that prayers be said throughout his diocese for arrested Lutheran ministers.  He'd later go on to decry the German Communist postwar who declared that he was an "agent" of "American Imperialism".  He died in 1950.

Lex Anteinternet: The 2023 Wyoming, and Montana, Legislative Session. When Freedom can be another name for things you'll lose.

We noted an item yesterday on this thread about Big Sky Country:

Lex Anteinternet: The 2023 Wyoming Legislative Session. The Waking ...: June 18, 2022 Oh no . . . isn't this a bit early? Why yes, but we already have bills circulating, including Wyoming Stablecoin, again. W...

That being:

January 9, 2023

Montana's far right legislators have also formed their own Freedom Caucus.

A comment on this story on Montana Public Radio states:

"Farm subsidies up to $4 million. PPP up to $443,906.09. There are 6 out of 14 Montana Freedom Caucus members receiving subsidies." --From reporter @TomLutey on Twitter:

This doesn't surprise me at all.

For some reason, hardly anyone recognizes their own subsidies as existent.  

In the west, we hardly grasp this at all.  Coal is mined on the public domain subject to a leasing law that favors exploration, and whether that's recognized as a subsidiary or not, it is.  The same with oil and gas production.

And highway construction?  That's subsidized by the Federal Government and, further, is basically a subsidy for the trucking industry (and the tourist industry).  But for that, Americans would ship, and to a surprising extent, travel by rail.

We could go on, but we've noted this all before.  Basically, people don't think these things are subsidies as it doesn't fit their Weltanschauung, which doesn't mean that they aren't subsidies.

Monday, August 28, 1922. The dawn of electronic advertising.

A.C.M. Co. Mill, Bonner Montana.  Copyright deposit, August 28, 1922

WEAF in New York City, a radio station owned by Western Electric, which itself was a subsidary of AT&T, ran the first radio commercial.  

The audio ad was for the newly opened Queensboro Apartments in Jackson Heights and ran for fifteen minutes.

The military funeral of Michael Collins was held.  It had massive public turnout.

The terrible mine disaster in California hit the front page of the Casper newspaper.

Prohibition's prospects in Sweden and Mexico were also noted.

Unusually casually dressed man photographed on this day in front of a Navy seaplane.

.

Horse on this day at the Washington Animal Rescue.

Treasury watchtower, photographed on this day.

Page 8 of the same newspaper noted above was advertising suits for boys now that school was back in session.

It'd be a rare kid who'd dress like that at school today.  For that matter, nobody would have dressed like that when I was a kid.

The same page was advertising housing to the refinery workers next to the refinery.

See Ben Realty continued to exist up until just a few years ago.

 

A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.

Jeanette Rankin,  born 1880 in Missoula, Montana, died 1973 Carmel, California.  First Congresional campaign, 1916.  Last considered campaign, 1972.

Her opposition to war twice cut her political career short, and causes her to be remembered as a heroic figure today.

Elizabeth Cheney, born 1966, Madison Wisconsin.  Her opposition the January 6 insurrection cut her career as Wyoming short, or so it seems right now.

 

Yellowstone. A really radical idea.

A really radical idea that won't happen, but maybe should.

There have been really horrific floods, as we all know, in Yellowstone National Park. Roads in the northern part of the park may be closed for the rest of the summer.  Here's a National Park Service item on it:

