Showing posts with label Toronto Canada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Toronto Canada. Show all posts

Saturday, December 23, 2023

Thursday, December 23, 1943. Moving toward railroad seizure.

The Great Hall of Union Station, Toronto, Canada, December 23, 1943.

Three out of five railroad unions rejected Franklin Roosevelt's offer of arbitration in their wage dispute.

Accordingly, President Roosevelt ordered Attorney General Francis Biddle to being the process of seizing the railroads effective December 30.

The Red Army prevailed in the Battle of the Dnieper.

The Canadian 1st Division seized most of Ortona.  Other 8th Army elements captured Arielli.

The HMS Worcester hit a mine in the North Sea and was rendered a loss.

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Wednesday, October 31, 1923. Too many beans.

A gas station at 376 Dupont Street, Toronto.  October 31, 1923.  The area today: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6739711,-79.4102822,3a,75y,345.25h,62.37t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sHGkK4kB8gL_d4klZCcG4xA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

Sometimes, you get too many beans.



I actually put this up because of the article on the Rialto Theater, which is still there and currently for sale.
D. W. Griffith on movie location.  Probably the movie "America".


Monday, December 2, 2019

December 2, 1919. Bill Carlisle's luck runs out. Wilson sends a message.

It had actually run out some time ago.


He hadn't made to the Hole in the Wall, as people had been speculating, but he had made it relatively far from Medicine Bow.  Indeed, he must have fled on something like the Fetterman Road or the down Sybille Canyon or something to end up where he did, the mountains outside of Glendo Wyoming.


He'd been wounded in the hand his last train robbery when he disarmed a young man who attempted to shoot him.  That was minor in comparison to what happened this time.  A member of the posse that arrested him shot him in the chest on this occasion, causing him to have to be taken to Douglas on a pack mule.  He'd spend nearly a month there following surgery that saved his life.


That posse had been pursuing him so his last days of freedom weren't enjoyable ones.  His next month obviously wouldn't be either.  Following his recovery he was sent back to the penitentiary in Rawlins to serve another sixteen years.

The Union Pacific came out ahead, compared to 1916, when it had spent $15,000 searching for him. Relying on this occasion on local law enforcement, even though it complained about it, it came out cost ahead.

As the mystery of Carlisle's whereabouts was resolved, another one developed elsewhere, that being the mysterious disappearance of Canadian theatre magnate Ambrose Small and his secretary Jack Doughty.  Ambrose had sold his theatre holdings earlier that day and simply disappeared, never to be found.

Doughty was and was extradited for having stolen bonds that he cashed and deposited that same day. But there was no evidence that he was connected with Small's disappearance or that he knew anything about it.  Indeed, Small's predilections, which included gambling and affairs with actresses, and disappearances for brief periods of time, made determining what happened to him difficult.

Also on this day, Woodrow Wilson sent his State of the Union message to Congress. Still recovering from his stroke, he could not deliver it in person.  It was the first written State of the Union Message to Congress since 1800.

TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
I sincerely regret that I cannot be present at the opening of this session of the Congress. I am thus prevented from presenting in as direct a way as I could wish the many questions that are pressing for solution at this time. Happily, I have had the advantage of the advice of the heads of the several executive departments who have kept in close touch with affairs in their detail and whose thoughtful recommendations I earnestly second.
In the matter of the railroads and the readjustment of their affairs growing out of Federal control, I shall take the liberty at a later date of addressing you.
I hope that Congress will bring to a conclusion at this session legislation looking to the establishment of a budget system. That there should be one single authority responsible for the making of all appropriations and that appropriations should be made not independently of each other, but with reference to one single comprehensive plan of expenditure properly related to the nation's income, there can be no doubtI believe the burden of preparing the budget must, in the nature of' the case, if the work is to be properly done and responsibility concentrated instead of divided, rest upon the executive. The budget so prepared should be submitted to and approved or amended by a single committee of each House of Congress and no single appropriation should be made by the Congress, except such as may have been included in the budget prepared by the executive or added by the particular committee of Congress charged with the budget legislation.
Another and not less important aspect of the problem is the ascertainment of the economy and efficiency with which the moneys appropriated are expended. Under existing law the only audit is for the purpose of ascertaining whether expenditures have been lawfully made within the appropriations. No one is authorized or equipped to ascertain whether the money has been spent wisely, economically and effectively. The auditors should be highly trained officials with permanent tenure in the Treasury Department, free of obligations to or motives of consideration for this or any subsequent administration, and authorized and empowered to examine into and make report upon the methods employed and the results obtained by the executive departments of the Government. Their reports should be made to the Congress and to the Secretary of the Treasury.
I trust that the Congress will give its immediate consideration to the problem of future taxation. Simplification of the income and profits taxes has become an immediate necessity. These taxes performed indispensable service during the war. They must, however, be simplified, not only to save the taxpayer inconvenience and expense, but in order that his liability may be made certain and definite.
With reference to the details of the Revenue Law, the Secretary of the Treasury and the Commissioner of Internal Revenue will lay before you for your consideration certain amendments necessary or desirable in connection with the administration of the law-recommendations which have my approval and support. It is of the utmost importance that in dealing with this matter the present law should not be disturbed so far as regards taxes for the calendar year 1920 payable in the calendar year 1921. The Congress might well consider whether the higher rates of income and profits taxes can in peace times be effectively productive of revenue, and whether they may not, on the contrary, be destructive of business activity and productive of waste and inefficiency. There is a point at which in peace times high rates of income and profits taxes discourage energy, remove the incentive to new enterprises, encourage extravagant expenditures and produce industrial stagnation with consequent unemployment and other attendant evils.
The problem is not an easy one. A fundamental change has taken place with reference to the position of America in the world's affairs. The prejudice and passions engendered by decades of controversy between two schools of political and economic thought,-the one believers in protection of American industries, the other believers in tariff for revenue only,-must be sbordinated to the single consideration of the public interest in the light of utterly changed conditions. Before the war America was heavily the debtor of the rest of the world and the interest payments she had to make to foreign countries on American securities held abroad, the expenditures of American travelers abroad and the ocean freight charges she had to pay to others, about balanced the value of her pre-war favorable balance of trade. During the war America's exports nave been greatly stimulated, and increased prices have increased their value. On the other hand, she has purchased a large proportion of the American securities previously held abroad, has loaned some $9,000,000,000 to foreign governments, and has built her own ships. Our favorable balance of trade has thus been greatly increased and Europe has been deprived of the means of meeting it heretofore existing. Europe can have only three ways of meeting the favorable balance of trade in peace times: by imports into this country of gold or of goods, or by establishing new credits. Europe is in no position at the present time to ship gold to us nor could we contemplate large further imports of gold into this country without concern. The time has nearly passed for international governmental loans and it will take time to develop in this country a market for foreign securities. Anything, therefore, which would tend to prevent foreign countries from settling for our exports by shipments of goods into this country could only have the effect of preventing them from paying for our exports and therefore of preventing the exports from being made. The productivity of the country, greatly stimulated by the war, must find an outlet by exports to foreign countries, and any measures taken to prevent imports will inevitably curtail exports, force curtailment of production, load the banking machinery of the country with credits to carry unsold products and produce industrial stagnation and unemployment. If we want to sell, we must be prepared to buy. Whatever, therefore, may have been our views during the period of growth of American business concerning tariff legislation, we must now adjust our own economic life to a changed condition growing out of the fact that American business is full grown and that America is the greatest capitalist in the world.
No policy of isolation will satisfy the growing needs and opportunities of America. The provincial standards and policies of the past, which have held American business as if in a strait-jacket, must yield and give way to the needs and exigencies of the new day in which we live, a day full of hope and promise for American business, if we will but take advantage of the opportunities that are ours for the asking. The recent war has ended our isolation and thrown upon us a great duty and responsibility. The United States must share the expanding world market. The United States desires for itself only equal opportunity with the other nations of the world, and that through the process of friendly cooperation and fair competition the legitimate interests of the nations concerned may be successfully and equitably adjusted.
There are other matters of importance upon which I urged action at the last session of Congress which are still pressing for solution. I am sure it is not necessary for me again to remind you -that there is one immediate and very practicable question resulting from the war which we should meet in the most liberal spirit. It is a matter of recognition and relief to our soldiers. I can do no better than to quote from my last message urging this very action:
"We must see to it that our returning soldiers are assisted in every practicable way to find the places for which they are fitted in the daily work of the country. This can be done by developing and maintaining upon an adequate scale the admirable organization created by the Department of Labor for placing men seeking work; and it can also be done, in at least one very great field, by creating new opportunities for individual enterprise. The Secretary of the Interior has pointed out the way by which returning soldiers may be helped to find and take up land in the hitherto undeveloped regions of the country which the Federal Government has already prepared, or can readily prepare, for cultivation and also on many of the cutover or neglected areas which lie within the limits of the older states; and I once more take the liberty of recommending very urgently that his plans shall receive the immediate and substantial support of the Congress."
In the matter of tariff legislation, I beg to call your attention to the statements contained in my last message urging legislation with reference to the establishment of the chemical and dyestuffs industry in America:
