Cowardly Men

She's a young beautiful woman, never smiles. I never see a smile on her face. I see her standing there with hatred in her eyes, like she has hatred because we have borders, because we have a strong military, because we cut our taxes...

Donald Trump in a recent press conference.

Donald Trump is a creepy old man.

A few years ago there was a lot of ink spilled and electrons expended on whether or not there was a "crisis of masculinity" in American culture.  There's still a fair amount of discussion of it, as evidenced by this New York Times op ed from this year:

America Has a Masculinity Crisis

A much-needed, nuanced conversation about masculinity and feminism today.

I've thought about posting in it from time to time, but never had as its a difficult topic to really address, even though, as it involves a shift in social standards, it fits right into this site's purpose.

Seeing Donald Trump insult of a female reporter the other day however, makes it impossible not to address.

Trump is a creepy old man who came of age in the 70s and had early sexual morals like that of an alley cat.  He seems to lack any morals today.  The comment he made was not only demeaning, it demonstrates an absolute contempt of women.  The reporter is supposed to be a pretty adornment, in his view.

How many women have been confronted by the lech stating "why don't you smile more".  Indeed, if you are of a certain age, "why don't you smile more?" or "why don't you wear prettier dresses" or the like is pretty much raising the flag of an intended sexual assault of the pressure type.  Given Trump's dementia, it's not impossible to wonder if that was a line other women in other context have heard before.

It should have been met with a male reaction.

When I was young, even though I grew up in the 1960s and 70s, there was a set of expectations that boys learned and men followed.  I think to some extent they've fallen aside as in the 1970s men lost track of what was expected of them due to the wave of First Generation Feminism.  That era has passed, but knowing what to do and how to behave seems to have gone out to sea.

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

Chesterton, The Thing. 

The old standards weren't quaint, they existed for a reason.  Two of the reasons are that men are more powerful than women and if the law of the jungle applies, lots of men will abuse women, and by abuse, you know what we mean.  The vulnerable girls at Epstein Island, where Trump traveled with the other rich and often unprincipled, provide an example of that.  Another reason is that the rules restrained men and oriented them towards decent behavior.  Finally, and quite frankly, the rules in fact reflected centuries old views of the relationship between men and women, much of which underwent assault in the 1970s, but frankly which reflect women, and men, in their more natural roles.

Now, let's be clear.  There were men who always violated these rules, some very openly, but they weren't admire for that.  And the reaction to violation could go far beyond mere internal contempt.

Amongst the rules were some that seem pretty minor.  You always opened the door for women, including women you didn't know.  You walked around a car to let a woman out of the car and opened the door for her, and when entering a car you opened the door for her.  Both of those actually reflect an era when doors were heavier, including car doors.

A man got up from his seat when women approached to address them, something depicted in the final seat of True Grit when Frank James does not get up when she approaches, and when she leaves she states "Keep your seat, trash".  

That is how that was viewed.

More seriously, however, men, including teenage boys, were taught not to insult a woman's virtue in any fashion.  The instruction was so serious that if you were in a relationship with a woman so insulted you were expected to immediately intervene, but it went beyond that.  If you were in a setting where that was done you were also expected to intervene, particularly if you knew the girl or the knew somebody who was in a relationship with the girl.  It was universally understood that a verbal rebuke of a person talking smack or insulting a girl, or saying the kind of thing Trump was saying, didn't cause them to knock it off, a fistfight was the probable result.  Generally, the exchange went something like:

"Hey, knock it off and leave her alone."

The reply normally was:

"Hey dude, I didn't mean anything by it".

If,, however, the insulting person did not back off, a fight often ensued.  

This is, of course, amongst younger men.  If an older man, like Trump, said something like that, a verbal rebuke and walking out was the norma.

That went something like:

"You sir, are being insulting and owe her an apology".

With an old baffoon like Trump, that was normally met with:

"Um, I all I meant. . . 

At which point the other men started leaving.