Updates

• Aerial assessments conducted Monday, June 13, by Yellowstone National Park show major damage to multiple sections of road between the North Entrance (Gardiner, Montana), Mammoth Hot Springs, Lamar Valley and Cooke City, Montana, near the Northeast Entrance.
• Many sections of road in these areas are completely gone and will require substantial time and effort to reconstruct.
• The National Park Service will make every effort to repair these roads as soon as possible; however, it is probable that road sections in northern Yellowstone will not reopen this season due to the time required for repairs.
• To prevent visitors from being stranded in the park if conditions worsen, the park in coordination with Yellowstone National Park Lodges made the decision to have all visitors move out of overnight accommodations (lodging and campgrounds) and exit the park.
• All entrances to Yellowstone National Park remain temporarily CLOSED while the park waits for flood waters to recede and can conduct evaluations on roads, bridges and wastewater treatment facilities to ensure visitor and employee safety.
• There will be no inbound visitor traffic at any of the five entrances into the park, including visitors with lodging and camping reservations, until conditions improve and park infrastructure is evaluated.
• The park’s southern loop appears to be less impacted than the northern roads and teams will assess damage to determine when opening of the southern loop is feasible. This closure will extend minimally through next weekend (June 19).
• Due to the northern loop being unavailable for visitors, the park is analyzing how many visitors can safely visit the southern loop once it’s safe to reopen. This will likely mean implementation of some type of temporary reservation system to prevent gridlock and reduce impacts on park infrastructure.
• At this time, there are no known injuries nor deaths to have occurred in the park as a result of the unprecedented flooding. 
• Effective immediately, Yellowstone’s backcountry is temporarily closed while crews assist campers (five known groups in the northern range) and assess damage to backcountry campsites, trails and bridges.
• The National Park Service, surrounding counties and states of Montana and Wyoming are working with the park’s gateway communities to evaluate flooding impacts and provide immediate support to residents and visitors.
• Water levels are expected to recede today in the afternoon; however, additional flood events are possible through this weekend.

Here's an idea.

Don't rebuild the roads.

For years, there have been complaints about how overcrowded Yellowstone National Park has become.  A combination of a tourist economy and high mobility, and frankly the American inability to grasp that the country has become overpopulated, had contributed to that.  For years there have been suggestions that something needed to be done about that.

Maybe what is needed is. .. nothing.

Well, nothing now, so to speak.

Yellowstone was the nation's first National Park.  It was created at a time when park concepts, quite frankly, were different from they are now.   Created in 1872, its establishment was in fact visionary, and it did grasp in part that the nation's frontier was closing, even though the creation of the park came a fully four years prior to the Battle of Little Big Horn.  There was, at the time of its creation, a sort of lamentation that the end of the Frontier was in sight, and the nation was going to become one of farms and cities.

Nobody saw cities like they exist now, however, and nobody grasped that the day would come when agricultural land would be the province of the rich, and that homesteading would go from a sort of desperate act to something that people would cite to, in the case of their ancestors, as some sort of basis for moral superiority.  Things are much different today than they were then.

Indeed, in some ways, the way the park is viewed is a bit bipolar.  To some, particularly those willing to really rough it, Yellowstone is a sort of giant wilderness area.  To others, it's a sort of theme park. 

The appreciation of the need to preserve wilderness existed then, but what that meant wasn't really understood.  The park was very much wilderness at first, and some things associated with wilderness went on within it, and of course still do.  Early camping parties travelled there.  People fished there, and still do.  Hunting was prohibited early on, which had more to do with the 19th Century decline in wildlife due to market hunting than it did anything else.  This has preserved a sort of bipolarism in and of itself, as fishing is fish-hunting, just as bird hunting is fowling. There's no reason in fact that Yellowstone should have not been opened back up to hunting some time during the last quarter-century, but it is not as just as the park is wilderness to young adventurers from the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander, and hearty back country folks of all ages, it's also a big public zoo for people from Newark or Taipei.  

Since 1872, all sorts of additional parks have been created. Some are on the Yellowstone model, such as Yosemite.  Others are historical sites such as Gettysburg or Ft. Laramie.  All, or certainly all that I've seen, are of value.

But they don't all have the same value.

Much of Yellowstone's value is in its rugged wilderness.  Some cite to the geothermal features of the park, but that's only a small portion of it.  And for that reason, much of Yellowstone today would make more sense existing as a Wilderness Area under the Wilderness Act of 1964, the act that helps preserve the west in a very real way, and which western politicians, who often live lives much different than actual westerners, love to hate.

A chance exists here to bring back Yellowstone into that mold, which it was intended in part to be fro the very onset, and which many wish it was, or imagine it to be, today.

Don't rebuilt the roads.

That would in fact mean the northern part of the park would revert to wilderness, truly.  And it means that many fewer people would go to the park in general.  And it would hurt the tourist communities in the northern areas, and even in the southern areas, as the diminished access to the park would mean that the motorized brigade of American and International tourists wouldn't go there, as they wouldn't want to be too far from their air-conditioned vehicles.

But that's exactly what should be done.

