The mystery of a radio mystery revealed (see comments).

 

1963 CB Walkie Talkie for Junior

Friday, July 27, 1923. Casper living on Tulsa Time?

The analogy wasn't as wacky as it might seem.  

I've been to Tulsa, FWIW, and I don't dislike it. A typical Midwestern city.

Or perhaps more accurately an Oklahoma, north Texas city.

I would not care to live there, mind you, but Tulsa is not a bad city.

Courthouses of the West: Tulsa Municipal Building, Tulsa Oklahoma:

This is the Tulsa, Oklahoma Municipal Building which housed Tulsa's government between 1917 and 1960.  While I'm not certain that it housed a courthouse, it has that appearance, and I strongly suspect that the city's municipal courthouse was located here.  This building no longer houses Tulsa's city offices.

President Harding arrived in Seattle and gave a speech at the University of Washington's Husky Stadium.  

It would be his last.

FWIW, I have not been to Seattle, save for McChord AFB, and only briefly.

The Republican Party, anticipating another speech, announced that Hardin's speech from San Francisco, scheduled for July 31, would be broadcast nationwide on the radio.

The Federal Archives list these photos of a Martin MS-1 that the Navy was experimenting with.  The concept was to carry the biplane on a submarine, something that proved viable, and while the U.S. Navy gave up on it by World War Two the Japanese did not.

The Imperial Japanese Navy would, in turn, use submarine born monoplanes to attack the U.S. West Coast, albeit with no success.

Saturday, July 21, 1923. Villa's body was being viewed, Maughan was waiting for directions, Harding wasn't going to call Congress into Session, ERA text changed.

 

I'm certain that the cover of The Saturday Evening Post would be condemned in many quarters today, even if you still see things like this.

Of course, this scene has been taken over by everyone, male and female, checking their cell phones.

The Country Gentleman simply featured a fine bovine.

The Saturday Casper paper noted the important events of the day.

Villa's body was being viewed, Maughan was waiting for directions, Harding wasn't going to call Congress into Session, and there was discussion of adjusting reparations.

The National Women's Party was meeting in Seneca Falls, New York

The NWP had proposed an Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1921. At this convention, it changed the text of the draft to more closely match the text that was ultimately submitted to Congress and the States.

The first regular radio broadcast in the Netherlands commenced.

The KKK paraded in Topeka in defiance of an order issued by the Attorney General of Kansas, but which the Mayor of Kansas stated he would not enforce.

What are you listening to?

Quite awhile pack I posted one of our "trailing threads" on the topic of what you are reading, titling it that, i.e. What Are You Reading?

It occurred to me the other day that I should post another one about what you may be listening to, and by that I mean in the form of podcasts and other audio data.  This occurred to me as I just completed listening to an excellent BBC podcast series called The Hurricane Tapes, which I highly recommend.

In posting this, I have to note that it seems to me that podcasts fall into two basic types, one of which are continual, and therefore like magazines.  I.e., you don't expect them to end.  And others that are a distinct series, like a mini series.  The Hurricane Tapes, for example, are more like the latter.  I'll note what's what in my list, as well as why listen to them.  If you listen to some, let us know what they are.

One thing that may be noted is that this list will seem rather long, and it is.  But I don't listen to every episode of most of these podcasts.  And they enormously in length.  I also tend to listen to them in certain settings, which is normally when I'm doing something else, such as driving, mowing the law, etc.  One thing I never couple with listening to podcasts with, however, is walking or riding a bicycle  I don't like to be distracted doing either and think it sad when I see somebody walking with earphones pasted to their head.

I'll also note that these are the podcasts that have sort of passed the test of time.  I try out other podcasts and discard them if I don't like them.

So here's what we're currently listening to.  Well, sort of.

ABA Journal Podcast

This is a podcast I download, but I frequently don't listen to.  I should be better about it.

It's a serialized podcast on legal topics from the ABA. Some are quite interesting, others not so much, but that's typical of podcasts.

Type:  Serial

Catholic Answers

Catholic Answers is a weekday radio show committed to podcast which I've fairly frequently mentioned on this blog.  I don't listen to every episode but rather to certain guests and hosts.  The topics are extremely wide ranging and often highly intellectual.  They are, of course, from a Catholic prospective, but the show deals with an incredible range of topics and issues.  Usually they are presented in an question and answer format with calls from the radio audience, or even the electronic audience.  The diversity and depth of the show is perhaps demonstrated by the large number of non Catholic callers and the occasional non Catholic guest.

Type:  Serial

Catholic Answers Focus

Catholic Answers Focus is an offshoot of Catholic Answers with specific guests and a single topic.  It does not have the question and answer format.

As with Catholic Answers, I pick and choose on this one, probably listening to less than half of the topics.

Type:  Serial

Catholic Stuff You Should Know

One of the greatest podcast on the net, Catholic Stuff You Should Know is a podcast done by a collection of young priest. The topics are nearly always good and have an incredible range.  The strong, and sometimes quirky, personalities of the hosts really come through.

Like certain hosts on Catholic Answers, this podcast tends to have a really strong impact on its listeners, not all of whom are Catholic.

Type:  Serial

English Catholic History Association Podcast

This is an oddly English podcast featuring lectures delivered to the English Catholic History Association.  It's very typically English.  I listen to only a fraction of these which are always delivered on a slice of English Catholic history.

Type: Slow serial.

BBC History Extra Podcast

Perhaps the best history podcast on the net, the BBC History Extra Podcast is the podcast offshoot of the history magazine put out by the BBC.  It's simply excellent and features topics of a very wide nature.  I listen to most to the episodes.

Type:  Serial

Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World

Jimmy Akin is a polymath host of Catholic Answers and this podcast done by a different entity is on all kinds of mysterious topics.  I don't listen to all of them, but do to most of them.

I like Akin in general and this is a good podcast.  It says a lot that I listen to them because a podcast of this type isn't something I'd typically listen to.

Type: Serial

Mass Backwards

Mass Backwards is a collection of radio broadcasts by the late Gene Shepard. They very from inspired to awful.  A lot more are awful than inspired, but the good ones are great.

Shepard was a writer as well as a radio personality (and later a television personality) and is best remembered today for the script of A Christmas Story.  Some of the radio broadcast featured the same characters, of which he is one, but they often have a much darker theme.  His broadcasts on his time in the Army are absolute classics.

I don't know how to really characterize these as there's a limited, if large, number of Shepard radio tapes in existence.  These were released in a podcast form by a New York public radio station that often seems to be ignoring copyright laws, or maybe not.  Ironically, in at least one Shepard broadcast he makes fun, very briefly, of the same radio station.

Type:  Series.

Meet the Press

Meet the Press is the classic weekly television news program on politics.  They commit it to podcast form that very day, which is how I hear it.