This is all 20th Century stuff, I'd note, and 20th Century middle class stuff.  Even when I was young in rougher society fights could arise in this fashion which went right to knives.  In European and European American middle class and upper class society of the 18th and 19th Century failing to yield often outright resulted in a duel.  

Now, these guys just stand there like lumps, saying nothing.

One of the things about our current society is that it's really become White Trash.  The gutter morals of men who view women as objects and who can't speak with any proficiency are dictating the culture of the country, and combined with this is the corruption that wealth has always brought about.  

Again, Trump provides us a fine example of that.  He's an immoral man who is steeped in immorality. He's hung around with the rich men who abuse teenage women to the point where questions about his behavior are legitimate questions.  He's made creepy comments about his own daughter when she was young. The wheels are coming off of his ability to restrain himself.  He gets closer and closer to the point at which he's going to outright proposition a woman on national television and not one male reporter has the courage to do anything about it.

But we're going to have to start doing something about this behavior.

Part of the claim of the MAGA movement and entities like the Wyoming Freedom Caucus is that they were restoring America. Instead, they're just White Trashing it up.  Chuck Gray have us just such an example the other day when he acted like a 12 year old brat the Cowboy State Daily video program.

One of the things about the old rules is that even one person enforcing them was normally effective.  Even within the last few years I've seen that when an official got mad about something and started swearing and another official rebuked him with "there are ladies here".  I hadn't heard that in years, but it resulted in an immediate apology.

People around Trump need to start calling him on his behavior.  People around Trump who pretend its not important need to be called on that.  But beyond that, people in everyday conversation need to do the same.  The long road back won't become from the top of the generation in charge.  It'll have to come from the bottom.

Tuesday, June 1, 1926. Marilyn Monroe and Andy Griffith.

Norma Jeane Mortenson was born in Los Angeles to Gladys Pearl Baker, nee Monroe, who was married at the time to her second husband, Martin Edward Mortensen, but who was not her father.

Newton Baker and Gladys had married when she was only 14 years old. Baker was reportedly abusive.  The couple had two children.  Interestingly, she was born to an American family living in Mexico but one that had strong connections to California, where she grew up.

In 1923 the Bakers divorced and obtained custody of all three of the couple's children.  He, however, kidnapped the oldest two and moved to Kentucky.  Baker was effected by the Roaring 20s and conducted herself to some extent as a flapper and participant in the early feminist movement, which then as later advocated sexual laxity.  She was pregnant when she married Mortensen, who she soon found to be boring, leading to divorce.

Norma Jean's father was likely Charles Stanley Gifford, Gladys's superior at RKO Studios, where she was working.

Gladys and Norma Jeane.

Baker was likely mentally unstable ,which seems to have run in her family.  Based on what evidence exists, it seems like that there was a genetic component to this and she's spend much of the later years of her life institutionalized.

The rest of this story is, of course, well known.  While its speculation, it would seem likely that at least some of the genetic component of her mental instabilities visited themselves upon her daughter, who of course lived a very disrupted early life.

She outlived her daughter and died in 1984.

Andy Griffith was born in Mount Airy, North Carolina.  He was at first a voice comedian and later a famous television actor, best remembered for the Andy Griffith Show.  He was strongly connected to North Carolina his entire life.

The Andy Griffith Show almost defines a certain vision of rural America to this day, and it retains a very strong following.  Unlike the Sheriff protagonist of the show, Griffith married three times and had an affair with one of the shows love interests while it was running.  Irrespective of those failings, he remains widely admired.

Last edition:

Sunday, May 30, 1926. An oral arrangement.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, British Empire, Iraq, Petroleum, Turkey

Saturday, April 17, 1926.

Last edition:

Saturday, April 10, 1926. "Big Business and State Socialism are very much alike, especially Big Business."

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Art, Card Games, Chesterton, Clothing, Education, Geology, Golf, Hawaii, Native Americans, Random snippets, The Press, Youth Organizations

Thursday, April 11, 1946. Nostra culpa.

