April 4, 1919. Spring fashions, European Bison, and American Horses.

The Casper Daily Tribune published two editions on Friday, April 4, 1919.  The first one was all news, and with a Communist seizure of Bavaria on this day, the ongoing crisis with Hungary, and Lenin attempting to dictate terms to the Allies, a lot of that news was distressing, to say the least.

The second, edition, however, was on new spring fashions, now that the war was over.

The 1919 fashions didn't look much different than the 1910 fashions actually.

But as we'll soon show all that was about to change, at least for women.

What is claimed by Bavarian radio to be the last finding of a wild wisent, the European bison, was made on this day in 1919.  You can read and listen to the story here:

4. April 1919Der letzte Wisent gefunden, Ur-RindBuckel nach oben, Hörner gesenkt. Einem Wisent will man nicht unbedingt in freier Wildbahn begegnen. Wird man auch nicht, weil Wisente so selten sind. Am 4. April 1919 galt das freilebende Ur-Rind sogar als ausgestorben.

FWIW, the "last" claim here is disputed.  Others say that Polish wisents were still in the wild in the very early 1920s.  There are wild wisents today, actually, in Poland.  Their story is similar in a way to that of American bison in that they are in a national park where their numbers have increased, although not to the extent that they have in the United States to where there are so many, they're a bit of a problem where they are. That's why, in the U.S., buffalo hunting has returned.

In Europe the last wisents, if that's what they were, were the victims of the German army like so many other things in Europe.  German soldiers at the end of the war killed most of them for food prior to pulling out of Poland.

Closer to home, the Wilson administration was showing its odd predilection for favoring the Carranza regime in Mexico again.

The entire episode of the United States going into Mexico in 1916 arose due the Wilson Administration allowing the transportation of Carranza's troops across southern Texas so that they could go into battle against Villa's forces in northern Mexico.  That, as we've already dealt with, lead to the frustrating and inconclusive American campaign against Villa that nearly ended up with the United States and Mexico going to war.

Now, in 1919, the Wilson Administration was at it again as it sold 1,000 cavalry mounts and, according to this article, 5,000 rifles to Carranza's government.  Mexico was still in revolution at this point and would continue to be for quite some time thereafter.  By providing these military resources, no doubt now surplus to American needs in light of World War One having ended, the US was effectively favoring one side against another.

John Berryman cartoon from April 4, 1919.

That side was questionable at best, being a heavily leftist regime headed by a man, Carranza, who had a strong distaste for the United States itself.  This may have all passed by Wilson, who had favored Carranza before, as no doubt our main threat from Mexico probably seemed to be the resurgent Villistas.  That being said, less than two years prior the United States had been seriously worried about the Mexican federal government of Carranza's declaring war against the U.S. and siding with the Germans.

Mexico never seriously considered that move, although Carranza did have it studied (governments tend to study everything) and a vague, and very ineffective Mexican fifth column formed in anticipation of such an event along the southern U.S. border with Mexico.  Even the heavy handed treatment Mexican civilians and Mexican Americans along the border had received by American law enforcement didn't inspire very many to look at that however.  At this point, perhaps Wilson saw U.S. military aid to Mexico as a reward for not acting rashly during World War One, or perhaps he was fixated on Villa, or perhaps he was simply wanting to do something to get the Mexican Revolution over with once and for all.  At any rate, it can be questioned how wise that move was.

FDA Finds Breasts Implants Cause Rare Form Of Cancer

So says a headline on the Google news feed. And that's just on the Health news feed that is part of the automatic setting for medicine and health headlines.

Isn't there a "d'uh" element to this?

A long time ago we ran this thread:

It's All Natural! Except for us.

Just a second ago, on television, there was an advertisement for a dog food that was "natural".  It had no "chicken byproducts".

Now, there are legitimate reasons for plastic surgery.  And some of those reasons have to do with breasts.  Indeed, ironically, they specifically have to do with cancer and breasts.