Type:  Serial

Pritzer Military History Podcast

The Pritzer Military History Podcast is an excellent military history themed show put on by the Pritzer Museum of Military History in Chicago.  Many well known and excellent authors are featured in the show which focuses mostly, but not exclusively, on military history books.  As noted, it isn't always on a recent book, and some of the direct interviews on other topics I skip.

The show features questions from the audience and after you listen to it for awhile you get to where you recognize quite a few of the voices, so the audience must contain a high percentage of regular attendees.

Type: Serial

Right to Roam

This Wyoming based podcast is on outdoors topics.

I really wish this podcast was better than it is.  I have it on my phone but I'm often disappointed with it.

Type: Serial

ScotusCast

This is a podcast synopsis of United States Supreme Court opinions by eminent legal scholars.  It's excellent. All the episodes are brief and concentrate on recent Supreme Court arguments and decisions.  Our local bar will accept it as self study CLE, and for good reason.

Type: Serial

The History of England

This is a private podcast on what it says its on, the history of England dating back to antiquity.

I used to listen to The English History podcast by Jamie Jeffers and this podcast replaced it.  Jeffers podcast was at one time excellent but after he lost his job as a lawyer and became a full time podcaster the quality of the podcast declined and its pace became intolerably slow.  As that occurred,  he began to engage in rather broad speculation to where the answer to many things was "we just don't know".   The "battle cattle" hypothesis was flat out ignorant and after he went into the "we just don't know" routine on female Viking warriors (didn't exist) it was too much.

This podcast replaced that one.

Type:  Serial

History of English

This is an excellent history of the English language.  It's extremely well done.

Type:  Serial.

The Hurricane Tapes

I mentioned this one in our introduction.  It's a BBC podcast by two English sports journalist and is absolutely excellent.

This follows the two trials and ultimate release of Ruben Hurricane Carter and John Artis for the 1966 murder of three patrons in a bar in Patterson, New Jersey.  The events are famous as it came to be widely believed that Carter and Artis were wrongfully convicted and they did ultimately obtain release.  The sports journalist dig in and discover all sorts of new information that they set out in a thirteen part series.

I don't usually enjoy murder or crime mysteries, but I saw the film The Hurricane recently, which apparently other people are aware of but I'm was not.  In the film Carter is portrayed by Denzel Washington. That lead me to look up Carter, which lead me to The Hurricane Tapes, which was only done recently.  It's a great series.

Type:  Series.

This is That

Like Mass Backwards, this series is complete.

This is That was a brilliant Canadian Broadcasting Corporation comedy production in the form of a fake radio news journal.  It was always presented as being straight new and is absolutely hilarious.  The show featured a telephone number for caller feed back and always drew a large number of callers who had heard a broadcast and believed they were true, to additionally hilarious results.

The show concluded last year, which isn't surprising as it must have been the case by that time that too many people were in on the joke to make it work.  It's a classic.

Type:  Series.

This Week

This Week is the other weekend television news show that I listen to in the form of a podcast.

This Week was originally This Week With David Brinkley, which was better.  Both This Week and Meet the Press have suffered over the years by being hosted by lessors than originally, but they are still good. The panel on Meet the Press is frankly better than This Week's, and has been ever since George F. Will ceased being on the panel. It's still worth listing too however.

Type:  Serial.

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July 17, 2019

This excellent podcast, fwiw, was mentioned recently in an article in the electronic ABA weekly listserve:

The Hurricane Tapes

I mentioned this one in our introduction.  It's a BBC podcast by two English sports journalist and is absolutely excellent.

This follows the two trials and ultimate release of Ruben Hurricane Carter and John Artis for the 1966 murder of three patrons in a bar in Patterson, New Jersey.  The events are famous as it came to be widely believed that Carter and Artis were wrongfully convicted and they did ultimately obtain release.  The sports journalist dig in and discover all sorts of new information that they set out in a thirteen part series.

I don't usually enjoy murder or crime mysteries, but I saw the film The Hurricane recently, which apparently other people are aware of but I'm was not.  In the film Carter is portrayed by Denzel Washington. That lead me to look up Carter, which lead me to The Hurricane Tapes, which was only done recently.  It's a great series.

Type:  Series.

On a completely different topic, I just heard listed to a long podcast episode in Farm To Taber taking a, well I guess revisionist, view of European and American family farms and their history that was quite interesting.  I'd like to disagree with it, but frankly much of it is really insightful.

A major theme of the podcaster, an ag professor in that episode Grappling With Our Ghosts:  The American Farm Legacy, was that a of of American family farming was done badly, with bad technology, deficient compared to the rests of the world, and that it still is.  For somebody with agrarian sympathies, that's a sad thought.

The episode is too varied in topic to really summarize here, so people who are interested should download it and listen to it themselves.

Type:  Serial

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November 24, 2019

I've already mentioned the Pritzer podcasts above, but a recent episode is well worth listening to for students of World War Two.

Stephen Bourque: Beyond the Beach: The Allied War Against France | Pritzker Military Museum & Library | Chicago

I'm probably an exception to the rule, as I was aware of a lot of the data presented in this podcast in a very loose way. But the facts and figures presented are, quite frankly, horrifying and deal wit a topic that the Western Allies rarely do, the vast damage inflicted on France during World War Two by the Allies prior to June 6, 1944.

Indeed, to expand out more, and as an example, I suppose, of how our Seventh Law of History, the degree to which the Western Allies became comfortable with inflicting civilian causalities from the air during the war is something that we generally don't address much.  Americans are somewhat comfortable in addressing casualties inflicted by the British, but not the USAAC.  It's a topic that we really need to examine.

Another interesting Pritzer one I just heard was  Michael Neiberg: The Treaty of Versailles | Pritzker Military Museum & Library | Chicago

Very interesting on the background to the Versailles Treaty.

Has anyone here read the book?

________________________________________________________________________________

December 6, 2019

I added NPR Politics, a daily podcast of about 15 minutes in length, as I like politics and I wasn't able to keep up with the impeachment hearings, etc., like most folks.

It's a good short podcast and, contrary to the way people sometimes assert about NPR, it's pretty balanced and insightful.  NPR usually is.

___________________________________________________________________________________

October 1, 2020

I haven't been keeping up with this thread which I realized when I went to update it.

Since I last updated this I listened to the excellent podcast The Clearing which details the story of the hunt for a serial killer and his daughters realization that her father was not only one, and her effort to bring him to justice, but also that he was responsible for some deaths close to the family.

Normally I don't like crime stories, but this podcast is an exception.  It's excellent.

Likewise, another one in this category that I listed to just recently is season 1 of the CBC's Somebody Out There Knows Something, which is on a decades old disappearance.  I haven't listened to any of the other seasons and I likely won't, but season 1 was compelling.

