A public reading of the Declaration of Independence, the first, was made by Col. John Nixon at the Philadelphia State House Yard.
The Liberty Bell was rund.
Last edition:
Milton Hershey, age18, opened his first candy store in Philadelphia after having served a four year apprenticeship in the trade.
Last edition:
The First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry was formed.
A very famous National Guard unit, at one time it was mostly made up members of Philadelphia's social elite. It is still in existence.
The troop was originally called Light Horse of the City of Philadelphia.
Last edition:
The First Prayer of the Continental Congress was delivered.
O Lord our Heavenly Father, high and mighty King of kings, and Lord of lords, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers on earth and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all the Kingdoms, Empires and Governments; look down in mercy, we beseech Thee, on these our American States, who have fled to Thee from the rod of the oppressor and thrown themselves on Thy gracious protection, desiring to be henceforth dependent only on Thee. To Thee have they appealed for the righteousness of their cause; to Thee do they now look up for that countenance and support, which Thou alone canst give. Take them, therefore, Heavenly Father, under Thy nurturing care; give them wisdom in Council and valor in the field; defeat the malicious designs of our cruel adversaries; convince them of the unrighteousness of their Cause and if they persist in their sanguinary purposes, of own unerring justice, sounding in their hearts, constrain them to drop the weapons of war from their unnerved hands in the day of battle!
Be Thou present, O God of wisdom, and direct the councils of this honorable assembly; enable them to settle things on the best and surest foundation. That the scene of blood may be speedily closed; that order, harmony and peace may be effectually restored, and truth and justice, religion and piety, prevail and flourish amongst the people. Preserve the health of their bodies and vigor of their minds; shower down on them and the millions they here represent, such temporal blessings as Thou seest expedient for them in this world and crown them with everlasting glory in the world to come. All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Savior.
Amen.
Reverend Jacob Duché
Rector of Christ Church of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
September 7, 1774, 9 o’clock a.m.
The effect of this opening prayer was profound.
The KKK was in Lilly for one of their ceremonies in a local field and was returning to the station for transport to Johnstown, PA. They did catch the train, and upon arrival at Johnstown they were met with 50 policemen who arrested 25 Klansman and confiscated 50 firearms. The next day, an additional four residents of Lilly were arrested. Twenty-nine people were charged with murder.
Lilly was a mining town, and like most of them it had a strong contingent of Catholic and Orthodox miners, members of ethnicities that the Klan didn't like. A strong UMW union town, the residents weren't cowed by the KKK. A monument to their efforts has been placed in the town in recent years.
Locally, there were concerns about spring floods. And the flight around the globe was suffering delays.
The Greek government ratified the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations, following the Turkish ratification two days prior.
1.5 million Orthodox Christians from Turkey were accordingly involuntarily sent to Greece and 500,000 Greek Muslims involuntarily sent to Turkey.
Violence broke out in Carnegie Pennsylvania when 10,000 Ku Klux Klansman held a rally on a nearby hill and moved towards the heavily Catholic town. Town residents threw rocks and ultimately a Klansman was shot dead.
Sometimes missed, the Klan was not only racist, but nativist, and anti-Catholic.
Germany put workers on the gold basis rate in an attempt to stem inflation.
The government was trying to stave off coal labor problems again.
And a lecturer declared Woodrow Wilson's idealism too advanced for the world.
This, obviously all male, occupation was exactly what it sounded like. Clerks who took appointments and handled the same. Sort of the equivalent of a secretary/receptionist.
As late as the Second World War, in government service this occupation was a male one. And, as the fine clothing in the photo demonstrates, one that paid a decent living to its occupants.
Indeed, every man here is wearing a three-piece suit of good quality.
Also of note, at least two are smoking cigars, not even taking time out from tobacco consumption to appear without one. When was the last time you were in an office and somebody was smoking a cigar?
A coal mine explosion in Spangler, Pennsylvania, killed 79 miners.
Ali Kemal, age 53, who we mentioned the other day, was lynched on his ways to the gallows by a mob.
By the way, in the long odds category, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is a direct descendant of Ali Kemal. I.e, not a cousin, Kamal is BoJo's Great Grandfather.