"Among the industries to which special consideration should be given is that of the manufacture of dyestuffs and related chemicals. Our complete dependence upon German supplies before the war made the interruption of trade a cause of exceptional economic disturbance. The close relation between the manufacture of dyestuffs, on the one hand, and of explosive and poisonous gases, on the other, moreover, has given the industry an exceptional significance and value. Although the United States will gladly and unhesitatingly join in the programme of international disarmament, it will, nevertheless, be a policy of obvious prudence to make certain of the successful maintenance of many strong and well-equipped chemical plants. The German chemical industry, with which we will be brought into competition, was -and may well be again, a thoroughly knit monopoly capable of exercising a competition of a peculiarly insidious and dangerous kind."
During the war the farmer performed a vital and willing service to the nation. By materially increasing the production of his land, he supplied America and the Allies with the increased amounts of food necessary to keep their immense armies in the field. He indispensably helped to win the war. But there is now scarcely less need of increasing the production in food -and the necessaries of life. I ask the Congress to consider means of encouraging effort along these lines. The importance of doing everything possible to promote production along economical lines, to improve marketing, and to make rural life more attractive and healthful, is obvious. I would urge approval of the plans already proposed to the Congress by the Secretary of Agriculture, to secure the essential facts required for the proper study of this question, through the proposed enlarged programmes for farm management studies and crop estimates. I would urge, also, the continuance of Federal participation in the building of good roads, under the terms of existing law and under the direction of present agencies; the need of further action on the part of the States and the Federal Government to preserve and develop our forest resources, especially through the practice of better forestry methods on private holdings and the extension of the publicly owned forests; better support for country schools and the more definite direction of their courses of study along lines related to rural problems; and fuller provision for sanitation in rural districts and the building up of needed hospital and medical facilities in these localities. Perhaps the way might be cleared for many of these desirable reforms by a fresh, comprehensive survey made of rural conditions by a conference composed of representatives of the farmers and of the agricultural agencies responsible for leadership.
I would call your attention to the widespread condition of political restlessness in our body politic. The causes of this unrest, while various and complicated, are superficial rather than deep-seated. Broadly, they arise from or are connected with the failure on the part of our Government to arrive speedily at a just and permanent peace permitting return to normal conditions, from the transfusion of radical theories from seething European centers pending such delay, from heartless profiteering resulting in the increase of the cost of living, and lastly from the machinations of passionate and malevolent agitators. With the return to normal conditions, this unrest will rapidly disappear. In the meantime, it does much evil. It seems to me that in dealing with this situation Congress should not be impatient or drastic but should seek rather to remove the causes. It should endeavor to bring our country back speedily to a peace basis, with ameliorated living conditions under the minimum of restrictions upon personal liberty that is consistent with our reconstruction problems. And it should arm the Federal Government with power to deal in its criminal courts with those persons who by violent methods would abrogate our time-tested institutions. With the free expression of opinion and with the advocacy of orderly political change, however fundamental, there must be no interference, but towards passion and malevolence tendine to incite crime and insurrection under guise of political evolution there should be no leniency. Legislation to this end has been recommended by the Attorney General and should be enacted. In this direct connection, I would call your attention to my recommendations on August 8th, pointing out legislative measures which wouldbe effective in controlling and bringing down the present cost of living, which contributes so largely to this unrest. On only one of these recommendations has the Congress acted. If the Government's campaign is to be effective, it is necessary that the other steps suggested should be acted on at once.
I renew and strongly urge the necessity of the extension of the present Food Control Act as to the period of time in which it shall remain in operation. The Attorney General has submitted a bill providing for an extension of this Act for a period of six months. As it now stands, it is limited in operation to the period of the war and becomes inoperative upon the formal proclamation of peace. It is imperative that it should be extended at once. The Department of justice has built up extensive machinery for the purpose of enforcing its provisions; all of which must be abandoned upon the conclusion of peace unless the provisions of this Act are extended.
During this period the Congress will have an opportunity to make similar permanent provisions and regulations with regard to all goods destined for interstate commerce and to exclude them from interstate shipment, if the requirements of the law are not compiled with. Some such regulation is imperatively necessary. The abuses that have grown up in the manipulation of prices by the withholding of foodstuffs and other necessaries of life cannot otherwise be effectively prevented. There can be no doubt of either the necessity of the legitimacy of such measures.
As I pointed out in my last message, publicity can accomplish a great deal in this campaign. The aims of the Government must be clearly brought to the attention of the consuming public, civic organizations and state officials, who are in a position to lend their assistance to our efforts. You have made available funds with which to carry on this campaign, but there is no provision in the law authorizing their expenditure for the purpose of making the public fully informed about the efforts of the Government. Specific recommendation has been made by the Attorney General in this regard. I would strongly urge upon you its immediate adoption, as it constitutes one of the preliminary steps to this campaign.
I also renew my recommendation that the Congress pass a law regulating cold storage as it is regulated, for example, by the laws of the State of New Jersey, which limit the time during which goods may be kept in storage, prescribe the method of disposing of them if kept beyond the permitted period, and require that goods released from storage shall in all cases bear the date of their receipt. It would materially add to the serviceability of the law, for the purpose we now have in view, if it were also prescribed that all goods released from storage for interstate shipment should have plainly marked upon each package the selling or market price at which they went into storage. By this means the purchaser would always be able to learn what profits stood between him and the producer or the wholesale dealer.
I would also renew my recommendation that all goods destined for interstate commerce should in every case, where their form or package makes it possible, be plainly marked with the price at which they left the hands of the producer.
We should formulate a law requiring a Federal license of all corporations engaged in interstate commerce and embodying in the license or in the conditions under which it is to be issued, specific regulations designed to secure competitive selling and prevent unconscionable profits in the method of marketing. Such a law would afford a welcome opportunity to effect other much needed reforms in the business of interstate shipment and in the methods of corporations which are engaged in it; but for the moment I confine my recommendations to the object immediately in hand, which is to lower the cost of living.
No one who has observed the march of events in the last year can fail to note the absolute need of a definite programme to bring about an improvement in the conditions of labor. There can be no settled conditions leading to increased production and a reduction in the cost of living if labor and capital are to be antagonists instead of partners. Sound thinking and an honest desire to serve the interests of the whole nation, as distinguished from the interests of a class, must be applied to the solution of this great and pressing problem. The failure of other nations to consider this matter in a vigorous way has produced bitterness and jealousies and antagonisms, the food of radicalism. The only way to keep men from agitating against grievances is to remove the grievances. An unwillingness even to discuss these matters produces only dissatisfaction and gives comfort to the extreme elements in our country which endeavor to stir up disturbances in order to provoke governments to embark upon a course of retaliation and repression. The seed of revolution is repression. The remedy for these things must not be negative in character. It must be constructive. It must comprehend the general interest. The real antidote for the unrest which manifests itself is not suppression, but a deep consideration of the wrongs that beset our national life and the application of a remedy.