The podcast that caused me to come in and update this is one I'm listening to now, that being Bunga Bunga, a series on long serving and highly creepy Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.  Irreverent and witty, it's a stunning history of how Italy's politics descended into the muck under a prime minister who was engaged in numerous icky activities while in and out of office.  This one is also highly recommended, but as a warning, the language can be crude and Berlusconi's activities, which are detailed in the series, are not suitable for a non mature audience.

__________________________________________________________________________________

February 23, 2022

Wow, been a long time since I updated this one.

The Pritzer podcast has sadly ended, a victim seemingly of COVID 19.  The series started interviews, with bad audio quality, at that time, and then just ended.  As it originally was principally made up of recordings of its talks at the library, I thought it would resume, but it never did.

And I've quit listening to Mass Backwards, I like Gene Shepherd, but I seemed to have listed to the ones I wanted to listen to.  

The same is true of Right To Roam. It just never picked up and I gave up on it.  I added the very good Hunt Gather Talk podcast, however, featuring the interviews of Hank Shaw, who 

I added Face The Nation to the political pods.  It's actually better than its two weekend competitors, although I oddly still prefer This Week.  I also added NPR's State of Ukraine, on the ongoing Russo Ukrainian War.  It's quite good.

I added Wyoming My 307, which is by a Wyoming podcaster, more or less, but not quite, a history podcast.

A recent add is the excellent Fighting On Film, a British podcast that takes a look, in a really unique fashion, at war movies.

And, what causes me to update this, I just started the eight part series The Coldest Case In Laramie. We'll see how I like it.  It's about an unsolved murder in Laramie during the early 1980s, by a New York Times reporter and author who lived there in her early teens, which has left her with a whiney view of the town.

July 7, 2023

I recently added Dead and Gone In Wyoming, an excellent series on crimes and missing person's in Wyoming.

Sunday, July 4, 1943. First Broadcast of the Armed Forces Radio Network.

American Armed Forces Radio Network began broadcasting from the United Kingdom. While the organization had been formed in 1942, this was its very first broadcast.

Subhas Chandra Bose became president of the Indian Independence League at its meeting in Singapore.

Władysław Eugeniusz Sikorski, Prime Minister of Poland and former Polish army officer, and the then head of its government in exile, died in a plane crash at Gibraltar.  While the British ruled the crash an accident due to mechanical failure, suspicions remain that it may have been sabotage.

Thursday, July 1, 1943. Romania seeks a way out, Cadet Nurse Corps established.

Romanian Foreign Minister Mihai Antonescu met with Benito Mussolini in an effort to secure Mussolini's cooperation for both countries to leave the Axis and exit World War Two.  Mussolini was non-committal.

Romania clearly saw which way the war was going and that the time had come to get out.  It likely figured it couldn't get out on its own, however.

The Women's Auxiliary Army Corps became the Women's Army Corps, reflecting it having achieved permanent status.

On the same day, the Cadet Nurse corps was established.

The organization hoped to relieve wartime and peacetime nursing shortages.

The Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare issued it's An Investigation of Global Policy, with the Yamato Race as Nucleus.  Based on Nazi concepts of racism and Lebensraum, it justified the ongoing attempt at expansion of the Japanese Empire and planned to impose Japanese names, the Japanese language and the Shinto religion on all minorities within the Empire.

President Roosevelt commuted the death sentence of German-born Detroit restaurant owner Max Stephan to life imprisonment.  Scheduled to hang in just seven hours, Stephan had been convicted for harboring a German POW who had escaped captivity in Canada, and even taking the fellow to a tour of Detroit restaurants.

An item about keeping your radio working from this month in 1943, something vitally important as there was no wartime radio production.

Keep Your Radio Working: 1943

Blog Mirror: CB Radios Not Yet Obsolete; Veteran Truckers Say They’re Still Useful

 CB Radios Not Yet Obsolete; Veteran Truckers Say They’re Still Useful

Interesting, but why don't they switch to GMRS?

Tuesday, June 26, 1923. Harding in Utah, RAF Expands.

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom announced that the Royal Air Force would add 34 squadrons, bringing its total to 52. The RAF, at that number, would remain smaller than France's air force, not surprisingly given the very large size of the French military.

This followed PM Stanley Baldwin's announcement that:

British Air Power must include a Home Defence Air Force of sufficient strength adequately to protect us against air attack by the strongest air force within striking distance of this country…. In the first instance the Home Defence Force should consist of 52 squadrons to be created with as little delay as possible.

35 of the squadrons were to be bomber squadrons, 17, fighters, showing an appreciation of strategic airspace well before World War Two.

The Tribune reported that President Harding's stop in Cheyenne had been a big success.

He was on to Salt Lake City, Utah.

He addressed the city, stating:

My Fellow Countrymen:

There is a suggestion of personal tribute in choosing my topic for an address in Salt Lake City. I have so long associated Senator Smoot with great problems of taxation, and have witnessed so much of his able and faithful endeavor to enforce economy and thereby lift the burdens of taxation, that I find myself involuntarily thinking, when I come to your state, of the menace of mounting taxes # and growing public indebtedness. The removal of this menace is not alone a federal problem, for we are recording gratifying progress so far as the nation is concerned, but the larger menace to-day is to be faced by municipality, county, and state. The federal Government is diligently seeking to prove itself a helpful example, but the improved order must come in the units of government into which federal Government never intrudes. There is no particular reason why I should speak of it, except that we are all concerned about general public welfare, and I have thought that possibly a recital of federal accomplishment would serve to encourage in a state and local work which must be done.

A short time before I became President, a trusted but cynical old friend said to me one day that he understood I intended to make a specialty of economy in administration. I admitted my aspirations in that direction, and he replied:

"Well, that's the right idea, but don't tell anybody about it. You may think it will be appreciated, but it will not. Every time you lop somebody -off the government pay roll or keep him out of a profitable piece of government business, you make him and all his friends and associates your enemies; and, on the other side, not a soul in the country will ever thank you for it. Everybody grumbles about taxes, and nobody ever demonstrates any appreciation of the man that tries to save them from taxes."

A short time before we left Washington on the present trip another friend said to me: "The Administration has saved the country a good deal by reducing its expenses and cutting down the tax burden. But take my advice, and don't talk to any of your audiences about it. People always grumble about taxes, but they don't want to hear anybody talk to them on that subject."

To which I replied that I believed, in the present state of affairs, all such rules were suspended, and any public man who had anything cheerful to say on the subject of taxes and Government expenses, would find plenty of audiences altogether willing to listen to him. I believe the American people are so profoundly interested in the subject of taxation and Government costs nowadays that an audience like this will even be willing to let me talk to them a few minutes on the subject.