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Released this day in 1922.
I don't know that this needed to gone to Part VIII, but the last version was long enough that it was hard to edit. So here we are.
April 25, 2022.
Okay, who the heck is running anyway?
All the press is on this race, and it's all concentrated on the Cheney v. Hageman race. Having said that, it's been quiet for a while.
This is no doubt in part because as time moves on, and more and more is known about the January 6, insurrection, the more quiet rank and file Republicans and independents are likely moving towards Cheney. This might be best summed up by op eds from last Sunday's Trib, which we noted here:
April 24, 2022
Fremont County's Sen. Cale Case, a long time Republican conservative, wrote an Op Ed published in the Tribune today going after the State's Central Committee. He urges Republicans who have left the party to get back in and run for office and precinct positions to reclaim the party.
My prediction is that by the end of the day Case will be branded a "Rino".
Harriet Hageman also has an op ed asserting that her role as an attorney with the New Civil Liberties Alliance in a suit opposing Federally mandated cattle ear tags shows she's advocating for Wyoming, as she has this role while, she asserts, Congressman Cheney has been spending time on the January 6 Committee rather than being on the Resources Committee.
Her point that one represents Wyoming more than the other can fairly obviously be debated on an existensial sense.
Put another way, if a long term Republican is asking Republican traditionalist and moderates to "come back", and the primary contender for Cheney's seat is asserting her role with an organization fighting cattle ear tags vs Cheney's role in the January 6 committee as proof of her better concern for Wyoming, it's sort of telling where things are going.
Republicans for the House:
Liz Cheney. The embattled incumbent.
Harrient Hageman. Hageman, former Cheney supporter and Trump opponent who has switched on both in what Cheney has proclaimed as "tragic opportunism".
Robin Belinsky: Belinsky is a businesswoman from Sheridan who is billing herself as Wyoming's Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Anthony Bouchard: Bouchard is a member of the legislature from Goshen County who has been in a lot of local political spats and who is a far right firebrand in the legislature and who is still running in spite of having no hope of getting past the primary.
Bryan Eugene Keller: He's a resident of Laramie County who has registered, but I don't know anything else about him.
Denton Knapp: Knapp is a retired U.S. Army Colonel and a current Brig. Gen. in the California National Guard who is still, surprisingly, running.
Democrats for the House:
Nobody, yet.
Somebody will show up. . . probably.
Independent
Casey Hardison. This is a gadfly campaign as it is based on drug legalization. Indeed, he has a case on appeal to the Wyoming Supreme Court right now for felony marijuana delivery.
It seems like we get these campaigns every election now.
This race was heavily contested in 2018 and was the first Wyoming race to really feature the outright split in the GOP. It's where Hageman first emerged as a candidate, although at that time she wasn't anti-Cheney, but then nobody was. Gordon won, of course, but that somehow left those on the far right embittered.
Nonetheless, this seat is now safe for Gordon.
Republicans for the Governor's Office.
Mark Gordon: Gordon is the incumbent. He's going to get the nomination, and he's going to win the General Election.
Harold Bjork. Who Bjork isn't really clear, but he's started a Facebook and internet campaign for Governor.
Aaron Nab: Nab is a truck driver from Southeastern Wyoming who views Gordon the same way that Hageman supporters view Cheney.
Rex Rammell: Rammell is a perennial and unelectable candidate who ran last time and will again. His views can be characterized as being on the fringe right/libertarian side.
Democrats for the Governor's Office.
Nobody. Democrats really have to find somebody, sacrificial running though it will be, or they'll look completely irrelevant in the state.
Ed Buchanan. He's the incumbent.
Kriti Racines. She's the incumbent.
This race featured very recently the problem that Cale Case just noted.
Rather than submit the really qualified candidates for this office, the state's GOP chose to submit three names for the vacant office that fit into a sort of red meat narrative. Of the three, Schroeder was the best pick, which doesn't mean that he's a name that would have gone anywhere in an open race or that would have been submitted in normal times.
This office is likely up for the picking.
Brian Schroeder. Schroeder is the presumptive nominee.