But just making things that nature decided would be smallish bigger?

Of course there's a risk.  And why are people doing that?

Que Sera Sera. Samsung shows us just how absolutely creepy the world has become.

Samsung has been running advertisements featuring the song Que Sera Sera.

They're creepy and disturbing.

For people of a certain age, that song is permanently identified with Doris Day, who sang it in the film The Man Who Knew Too Much.



At that time, it wasn't uncommon for films to include movies, if they featured an actor or actress who could sing, which were nearly complete unrelated to the film in any other fashion.  The Man Who Knew Too Much was a Hitchcock thriller, and although the protagonist is a family man, there's really nothing else much that relates Que Sera Sera to the film.   That may be why we don't really associate the song with the film much.  Indeed, in Hitchcock films, it isn't even one of the first films of his that come to mind.

Maybe that's why Samsung felt free to use the song.  It's not associated with visual images, but it is associated with a certain mood and feel.

And that mood and feel is basically one of innocence combined with fatalism.  It has a tomorrow is much like today, sort of feeling to it, but one that accepts that "what will be will be".

I'm not sure what feeling Samsung is going for, but it's incredibly creepy and more than a little perverse.  In one version, a large adult man sits on a corner, at night, while he lip sinks a young girl singing the song.  He looks bombed out and disconnected. 

In another, a group of young people use their phones to battle an artificial intelligence holographic monster, which they kill in some sort of a game. 

In the most disturbing, however, a group of men playing basketball at night are confronted by a pre teen girl who is wearing skirt, thrusting her hands towards her pelvis, and jerking in an unnatural fashion.  I don't know if anyone has called attention to it, but he commercial is not only suggestive, it's pedophilic, clearly sexualizing a young girl in a way that commercials have not since the 1970s, when it caused an outrage.  Indeed, it goes beyond that, as its so sick in the way it portrays the girl its worse than the prostitution of young models that was briefly in vogue in the 1970s (and we wonder how depraved prediation on the young came in so strong in the 70s, and 80s, d'uh).

Samsung isn't dense.  It knows what it's doing.  Its so savvy it managed to overcome a product disaster of just a couple of years ago and reemerge as a major cell phone producer.  This add campaign intentionally riffs off of more innocent and accepting age to present a disturbed, perverted and confused one, even celebrating it.  Don't like your reality?  Imagine a fake one on your phone.  Have a weird fetish. . . indulge it on your phone.

Predictions that technology was becoming more than we could handle have been around since day one. It's never come true.  But there's good reason to re ask that question now. 

And the balance of the current evidence shouldn't leave a person feeling very comfortable.

Mid Week At Work: Pipers of the Band of the Air Force Reserve Pipe Band and Sean Connery, in 2001.

An article in the current edition of Annals of Wyoming really gets into the material resource topics we raise here. . .

with that article being A Patron of the Plains and Pine Bluffs:. . . "  It's excellent.

Oddly enough, this issue, which just arrived  yesterday, involves the town of Hillsdale, a really tiny obscure Wyoming town, which I just posted something about on Sunday:

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: United Methodist Church, Hillsdale Wyoming

Churches of the West: United Methodist Church, Hillsdale Wyoming:

United Methodist Church, Hillsdale Wyoming

This is the United Methodist Church in Hillsdale Wyoming.  Hillsdale is a very small Laramie County town which was probably more viable at some point in the past than it is now, but it's still a town and this church is still an active church is spite of the very small population of that town.

While undoubtedly nobody would recall it, Hillsdale has been featured here twice now, the first time in 2015.  Here's my entry on that occasion, which relates a lot more closely to the the topic of the article, sort of.

Evidence of changes in technology and transportation in geography.

The photograph above depicts a United Methodist Church in Hillsdale, Wyoming.  Hillsdale is a really tiny town, with a population of under fifty people.  It's on the Union Pacific.

