Monday, December 31, 1945. The end of a historical episode and the dawn of a new one, additional labels.

Primary Notables

A Tribune columnist noted something interesting in an article today that I should have noted in this item below:

The 2020 Election, Part 9

Except. . . .maybe it really isn't noteworthy.

Some other things about the primary were, however.

So what was that noteworthy thing the columnist wrote an article on and I didn't note at all?  Well, the headline for the article probably aptly states it (although it should be noted that headlines are not written by the author's, but by separate writers):

Here's A Shock--Women' Top November's Ballot.

Shocking. . . um. .  . not.

In fairness to the author, she didn't say it was shocking, but rather unprecedented. It probably is, but not in a way that's really newsworthy anymore.  Like so many stories that get reported in the press as really amazing developments, the real story broke eons ago.

Women in politics is now such an accomplished fact that the only people who find a woman running for any office amazing are members of the press.  There have been lots of female members of Congress, legislators and Governors in the United States. Women have been Secretaries of State.  It's just not news.

Indeed, locally, Wyoming has always had female suffrage, so even the recent anniversary noted here of the 19th Amendment didn't do anything in Wyoming. Women could already vote.  Nellie Tayloe Ross became our Governor in 1925 and then went off to be Director of Mints for the Roosevelt administration.  She was the first female Governor in the United States and while she is, so far, the only woman to be elected to that office the well respected Democratic contender in 2018 was a woman.  The state's had two women Secretary of States, the office next to the Governor, and the last one was widely mentioned as a probably unbeatable gubernatorial candidate should she choose to run.  Cynthia Lummis was the state's first female Congressman and the current congressman, Liz Cheney, is obviously also a woman.  We haven't had a female Senator but up until the Tribune mentioned it, it didn't even occur to me that we were about to achieve that first.  That's because that first is, frankly, no longer notable.

If that sounds harsh, pointing this out would be similar to pointing out that, at this point in time, it looks as if Joe Biden is about to become the second Catholic President in the country's history, although observant Catholics would note that he unfortunately seems to fit the "Catholic on Sunday" standard set by John F. Kennedy (without, of course, Kennedy's alley cat morals). This hasn't been noted, however, as it isn't interesting to anyone except observant Catholics.  Nobody believes that being a Catholic bars a person from office in 2020.

Being a woman doesn't even really figure into Presidential weights and measures in 2020 either, except in the eyes of the press.  2016 proved that women don't vote for women because they're women.  If Kamala Harris becomes the first female President of the United States, and she now stands a good chance of achieving that, it won't really be that notable.

When we passed this bar isn't exactly clear, but I'd argue that it was as long ago, if not longer, than when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the UK. That's a different country, of course, but trends of our fellow English speaking transatlantic neighbor aren't irrelevant here, just as ours aren't irrelevant there.  By that point women were clearly advancing in all sorts of politics and law and by the 80s, it really wasn't novel.

Indeed, again locally, we have a female majority Supreme Court, near parity in new law school graduations for women, we have a female Federal District Court judge, and a female state attorney general.  

Indeed, I'd frankly find it to be much bigger surprise if Canada had a female prime minister, as Canada seems a lot more prone to box checking than the United States, and it hasn't achieved thaat.  Here in the US the topic just gets a big yawn from everybody but the press.

This is, I'd note, true of racial categories too, in spite of the times we're in, with some slight exceptions, which is the real story that's being missed here.

First, on race, ethnicity and related topics, we've had a black President, as we all know, and after that, the "first (fill in racial category here)" just doesn't matter.  When we have the first Hispanic President, and we will (and nearly did in 2016), the only ones who will find that noteworthy will be the press.  The first Jewish President, which we haven't had either, won't be noteworthy.  We nearly had a Mormon President, who followed the Kennedy discounting of his religion when he ran plan, and nobody really found that very interesting.  We had a really conservative candidate running in Tusli Gabbard, who is Samoan ethnically and Hindu, and both of those topics hardly came up in the press.  In order to really get people to notice in this area we'd have to have a serious Muslim President, which I think most voters wouldn't support, whether they'd admit it or not.  Muslim legislators at the state or national level. . . well we already know that in a lot of places that's not noteworthy.

Which takes us to some noteworthy items.

The first is that the state Democrats are running Lynette Grey Bull for Congress. She's a Native American and that really is noteworthy here.  American Indians are a massively disadvantaged demographic and have not really had much of a political presence in Wyoming in spite of being a fairly large minority group.  The fact that she's a woman isn't notable.  The fact that she's an Indian woman definitely is.  Indeed, while she will not win, she puts in sharp contrast Cheney's claims last election to be a Wyomingite, which she isn't.  Grey Bull is a native Wyomingite with ancestry so far back in the state it predates any other claimants.