Megan Degenfelder. She has an education background but who has been working in the petroleum industry, announced for Superintendent of Public Education.
She was once employed as the department's Chief Policy Officer.
April 25, 2022, cont.
Brian Kemp of Georgia has received the NRA's endorsement. That might not be that surprising, but when it's considered that Trump, who the NRA has been a big back of, has endorsed Kemp opponent David Perdue, it is.
Trump has really been gunning for Kemp. The NRA obviously isn't, and it may very well have figured that Perdue is going to lose.
There's been a lot of speculation this election on how much Trump's endorsements will really mean. Here we now have a contest between an NRA endorsement and a Trump one.
April 28, 2022
An anticipated action by the Republican Central Committee to strip Laramie County, the state's most populous county, and one which is opposed to the far right direction of the Central Committee, for rules violations at their county convention has led that country to request that a rules' violation by Sublette, Albany and Crook also be addressed.
This highlights the ongoing civil war inside the state's GOP. A better indicator, although one that is little noted, is that far right GOP legislators now caucus in something called "The Freedom Caucus" rather than with the Republicans, meaning it's actually now operating as two parties in the legislature.
April 29, 2022
Wyoming's voter ID law has been challenged by a lawsuit filed by former Democratic legislature Charles Pelkey.
May 10, 2022
Incumbent State Treasurer Curt Meir has announced for a bid for a second term.
The State GOP reduced Laramie County's delegation to a handful due to a minor rules violation. A counterproposal to sanction other counties for minor rules violations, filed in retaliation, failed. As a result of the strike against Laramie County, its delegation walked out of the ongoing state convention.
Natrona County's delegation has already been reduced for failure to pay dues.
The net result is that the far right wing of the GOP has decapitated its opposition by depriving the most populous counties with the largest delegations from participating in the party.
Long serving Republican Senator Cale Case, who recently wrote an article in the Tribune asking for departing members of the GOP to come back and reclaim their position in the party, faces a censure complaint in his county organization for acting "contrary to the will of the party and the Wyoming Republican Party platform".
These last two items are serious indications that the party is seeking to eliminate all dissent within it, including dissent which, ironically, comes from someone like the highly conservative Case.
May 11, 2022
Fremont County's GOP censured long serving and highly conservative Republican Senator Cale Case.
There is a move to unseat the head of the Laramie County GOP following the loss of most of its delegates.
May 16, 2022
The new legislative district maps are out. Here they are:
Some have changed, so it's best to check. FWIW, in Eastern Natrona County, including areas of Casper, and western Converse County, it's particularly important to check.
May 27 is the final date for candidates to register to run.
May 17, 2022
It seems that getting attacked by the Republican Party has freed Liz Cheney to say things that we normally wouldn't have expected, to wit:
The House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and anti-semitism. History has taught us that what begins with words ends in far worse. leaders must renounce and reject these views and those who hold them.
Only those in bold are actually registered right now. All are Republicans. Gordon will win the primary so all of the other candidats are quixotic to some degree.
Mark Gordon: Gordon is the incumbent. He's going to get the nomination, and he's going to win the General Election.
Brent Bien. Yet another retired career military officer returned and running for office, something we've been seeing a lot of in recent years.
Harold Bjork. Who Bjork isn't really clear, but he's started a Facebook and internet campaign for Governor.
Aaron Nab: Nab is a truck driver from Southeastern Wyoming who views Gordon the same way that Hageman supporters view Cheney.
James Scott Quick: Owner of an oilfield service company in Douglas, which is about all that is obvious about him so far.
Rex Rammell: Rammell is a perennial and unelectable candidate who ran last time and will again. His views can be characterized as being on the fringe right/libertarian side.
Treasurer's Race
Again, only Republicans so far.
Curt Meier. He's the incumbent.
Bill Gallup: I don't know who he is, but he's running.
This race is heating up.
Republican candidates.
Brian Schroeder. Appointed incumbent.
Megan Degenfelder. She has an education background but who has been working in the petroleum industry, announced for Superintendent of Public Education. She was once employed as the department's Chief Policy Officer.