One of the financial incidents to our participation in the war was to loan a vast sum of money to our allies. I wonder how many of you ever stop to think that the $10,000,000,000 which we advanced to our allies, after our entrance into the war, was just about the same as the total cost of the Civil War to North and South together. The Civil War lasted four years and strained every nerve and resource of the nation. Yet its actual cost to the Governments of both sides was considerably less than the amount we advanced to the Allied Governments during the World War.

And that was only a mild beginning of our financial transactions in war. For every dollar we loaned to our allies, we spent about three more on our own account. In a little more than three years, between the day war was declared and peace was signed, we spent twice as much money out of the public treasury as had been spent by the national Government in all of its previous history. I am not going to talk to you to-day about whether the money was all wisely spent. Whether it was or not, the results were worth all they cost, and a good deal more. What I propose to present to you now is some consideration of the fact that no matter how willing we were to make the sacrifice, no matter how cheerfully we incurred the obligations, we had to face at the end the big and very practical reality that these obligations must be paid.

You have inferred from what I said a moment ago that we spent roundly $40,000,000,000 on the World War. How many of us ever stopped to think that that was rather more than the total wealth of the nation at the time of the Civil War? We paid out of our current taxes, while the war was going on, more than 25 per cent of its cost; that is, as much as the entire national wealth so late as the year 1820. At the beginning of August, 1919, the public debt reached the highest point in its history, $27,500,000,000. That was just about ten times the amount of the national debt at the close of the Civil War.

We are still too close to the events of the Great War to be able to realize the enormous burdens placed on our country. Quite aside from the large operations of public finance which it necessitated, private finance has been tailed upon from the very beginning in 1914 to make special arrangements for financing the huge foreign trade that resulted from Europe's extraordinary demands. Long before we were in the war our financial machinery had been compelled to shoulder the financing of an enormously exaggerated export trade to the warring Powers. For a time Europe withdrew gold from us in great quantities, but presently it returned in yet greater, bringing to us and to the European countries the difficult problem of maintaining the exchanges and supporting the gold standard. Costs of everything rose to an artificially high basis, and in every direction expenditure was stimulated.

Altogether, the war was not only the greatest horror the world has ever known, but the greatest orgy of spending. This was inevitable, but that fact does not make the results any easier to deal with. The cost of government, of business, of every domestic establishment went up enormously. Every business man, and every householder, knows how it affected his personal concern. I want to suggest some of the ways in which it affected the whole business of government; government of the states, the cities, the nation, the expenses of every revenue-raising and spending division throughout the nation.

Recently I have been furnished with some specific figures on this subject of the cost of government by the Bureau of the Census. I am not proposing to impose upon your patience with an elaborate presentation of figures, but I want to suggest a few that will point my observations about the enormously increased cost of government everywhere. Take the cost of state governments. I am informed that the revenues of the states in 1913 aggregated $368,000,000, and that in 1921 they had increased to $959,000,000; that is, they had increased 161 per cent, and every dollar of that increase had to come in some way or other from the public. The expenditures of the states in 1913 aggregated $383,000,000, and in 1921 they were $1,005,000,000; an increase of 163 per cent. The indebtedness of the states in 1913 amounted to $423,000,000, and in 1921 to $1,012,000,000; an increase of 139 per cent.

Turn now to the cost of city government. The Census Bureau has compiled data on the governments of 227 of the large cities. It is shown that these cities in 1913 collected $890,000,000 in all revenues, and in 1921 they collected $1,567,000,000; that is, they were compelled to take 76 per cent more in taxes in 1921 than they had taken in 1913. The same group of cities expended in 1913, $1,010,000,000, and in 1921, $1,726,000,000— an increase of 71 per cent. The total debt of this group of cities in 1913 was $2,901,000,000, which by 1921 had risen to $4,334,000,000—an increase of 49 per cent.

County administration appears, from the rather limited information which at this time the census authorities have been able to produce, to have shown a much larger proportionate increase in cost and tax collections than did the government of cities. It is stated that for 381 counties, distributed among 38 states, and regarded as fairly typical, the increase in receipts from principal sources of revenue increased 127 per cent from 1913 to 1922; that is, for every hundred dollars of revenue collected in 1913, $227 was collected in 1922. And that is not all of it. The total indebtedness of these same 381 counties increased 195 per cent in the same period; that is, for every hundred dollars of debt in 1913 they had $295 of indebtedness in 1922. Statistics were not available dealing with cities and towns of less than 30,000 population; nor with townships, school districts, drainage districts, irrigation districts, road districts, and other subdivisions which exercised the power to raise revenues and incur debts. It is well known, however, that substantially similar increases have affected all these taxing subdivisions.

The figures of both the Treasury and the Census Bureau, in short, make it perfectly plain that whereas the cost of the federal Government is being steadily reduced, the cost of state and local governments is being just as steadily increased year by year. In nearly all of the states the cost of state and local governments increased from 1919 to 1922. The Treasury made up statistics on this point for one group of 10 states— Arizona, Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin. For this representative group it is shown that while federal taxes paid by these 10 states declined from over a billion dollars in 1920 to $650,000,000 in 1922, their state and local taxes rose from $728,000,000 to $965,000,000 in the same period. In another tabulation, covering 28 states, which was the entire number for which the statistics were available, it was shown that from 1919 to 1921 there were increases in local taxes in 23 states and reductions in only 5. In spite of the enormous burden of paying for the war and paying interest on the war debt, state and local taxes in 1922 represented 60 per cent of all taxes paid.

Let me present another aspect of the same matter. We hear much about the grievous burden of the income tax, and everyone of us who pays it is able fully to sympathize with everyone else who pays it. But it is fair to consider what our income taxes would be if we lived in some of the other debt-burdened countries of the world. A married citizen of the United States, with two children and an income of $5,000, paid $68 tax on that income in 1922. If he had been a citizen of Canada he would have paid $156. If the German tax rate had been applied to his income, it would have cost him $292. If he had been a Frenchman the French rate would have required him to pay $96, and if he had been a British citizen, instead of giving up the $68 which he paid to Uncle Sam, he would have drawn his check for $320.76. The same man, with an income of $10,000, would have paid $456 income tax in the United States and $1,128.32 in England.

The great burden of the war was, of course, imposed on the national Government. The Department of the Treasury states that in 1917 the federal Government's revenues were $1,044,000,000; in 1918 they were $3,925,000,000; in 1919 they were $4,103,000,000; in 1920 they were $5,737,000,000; and in 1921 they were $4,902,000,000. For 1922 the total dropped to $3,565,000,000, and for 1923 it is estimated at $3,753,000,000. Assuming continuation of the present basis of federal taxation, the receipts for 1924 are calculated at $3,638,000,000, and for 1925 at $3,486,000,000.