Einstein warned "I believe that the abominable deterioration of ethical standards stems primarily from the mechanization and depersonalization of our lives ... Nostra culpa!"

First powered flight of the X-1.

X-1 in flight.

Forced labor in French overseas territories, which had allowed for annual conscription for government projects, was banned.

The final edition of the China Burma Indian soldiers newspaper the Roundup was published.  It was a reprise of the war, and on its last page ran a selection of pinups, a feature of the newspaper with its pinups being a bit racier than Yank's.

In the last issue of this series (1946) we ran a story from the Rocky Mountain News about pregnant German women.  I.e., women who had become pregnant by American troops to whom they were not (and could not be, at that time), married.  The news ran the story in a somewhat lighthearted fashion, but that didn't match the reality.

Such children, of whom there were at least 200,000 by Allied troops, actually faced pretty rough conditions, as discussed here:

Occupation children

Last edition:

Tuesday, April 9, 1946. The Bomb, the accused, and pregnant Fräuleins.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Army, Colorado (Denver), Crime, Germany, Germany (Munich), Nuclear power, Post WWII Occupation of Germany, Sex, The relationship between men and women, Weapons

Tuesday, April 9, 1946. The Bomb, the accused, and pregnant Fräuleins.

The Rocky Mountain News reported on expenses associated with The Bomb.

The tragic story of Viola Elliot was back on the front page.  She first appeared there on February 8, 1946, when she gave birth while a prisoner due to the homicide in issue.

As we noted then:

She was accused of the beating death of her stepson, Robert.  She denied it, but she was convicted of second degree murder.  Her 8 year old son by a previous marriage was a witness for the prosecution at the trial and Mrs. Elliot admitted at the time of arrest that she had hit and kicked the child on the occasion of his death.  She later changed her story and claimed he'd tripped on his pajamas.

Her parents and husband said they'd stand by her at the time of her arrest, but I wonder if that was still the case later on.  At her sentencing, she stated that Leslie was just as responsible for the death and the judge agreed.  Leslie had already been arraigned for assault and battery and assessory after the fact.  In April she petitioned the County to make her children wards of the County, to which her husband objected.  They were noted to be "estranged" by that time.

Viola was 27 years old and on her second marriage at the time.  She would have had her first child, if her son who testified was the first at age 19 in 1937 or 1938.  The paper mentioned that there were three children, including the murdered boy.  Interestingly, I can find one other reference to a "Miss Viola Elliot" from 1937 indicating that Viola Elliot was employed as an arts and crafts teacher.  A 1943 edition mentions a Viola Elliott as being just back in town after visiting her husband in Tennessee, who was probably in the service.

Viola received 15 to 20 years for the murder.

Leslie would receive six months for assault and battery.

Her mother, Alice Faber, testified at the trial, as did her father.  Alice died in 1966 and is buried in Denver.  Her obituary listed Viola as still living, still with the last name Elliot, and in Denver.  The Fabers also had a son named Wilmer, who was alive at the time.  The boy who testified at the trial was living in California.

Her father died in 1961.

The impacts of the war in addition to the bomb were a story several pages in.

Peacetime conscription had not been a thing prior to 1940 and there remained a lot of opposition to it.  Indeed, it would go away for a time.

The plight of pregnant German girls in Munich, made so by American GIs, was seemingly without a solution and without sympathy.  By this point the Occupation Authorities were allowing for fraternization, but the U.S. Army was not approving enlisted marriages.  The young women seemingly expected help from the Army.

Munich had been Hitler's adopted town, we'd note, which is interesting in context here as the women in question would have become pregnant by American GIs very soon after the end of the war.

Last edition:

Thursday, April 4, 1946. Hirohito lucks out.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Far Eastern Commission, Hirohito, Marilyn Monroe, Playboy, Standards, War Crimes, Women

 

Teen birth rates hit another historical low in 2025, CDC says

Tuesday, April 2, 1946. MacArthur bans fraternization, Murray tries for national health insurance.