Friday August 29, 1941. Shifting sands

On this day in 1941, Charles Lindbergh at a rally of the American First Committee in Oklahoma City warned the audience that the United Kingdom might turn against the US "as she had turned against France and Finland". 

Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana.

Lindbergh was backed up by Montana Senator Burton K. Wheeler who counseled that "If our interventionist want to free a country from the domination of another country, we ought to declare war on Great Britain and free India.  I have never seen such slavery as I saw in India a few years ago".

Wheeler was an outspoken left wing Democrat who had at one time crossed over to the Progressive Party and then back.  He opposed entry to the war right up until December 7, 1941 and was instrumental in the leaking of US plans to aid the British prior to the war, which went to press on December 4, 1941.  His isolationist stances caused him to suffer defeat in the first Montana election in which he was up after December 7, and he never returned to politics. A lawyer by training, he returned to practicing law and defended Max Lowenthal in front of the House Committee On Un American Affairs in the 1950s.  He's an example of how opposition to entry into the war was not, as sometimes imagined, politically uniform.

The rally itself was not well received by the public, and polls started increasingly swinging towards the Administration's interventionist policies.

Speaking of Finland, the Finns retook Viipuri.  Not forever of course, its Vyborg, Russia.

Flag for the city of Vybork, in the Leningrad Oblast.

The city did have a Finnish population at the time, but its entire population was evacuated in 1944 with the collapse of the Eastern Front.  It is, therefore, an example today of the massive population disruption brought on by the Second World War.

Finnish victory parade, August 31, 1941.

In Serbia, the puppet collaborationist Government of National Salvation commenced control of the country.

Vichy authorities arrested American journalist Varian Fry.  Fry was running an underground railroad effort helping Jews escape from France and to the United States, using Spain and Portugal as conduits.  He'd be expelled from the country.

Arthur McFadden became Australian Prime Minister in a coalition government.  He was a member of the minority Country Party.  The National Country Party, the "Nats" is a center right party that's strongest in rural areas and which has a focus on agrarian issues.

April 19, 1941. National Service.

 The British passed their second National Conscription Act on this day in 1941.

An act passed the day after the German invasion of Poland created military conscription for all men who had obtained 18 years of age and who were not yet 42, meaning that Britain was including some men who had be liable to conscription in World War One, during which the conscription age eventually went up to age 50.  Exemptions were made for war work and health.  Keep in mind, however, that being liable for service did not necessarily mean that a person would be called up.

The second conscription act required men up to 60s years of age to perform some war service, which included military service for men up to 51 years of age.  It lifted the exemption for men under 20 years of age for foreign service.  And it made unmarried women without children between the ages of 20 and 30 liable for war service at home, other than military service.

On the same day London suffered a heavy bombing raid.

A research from Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana was photographed on this day flagging for ticks.

Towns and Nature: Decker, MT: Decker Coal Mine is Closing and Spring...

Towns and Nature: Decker, MT: Decker Coal Mine is Closing and Spring...: ( Satellite ) Feb 5, 2021:  Montana coal mine closes amid decline in demand It is not unusual to read about coal mines in the high-sulfur Il...

Pendley Ousted

On Saturday's, among other things, I try to post stuff outdoorsy.

Ideally, try to go do something outdoorsy, but due to one thing or another, I don't always manage that.  Anyhow, given that it is a Saturday, this story, which is just breaking, is sort of fitting.

Followers of the Trump Administration who really look at it,  not just the superficial top of the news cycle stuff, tend to find that its difficult to reconcile the headlines with actions in any one area, and indeed, the Administration is quite balkanized in regard to anyone topic.  Followers of the Supreme Court, for example, have to be impressed by the line of judges appointed by the Trump Administration even if they're in the camp that's shrill about the the appointments for ideological reasons.  Indeed, overall the Administration has been amazingly efficient at appointing judges, and quality judges at that.

Businessmen I know have tended to be impressed by the roll back in regulations, something perhaps no other administration has been able to do to the same degree.  Followers of Middle East diplomacy have been impressed by matters involving Israel while simultaneously baffled by the US's relationship with Russia and Turkey.  Those following the pandemic have tended to be angered by the lack of a seeming theme to the national approach to that, something that the President is likely to pay for in November.