Congress has already shown its willingness to deal with these industrial wrongs by establishing the eight-hour day as the standard in every field of labor. It has sought to find a way to prevent child labor. It has served the whole country by leading the way in developing the means of preserving and safeguarding lives and health in dangerous industries. It must now help in the difficult task of finding a method that will bring about a genuine democratization of industry, based upon the full recognition of the right of those who work, in whatever rank, to participate in some organic way in every decision which directly affects their welfare. It is with this purpose in mind that I called a conference to meet in Washington on December 1st, to consider these problems in all their broad aspects, with the idea of bringing about a better understanding between these two interests.
The great unrest throughout the world, out of which has emerged a demand for an immediate consideration of the difficulties between capital and labor, bids us put our own house in order. Frankly, there can be no permanent and lasting settlements between capital and labor which do not recognize the fundamental concepts for which labor has been struggling through the years. The whole world gave its recognition and endorsement to these fundamental purposes in the League of Nations. The statesmen gathered at Versailles recognized the fact that world stability could not be had by reverting to industrial standards and conditions against which the average workman of the world had revolted. It is, therefore, the task of the statesmen of this new day of change and readjustment to recognize world conditions and to seek to bring about, through legislation, conditions that will mean the ending of age-long antagonisms between capital and labor and that will hopefully lead to the building up of a comradeship which will result not only in greater contentment among the mass of workmen but also bring about a greater production and a greater prosperity to business itself.
To analyze the particulars in the demands of labor is to admit the justice of their complaint in many matters that lie at their basis. The workman demands an adequate wage, sufficient to permit him to live in comfort, unhampered by the fear of poverty and want in his old age. He demands the right to live and the right to work amidst sanitary surroundings, both in home and in workshop, surroundings that develop and do not retard his own health and wellbeing; and the right to provide for his children's wants in the matter of health and education. In other words, it is his desire to make the conditions of his life and the lives of those dear to him tolerable and easy to bear.
The establishment of the principles regarding labor laid down in the covenant of the League of Nations offers us the way to industrial peace and conciliation. No other road lies open to us. Not to pursue this one is longer to invite enmities, bitterness, and antagonisms which in the end only lead to industrial and social disaster. The unwilling workman is not a profitable servant. An employee whose industrial life is hedged about by hard and unjust conditions, which he did not create and over which he has no control, lacks that fine spirit of enthusiasm and volunteer effort which are the necessary ingredients of a great producing entity. Let us be frank about this solemn matter. The evidences of world-wide unrest which manifest themselves in violence throughout the world bid us pause and consider the means to be found to stop the spread of this contagious thing before it saps the very vitality of the nation itself. Do we gain strength by withholding the remedy? Or is it not the business of statesmen to treat these manifestations of unrest which meet us on every hand as evidences of an economic disorder and to apply constructive remedies wherever necessary, being sure that in the application of the remedy we touch not the vital tissues of our industrial and economic life? There can be no recession of the tide of unrest until constructive instrumentalities are set up to stem that tide.
Governments must recognize the right of men collectively to bargain for humane objects that have at their base the mutual protection and welfare of those engaged in all industries. Labor must not be longer treated as a commodity. It must be regarded as the activity of human beings, possessed of deep yearnings and desires. The busi ness man gives his best thought to the repair and replenishment of his machinery, so that its usefulness will not be impaired and its power to produce may always be at its height and kept in full vigor and motion. No less regard ought to be paid to the human machine, which after all propels the machinery of the world and is the great dynamic force that lies back of all industry and progress. Return to the old standards of wage and industry in employment are unthinkable. The terrible tragedy of war which has just ended and which has brought the world to the verge of chaos and disaster would be in vain if there should ensue a return to the conditions of the past. Europe itself, whence has come the unrest which now holds the world at bay, is an example of standpatism in these vital human matters which America might well accept as an example, not to be followed but studiously to be avoided. Europe made labor the differential, and the price of it all is enmity and antagonism and prostrated industry, The right of labor to live in peace and comfort must be recognized by governments and America should be the first to lay the foundation stones upon which industrial peace shall be built.
Labor not only is entitled to an adequate wage, but capital should receive a reasonable return upon its investment and is entitled to protection at the hands of the Government in every emergency. No Government worthy of the name can "play" these elements against each other, for there is a mutuality of interest between them which the Government must seek to express and to safeguard at all cost.
The right of individuals to strike is inviolate and ought not to be interfered with by any process of Government, but there is a predominant right and that is the right of the Government to protect all of its people and to assert its power and majesty against the challenge of any class. The Government, when it asserts that right, seeks not to antagonize a class but simply to defend the right of the whole people as against the irreparable harm and injury that might be done by the attempt by any class to usurp a power that only Government itself has a right to exercise as a protection to all.
In the matter of international disputes which have led to war, statesmen have sought to set up as a remedy arbitration for war. Does this not point the way for the settlement of industrial disputes, by the establishment of a tribunal, fair and just alike to all, which will settle industrial disputes which in the past have led to war and disaster? America, witnessing the evil consequences which have followed out of such disputes between these contending forces, must not admit itself impotent to deal with these matters by means of peaceful processes. Surely, there must be some method of bringing together in a council of peace and amity these two great interests, out of which will come a happier day of peace and cooperation, a day that will make men more hopeful and enthusiastic in their various tasks, that will make for more comfort and happiness in living and a more tolerable condition among all classes of men. Certainly human intelligence can devise some acceptable tribunal for adjusting the differences between capital and labor.
This is the hour of test and trial for America. By her prowess and strength, and the indomitable courage of her soldiers, she demonstrated her power to vindicate on foreign battlefields her conceptions of liberty and justice. Let not her influence as a mediator between capital and labor be weakened and her own failure to settle matters of purely domestic concern be proclaimed to the world. There are those in this country who threaten direct action to force their will, upon a majority. Russia today, with its blood and terror, is a painful object lesson of the power of minorities. It makes little difference what minority it is; whether capital or labor, or any other class; no sort of privilege will ever be permitted to dominate this country. We are a partnership or nothing that is worth while. We are a democracy, where the majority are the masters, or all the hopes and purposes of the men who founded this government have been defeated and forgotten. In America there is but one way by which great reforms can be accomplished and the relief sought by classes obtained, and that is through the orderly processes of representative government. Those who would propose any other method of reform are enemies of this country. America will not be daunted by threats nor lose her composure or calmness in these distressing times. We can afford, in the midst of this day of passion and unrest, to be self - contained and sure. The instrument of all reform in America is the ballot. The road to economic and social reform in America is the straight road of justice to all classes and conditions of men. Men have but to follow this road to realize the full fruition of their objects and purposes. Let those beware who would take the shorter road of disorder and revolution. The right road is the road of justice and orderly process.