By rail, it's less than 15 miles from Cheyenne.  It's less than five miles from Burns, another little town, albeit one that's bigger than Hillsdale.  Another five miles down the Union Pacific is the town of Egbert.  And a few more, maybe eight or so, is the town of Pine Bluff.  In Pine Bluff, I know, there's a Catholic Church.

I've been in Hillsdale (as of yesterday) and Pine Bluff, but I've never been in Burns.

Of these towns, only Pine Bluff and Cheyenne on are the Interstate Highway.  Hillsdale is probably four miles or so off the Interstate Highway, effective marooned out there in the rolling hills of Laramie County, Wyoming.

I was actually amazed that this United Methodist Church is active.  The Catholic church in Pine Bluff also is.  So these communities are obviously keeping on keeping on, but what a change this evidences.

All of these towns were built on the Union Pacific Railroad.  Only Pine Bluff and Cheyenne are on the Interstate.  Coming in from Nebraska, I'm sure that well over 90% of all travelers go right by Pine Bluff.  Leaving Cheyenne (and no, not the song, that takes you to Montana), probably nearly 100% of travelers go right by Pine Bluff.

All of these towns, save for Cheyenne, must have been built as farming towns along the Union Pacific.  They're not far from each other today, but when founded they would have been just far enough to travel to each other, by wagon, and get back home, which is how they served the area farmers. That is, towns in this area where just far enough from towns so that you could get into one, conduct your business, and go back home.  Saturday was traditionally the big "into town" day for farmers and these towns were probably pretty big on Saturdays.  I'd guess that their populations swelled during Sundays as well, but how farmers got to services I don't know.  In some regions of the country the population prior to World War Two heavily reflected a single faith or perhaps only a couple of faiths (and this is still the case in some regions), and perhaps that was the case in this region of Wyoming, but it wouldn't be the case for Wyoming in general at any single point.

These towns remained viable in the early automobile era, but clear by the 1950s the handwriting must have been pretty visible on the wall.  Cheyenne is the dominant city in the area, and it always has been, but for all practical purposes its the only one that is truly fully viable now. That wouldn't have been true at one time.

The article features a story from the Tribune which dated only back a few months prior to my post, even though I was completely unaware of it at that time.  Curtis Bowser had died and bequeath a substantial sum to the museum in Pine Bluffs, and a columnist from the tribune was wondering who he was.  The author of the article, from that quarter of the state, sought out to answer that question.

The answer is fascinating and I'll forgo going into it in detail, but rather I'd note here that he was from Hillsdale originally, although he hadn't lived there since graduating from high school.

No, the reason that I'm noting this is that a really good description is given in the article of the history of the Bowser family locating in the region.

They came in during the first decade of the 20th Century, with Mr. Bowser, the father of the benefactor, arriving on an immigrant train after being encouraged to move to Wyoming for "free land" by his sister and brother in law.  This is only the second time I've heard of such trains, with the first being an example given to me by somebody whose grandparents had relocated in Wyoming in that fashion.  Basically, a single car was loaded up with enough to start a rough homestead and to build a small, one room, house.  That was it.  That was  substantial amount of stuff, but frankly being able to make a go of it being dropped off in that fashion would be difficult in the extreme.

In the Bowser example that didn't even include a stove to heat the one room house he built.  When his wife came out, with a baby, that December, he still didn't have one, even tough he'd built a barn and the house, and they lived in his sister's nearby farm house  Ironically, his sister was moving to Iowa by that point to teach school.  For the first five years of their presence near Hillsdale they hauled water five miles.

Now, keep in mind, the Bowers located in this area in 1908, which means that they were hauling water until 1913.  Mr. Bowser, who had previously been employed as an enameler in New York City, and Mrs. Bowser, had four children, not a large family by the standards of the day, two of whom lived in the water hauling era.  The last one was born in 1921.  Mr. Bowser made a successful go of it and his initial homestead expanded significantly over the years.

Okay, why have I pointed this article out?

Well, for one thing, it's just flat out interesting.