That takes us to the Senatorial race where University of Wyoming professor Marev Ben David is running.  Ben David wasn't born in Wyoming, she was born in Israel and she's a Professor of Zoology and Physiology.  

UW hasn't sent a professor to Washington since Gale McGee, and Ben David won't win this go around. But she is notable as she's a scientist, not a lawyer.  And that brings up this point.

For the first time in a long time the Democrats are really sending candidates into the fall who should be viable in normal times, and they may actually prove to be here.  In picking Ben David, the Democrats picked the most serious candidate in the entire election locally, and rejected Ludwig, a candidate who virtually defines the unelectable, unrealistic, left that the Democrats have been mired in for the past fifteen years.  While the GOP is having squabbles with its extremities, the Democrats this year firmly pushed the eject seat on them and hurled them into the stratosphere, picking instead really solid candidates.

The press isn't, frankly, good at picking up on trends.  And it is too early to tell what's going on here.  But whatever it is, the story isn't "gosh, women are running for office here".  That's old news.  What might be the trend is that the Democrats are actually getting their act together in the State just as the GOP become really mired down in an internecine battle that regular voters don't want a part of.  Wyoming may be solid "Trump Country" in the eyes of the press, and he will do well in the fall, but GOP candidates basking in the warmth of a Trump Sun are going to be disappointed after the general election and feel like they're under siege.  If the current fights keep on keeping on, lots of regular voters are going to be looking elsewhere, and the Democrats are starting to give them a place to look.

August 18, 1920 The 19th Amendment Ratified

Which meant that universal suffrage now included women.  Tennessee, "the Volunteer State", brought the amendment over the bar.

It was a close vote, passing by a margin of four, and only after some last minute changes in position came about.

Which shows, I suppose, that people, and by that we can suppose that to principally be men, were still not fully convinced that women should vote.  On the same day, North Carolina declined to pass the amendment.

Given the monumental nature of the 19th Amendment, a person could be justified in believing that its passage was the only think on people's minds that day, but of course that view would be wrong.  On the same day the fate of Poland remained in the headlines, and very much in the minds of Polish Americans as well.

Joseph P. Tumulty addressing crowd of American citizens of Polish birth or extraction, who called at the White House to present resolutions to President Wilson asking him to continue the present national policy in support of Polish independence.

Polish Americans wanted the US to do something about the fate of Poland, but there was really little the country could in fact do.  Proposed military interventions had been considered by the UK and France, but Weimar Germany had blocked them. Therefore, the 1st Division, pictured below, didn't have to worry about imminent deployment.

1st Division, Camp Zachary Taylor, Kentucky.  August 18, 1920.

January 6, 1920. Peace Secured. Protestants Unite? Suffrage Advances.

The headline news for this day, January 6, 1920, was that a treaty was to be signed between the victorious Allies and the Germans.  Or, more properly, a protocol to the Versailles Treaty

More properly, this was an amendment to the Versailles Treaty altering and amending some of its terms.  Germany's reluctance to enter into a protocol had lead the Allies and Germany back to the brink of war several months earlier, an event now wholly forgotten, but in the end the amendment had been worked out.

The U.S. Senate had not ratified the original text and would still not be ratifying the treaty in its entirety.

The Casper paper was also reporting that a new Wyoming corporation had been formed to build or take over the manufacturing of the Curtis Aircraft line.  I've never heard of this before and Wikipedia sheds no light on what was going on with this story.  Does anyone know the details?

Also making headlines was an effort to unite the nation's Protestant churches into a single organization. The headlines are apparently a bit misleading as they would suggest that the individual denominations were set to be united, which was not the proposal.

Also misleading, today, is the use of the term "United Church of Christ". That denomination would not come about until 1957.

On the same day, Kentucky and Rhode Island passed the 19th Amendment.

Suffrage supporters watching the Governor of Kentucky sign his state's passage of the 19th Amendment.

And Walt experienced something that I routinely do a century later.

Some random looks at other looks on Wyoming and women's right to vote.

On This Day in 1869: Wyoming is the first territory to give women the right to vote

Home  December 10, 1869

December 10, 1869

 150 Years of Women’s Suffrage in Wyoming

Governor Gordon's First Signed Bill. Women's Suffrage Day.

Governor Gordon's first bill signed into law. An act establishing December 10 as Women's Suffrage Day.