Friday, August 23, 2019

August 23, 1919. Exhibitions in Toronto, Trouble for the Motor Transport Convoy in Utah, Fighting in Mexico, Lithuania and Ireland.

While the U.S. Army was testing its recent wartime vehicular acquisitions in a cross country trek, Toronto was enjoying a victory related exhibition.

Vehicle attrition was beginning to set in with the transcontinental Motor Transport Convoy.

While better progress was made on this day, for the second time this week a vehicle was pulled out to be shipped by rail.  On this occasion, the vehicle was pulled out entirely and taken back to Ft. Douglas, Utah, which is just outside of Salt Lake City.


Things were not going as well as hoped for, for the Army, further south.


And violence was erupting elsewhere as well.

In Ireland, fifteen year old Francis Murphy, a member of Fianna Éireann, an Irish Nationalist Youth organization, was shot dead in his home by British soldiers in what amounted to sort of a drive by shooting.  The shots were believed to have been fired in retaliation for recent violent nationalist activities.

Fianna Éireann members in 1914, practicing aiding the wounded.  The organization was a nationalist youth organization with scouting elements.  Note the kilts, which aren't really an Irish thing.  Note also the Montana Peak type hats which were associated with scouting at the time.  Photograph courtesy of the Irish Library via Wikipedia Commons.

And in the East, fighting between Poles and Lithuanians broke out in the city of Sejny over the question of who would control the city. The Germans, upon evacuating the region in May, had left it in the hands of Lithuania, which is not surprising in light of German support for German freikorps fighting there.  The Poles in the city objected.  Ultimately the region would remain in Lithuania.

Polish cavalry in Sejny.