General Douglas MacArthur issued the first regulations against fraternization between American soldiers and Japanese citizens as an attempt to stop soldiers from consorting with prostitutes.  The regulations would grow into an extensive program of segregation.

Montana Democrat Senator James Murray convened his Committee on Education and Labor for the first hearing on comprehensive national health insurance.  His concern arose from his prior role as a labor lawyer for coal miners.

Murray had been born in Ontario and was moved to Butte upon the death of his father that very year.  He was left a very wealthy man by an inheritance that came about when his uncle, who raised him, died.

Murray was an Irish American/Canadian Catholic and died in 1961.

It's really dispiriting to realize that national health insurance, which was a desire of the Truman Administration, has never come about.  All the arguments against it really fail, but the opposition to it has left the United States the only major nation without it and has contributed enormously to the decline of the United States as a first rate nation since the 1970s.

Last edition:

Monday, April 1, 1946. The April 1, 1946 Aleutian Islands Earthquake

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Aleutians, Coal, Disaster, Geology, Hawaii, Hawaii (Hilo), Hawaii (Maui), Imperial Japanese Navy, Malaya, Mining, Singapore, Strike Wave of 1945-1946, The Cold War, U.S. Navy

Saturday, March 23, 1946. Marilyn Monroe and the Wedding Industrial Complex. Truman warns Stalin, and holds up testing the bomb. No public necking in Japan.

A really interesting Richard C. Miller photograph of Marilyn Monroe was taken, which we learned of due to Reddit's 80 Years Ago Sub, and which we repost here via fair use.

Miller had "discovered" Monroe, who was already modeling following her photo spread in World War Two's Yank.  Miller, typical for the era, photographed her in swimsuits, including bikinis (very modest ones by today's standards), but also  had a an entire series of other topics, including the subject shooting firearms.  Here he depicted her in a wedding dress.

The real life model had already been married and divorced by this time, having married at age 16 and then filing for divorce while her husband was deployed in the Navy during the Second World War.  This photograph is actually commonly claimed to be a wedding photo from her first marriage, which it is not, although the veil is remarkably similar to the one she actually wore in her wedding.

Actual photograph of Monroe at her first wedding, when she was 16 years old.

In the studio photograph she's holding some sort of book with a Christian cross on it, with that style of cross depiction very common for the era.  This is what causes us to note this photograph in a way, as it brings up the topic addressed here:

The Wedding Industrial Complex

Notes from the Spesia Underground

A really interesting episode.

This really fascinating look at modern weddings brings up a whole host of things we routinely discuss here, including agrarianism and subsidiarity.  The episode from Catholic Stuff You Should Know points out the extent that weddings were, at at the time the photo of Norma Jean was taken above still remained, community affairs and not big bride focused shows.

We've lost a lot here.

And we really need to recapture it.

While indelicate, this also shows the portrayal of a really beautiful woman before Playboy perverted all of that.

Monroe was, as is well known, Playboy's first, and unwilling, centerfold.  But what's interesting here is that prior to Playboy arriving on the scene, this was not an uncommon depiction of a really beautiful woman.  There were, of course, already some women who were focused on for being really busty, Jane Russell giving an example, but the theme did not absolutely dominate.  To look at the 19 year old Monroe here, you would not have thought of her in that fashion.  A decade later, you would, and even after Life intervened to push her nude photograph first as an art item.  We've dealt with that before here as well, although frankly we need to modify our entry.  That post is here:

Appearance. Shape and being in shape and women (men will come next).

Also posted via fair use, Colliers had an article on keeping everyone employed year around, showing how times were in fact changing.

We've looked at that here too.

Women in the Workplace: It was Maytag that took Rosie the Riveter out of the domestic arena, not World War Two

Truman presented an ultimatum to Stalin demanding the Soviets comply with the agreement to pull their troops from Iran.

The Rocky Mountain News was a morning paper, so they didn't catch that, but they did catch something else that Truman had ordered the day prior.

The Army issued an order prohibiting soldiers from engaging in public displays of affection with Japanese women.