Beyond that, however, this is the era we've been focusing on.

It's so easy to assume that people in the past were just like us, and lived just like us. But they didn't.  Mr. Bowser the younger, by the time he passed away in 2014, had apparently done extremely well and hadn't lived in Wyoming for years.  As the story makes plain, he never forgot his childhood home, but by the time of his death he wasn't living in conditions anything like that which he had when he was young. For that matter, the Bowser's still in Wyoming weren't either.

That family in 1908 lived a life that was more like 1808 than 2008.  Most people today wouldn't be able to endure those conditions.  Mr. Bowser put up with no stove until his wife and baby arrived.  That means he was living without heat, and Wyoming isn't warm.  The Bowser's started off with a one room home.  It didn't have water to its location for years.

The younger Mr. Bowser was a Marine during World War Two.  People have looked at that generation and been amazed by its toughness. No wonder it was tough, as growing up the way he did wasn't unusual, and it'd make you tough.

But imagine that generation that fought World War One.

Some have noted that the American soldiers of the Great War seemed amazingly unaffected by it in many ways and wondered how that could be.

Conditions had a lot to do with that.

And some have noted how closely they bonded with the rural French during their service, while as in World War Two, they tended to be shocked by the conditions that the French, and the Italians, lived in. 

An article like this explains why. The conditions they lived in weren't much different.

So imagine those farm and ranch conditions, for average westerners, in those first couple of 20th Century decades.  Remarkably different from those later on, and certainly remarkably different from those we live in today.

Some Gave All: Heninel, a ses Enfants.

Some Gave All: Heninel, a ses Enfants.:

Heninel, a ses Enfants.

Memorial in Heninel, France to the men of the town who died in World War One.  This monument is placed next to the village church.

April 1, 1919. Des Moines Waterfront, Rheims in ruins, Concern of Japan. . . in Mexico. And Wars.

Des Moines, Iowa.  April 1, 1919.

On this same day in which Des Moines waterfront was photographed, a Red Cross photographer toured the Red Cross facilities in destroyed Rheims.

Scenes like those depicted there demonstrate pretty ably why the French were taking a hard line view in the peace talks in Paris.

Red Cross staff at Rheims, including local volunteers.

Red Cross facility in Rheims for those returning home to find no homes.

Note the boy sailor, seated at table.

Closer to home a scare that had developed over Japanese land purchases in Mexico were abating.

It seemed pretty clear that the early scare, which had been that the Japanese were buying up strategic lands in Baja California were more than a little off base.

A U.S. Senator predicted a future war on the Pacific, however. . . .

Overall, frankly, the news of this early stage of the peace was, well, not very peaceful.

I've found it hard to get too worked up about the firing of UW President Laurie Nichols . . .

and I'm not sure why.

I probably ought to be concerned, as something is going on and I'm completely clueless about it. As the state's only four year university, what happens at UW really matters.

And I did take offense when the prior President, Bob Sternberg, who resigned received so much faculty heat, basically bringing about his resignation.  The heat was, in no small part, due to faculty getting upset about his trying to focus the direction of the land grant school on what counts in the state, which they didn't like.  During that period the law school's Dean Easton resigned over what he saw as interference of that type and I frankly think that Sternberg had the high side of that argument.  No matter, they both went.

Nichols has been best by all sorts of problems at UW during her term in office, including the need to eliminate degree programs and the entire weird flap over the schools recruiting slogan, which turned out to be a huge success, but which brought some really predictable and dim reactions.  You' can read about that here:

The University of Wyoming adopts an unneeded slogan and some faculty reveals themselves to be trendy twits

 Black cowboys.  Oh my, this would suggest that certain faculty members at the University of Wyoming are, well, ignorant, sanctimonious, twits.

One third of all cowboys in the Frontier Era were black or Mexican.

It continues on from there.