Saturday was the day the nation's magazines tended to come out, although its doubtful anyone we discussed above read this weeks. Maybe soldiers on the convoy might have acquired some late.

Country Gentleman, perhaps in the spirit of the time, portrayed aggressive roosters on its cover.

The Country Gentleman from August 23, 1919.

The Saturday Evening Post had a less than inspiring Leyendecker illustration depicting a life guard, perhaps in tribute to the hot month of August, which was about to become the cooling month of September.


Wednesday, March 27, 2019

March 27, 1919. The Arabia struck, Mary Pickford to visit Casper.

USS Arabia.

She'd been laid down in 1903 as a commercial fishing vessel.  Submarine depredations caused the Navy to take her into service in August, 1918, but with that task complete, she was struck from the Navy's rolls and sold that following November.

Why put this obscure ship in here?

Well, this blog explores trends and changes.  1919 wasn't all that long ago, at least not the way historians think of time, and therefore it wasn't that long ago when commercial operations, and even the Navy, regarded sail as still a viable means of propulsion.

There was big local news.



Mary Pickford was coming to the Irish Theatre in Casper on Sunday.

Mary Pickford in 1916.

Pickford was a huge deal in 1919, and frankly she always would be.  One of the really big early stars of early movies, the Toronto born actress was at that time as big of movie star as anyone could imagine.

Her life wasn't really a happy one.  Married three times, she became a recluse in later years and would only receive Lilian Gish as a personal visitor.  This week in 1919, however, she'd be Casper's visitor.

Casper was also declaring war on vice, the paper proclaimed.  If it was, it wasn't very successful at it.  It wasn't until after World War Two when the strong streak of vice running through Casper would be cleaned up, and the Sandbar district remained all the way into the 1970s.

Sunday, October 14, 2018

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the East: Churches of the West: Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity, Toronto Canada

Churches of the East: Churches of the West: Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity, Toronto Ontario.

Churches of the West: Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity, Toronto Ontario.


This is the Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto, Ontario.  It was built in 1847, and is located in what is now the very downtown heart of Toronto.


I admit I'm pushing the geographic  nature of this blog with this one (not for the first time), as Toronto wouldn't normally be considered "the west", but perhaps its not quite as far-fetched as it might seem. While Toronto is a huge major North American city today, all Canadian cities in this region and further west were, at one time, part of the Canadian frontier, a frontier that lasted longer in some respects than the frontier in the United States did, even though the history of the Canadian West and the American West are part and parcel of each other.  This is an Anglican church,. and at one time Toronto was a very English town.

Saturday, July 28, 2018

Reflections on a Canadian Shooting and on Canada itself.

I hesitate to post on this at all, for a variety of reasons.  First of all, because I tend to think these things get more attention that they should, and therefore I hesitate to be part of that.  Secondly because, as a person posting from the United States, such posts can come across as posted in the wrong spirit. Certainly I frankly find a lot of Canadian postings on American tragedies to nearly be in the nature of gloating and I don't want that to seem to be the case here. 

Downtown Toronto, January 2015.

But I am a Canadian, even if I'm one who never has lived in Canada, so maybe I have a right, and perhaps as a Canadian living outside of Canada, who has always lived outside of Canada, I have a different and unique prospective.  One that's both Canadian, of a sort, and sort of not, and frankly, one that's from the older, and I'd argue better in some ways, Canada rather than the contemporary one.

On all of that, I'm a dual citizen of the United States and Canada.  My mother was from St. Lambert, Quebec (which as will be noted below, adds to what is perhaps a unique prospective).  Her family had roots in Quebec that go as far back as roots can go there and, while she ultimately became a dual citizen herself, I think she was in her 70s when she did that, so for most of her life she was a Canadian and always identified in that fashion.  So, she was not only a Canadian, but she was from Quebec which has a unique history, but she had also lived in Alberta, which also figures into this post below.

 
My mother, probably in the late 1940s or the early 1950s, Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre in Quebec in the background.

What's all of that have to do with this post? Well, let me put in a little history, as in the end, history always defines everything in some way.

Canada is one of the most urban countries in the world. It's much more urban than the United States.  Shoot, for that matter, its more urban than the United Kingdom.  Most Canadians live in cities.

But that wasn't always true. Indeed, it's only become true very, very recently.

Up until the 1950s, Canada was an incredibly rural country. It's undergone a process that has happened throughout much of the world following (and commencing well before) the Second World War of urbanization, but its transformation has been more dramatic and frankly, in my view, almost wholly negative.*  Canada, going into the Second World War, certainly had some large and indeed, at least in Quebec, some very European cities, but the mass of its population was not city centered.  Even Quebec, which had a Euro-Canadian population dating back to the 1600s, was principally rural in character.**  Almost no nation that undergoes this transformation rapidly, and Canada did, does it really well, and Canada is no exception.***

This does not mean that its population was uniform in character, although it was much more uniform than that of the United States.  Quebec certainly varied in that it had a large French population that was distinct in nearly every fashion from the rest of Canada.****  The country also had significant populations from the remainder of the British Isles, and then starting in the early 1900s it acquired, in some (but only some) locations a significant Ukrainian and Russian population. All the while it retained a significant Indian population.  Having said that, however, the Dominion was distinctly British in character even while being distinctly Canadian.