Out Our Way's gag was based on cleaning out the ash bin of a stove, something that's likely completely lost on modern readers.

Argentina extended its claims over Antarctica.

Mad King Donny must not be aware of this or we'd be staking a claim.

Indonesia Tentara Republik Indonesia (Armed Forces of the Republic of Indonesia) evacuated Indonesian citizens from the city of Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, after which the area was burned to avoid its use by the Dutch.

Commemorated as the Bandung Sea of Fire and a great patriotic act, poor people really don't have much of a say in things like this.

Last edition:

Friday, March 22, 1946. First U.S. rocket to escape the atmosphere.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Army, British Commonwealth, British League of Nations Mandates, Catholic, Christianity, Germany, Jordan, Nazi Germany, religion, Rocketry, United Kingdom, Westphalia

Have some of you seen any daylight recently?

 

This is amusing.  Chloe Winters is not unattractive, but the married Galwegian dresses like what she is, a market gardener.  It's a dirty job.  Her only adornment, normally, is a cross denoting her Christianity.

The fact that she's getting hit on for gardening videos. . . well it's just sad.

Mail Order Brides: When Wyoming Men Outnumbered Women 10-1, They ‘Imported Wives’

Newspaper ads soliciting potential spouses.  Somewhat amusing, I suppose, is the German working girl "anxious" to meet a mechanic, followed by an advertisement from a 36 year old mechanic looking for a "working girl". The typesetter had to have arranged that order intentionally.  

This is a topic that tends to fascinate people as a relic of the past:

Mail Order Brides: When Wyoming Men Outnumbered Women 10-1, They ‘Imported Wives’

The truth of the matter is, of course, that since the Internet arrived, mail ordering spouses has returned.  Witness the discussions on Reddit:

I am "mail order bride" ask me anything

20f Mail Order Bride, husband is 53 AMA

I'm 26 and married a mail order bride from Cambodia and I could not be happier - AMA

This, from a Thai in the AFA Reddit threads probably explains a lot of it currently:

If you want to get out of Thailand, you marry a foreigner. It's a better life for me, and my family as I bring them over. So my parents, my sisters and I are all here in the US now.

I met Paul online through a mail order bride agency when I was 16. We talked, and he flew here when I was 17 to meet me, and he met my family. He got the approval from my parents, and when I turned 18 we got married and he brought me to the US.

I have a nice house, a man who cares and takes care of me, and a good job. I don't think I would have this back in our home country. I'm glad for Paul, and everything he's done for us. So, I am happy.

Icky aspect of this aside. . . well maybe the whole thing is icky, this probably defines things in a way, then and now, for mail order brides.  Economic desperation.  Perhaps more then, a bit, than now, but both.

Men meeting their "mail order" spouse to be at Ellis Island.  These women were from Armenia, Turkey, Greece and Romania, and likely were all Eastern Orthodox.

This is a popular story for things like romance novels.  It's the topic of at least one movie, 1974's Zandy's Bride, which was based on a 1942 novel called The Stranger.  I suspect it was way less common than generally supposed, but I don't know.  Added to that, some of what we regard as "mail order" were actually very long distance courtships by correspondence.  I.e, they knew each other that way, which is apparently at least somewhat the case for modern mail order brides as well.

Gree, women entering the country to marry correspondent fiances.

The photos that were put up here, and the advertisement, show an aspect of this that was really significant at the time, and seems to be forgotten (including by current mail orders) that being religion and culture.  The Greek women, at least three of whom appear to be very young, were escaping poverty, but they were marrying into their own culture.  Pretty rough, but they were at least marrying somebody who spoke Greek and who was Greek Orthodox.  Likely all the women in the first photograph were marrying somebody from their own culture as well.  The advertisement, however, provides less of that, but some of it.  Some men were just looking for somebody to marry.  The Jewish man was looking for a Jewish woman, however.  The German working girl, on the other hand, wanted a "mechanic" (somebody who worked with machinery) and a comfortable small home.  Two men wanted widows for some reason, which would probably make sense if I knew the context (perhaps they wanted somebody who was used to be married and whom they didn't have to romance).  Even where culture wasn't referenced, chances are they would likely be ofose cultures.