Part of the reason that I may be exhibiting less interest than I should be is that there was no build up of controversy prior to this event and when it occurred, the first negative reactions I read came from the same predictable corner that the reaction to the slogan did.  Indeed, one of the exact same faculty members was quoted, and I'm tired of him.  So that may have colored my view a bit.

Be that as it may, Nichols seemed to be doing a good job. She weathered the slogan flap and turned that around, or at least it turned around, and she did a seemingly good job of scaling down where need be.

On scaling down, UW went from 30 departments to 21 by necessity.  That's a hard thing to do, and I don't agree with all of the changes.  Probably nobody would.  In today's paper it was revealed that the degree program in geography will be housed in the Department of Geology and Geophysics, the Department of Geography having been eliminated.

That's a bad idea as other than sharing the Greek root "geo" in their names, Geography has nothing whatsoever to do with Geology/Geophysics.  I'd not do that.

I'm not too sure what I think of the expanded degrees in the community colleges where the university has a presence as well.  In some ways I think that's good, and in others bad.  UW seems to make sure that its heavyweight degrees don't stray off the Laramie campus, and I can see why, but if we're going to offer four year degrees at an increasing rate in the community colleges, that's going to have to change.  Indeed, while it's been a losing fight, the time has really come for one of the community colleges, and Casper College is the best candidate, to become a university.

Well, at any rate, the Trustees really do owe the state, and Nichols, an explanation.  There's some reason for their decision, even if its trivial, and as the state only has one four year university, they should let us know what it is.

The Vietnam War: Every Fortnight

March 31, 1919: Mrs Wilson makes the rounds, Artillery rounds aid the Allies in northern Russia, Wilde goes fifteen rounds

American Red Cross Student's Club on the day it was visited by Mrs Woodrow Wilson, March 31, 1919.

Edith Wilson, Woodrow Wilson's wife, was in Paris with him while he attended the Paris Peace Conference and, on this day, she visited the Red Cross Student's Club in Paris.

Edith was Wilson's second wife, his first having died in 1914.  She was a widow herself, her first husband having died in 1908.  She was younger than her second husband, being 47 years old at the time this photograph was taken, where as her husband was then 63.  He'd have a stroke, of course, later this year and at that time Edith Wilson became the effective chief executive of the United States, irrespective of there being no constitutional provision for that, and during turbulent times at that.  She did well in the role and can legitimately be regarded as the nation's first de facto female chief executive.  

Concerns over a repeat of the confusion caused by President Wilson's stroke would lead to changes in the law providing for a means of cabinet offers challenging the President's ability to serve.

Edith Wilson would live to be 89 years old and was present by invitation when the United States declared war against Japan in 1941.  She lived to attended John F. Kennedy's inauguration.

In Russia, a combined western Allied assault was successful at Bolshie Ozerki.

The Allied role against Communist forces in Russia, and elsewhere, is an extremely confusing story to say the least.  In the far Russian east the United States, while it had troops present, didn't take a role in fighting the Red Army. But in the far north, where the British were very much in command, they did.  This was a combined Allied action in which British troops (the largest contingent of Allied soldiers), French troops, Polish troops and White Russian troops all fought supported by White Russian artillery.

On this day the Allies, outnumbered three to one by Red forces, launched an artillery supported counter attack on Bolshie Ozerki and took the town, after an initial Red Army assault was launched upon it.  The point of the battle was the nearby railhead at Obozerskaya, which supplied the Allies during the winter as it terminated at the open port of Murmansk.  Not only the forces committed to the battle were grossly disproportionate, the casualties were too with the Allies taking seventy five casualties and the Reds taking upwards of 2,000.

This is one of many such instances in which Allied forces bested the Red Army.  The Reds would ultimately prevail against the Whites, of course, but they were clearly second or third rate compared to well trained European armies.

In fighting elsewhere King Edward VIII attended a box match between Welshman Jimmy Wilde and American Joe Lynch.

The King entered the ring to congratulate Wilde on his victory, thereby becoming the first royal to enter the ring, an act which gave the sport an added air of legitimacy.