Thomas Kelly: One of the three finalist for this position, and hence one of the controversial ones. He's from the far right and won't go anywhere.
Democratic Candidates
Sergio A. Maldonado, Sr. Long time Fremont County political figure and, I believe, an enrolled member of one of the Wind River tribes.
Something ought to be said about primary races coming in elsewhere, which in my view have been badly analyzed by the press. Frankly, at least up until yesterday, Trump's picks have not done that well. Yes, J. D. Vance one in his primary, but the author with populist roots may have anyway. Up until yesterday Trump endorsements have not, in fact, been the deciding factor in races.
Yesterday they weren't really either, maybe. Trump endorsed the winning candidate in the GOP Governor's race, but last week, when it was obvious he was going to win.
Having said that, the PA Senate race is too close to call, with Mehmet Oz neck and neck with David McCormick. There was some thought that a third candidate would pull ahead.
Why on earth anyone would vote for Dr. Oz simply defies description.
Well, maybe it is explicable. Oz is described as MAGA, McCormick as More MAGA, and the third candidate was Ultra MAGA.
Still, the thought the race would develop with Oz as the least MAGA candidate and a credible contender is a scary thought, as Oz is . . .well OZ.
Idaho's Governor Brad Little easily beat far right Janice McGeachin, who is is lt. governor. McGeachen was Trump endorsed, but you'll probalby see little press about her going down in flames.
CPAC starts its convention this week in Hungary.
May 19, 2022
Yesterday controversial right wing House member Chuck Gray, who had filed to be reelected to his Casper seat, announced for Secretary of State, leaving his Natrona County Republican spot open and, unusually anymore, only a Democratic contender presently running for that office.
Gray is a far right politician who had announced early that he was running against Cheney. That campaign never took off. He obviously aspired to higher office, so now he's taking a run at Secretary of State, but he almost certainly has in the back of his mind, or maybe the forefront, running for higher office yet once the opportunity presents itself, which it likely will after Governor Gordon serves out his next term.
Gray has not been universally popular in the legislature and was the center of a story in which he was insulted in an open mike moment last session. He became involved in the erroneous Arizona ballot problem episode after the last Presidential election.
Donald Trump urged Mehmet Oz to declare victory before the votes were done being counted in the PA Senatorial primary race.
May 20, 2022
WyoFile, the online newspaper, has just published a long article on the head of the Wyoming GOP. It's intersting reading, which will be guaranteed to offend at least some of his followers. The article is here:
After numerous attempts to speak with her to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, and the danger to her own soul she is risking, I have determined that the point has come in which I must make a public declaration that she is not to be admitted to Holy Communion unless and until she publicly repudiate her support for abortion “rights” and confess and receive absolution for her cooperation in this evil in the sacrament of Penance. I have accordingly sent her a Notification to this effect, which I have now made public.
We bring that up as it now seems relatively clear that Trump's endorsement of Hageman may have been due to Lummis.
In an interview with KTWO Radio, the former President stated:
I had some good people. I really did have some good people, but I just felt that [Hageman] was very good and your wonderful senator up there ... who’s a tremendous person by the way, was very strong on her, wanted her very badly
Barasso's office denied that they had any role in picking a contender for the seat. Lummis' office did not, but they darned nearly confirmed obliquely. Lummis has called Hageman "an inspired choice".
Lummis was inspired in the 2020 race to switch her tune on Trump, going from somebody who had stated she was going to hold her nose and vote from Trump to backing the Ted Cruz effort to question the election. Here it appears that whatever occurred in 2020 between her and Cheney may not have been forgotten.
Or at least it could be interpreted that way. Given as the only notable difference between Cheney and Hageman on at least domestic issues (foreign policy issues haven't entered the race in any fashion yet) is support for Trump, Lummis may have well felt that Hageman was an establishment Republican who was willing to go along with Trump for political reasons, which might very well be said of Lummis too, rather than a real radical like Bouchard or Gray, who were contenders at the time.
A Democrat has now filed for the Governor's race, the same being Theresa Livingston. She's apparently from Worland, has run for the State Senate from there, and has no chance whatsoever.
May 26, cont.