Canada up until the mid 1950s was a nation that looked at itself and the rest of the world through distinctly different, quite British (and sometimes French), rural eyes.  Like a lot of areas the English had been, in some ways, it was "more English than the English", although using that phrase to attempt to define Canada at any one point would be highly unfair.^  Nonetheless it was a nation that, in spite of its small population, was steadfast in support of nearly every English overseas enterprise up to the end of World War Two.  Canada was left alone, for the most part, for most of the War of 1812 and had to fight against American invasion largely on its own, which it did very well.  It nonetheless rose to the occasions of the Boer War, World War One and World War Two, although in each instance it was largely its English speaking population that did so.  The French population opted to sit out, to the extent possible, all such English enterprises.

Memorial in Toronto to "Our Glorious Dead".

It's been almost forgotten by Canadians that this was the case.  Canadian troops served under overall English command in three wars of fairly close succession in impressive numbers and with impressive valor.  Other than internal wars against native populations, of which there were some, Canada's first war during which it was not part of an English army was the Korean War.  Since that time Canada, which has served more overseas than people care to admit, has never again served as part of a British overall army.

That 1945 departure date, i.e., the end of World War Two, would prove to be significant in more ways than just a coincidental separation from the United Kingdom in a military sense.  It proved to be a real bright line.  People who are familiar with the history of Quebec like to speak of the "Quiet Revolution", but in truth the entire country went through the same process and it was simply Quebec that entered it last and with a different character, as it was different.  Going into the war, Canada remained highly English in many ways.  Coming out if it, much of that Englishness was yielding to a type of Canadianism, but in a form that was different from that which exists today. That conservative Canadianism dominated from 1945 into about 1960, when it began to crack and yielded the liberal Canada that we have today. . . which isn't as liberal as it imagines.

This same process played out in different forms in different former English dominions and colonies, and the entire process seems fairly closely related to it.  Countries that had a distinctive separation from the United Kingdom prior to that time, such as Australia, were impacted much less.  Countries that were very closely tied to British Empire England, however, even if they resented it (or not) were much more heavily impacted by their separation from the UK and that story still plays out today.  The two most dramatic examples may be the Canada of today and the Ireland of today, both of which would regard themselves as now being long separated from the United Kingdom but which in fact, culturally, defined themselves with and against the British Empire so strongly that they continued to do so for some time after the Empire had actually fallen and they still are reacting to that today.

In both instances the countries were very conservative at first abut then began to experiment with a liberalism that in some fashions reminds a person of the occasional teenager that seeks to establish his or her self by being in total reaction to the values of his parents.  In this case, however, ironically, the parent had so many problems and became such an entity back into itself that the reaction was hardly noticed much at all.  In Canada, conservative political values yielded and are still yielding to increasingly liberal ones, as is the case with Ireland.  Ironically, at the same time, much of the population remains deeply personal conservative even while not wishing to publicly acknowledge it.  The entire thing is sort of a cultural house of cards that won't last.

Typical early 20th Century poster from Canada urging immigration for those who wanted to be farmers.  Canada remains an agricultural giant today even if Canadians tend not to think of the country that way and interestingly enough it still draws European immigrant farmers, frequently Dutch, who sell their European farms to purchase larger Canadian ones.

At the same time a very British Canada was turning its back on being British, it was also urbanizing at a blistering rate.  Canada had largely been settled as an agricultural enterprise in the first place, and it continued to focus on that for a time after World War Two. But soon after the war this changed and the country became highly urban. Canada is still an agricultural giant, but the overwhelming majority of Canadians live in urban areas and the country became both high urbanized and highly cosmopolitan.  As it did t his it developed a new sense of itself, largely centered on the Canadian concept of Canadianess based on the urban Canadian's view. At the same time, however, rural Canada, while depleted, did not disappear and an urban/rural, east/west divide developed.  All of this is true of the Untied States as well, but in the Canadian context the rural and Western divide is, if anything, stronger than it is in the US as its more extreme in nature.

Romanticized image of farmer in Canada in front of the first Canadian flag.

And that circles us back to this topic.

One of the features of the East/West and Urban/Rural device in Canada is that urban areas have become very powerful in terms of federal legislation and they have in turn proven to be extremely liberal post 1960.  Indeed, Canada in some ways defines the Jeffersonian view about what concentrations of populations mean.  Urban Canadians are not "liberal" in the classic Lockean libertarian sense but "liberal", or perhaps, "progressive" in the Social Democrat sense. Completely contrary to Americans, Canadians as a whole are much more accepting and even embracing of statism and government sponsored social control, although that will inevitably crack and retreat under the strain of the extreme lengths to which it has now been put.  Typically liberals claim to espouse the ideals of liberty within democracy but Canadians have accepted real controls of speech and expression that nearly any sector of the American public would regard as absolutely abhorrent.