Not all of this revenue is raised by direct taxation. The Treasury estimates indicate that in 1923 only $2,925,000,000 and in 1924 $2,850,000,000 will be produced by direct taxation; the remainder will come from various miscellaneous receipts of the Government. You will, I am sure, be interested in the Treasury's statement that whereas in 1914 the per capita cost to all the people of the federal Government was $6.97, in 1918 it reached $36.64 and in 1919, $37.91. It might reasonably have been presumed that with the war now long past taxes would have begun to fall off, but the statistics show the contrary. Instead of a reduction, taxes for the fiscal year 1920 rose to $53.78 per capita, which was the peak of the war burden. Even for 1921 they only fell to $45.22. But in 1923 they will be $26.29, or considerably less « than half as much as in 1920. Figures, especially the figures which represent such an authority as the Treasury Department, are conclusive arguments. These figures show that for two years after the war ended federal taxes continued much higher than at the height of the struggle. They show that in the first two years of peace the cost of Government was still continuing above the 1918 level, but that since the high point of 1920 they have been reduced more than one-half. It is a record of business administration to which the party now in control of the administration feels justified in referring with no small measure of satisfaction.

I have observed that the cost of the war to our Government was around $40,000,000,000. After paying a generous share, about 25 per cent, from current revenues collected while the war was in progress, we still had to borrow enormously. At its highest point, on August 31, 1919, the national debt was $26,596,000,000. I know you will be interested to be told that from that day, August 31, 1919, to June 30, 1923, we have reduced it to $22,400,000,000—a reduction of considerably more than a billion dollars a year. Moreover, we are now working under a program which involves extinguishing a half billion of the debt each year. No other country in the world has been able to make such a record.

In addition to all this, we have within the past year settled the British war debt to our Government, arranged for its funding and its gradual extinction over a long period of years. In recognition of the notable service of Secretary Mellon, his associates at the Treasury, and the members of the Debt Funding Commission and the American ambassador to Great Britain, I wish to say that this settlement of the British debt has been acclaimed all over the world as one of the most notable and successful fiscal accomplishments ever recorded. Not only does it insure that the regular quarterly payments which the British Government will make to our Treasury will correspondingly relieve the burden upon American taxpayers, but the more important fact, in a time of widespread uncertainty and misgiving throughout the world of business everywhere, that these two great Governments could get together and arrange such a settlement has been one of the most reassuring events since the armistice.

There had been too much talk of possible cancellations or repudiations of the war debt. Such a program would have wrecked the entire structure of business faith and of confidence in the obligations of Governments throughout the world. There was need, pressing and urgent need, for such a sign of confidence, assurance, and faith in the future as this settlement furnished. When the British and American Governments united in this pledge that their obligations would be met to the last shilling and the last dollar, there was renewed financial confidence in the world. I undertake to say that no event since the conclusion of hostilities has contributed so much to putting the world back on its way to stabilization, to confidence in its Governments, and to the established conviction that our social institutions are yet secure.

No consideration of public finances can omit the fact that the single item of interest on the public debt exceeds $1,000,000,000 annually. For the fiscal year 1923, this item, will be $1,100,000,000. Beyond this, we will reduce the public debt this year by $330,000,000, and next year by approximately $500,000,000. That is, over 35 per cent of the national revenue will this year go to paying interest or extinguishing the principal of the public debt.

I have not been able to gather conclusive statistics as to the accomplishments of states, cities, and counties, to compare with this showing of the federal Government. But with some general knowledge of the fiscal positions of states and cities in general, I feel quite safe in proffering my congratulations to any state, any city, any foreign country, which has made a better showing in the matter of reducing its public debt within the period since the war. I most earnestly regret that all have not been able to make a similar showing.

On this latter point I wish to say a word further. Taxation decidedly is a local as well as a national question. Prior to the war, federal taxation was an unimportant item; so small that in 1917 state and local taxes, in a group of 10 representative states, in all parts of the country, constituted 73 per cent of the entire tax burden.

The federal tax was indirect and unfelt. Then came the enormous cost of the war, which the federal Government had to bear, and in 1918 state and local taxes constituted only 42 per cent of the entire tax burden. In 1919 they represented 44 per cent of the whole; in 1920, 41 per cent. But in 1922, the last year for which figures are available, state and local taxes were again in excess and represented 60 per cent of the entire tax burden. The states represented in this calculation are Arizona, Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin.

The world, its Governments, its quasi-public corporations, its people, acquired the spending habit during the war to an extent not merely unprecedented, but absolutely alarming. There is but one way for the community finally to get back on its feet, and that is to go seriously about paying its debts and reducing its expenses. That is what the world must face. The greatest and richest Government must face it, and so must the humblest citizen. No habit is so easy to form, none so hard to break, as that of reckless spending. And on the other side, none is more certain to contribute to security and happiness, than the habit of thrift, of savings, of careful management in all business concerns, of balanced budgets and living within incomes. If I could urge upon the American people a single rule applicable to every one of them as individuals, and to every political or corporate unit among them, it would be to learn to spend somewhat less than your income all the time. If you have debts, reduce them as rapidly as you can; if you are one of the fortunate few who have no debts, make it a rule to save something every year. Keep your eye everlastingly on those who administer your governmental units for you: your t6wn, your county, your state, your national Government. Make them understand that you are applying the rule of thrift and savings in your personal affairs, and require them to apply it in their management of your public affairs. If they fail, find other public servants who will succeed. If they succeed, give them such encouragement and inspiration as will be represented by a full measure of hearty appreciation for their efforts.

This brings me to a brief reference to what has proven so helpful to the federal Government in effecting the approach to the expenditures of normal times. For the first time in our history we have the national budget, under which there is an effective scrutiny of estimates for public expenditure. More, we have coordinated Government activities in making the expenditures which Congress authorizes.

It seems now unbelievable that we should have been willing to go for a century and a third without this helpful agency of business administration. But we did, and only now have we come to an appraisal of the cost of this great neglect.

It has been no easy task to establish the budget and make sure of its acceptance. Out of long time practices the varied and many Government departments felt themselves independent institutions, instead of factors in the great machinery of Government administration. They often got all they could from Congress, and made it a point to expend all they got.

Under the budget plan we were able to reverse the policy and awaken a sprit of economy and efficiency in the public service. We not only insisted that requests for appropriations should stand the minutest inquiry, but after reduced appropriations were granted, we insisted on expending less than the appropriations. There was no proposal to diminish Government activities required by law or demanded by public need, but there was first the commitment to efficiency and then commendable strife for economy.

We effaced the inexcusable and very costly impression that Government departments must expend all their appropriations, that no available cash should return to the Treasury. And we sought to inspire as well as exact in the practices of economy.

One illustration will not be amiss. On June 8, 1921, before the budget was in operation, word came to me that the business head of one of our institutions, far from Washington, was puzzling how to expend $42,000 which he had in excess of actual needs. Ordinarily such a matter would never reach the chief executive. But this one did, and I wired a warning, and followed it with a letter reciting the need of retrenchment everywhere, and expressed the hope that every Government official with spending authority would aid in reducing the Government outlay. The appeal was effective, and this one Government agent not only saved most of his available $42,000 for that fiscal year, but in 1922 he saved $81,000 more. He proved what could be done, and we are seeking to do it everywhere.