Liz Cheney officially filed for reelection, releasing this video at the same time.
Also, the Trump rally released information that a collection of Trump suppoerters and accolytes will appear at the Hageman rally in Casper this Saturday, including Florida Congressman Gaetz and Colorado Congressman Boebert. Frank Eathorne, head of the Wyoming GOP will also speak, although a party head is not really an appropriate speaker in a contest between two Republicans. Reps. Kevin McCarthy of California, Elise Stefanik of New York and Ohio's Jim Jordan will appear in a special video address, making it plain where they stand in regard to the Republican internicene dispute.
Interestingly, Trump's star has been waning as some of his primary choices in other states have been losing.
Last Prior edition:
I don't normally combine these two, but today offers an interesting example of early 20th Century conditions in the form of the centennial of the birth of Charles Bronson.
I don't idealize actors the way some people do, and that would include Bronson. But his early life really provides a glimpse of how things were in "the good old days". Indeed, of his films, only the short speech in the film The Dirty Dozen about why his character speaks German mirrors his own origins. Bronson spoke, in addition to English, Lithuanian, Russian and Greek, unlike German and Polish like his character in the film.
Bronson was born Charles Dennis Buchinsky, the eleventh of fifteen children of his parents. His father was a Lithuanian immigrant who changed the family name to that from. Bučinskis. His father was actually a Lithuanian Lipka Tatar, many of whom are Muslims. His parents were however Roman Catholic.
Bronson's family was desperately poor. His father died when he was ten and he began working in Pennsylvania coal mines at that age. He nonetheless graduated from high school, being the first member of the family to do so. He was a full-time miner until 1943, when he joined the Army and entered the Army Air Corps. He ultimately became a B29 crewman and was wounded in action over Japan. After the war he returned to Pennsylvanian and worked odd jobs until breaking into acting in the early 1950s. Unlike many of his acting contemporaries, his wartime service had nothing to do with acting at all. He was acting in movies by 1951 and had regular television and even leading television roles by the mid 1950s. His breakthrough star role came with The Magnificent Seven in 1960.
Reviews like this tend to become hagiographies, and I don't intend for that to be the case. In fact, I don't like most of the Bronson movies from the 1970s, when his star power was at its height. Interestingly, he broke into full-scale stardom after age 50, which is rare in acting, but a lot of his roles of that period were cartoonish violent exercises. He was married three times, the first time to aspiring 18 year old actress Harriet Tendler which ended in divorce nearly twenty years later, then to Jill Ireland, and lastly, after her death, to Kim Weeks. His character in real life always remained hard to get at as he was intensely private and shy, but he was known to hold grudges for protracted periods, seemingly caused, in some people's minds, by lasting surprise that he'd succeeded in movies.
So what, if any, lessons can we draw from this life?
Well, for one thing, while poverty certainly remains in the United States, early childhood stories like Bronson's have gone from common to extremely rare. We don't read about families of fifteen much, and if we do, they tend to more often than not be regarded as interesting oddities, like the now fallen Dugger family. Bronson's family was big, because it was big, and there's not much else to that.
We also don't see miner works himself to death and then boys begin mining as kids stories either. But at that time, that was common. Child labor laws were in effect by 1920, but in the coal mining regions of Appalachia, they obviously weren't really enforced. This is an American story we thankfully don't see much of, even with the very poor, and even with immigrants.
It also demonstrates that even relatively recently an era remained in which people could be intensely private, even secretive. Surprisingly little is known about Bronson as a person. Finding out what happened to his fourteen siblings is darned near impossible, other than that they all retained the Buchinsky name. We know that he was raised in a Catholic family, and his fist father-in-law, who was Jewish, objected to the marriage partially on those grounds, but we don't really know how observant Bronson was, if at all, as an adult. Indeed, some rumor mills have him as a Lutheran or Russian Orthodox believer, both of which are unlikely. He clearly wasn't observant in regard to the Catholic views on marriage. He was a Nixon supporter and his series of early 1970s crime films are of a stout right-wing vigilante character, neither of which tells us more about his deeper views. We just don't know that much about him.
American success story or American tragedy? Hard to say.