And urban Canadians, in the same spirit, have embraced very extensive gun control.

Rural Canadians have not and indeed much of what I have noted above has not been embraced by Western Canadians or rural Canadians.  Canadian rejection, in rural areas, of gun control measures is known to be widespread even while at the same time urban Canadians are so ignorant of rural Canadian firearm us that urban Canadians will frequently claim that guns can't be owned in Canada.  This citation is made by urban Canadians often in accusation against the United States, with it being claimed that there is no violence in Canada, more or less, because Canadians are not allowed to own firearms.  In fact, this is completely false on both scores and shows a real lack of understanding on the part of people making the statement about actual laws and cultures (plural) in Canada itself.

Firearms most definitely can be owned in Canada and, like rural Mexico, simply ignoring more recent gun control measures is a widespread Canadian thing.  Indeed, while Canadians have somewhat sneered at the United States for its lack of extensive gun control, at least the press is now reporting things honestly in Canada in regards to criminal firearms usage an not blaming it on the United States.  It's known that most illegally used and owned firearms in Canada come into illegal usage through other Canadians, and indeed an entire lucrative black market has sprung up in which those who acquire firearms legally pass them into illegal hands at great profit. That same market once existed in a lot of American big cities but it has passed away over the years as restrictions on firearms ownership which fostered the black market, as all such restrictions on material ownership always do, went away.  And there are lots of firearms in Canada, which up until very recently had firearms that were considerably more lax than those of the United States.

And what this has shown, as the Australian example also did, is that gun control really doesn't achieve anything.  Indeed, Toronto just had another mass killing, with a van, just before this.  As with the Western World in general, violence in Canada has continued to decline, overall, at about the same rate as it otherwise was.  Horrific acts, however, still occur.  The real impact of gun control has been to make life difficult for rural Canadians.  In spite of this, the likely Canadian reaction, or at least that in Ontario, will be to boost the already existing calls for even stricter gun control.

And as with the United States, Canada is occasionally plagued with acts by those who are mentally impaired, as was apparently the case here. That does not, as far as I'm aware, happen with the seeming same frequency as it does in the US, but Canadian rates of violence were always lower than those of the United States, and no doubt for a variety of reasons.  Toronto's rate of violence, for what its worth, has been climbing in recent years, which says something but its not clear what.  The Canadian economy is in good shape so whatever is spiking it has nothing to do with that, nothing to do with gun access, and nothing to do with the United States.  Something else is going on.

So what all can we learn from this?  Well, whatever it is, we're probably not going to.  But if we were to, it perhaps should give those from one country pause about lecturing another about following its own example, as all the examples are pretty flawed.  Another is that restricting implements at the end of the day doesn't really accomplish much other than to burden people who are very unlikely to ever burden you.

What we might learn, however, if we learn anything, is that people can be violent and the mentally disturbed are more likely to be violent than others.  People can imagine that they can legislate that away, but they really can't, or at least not by "you can't own" type of laws.  That requires some other focus.

Well, there's been no "we're all Torontonians" movement.  A random act of senseless violence just doesn't draw them like ones that can seemingly be politicized.  But perhaps they should be, as those might say more than anything else.

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*In fairness, this process started with the Industrial Revolution, of which the Electronic or Computer or Information Revolution is a mere part.

**Quebec City was founded in 1608.

***The United States underwent the same transformation, it should be noted, but much more slowly and indeed much less completely.

****Except. perhaps, that it too was largely rural.  Indeed, it was the French Canadians rural character, not the couple of large cities in Quebec, that allowed it to remain distinct over the centuries.  Being primarily rurual in character, and supported by the Catholic church in every fashion including culturally, it withstood the solvent of English culture and administration. The same is true of Ireland.  In both instances the culture would not even exist but for the  Catholic Church.

^It's more fairly used to described New Zealand and what was Rhodesia.

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Today In Wyoming's History: December 14: Quebec prohibits women from practicing law.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 14:

Elsewhere:  1916:  In strong contrast to the State of Wyoming,  Quebec bans women from entering the legal profession.

This was in contrast with progress in suffrage elsewhere in Canada that year, but it wasn't terribly unusual for the time.  Note that the first Woman admitted to the bar in Wyoming had only been admitted two years earlier in spite of suffrage dating back to the late 19th Century and in spite of women already having served as justices of the peace and jurors. Having said that, every US state would have admitted at least one woman to the bar by the early 20th Century and many in the late 19th Century

Clara Brett Martin, the first female lawyer in the British Empire.

In these regards the entire British Empire trailed somewhat behind as the first female lawyer in the Empire, Ontario's Clara Brett Martin, wasn't admitted until 1897 after a protracted struggle to obtain that goal.