ORIGINAL SENATE ENGROSSED

JOINT RESOLUTION

NO. SJ0003

ENROLLED JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 1, SENATE

SIXTY-FIFTH LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING

2019 GENERAL SESSION

A JOINT RESOLUTION recognizing December 10, 2019 as Wyoming Women's Suffrage Day.

WHEREAS, Wyoming is often referred to as the "Cowboy State," its more apt sobriquet is the "Equality State"; and

WHEREAS, women, like all persons, have always inherently held the right to vote and participate in their government; and

WHEREAS, Wyoming was the first government to explicitly acknowledge and affirm women's inherent right to vote and to hold office; and

WHEREAS, this inherent right, at the founding of the United States, was inhibited; and

WHEREAS, women, at the founding of the United States, were also prevented from holding office; and

WHEREAS, women's suffrage — the basic enfranchisement of women — began to burgeon in the United States in the 1840s and continued to gain momentum over the next decades, despite the oppressive atmosphere in which women were not allowed to divorce their husbands or show their booted ankles without risk of public scandal or worse; and

WHEREAS, during the 1850s, activism to support women's suffrage gathered steam, but lost momentum when the Civil War began; and

WHEREAS, in the fall of 1868, three (3) years after the American Civil War had ended, Union Army General Ulysses S. Grant was elected President, and chose John Campbell to serve as Governor of the Wyoming Territory; and

WHEREAS, Joseph A. Carey, who was thereafter appointed to serve as Attorney General of the Wyoming Territory, issued a formal legal opinion that no one in Wyoming could be denied the right to vote based on race; and

WHEREAS, the first Wyoming Territorial Legislature, comprised entirely of men, required consistent and persistent inveigling to warm to the notion of suffrage; and

WHEREAS, abolitionist and woman suffrage activist, Esther Hobart Morris, was born in Tioga County, New York, on August 8, 1812, and later became a successful milliner and businesswoman; and

WHEREAS, Esther Hobart Morris, widowed in 1843, moved to Peru, Illinois, to settle the property in her late husband's estate and experienced the legal hardships faced by women in Illinois and New York; and

WHEREAS, Esther Hobart Morris married John Morris, a prosperous merchant, and in 1869 moved to the gold rush camp at South Pass City, a small valley situated along the banks of Willow Creek on the southeastern end of the Wind River Mountains in the Wyoming Territory just north of the Oregon Trail; and

WHEREAS, William Bright, a saloonkeeper, also from the once bustling frontier mining town South Pass City, was elected to serve in the Territorial Legislature and was elected as president of the Territorial Council; and

WHEREAS, the Territorial Legislature met in 1869 in Cheyenne and passed bills and resolutions formally enabling women to vote and hold property and formally assuring equal pay for teachers; and

WHEREAS, William Bright introduced a bill to recognize the right of Wyoming women to vote; and

WHEREAS, no records were kept of the debate between Wyoming territorial lawmakers, although individuals likely asserted a myriad of motivations and intentions in supporting women's suffrage; and

WHEREAS, the Wyoming Territory population at the time consisted of six adult men for every adult woman, some lawmakers perchance hoped suffrage would entice more women to the state; and

WHEREAS, some lawmakers may have believed that women's suffrage was consistent with the goals articulated in post-Civil War Amendment XV to the United States Constitution guaranteeing the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude"; and

WHEREAS, some lawmakers inherently knew that guaranteeing the right of women to vote was, simply, the right thing to do; and

WHEREAS, the Territorial Legislature advanced a suffrage bill stating, "That every woman of the age of twenty-one years, residing in this territory, may, at every election to be holden under the laws thereof, cast her vote. And her rights to the elective franchise and to hold office shall be the same under the election laws of the territory, as those of electors" and that "This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage"; and

WHEREAS, when invited to join the Union, demanding that women's suffrage be revoked, the Wyoming Legislature said, "We will remain out of the Union one hundred years rather than come in without the women"; and

WHEREAS, in July 1890, Esther Hobart Morris presented the new Wyoming state flag to Governor Francis E. Warren during the statehood celebration, making Wyoming the 44th state to enter the Union and the first with its women holding the right to vote and serve in elected office; and

WHEREAS, the United States did not endorse women's suffrage until 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; and

WHEREAS, despite the passage of the 19th Amendment, women of color continued to face barriers with exercising their right to vote, as American Indian men and women were not recognized as United States citizens permitted to vote until the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, and ongoing racial discrimination required the passage and implementation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; and

WHEREAS, achieving voting rights for all women required firm and continuing resolve to overcome reluctance, and even fervent opposition, toward this rightful enfranchisement; and