Movie announcement from when everyone wore hats.

Another reminder movie announcement from approximately 1912.  This one, unlike last week's, reminds men and women to remove their hats.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: United Methodist Church, Hillsdale Wyoming

Churches of the West: United Methodist Church, Hillsdale Wyoming:

United Methodist Church, Hillsdale Wyoming

This is the United Methodist Church in Hillsdale Wyoming.  Hillsdale is a very small Laramie County town which was probably more viable at some point in the past than it is now, but it's still a town and this church is still an active church is spite of the very small population of that town.

Best Posts of the Week of March 24, 2019.

The best post of the week of March 24, 2019.

New Seasons

The 2020 Election, Part 1

The Nebraska floods and Wyoming agriculture

On Vietnam Veterans Day

Richard's (Reshaw's) Bridge, Evansville Wyoming.

Doesn't Sterling K. Brown get tired of

playing the most over-sensitive, wimpiest, designated guy who has the feelings of a girl that girls pretend they want to love but in real life can't stand for more than 27 seconds, character on television?

I'll bet he does.

I bet at night he goes home and puts on his well worn Blue Ray of The Wild Bunch and imagines that he has the William Holden Role. . . in real life.

Probably drinks a Pabst Blue Ribbon, smokes a cigar, and wishes. . . .

Today In Wyoming's History: Richard's (Reshaw's) Bridge, Evansville Wyoming.

Today In Wyoming's History: Richard's (Reshaw's) Bridge, Evansville Wyoming.:

Richard's (Reshaw's) Bridge, Evansville Wyoming.

Reshaw's Bridge, or more correctly Richard's Bridge, was a frontier North Platte River crossing only a few miles downstream from Platte Bridge and like it, it was guarded by a contingent of soldiers.  As noted in the plaque below, it ultimately closed in favor of the slightly newer Guinard's Bridge, which Richard bought, which ultimately came to be referred to as Platte Bridge.



In 1866, after the bridge had been abandoned, it was dismantled by the soldiers stationed at Platte Bridge Station.

While Platte Bridge Station is remembered for the battle that occurred there, Reshaw's Bridge saw its fair share of action as well.

Indeed, as we've discussed previously on one of our companion blogs, which we'll link in here below, bodies exhumed at the post when Evansville's water treatment facility was built include what are certainly two soldiers and a pioneer woman.  Generally, the Army would reclaim bodies of troops, but my minor efforts to inform the Army of this failed.

From our companion blog, Some Gave All:

Richard's Bridge Cemetary Mausoleum, Evansville Wyoming

This mausoleum was built when at least part of the cemetery of the military post at Richards Bridge was located at the time Evansville, Wyoming built a water plant near the river. The former location of the Frontier Era bridge across the North Platte had not been precisely known up until that time. When three bodies, believed to be the bodies of two soldiers and one woman, were disinterred they were reburied here, on the grounds of the Evansville grade school. The school grounds were the only nearby public land at the time.

This creates a very odd situation in a variety of ways and the mausoleum is not well maintained. While worse fates could exists than spending eternity near a grade school, it is generally the case that the Army has recovered the lost remains of Frontier Era soldiers when they were located, and it would seem that moving these victims of Frontier conditions would be a positive thing to do.

On Vietnam Veterans Day

Today is Vietnam Veterans Day.

The reason for that is that it was on this day, in 1973, that the last American combat troops were withdrawn from Vietnam.

As we now know, they were withdrawn under an agreement, the Paris Peace Accords, that President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger believed would fail.  That Nixon believed that was cynically assumed, and it turns out correctly assumed, by the first historians of the war, who uniformly regarded the war as an ill though out American disaster. 

Starting about a decade ago, or so, however, revisionist histories, some fairly good and not so much, took the opposite approach.  A statistical analysis of the war conducted by a Marine veteran and expatriate living in Australia fairly convincingly argued that the war had been effectively won by 1968 and that the process of Vietnamization conducted by the Nixon Administration thereafter simply reflected that.  Two books on the early portion of the war when Diem was still the living autocrat in charge in the Republic of Vietnam took charitable views towards the pre 1965 American build up and argued that the war could have been won but for mistakes in that phase.