Of course, if you go further back, you can find more peculiar examples, such as the French "King's Daughters" who were sent to Quebec.  Up to 1,000 of them were sent between 1663 and 1673, which followed prior private efforts starting in the 1640s.   The King's Daughters were actually vetted for their future role, and were held to scrupulous standards based on their "moral calibre" and physically fitness. Authorities in Quebec actually sent some back that were found not to be vigorous enough, which presumably was disappointing for them.

What all of this says we could debate.  Contrary to what some people like to assert, it's never been the case, ever, that regular people didn't marry for love.  They always have.  The thing is that modern people often have a hard time recognizing that in the conditions of earlier times.

Catholicism brought in the requirement that there be consent on the part of both parties in order for their to be a valid marriage, and after that marriage ages jumped to the current norms.  Chances are pretty good that the way most couples relationships developed looked a lot more like what's depicted in Flipped, set in the 1950s, than Dirty Dancing or something.  I.e, the ultimately married couple knew each other from childhood.  That still occurs, of course, particularly in some communities.  Doug Crowe's ribald A Growing Season references that being the case in ranching communities of the 1950s, and I'd seen the same thing as late as the 1990s.  But where women were in short supply, desperate times always called for desperate measures.

Photograph from Montana, 1901.  Clearly the man with the cat was the most eligible Batchelor.

Something that should be noted is that there was a pretty high incentive for women to marry prior to the 1920s, or even prior to the 1940s, in comparison to currently.  Obviously marriage remains, but to be a "spinster" prior to the mid 20th Century came with a massive set of problems for the woman and her family.  The classic Pride and Prejudice deals with this repeatedly as the failure of the Bennet sister to marry is creating an impending financial disaster for the family and Charlotte Lucas accepts a less than desirable proposal because, in part, she's a burden on her parents. Those concerns are subtle in the film, but they were real.  The "German working girl" in the advertisement above was likely looking at serving out a life's sentence as a domestic servant if she couldn't find somebody to marry.  Most women who weren't married lived at home, and when they aged into their 30s they were looking at taking on that role for increasingly elderly parents.

All of which raises the question, do you have a couple that met in your background this way?  It'd be almost impossible to know, I'd think.  Having said that, in thinking of it, my chances of being descended from a King's Daughter are fairly high and, while not really the same thing, one of my aunts who did a family genealogy claimed that one married couple we descend from did not speak the same language when they married, although her information was notoriously unreliable (the husband was Scottish, the wife Irish. . . I think they both clearly would have spoken English).  On my wife's side, my father in law told me once that one set of his grandparents were both from Ohio originally, but that they had not met there.  Somehow the bride was sent out to marry the groom, and they married.

A few minor observations.

Cosmetic surgery, save for genuine restorative purposes, or genuine medical reasons, ought to be banned.

People who claim to be "Constitutional Lawyers" are no such thing, unless they are public defenders. Anyone claiming that title, who isn't, should be sentenced to a term of being a public defender in Dayton, Ohio for their natural lives, plus twenty years.

Seriously, that's a flaming bullshit claim. Ain't no such thing.

If you look like you are 30, when you are 60, due to cosmetic surgery, you are a deeply insecure weenie.

If you are male, and live in a rural area, and don't hunt or fish seriously, you are an insecure weenie and should move to Greenwich Village.

Boxing is a brutal sport, but it's beautiful.

Fleetwood Mac seriously sucks.  Of their songs that suck, Landslide sucks the most.

A twenty something single man giving a lecture on "the fertility crisis" is a freakin' joke.  Geez man, get married and get a real job.

If you have to think about the hairstyle a man is evidencing, he's a weenie.

If a man has perfectly combed hair at all times (think Mike Johnson), he's a weenie.