WHEREAS, Wyoming, the first to recognize women's suffrage, blazed a trail of other noteworthy milestones, such as Louisa Swain, of Laramie, casting the first ballot by a woman voter in 1870; and

WHEREAS, in 1870 the first jury to include women was in Wyoming and was sworn in on March 7 in Laramie; and

WHEREAS, Esther Hobart Morris was appointed to serve as justice of the peace in February 1870, making her the first woman to serve as a judge in the United States; and

WHEREAS, Wyoming women become the first women to vote in a presidential election in 1892; and

WHEREAS, in 1894 Wyoming elected Estelle Reel to serve as the state superintendent of public instruction, making her one of the first women in the United States elected to serve in a statewide office; and

WHEREAS, the residents of the town of Jackson in 1920 elected a city council composed entirely of women — dubbed the "petticoat government" by the press — making it the first all-women government in the United States; and

WHEREAS, in 1924 Wyoming elected Nellie Tayloe Ross to serve as governor of the great state of Wyoming, making her the first woman to be sworn in as governor in these United States; and

WHEREAS, all these milestones illuminate and strengthen Wyoming's heritage as the "Equality State"; and

WHEREAS, December 10, 2019 marks the 150th anniversary of the date women's suffrage became law.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING:

Section 1.  That the Wyoming legislature commemorates 2019 as a year to celebrate the one hundred fiftieth (150th) anniversary of the passage of women's suffrage. 

Section 2.  That the Wyoming legislature is proud of its heritage as the first state to recognize the right of women to vote and hold office, hereby affirming its legacy as the "Equality State."

Section 3.  That the Secretary of State of Wyoming transmit a copy of this resolution to the National Women's Hall of Fame in support of Esther Hobart Morris' induction into the Women of the Hall.

Section 4.  That the Wyoming legislature encourages its citizens and invites its visitors to learn about the women and men who made women's suffrage in Wyoming a reality, thereby blazing a trail for other states, and eventually the federal government, to recognize the inherent right of men and women alike to elect their leaders and hold office.

(END)

Speaker of the House			President of the Senate

	Governor
	TIME APPROVED: _________
	DATE APPROVED: _________

I hereby certify that this act originated in the Senate.

Chief Clerk

1

Monday, February 3, 1919. The Legislature passes a Joint Resolution Favoring National Women's Suffrage. Paris ponders abolishing submarines.

Today In Wyoming's History: February 3:

1919  The Legislature passed a joint resolution in favor of national women's suffrage.

Wyoming in Wyoming, of course, could already vote and had that right since 1869, but it was on the march nationally.

Oddly, the Wyoming State Tribune in Cheyenne barely noted it on its front page, where it did at least make front page news.  The Casper paper, which of course was publishing from 150 miles away, didn't note it at all that day.  In fairness, there was a lot going on, but  then in fairness again, this would seem, in retrospect, to be pretty significant news.

The lasting impact, including the human impact, of the war was being dealt with everywhere on that day.

As in this school established by the American Red Cross in France for "mutiles", i.e. those mutilated in the war.  This was clearly a trade school.

Some folks were on their way home.



In Paris there was talk of some of the weapons of the new war being abolished.

Oddly, the Casper paper didn't think anything important was going on in the legislature that day, voting wise, but in fairness to it, it was referencing legislation, which a resolution is not.  Plenty of other stuff was certainly going on, however.

Suffragettes volunteering for war service.

The Library of Congress caption provides:  "Photograph shows women from various backgrounds and experiences offering their services in support of (American entry into) World War I at the office of the New York City Women's Suffrage Party on 34th Street on March 30, 1917"

Last edition:

The Wyoming Tribune for March 30, 1917: Germans spur Mexican outlaw murder?

Labels: 1910s, 1917, Crime, Germany, Mexico, Newspapers, The Press, World War One

Salacious February?

I wonder if there's something wrong with February?

Or maybe just men in February.

I've been posting some newspapers recently, as they've been again been featuring Mexico and our troubles with it in 1917.  But at the same time, there's been some really odd stories popping up.

Earlier in the week in a newspaper that I didn't put up there was a news story about a group of young men from Denver, all apparently of prominent families, in 1917, that were arrested and were clearly going to be convicted of violating the Mann Act.  That statute, for those who might not be familiar with it, makes it a crime to take a woman across state lines for immoral purposes, which is what they did.  Or rather, they took girls across as it reported that the girls danced for them sans clothing, with one being as young as 16 years of age.  One of the young men was reported to be "getting a divorce".

Yeah, I bet he was.