Do not imagine it has all been easy. It is very popular to expend, and there are ruffled feelings in every case of denial. But there are gratifying results in firm resolution and the insistent application of business methods.

The Budget Director is the agent of the President, and he speaks on the authority of the Government's chief executive. One day last winter the director came to me in great anxiety, telling me that a department chief would not sanction an $8,000,000 cut in his estimates. At that time we were seeking to prevent a threatened excess of expenditures over receipts amounting to $800,000,000 for the next fiscal year.

I sent for the department head, and he was still insistent in his opposition to the reduced estimate. I called for a conference of the department experts and the budget experts, and told them that if they could not agree, I would decide. They conferred, and instead of returning to me for decision, the estimate was cut more than $12,000,000. The point is that we have introduced business methods in government, and instead of operating blindly and to suit individual departments which had never visualized the Government as a whole, and felt no concern about the raising Of funds, we are scrutinizing, justifying, coordinating, and not only halting mounting cost, but making long strides in reducing the cost of Government activities.

Perhaps the budget system would not accomplish so much for taxing and spending divisions smaller than the state, but a resolute commitment to strike at all extravagance and expend public funds as one would for himself in his personal and business affairs will accomplish wonders.

It is largely unmindfulness that piles up the burden. Able and honorable men often press for a federal expenditure to be made in their own community or in other ways helpful to their own interests which they would strongly oppose if they were not directly concerned. This is true of federal appropriation as well as municipal, county, and state expenditure, and I know of no remedy unless public officials are brought to understand the menace in excessive tax burdens and indebtedness, beyond extinguishment except in drastic action, and resolve to employ practicable business methods in government everywhere, and resist the assault of the spenders.

It is too early to know whether there is a republic of ancient times with which appropriately to parallel our own. We know of their rise and fall, and we may learn the lessons in their failures. A simple-living, thrifty people, with simple, honest, and just government never failed to grow in influence and power. The coming of extravagance and profligacy in private life, and wastefulness and excesses in public life ever proclaimed the failures which history has recorded.

I would not urge the stingy, skimpy, hoarding life of individuals, or an inadequate program of government. The latter must always rise to deliberate public demand. But private life and public practices are inseparably associated.

I would have our Government adequate in every locality and in every activity, and public sentiment will demand it and secure it, and require no more, if we have the simple and thrifty life which make the healthful nation.

These reflections, my countrymen, are not conceived in doubt or pessimism. We have so nobly begun, we are so boundless in resources, we have wrought so notably in our short national existence, that I wish these United States to go on securely. I would like developing dangers noted and appraised and intelligently and patriotically guarded against. A nation of inconsiderate spenders is never secure. We wish our United States everlastingly secure.

War brought us the lesson that we had not been so American in spirit as we had honestly pretended. Some of our adopted citizenship wore the habiliments of America, but were not consecrated in soul. Some to whom we have given all the advantages of American citizenship would destroy the very institutions under which they have accepted our hospitality. Hence our commitment to the necessary Americanization which we too long neglected. The American Legion, baptized anew in the supreme test on foreign battlefields, is playing its splendid part.

Those who bore war's burdens at home have joined, and all America must fully participate. It is not enough to enlist the sincere allegiance of those who come to accept our citizenship; we must make sure for ourselves, for all of us, that we cling to the fundamentals, to the practices which enabled us to build so successfully, and avoid the errors which tend to impair our vigor and becloud our future.

The Tribune also reminded people that starting on July 1, they needed to have licenses for automobiles.

Edith Smith, age 46, the UK's first fully powered police officer, killed herself with an overdose of morphine.  She had been retired from police work for five years, but was working in nursing.  She had been heavily overworked for years, working seven days out of seven, and was low on funds.

Oklahoma Governor Jack C. Walton but Okmulgee County, Oklahoma, under martial law in order to investigate Ku Klux Klan activity.

Interesting radio ad from this day:  MacMillan Arctic Expedition.

Blog Mirror: First National Presidential Radio Address: 1923

 

First National Presidential Radio Address: 1923

Sunday, June 6, 1943. Radio broadcasts, Triple Crown, Actor in the Navy, Rohatyn Ghetto.

The French Committee of National Liberation made a radio broadcast pledging to abolish the "arbitrary powers" imposed by the Vichy regime and restore French liberties and republican government.

Count Fleet won the Belmont, and hence the Triple Crown.

Paul Newman, having enlisted days before his 18th birthday, was called up for service in the Navy.

Newman wanted to be a pilot, but was taken out of flight school when it was discovered he was color blind.  He went on to be a torpedo bomber crewman.

Sarah Sundin noted Newman's enlistment, but also noted the A36:

Today in World War II History—June 6, 1943: North American A-36 Apache flies first combat mission in a US Twelfth Air Force mission to Pantelleria. Future actor Paul Newman enlists in the US Navy, age 18.

We don't think much of the A-36, the dive bomber version of the P-51.  The odd aircraft only came into existence in the first place as the 1942 appropriations for new fighter aircraft had run out and converting the assembly line to dive bombers kept the P-51 line open.  Only 500 were built, with most used by the U.S. Army Air Force, but some used by the RAF.

A-36 in Italy.

The Germans liquidated the Rohatyn Ghetto in what is now Ukraine.

Blog Mirror: 1943 “Gibson Girl” Transmitter

 

1943 “Gibson Girl” Transmitter

Monday, May 31, 1943. You can crack that tank.

The Army put out its weekly summation of the war news, with helpful tips on taking on tanks.

The tank illustration really is interesting, as I've sometimes wondered about the topics noted, particularly causing the tank to button up.  German armor, like American armor, did not normally fight buttoned up as the visibility is so poor.

Expecting an infantryman to have a Molotov Cocktail, however, seems like a bit much.

Sarah Sundin reports:

Today in World War II History—May 31, 1943: British ships begin naval bombardment of island of Pantelleria between Tunisia and Sicily, adding to the aerial bombardment started May 18.

 Archie Andrews, of comic book fame, appeared on the radio for the first time.

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part XII. Holding back the tide.