All this stands aside and apart from simply reacting to Trump and his statements, in any form, themselves.

One area in which conservationist could generally take heart is that his appointments in regard to public lands have been good. They've kept the lands in Federal hands, which means keeping them open to the public, something that has gone in opposition to the expressed desires of regional politicians even though it matters enormously to the region's residents.

And then there was the appointment of William Perry Pendley.

William Perry Pendley

Pendley is a University of Wyoming College of Law graduate who has made a career that's been, in at least some instances, hostile to public lands agencies and who has associated with wanting them to be transferred to the states, something strongly opposed by the region's residents.  When he was appointed regional residents concerned with this issue gasped.*  Pendley insisted that as head of the agency he would represent the views of the Administration, which have not supported such a transfer, but area residents never felt easy about his appointment.

Apparently the Senate didn't either, probably reflecting the views of area residents as well as national views, as they didn't confirm Pendley.  He remained in as a temporary head but this lead to a suit by Montana's Governor, Steve Bullock, a Democrat who is currently running for the Senate.  Bullock is challenging incumbent Steve Daines.  Even though outsiders frequently confuse Montana and Wyoming, their politics are radically different and the Democratic Party has remained viable in Montana, whereas its on life support in Wyoming.

Steve Daines

Pendley's appointment was in fact hurting Daines who is struggling to retain his seat against Bullock, who started off the election season attempting to run for the Oval Office. Bullock's effort there fell flat, but it hasn't against Daines.

Montana's politics remain much more centrist than Wyoming's and may be described as center left, something that's been attributed to immigration into the state but which in fact has always characterized its politics.  Montana sent Jeanette Ranking to the Senate twice, giving Montana the unique status of having the nation's only Senator to vote "No" to entering World War One and World War Two.  Montana's rank and file out in the sticks voters tend to have the same "I don't care what you do as long as you leave me alone" view that Wyoming's native voters do as well, which actually favors the center left if the parties are listening, as long as those candidates are opposed to gun control.  They also need to be strongly in favor of public lands.  Outsiders describe Montana as "deep Red", but they're wrong.

Daines is in real trouble and has recently been attempting to boost his outdoor creds in legislation, but more than one Montana news outlet isn't buying it.  Pendley's presence wasn't helping and back in August President Trump withdrew his nomination in an effort to help Daines get reelected.

And Cory Gardner.

Cory Gardner.

Gardner is a Senator from Colorado who is in huge trouble.  The one term Senator is behind former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper in the polls.  Colorado hasn't been reliably Republican, in spite of what the press says, for a long time, and while there's a ways to go and the race is close, Gardner is likely to go down in defeat.

The Federal Court ruling last week that Pendley had to go, ousting him, gives Bullock a victory. So the irony is that while Trump moved to replace Pendley to help Gardner and Daines, it likely places Bullock a bit up in a race in which he very well might be part of a Democratic wave that flips the Senate and which Gardner appears likely to lose.  Holding on to the public lands, in Federal hands, is a big deal in Montana, like Wyoming, and while Bullock holds center left views on many things, on the regional core issues, like gun control, he's right of center.

The Department of the Interior expressed "outrage" and promised to appeal immediately.  Be that as it may, it appears Pendley's days are up and there's no earthly way that an appeals court will handle this by the election.  Chances are it'll stay the order, but that can't be guaranteed.

And there's a lesson here even in Wyoming, where there's been no reversal of opinions on the administration.  Pendley's appointment caused stress here among public lands users and it can't be said that the nomination was popular.  The GOP has been slipping into internecine conflict in a way that's breaking open in the public, and the Democratic Party is fielding, for the first time in years, candidates for the Senate and House which, while they won't win, can't be simply dismissed.  The Trump administration dropped the ball on this one by nominating Pendley in the first place as he could only engender animosity and those whose views he championed didn't need a champion in the first place.  Indeed, their keeping views a bit quiet would have been a better approach.  Failing to pick up that fumbled ball left it in play, and now the Democrats have successfully picked it up.