And then yesterday we find that in Kemmerer there was a problem with "bear dancing".  Well, there was also a problem with the headline writer at The Wyoming Tribune that day, as it wasn't "bear dancing", but rather females dancing bare.  The saloons were ordered to knock it off. 

The Wyoming Tribune for February 14, 1917.  I'd like to see a saloon that featured dancing bears.

That's more like it.

Surprisingly the saloons were resisting the order, including the bear dancers, um, the bare dancers.

I should note that this past week, in 1917, was the week that Mata Hari was arrested, speaking of bare dancers.

Now, I would not have thought that bare dancing was really a thing in very many saloons in 1917.  I guess it fits in with the gritty Sam Peckinpah version of the West, but not really the real West as I'd have imagined it. But maybe I was off the mark.

Moreover, I wouldn't have thought bare dancing in saloons a common thing in the West in 1917, let alone in Lincoln County, Wyoming.  Kemmerer is part of the Mormon Hub of Eastern Wyoming and I'm certain that the Mormon's do not approve of dancing bare.  Of course, they don't approve of saloons either to it would be safe to assume that whomever the patrons of the saloons were they were likely not practicing Mormons.

I'm a practicing Catholic which brings me to this.  I don't approve of bare dancing in saloons either nor do I approve of Sports Illustrated's annual descent into pornography.  That occurs, yes, in February.

Every year at this time Sports Illustrated takes a break from covering football, basketball, baseball and lawn tennis or whatever else it covers, and just goes flat out pornographic.  I'm not sure how it chose February for its descent, but it may have something to do with it being the depth of winter (take that, January) or perhaps its because its truly the sports "garbage time".

No, not that Garbage Time.  This one actually deals with sports.

Or perhaps its because its the depth of winter and, as the old saying goes, idleness truly is the devil's playground.  Indeed, that would explain why young Denverites were hauling girls up into Cheyenne to dance for them sans clothing and why guys were hanging around in Kemmerer bars drinking and watching dancing bears. . .um bare dancing.

Anyhow, there is a serious side of this.  1917 was in the hard swing towards women's suffrage and it was shortly thereafter achieved in most of the Western World.

Bare or Bare dancing?  Forget that. Vote.

The vote was a major strike in favor of women's equality with men. And true equality, not one that ignored their gender but respected it.

Bare dancing, let alone violating the Mann Act, certainly doesn't respect it.  Nor does plastering it all over the pages of Sports Illustrated and claiming that it celebrates swimwear (which, I'd note, I don't think they really particularly even claim now as the swimwear is hardly there or indeed is actually absent). That's exploitation.

And as long as women are exploited in that fashion, not matter what their hopes and aspirations were in 1917, they'll never really be equal.  An object isn't equal.  It's an object.

Something to ponder, I guess, in muddy February.

Thursday, October 28, 1915.

 

Last edition:

Wednesday, October 27, 1915. Abandoning the Endurance.

Labels: 1850s, 1859, 1860s, 1910s, 1915, Antarctic, Battle of Krivolak, Civil War, Colorado, Colorado (Denver), Confederate Army, Exploration, French Army, Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, Macedonia, Personalities, World War One

Monday, October 18, 1915. Suffrage in New Jersey, Shots at border dance, Constitutionalist advance, Fellowship and beer.

The Government General of Warsaw was established to govern German-occupied Vistula Land of Poland which had recently been part of the Russian Empire.

The Italian Army tried to capture the bridgeheads at Bovec and Tolmin along the Isonzo River.

Last edition:

Sunday, October 17, 1915: Of redemption, St Ge...

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Blog Mirror, Whatever It Is I'm against it, World War One

Friday Farming: Suffrage farm.

Wednesday, May 6, 1914. No votes for British women.

The House of Lords rejected the Women's Suffrage Bill. The vote was 104 to 60.  A person has to wonder if the recent terror strikes by suffragist had a negative impact.

Cheyenne revealed that Gen. Funson was authorized to "extend his lines in Mexico", by which readers learned the paper was referring to Vera Cruz, not anywhere on the border.

While I was aware that the then legendary Gen. Frederick Funston was in command on the border, I wasn't aware that this extended all the way to Vera Cruz.

Cheyenne was wanting a railroad bridge at Guernsey repaired.

Schlitz took out a full page add in the same paper.

Last prior edition:

Monday, May 4, 1914. Gov. Ammon on the ropes.

1910s, 1914, Álvaro Obregón, Art, Colorado, Colorado Coalfield War, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Occupation of Veracruz, Politics, Terrorism, United Kingdom, Women