February 14, 2023

Freshman Congressman Harriet Hageman introduced the companion bill to a doomed bill introduced in the Senate by Cynthia Lummis, which provides:

117th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 543

To prohibit the President from issuing moratoria on leasing and permitting energy and minerals on certain Federal land, and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

January 28, 2021

Ms. Herrell (for herself, Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Scalise, Mr. Westerman, Mr. Gosar, Mr. Newhouse, Mr. Moore of Utah, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Young, Mr. Owens, Mr. McKinley, Mr. Sessions, Mr. Brady, Mr. Stauber, Mr. Stewart, Mr. Tiffany, Mr. LaMalfa, Mr. Curtis, Mr. Lamborn, Mr. McClintock, Mr. Roy, Mr. Smith of Nebraska, Mr. Reschenthaler, Mr. Calvert, Mrs. Bice of Oklahoma, Mr. Baird, Mr. Mooney, Mr. Rosendale, Mr. Hern, Mrs. Boebert, and Mr. Amodei) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources, and in addition to the Committee on Agriculture, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

A BILL

To prohibit the President from issuing moratoria on leasing and permitting energy and minerals on certain Federal land, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “Protecting Our Wealth of Energy Resources Act” or the “POWER Act”.

SEC. 2. PROHIBITION ON MORATORIA OF NEW ENERGY LEASES ON CERTAIN FEDERAL LAND AND ON WITHDRAWAL OF FEDERAL LAND FROM ENERGY DEVELOPMENT.

(a) Definitions.—In this section:

(1) CRITICAL MINERAL.—The term “critical mineral” means any mineral included on the list of critical minerals published in the notice of the Secretary of the Interior entitled “Final List of Critical Minerals 2018” (83 Fed. Reg. 23295 (May 18, 2018)).

(2) FEDERAL LAND.—

(A) IN GENERAL.—The term “Federal land” means—

(i) National Forest System land;

(ii) public lands (as defined in section 103 of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1702));

(iii) the outer Continental Shelf (as defined in section 2 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C. 1331)); and

(iv) land managed by the Secretary of Energy.

(B) INCLUSION.—The term “Federal land” includes land described in clauses (i) through (iv) of subparagraph (A) for which the rights to the surface estate or subsurface estate are owned by a non-Federal entity.

(3) PRESIDENT.—The term “President” means the President or any designee, including—

(A) the Secretary of Agriculture;

(B) the Secretary of Energy; and

(C) the Secretary of the Interior.

(b) Prohibitions.—

(1) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the President shall not carry out any action that would prohibit or substantially delay the issuance of any of the following on Federal land, unless such an action has been authorized by an Act of Congress:

(A) New oil and gas leases, drill permits, approvals, or authorizations.

(B) New coal leases, permits, approvals, or authorizations.

(C) New hard rock leases, permits, approvals, or authorizations.

(D) New critical minerals leases, permits, approvals, or authorizations.

(2) PROHIBITION ON WITHDRAWAL.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the President shall not withdraw any Federal land from forms of entry, appropriation, or disposal under the public land laws, location, entry, and patent under the mining laws, or disposition under laws pertaining to mineral and geothermal leasing or mineral materials unless the withdrawal has been authorized by an Act of Congress.

1. Can't pass the Senate

2.  Would be vetoed if it actually passed both houses, when there's certainly not enough votes to override a veto.

So why do these things?

February 20, 2023

Golden moves on path to all-electric in new buildings: To meet its #climate goals, this #Colorado city of 20,000 needs to crimp #methane combustion. It could require all-electric in new buildings by January 2024

February 23, 2023

SNAP, the Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, ends this month.

NPR is laying off 10% of its workforce.

March 3, 2023

A Gold and Copper mine will open in Laramie County in 2025.

The United States Post Office is buying 9,250 electric vans from Ford.

March 13, 2023

Silicon Valley Bank collapsed Friday after a comment by a major investment broker regarding it.  The Federal Government is not going to "bail out" the bank, which has accounts by many wealthy investors.

President Biden is proceeding to authorize the Willow drilling project inside the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, despite protests over the proposed action.

March 28, 2023

Renewables produced more energy than coal last year.

Coal checked in at 20%, down from 50% in 2007, and it's declining.

This is no surprise here, we've noted the timeline of coal long ago:

Coal: Understanding the time line of an industry

April 2, 2023

It's the end of coal in the state.

Rocky Mountain Power has announced that nine of its eleven power plants will be using gas, rather than coal, by 2030.

And, once again:

Coal: Understanding the time line of an industry

As is to emphasize it, one of the remaining coal-fired plants will be Glenrock's Dave Johnson, where a third wind generating facility is going in.

April 3, 2023

Saudi Arabia and Dubai, and other OPEC countries, are cutting back oil production through the balance of the year.

April 13, 2023

The Biden Administration's proposed emissions standards will require 2/3s of all automobiles to be electric by 2032.

April 25, 2023

Fly Casper Alliance lobbies for city subsidy.

A new Natrona County Advocacy Group, Fly Casper Alliance, is seeking $50,000 from the City of Casper to help secure the present Delta (Sky West) flight to Salt Lake City.  The flight already receives subsidies from Natrona County, but this one time payment is hoped to help continue to secure the flight.

Related thread:

Delta receives a subsidty to continue serving the Natrona County International Airport

May 10, 2023

The big economic news right now, of course, is that the country is racing towards its debt limit, at which point it will default on its debts.

The whole idea of a debt limit was to put a cap on Congress' ability to borrow too much money. The problem is it didn't work out that way.  Sort of like a spending limit on a credit card, it just caps off the debt, but the problem is, unlike a credit card, when you go to present it to the person you are buying something from, your credit isn't declined.  You get the thing anyway, and then later just don't have the ability to pay for it.

So it works instead, like buying a house, for example, or a car, you couldn't afford.

In order to really have teeth, there'd have to be a third body, like the CBO, treasury, or something, that would just nullify bills authorizing spending over the limit.  Or, rather, a court would have to declare, before things were spent, that there was a freeze on spending as Congress didn't have the statutory authority to make the spending.  

A balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, frankly, would work significantly better.

It does serve to cause the spending entities to have to get together, but they don't do it honestly.  Basically what we have going on is something akin to a couple at a banquet who have overspent arguing whether they should take the Bud Light off the table, while they're leaving the Dom Pérignon on.  Or, rather, it's like a husband that has a job as Mini Mart clerks, but the education of PhDs, arguing about racking up bills rather than going out and getting a better paying job.

If we don't get this fixed by June 1, the country is going into a massive economic crisis.

To add to that grim situation, the negotiations are in the hands of 1) one politician who is so old that he can recall when he went to U.S. Grant's kindergarten recitals, and 2) one politician who is so beholding to Trumpist "Club For Growth" Kool-Aid drinkers that he stinks up a room before he gets there.

If you worked at a company run this way, you'd look for a new job.  If you lived in a family run this way, you'd be looking for your own apartment.

This also serves, we might note, to recall the Jeffersonian warnings about democracy (and yes, we are a democracy, don't give me that "but we're a republic" crap, which is just what that line is, crap).  Jefferson warned that once the country ceased to be agrarian, the government would fail, as at that point it gave rise to feeding the mob.