Not that the Administration can be fully blamed.  Wyoming's senior political leadership at the national level has taken a position that's the opposite of the public's wishes here and an active element of the local GOP has as well.  When this breaks out in the legislature it provokes massive reaction from locals, but at a national level, that probably wasn't obvious.  It probably won't become obvious until local politicians start to pay the price. They already are, in fact, but it's not apparent for some reason. Hard right GOP candidates didn't win the state house in the 2018 Gubernatorial election here and concern over issues like this is part of the reason why.  Now Daines and Gardner appear set to pay the price in November.  Jason Chaffetz already paid the price in Utah, leaving office without running for election in 2018.

__________________________________________________________________________________

*Pendley's also another strange example of the Boomers retention of power.  He's currently 75 years old

July 31, 1920. Sojourns

Bearpaw Mountains, Montana.  July 31, 1920.  Viewing scenes like this before the widespread introduction of the automobile was a fairly involved endeavor.  After the automobile. . . not so much.

The hottest month of the year was coming on, and people were getting out in automobiles, still a new innovation in 1920.

And accordingly still being celebrated on the cover of magazines.

In a hot region of the United States, the U.S. border with Mexico, Laredo, Nuevo Laredo and Ft. McIntosh found themselves being photographed.

Cities of Laredo Texas and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. July 31, 1920.

Fort McIntosh, Texas, 1920.  This post dated to 1849 and was named after a U.S. Army officer of the Mexican War.  It's now part of the Laredo Community College.

At the same time it looked like the Mexican conflict in Lower California was cooling down.

Worried about the male casualty rate of the Great War, France banned every type of contraceptive.  Part of that concern was founded in the fact that France's pre war birth rate was at 2.5 children per woman, which is statistical replacement, not growth. France had slipped below replacement during the war, and it never returned to it, pointing out something that I discussed in another post here earlier this past week.

Communism continued its bloody rise as lands went over to it and others hoped to take lands into it.  Byelorussia saw the formation of a local Communist Party on this day following the recent occupation of Minsk by the Red Army. The Communist Party remains strong there to this day.  In the UK, the Communist Party of Great Britain was formed.  It reached its high water mark in 1946 with 60,000 members, but fell so low that it disbanded in 1991 following the fall of the Soviet Union.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Powder River Congregational United Church of Christ, Fairview Montana

Churches of the West: Powder River Congregational United Church of Chris...:

Powder River Congregational United Church of Christ, Fairview Montana

A contemporary designed church in Fairview, Montana.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Community Presbyterian Church, Fairview Montana

Churches of the West: Community Presbyterian Church, Fairview Montana:

Community Presbyterian Church, Fairview Montana

This is the Community Presbyterian Church in Fairview, Montana. This small Gothic style church in north eastern Montana is just outside of the North Dakota state line.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. David's Catholic Church, Broadus Montana

Churches of the West: St. David's Catholic Church, Broadus Montana:

St. David's Catholic Church, Broadus Montana

These are photos of St. David's Catholic Church in Broadus Montana. The Prairie Gothic style church was built in 1931 and is a mission church of Sacred Heart Church in Miles City.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 26, 2020. The Governor of Montana issues a Stay At Home Order

Today In Wyoming's History: March 26:2020

2020  The Governor of Montana joined other Wyoming neighbors Idaho and
Colorado and issued a shelter in place order for his state.  The press
release on the order stated:

Governor Bullock Issues Stay at Home Directive to Slow the Spread of COVID-19

Directive asks Montanans to stay home to maximum extent possible except for
essential activities, temporarily restricts all nonessential businesses
and operations

MONTANA
– Governor Steve Bullock today issued a Directive requiring Montanans to stay home and temporarily closes all nonessential businesses and operations to curtail the spread of COVID-19. The order, which goes into effect at 12:01 a.m. on March 28, will buy time for health care workers on the front lines and seeks to limit long term impacts to the state’s economy.

“In consultation with public health experts, health care providers, and emergency management professionals, I have determined that to protect public health and human safety, it is essential, to the maximum extent possible, individuals stay at home or at their place of residence,” said Governor Bullock. “There’s no doubt that COVID-19 is causing a lot of hardship. It’s also causing incredible hardships for our front line doctors, nurses and other hospital staff across the country.”

The Directive will be in effect through Friday, April 10 and requires all businesses and operations in Montana, except for essential businesses and operations as defined in the directive, to stop all activities within the state.

The Directive also prohibits all public and private gatherings of any number of people occurring outside a household or place of residence.

Here’s the guide Gov. Bullock talked about concerning essential services.

“I am taking these measures today because we need to stay in front of this pandemic and slow the growth of infections. In order to have a healthy economy we need a healthy population. We cannot rebuild our economic strength without doing everything we can now to flatten the curve and slow the spread of this virus,” continued Governor Bullock.

Essential services and businesses will remain operational and open. Businesses deemed essential are required to comply with social distancing guidelines when possible including maintaining six feet of distance, having sanitizing products available, and designating hours of operation specifically for vulnerable populations.

Under the directive, Montanans may leave their homes for essential activities, including:

• For health and safety. To engage in activities or perform tasks essential  to their health and safety, or to the health and safety of their family  or household members (including, but not limited to, pets), such as, by  way of example only and without limitation, seeking emergency services,  obtaining medical supplies or medication, or visiting a health care  professional. 

• For necessary supplies and services. To obtain necessary services or  supplies for themselves and their family or household members, or to  deliver those services or supplies to others, such as, by way of example only and without limitation, groceries and food, household consumer  products, supplies they need to work from home, and products necessary  to maintain the safety, sanitation, and essential operation of  residences 

• For outdoor activity. To engage in outdoor activity, provided the  individuals comply with social distancing, as defined below, such as, by way of example and without limitation, walking, hiking, running, or  biking. Individuals may go to public parks and open outdoor recreation  areas, including public lands in Montana provided they remain open to  recreation. Montanans are discouraged from outdoor recreation activities that pose enhanced risks of injury or could otherwise stress the  ability of local first responders to address the COVID-19 emergency (e.g., backcountry skiing in a manner inconsistent with avalanche recommendations or in closed terrain).

• For certain types of work. To perform work providing essential products and services at Essential Businesses or Operations or to otherwise carry  out activities specifically permitted in this Directive, including  Minimum Basic Operations. 

• To take care of others. To care for a family member, friend, or pet in  another household, and to transport family members, friends, or pets as  allowed by this Directive.

The attached  Directive follows federal guidance to determine the businesses and
operations deemed essential, which are summarized in the Directive and  can also be found here: https://www.cisa.gov/publication/guidance-essential-critical-infrastructure-workforce [cisa.gov].

Businesses with questions can contact a dedicated state line at 1-800-755-6672 and
leave messages 24-hours a day and will receive a prompt response.

November 9, 1919. Edgar S. Paxson died.

On this date in 1919, Edgar S. Paxson, Montana based Western painter, died at age 67.

Paxson was born and grew up in New York, but moved to Montana shortly after marrying.  He remained in Montana the rest of his life and worked as a self taught painter, painting Western themes.  He's best remembered today for his spectacular Custer's Last Stand which is held by the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming.

Paxson volunteered to serve with the Montana National Guard during the Spanish American War. His son Harry had also volunteered to serve.  Paxson was 47 years old at the time.  He jointed as a private but left as a lieutenant, serving in the Philippines.  His wartime service likely shortened his life as he contracted malaria while serving.  It was while convalescing in Butte that he started work on Custer's Last Stand.  During this period of time he designed the triumphal arch that Butte built for its returning veterans of the war.  It was not until this period that Paxson was able to work full time as an artist.

While he is best remembered for Custer's Last Stand, which took a long time to create, he also created a substantial body of work on the Corps of Discovery.  His wife outlived him by twenty years, although Harry, whom he served within the Philippines, did not, having died in a mine electrocution accident some time prior.  He left three other adult children at the time of his death.

While in his 60s at the time, he'd attempted to join the Army again, unsuccessfully, during World War One.

He's less well known today than his contemporaries Russell and Remington, and indeed that was also true during his lifetime.  But he was a major Western artists of his day, and a friend to fellow Montana artist, Charles Russell.

On the dame day, the Chicago Tribune worried about the plight of underpaid college professors.

The cartoon was odd in that it compared them to apparently well off labor, which probably isn't how labor saw things.

And the Army Air Corps, which was responsible for air mail, had acquired a new twin engine aircraft for that purpose, shown here at Bolling Field outside of Washington, D. C.