The history of modern democracies has so far demonstrated that fear to be wrong, but it has also taken real crises in order to address largess.  The German democracy, for instance, beat up by the hyperinflation of Weimar era and the brutality of World War Two keeps a tight reign on its finances. The Japanese democracy, hit hard by the Japanese decline of the 1970s, does the same.

So far, the American democracy has shown no such tendency.  Congress won't address entitlements, which it must, won't address gigantic defense spending, which it must, and won't address raising taxes, which it must.

In that context, again, it's like a couple employed as Mini Mart clerks, both with PhD's, who are standing outside their apartment yelling each at each other about whether to upgrade the stereo on the Tesla they can't afford.

May 13, 2023

Mining sector jobs grew more than any other sector of Wyoming's economy last year, by 9.1%. This in spite of dire warnings by, well, folks like me.

UW's employees will be receiving a pay raise.

Ford Motors will no longer put AM radio in its vehicles.  Any of them.  Many other manufacturers are pulling theirs from electric vehicles.

May 15, 2023

Trump apparently said in his Town Hall on CNN that unless the Administration agreed to major cuts, the Republicans should take the country into debt default, a totally wreckless position that would destroy the savings of his constituency. 

Trump himself was responsible for major additions to the deficit.

Biden and the Republicans are set to meet again on Tuesday. Perhaps this slow motion process is part of his strategy, but its yet another example of government that is as slow as molasses.

May 16, 2023

The local paper is eliminating an edition, going to three print editions per week only and wiping out personal home delivery in favor of mail.

May 21, 2023

Nothing is being done about the debt ceiling while President Biden is at the G7. He gets back today.

If the US ends up with Trump again, this sort of behavior will be a lot of the reason why.

Footnotes:

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part XI. The Waiting for a Train Edition

The death throws of the newspapers.

Back when I was in high school, I briefly toyed with the idea of becoming a journalist.

I was never very serious about it, it was only one of the possibilities I was considering.  In junior high and my first year or so of high school, I was fairly certain that I'd pursue a career as an Army officer, but already by that time that desire was wearing off. I liked writing and still do, so it seemed like a possibility.  I also liked photography, and still do, and it seemed like a career where you could combine both, although in that era press photographers were usually just that, photographers.  

I took my high school's journalism class as a result and was on the school newspaper.  Doing that, I shot hundreds of photographs of our high school athletes, as well as some really interesting events.  I did learn how to write in the journalist's style, which involves summarizing the story in the first paragraph figuring that some people will read no more than that, summarizing it again in the last paragraph, and filling in the story in between.  Good news stories still read that way, although I've noticed in recent years that is observed less and less.

During that year or so I had the occasion to tour the local paper, and the class had a senior, a young woman, who actually already worked there as a reporter.

That paper was no small affair.  The paper was a regional one, as well as the city paper, and it's building just off of downtown, still there was very large.  That large structure, with a massive open news floor and a big printing room, was at least the fourth locality it had occupied, outgrowing the prior three.  It would outgrow that one was well and build an absolutely massive structure just outside of town.

Last year, it sold it.

Now, the paper is headquartered in what was once a bar/restaurant downtown.  Much, much smaller.  It doesn't have presses anymore, it prints the paper in another state.  Far from having a large staff of reporters with dedicated beats, it's down to one or two writers who are always "cubs", just starting out.  It doesn't print newspapers at all on two days a week, right now, but relies on an electronic edition that mimics the appearance of a newspaper on your computer.

You can't pick up and thumb through a pdf.

This past week, it announced that it was going to quit printing a Sunday edition and quit physical home delivery for the three issues per week it will still print. Those will be mailed from the printing location in another state.

It's dying.

It's not surprising really, but it is sad.

At one time, it was a real force to be reckoned with, and people frankly feared it.  Everyone subscribed to it.  I know one family that sued it for liable due to what they regarded as inaccurate reporting on them.

Newspapers reformed themselves after the introduction of radio.  That's something that tends not to be very well known about them.  Before radio, many newspapers tended to be some species of scandal rag and they were usually heavily partisan in their reporting.  You can think of them, basically, the way people think of Fox News today.  As radio cut into their readership, papers consolidated and adopted a new ethic that they reported objectively.

They frankly never really achieved full objectivity, as that may not be possible.  But they did strive for it.  The introduction of television reinforced this.  Newspapers became the place where you could, hopefully, get complete objective news and, hopefully, in depth news on various topics.  Even smaller newspapers had dedicated reporters per topic, larger ones very much so.  The local paper had local reporters that reported per topic assignment.  A big paper, like the Rocky Mountain News, had very specified reporters.  The Rocky Mountain News, for instance, had a religion reporter whose beat was just that topic.  A surprising number of local papers sent reporters to South Vietnam during the Vietnam War just to report on the war.

That's all long past.  For quite some time, reporters have become generalists by default, and as a rule, they can't be expected to have an in-depth understanding of any one topic. For that reason, they are frequently inaccurate, even on a national level.  Just today, for example, I read a national story which repeatedly referred to Communion Hosts as "wafers". That's not the right term.  Reporters on crime blindly accept the "mass shooting" and "high powered rifle" lines without having any idea what they mean.  Print reporters repeat in some instances, depending upon individual reporters, hearsay as fact, in part because they likely don't have the time to really investigate everything personally. 

Because we now get green reporters, the obvious fact that the local paper is dying is all the sadder.  At one time green reporters could at least hope to move up the ranks in their local papers, maybe becoming editors or columnists if they stayed there, or they could move on, as they often did, to larger papers.  They still move on, but papers everywhere are dying.  Ironically, the only papers that still do fairly well are the genuine small town papers in small towns. That's good, but that can't be a career boosting job for those who enter it.  

And with the death of the paper the objectivity that they brought in, back in their golden era, which I'd place from the 1930s through 1990 or so, is dying with them.  People are going to electronic news, which so far hasn't shown that same dedication, although recently some online start-ups actually do.  Television news has become hopelessly shallow, fully dedicated to the "if it bleeds it leads" type of thinking, or fully partisan, telling people what they want to hear.  Really good reporting, and not all of it was really good, was pretty informative, which raised the level of the national intellect.  People might have hated reporters, and they often did, but they read what was being reported about Richard Nixon and Watergate or what was revealed in the Pentagon Papers and had a better understanding of it in spite of themselves.  That helped result in Republicans themselves operating to bring Richard Nixon down and society at large bringing an end to the Vietnam War.

Now, in contrast, we have electronic propaganda organs on the net that feed people exactly what they want to hear, and that often is the same thing that comes out of the back end of a cow.

Not overnight, of course. This has been going on for decades, and indeed in some ways it started with the first radio broadcasts.  But radio was easier to adjust to.  The internet, not so much.

The death of a career, an institution, and unfortunately, also our wider understanding.

Sic transit.