Then came Ken Burns groundbreaking recent documentary, followed by Max Hasting's new book on the war, which I'm only now just reading. 

Both make clear what the earlier books already had suggested.  The United States failed to appreciate the real situation in Vietnam from the onset, even while the French remained there, and the following intervention was beset by mistakes from the very first.  Worse yet, in some ways, Richard Nixon basically set out to betray the South Vietnam by extracting the United States dishonestly, believing that the North would ultimately prevail.  All that was needed, in his view, was some breathing room to make the departure decent.

Unfortunately for history, Nixon's other activities removed him from the Oval Office so that he was not present to bear the brunt of the impact of his decisions, which came in 1975 with the northern invasion.  The Army of the Republic of Vietnam collapsed in the face of that offensive, but in no small part due to a lack of effective air power.  Having been trained since at least the early 1960s to rely on massive American supplied firepower, without it, it really couldn't fight, and its troops rapidly lost spirit, to the extent they ever had any, and effectively quit.  Thousand and ultimately millions paid the price.

So are the pundits right, that the United States should have never gone in, in the first place?  I'm still not sure.  I find it hard to see a way that the U.S. could have avoided Vietnam, save perhaps for having denied the French any assistance in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  That would have been the approach, to the extent that we can discern one, that Franklin Roosevelt would have taken, as he was universally opposed to colonialism and seems to have been fairly comfortable with independence movements that were heavily communist.  Of course, had Vietnam become a communist state in 1946, it's hard not to imagine that being the case all the way to at least Thailand.

Which is perhaps the point.  Earlier in this blog I posed the suggestion that the Vietnam War ought not to be looked at in a vacuum, but rather as a campaign, and not wholly successful one, in the Cold War.  And that still seems correct to me.

But one fought at great cost that the country has never really gotten over in some ways. 

Making this a good day to remember its veterans.

The Nebraska floods and Wyoming agriculture

The Tribune published a story today on how the huge floods in Nebraska may impact Wyoming and Nebraska agriculture.  It's a story I've been wondering about a bit myself.

The paper reported that 1,000,000 head of cattle may have been lost in the floods.  If so, that's a devastating loss.  A person is reporting with the quote from Wyoming that "that's not good", which is self evident.

It's likely to mean a rise in cattle prices, almost certainly.  A 1,000,000 head loss at one time is something that flat out can't be absorbed by the industry without a price result.  It may also mean the loss of quite a few feedlots, I suspect, and that'll have an impact as well.  My guess is that by summer the price of putting that steak on the grill will be up, and noticeably, but that's just a guess.  As my steaks come from volunteer cattle of our own seeking to enter retirement, the price doesn't impact me much directly and I'm often really surprised by it.  But anyhow, that's my guess.

A big jump in price, it might be noted, isn't a great thing for cattlemen.  Too big of rise really favors other meat industries such as pork and poultry, although I'd be surprised if the pork industry wasn't also hit.  Anyhow, when the price goes up at the grocery store counter it doesn't always mean good things for cattlemen, and it never does in a direct dollar to dollar correlation.

Loss of agriculture production will have an impact.  The paper had this quote, and its quite correct:

“We rely on Nebraska a lot,” said Brett Moline, director of public and governmental affairs for the Wyoming Farm Bureau Association. “A lot of our feed grains come in from Nebraska and eastern South Dakota. That’s one reason we move cattle out there – it’s cheaper to move the cattle than it is to move the feed. We’ll have to see what the storms do to feed prices too.”

And that's not only true of Wyoming, in regards to Nebraska, but other local ares of the Northern Plains as well.

On a total side note, the author of the article, which wasn't a bad article by any means, did insert an odd term, apparently not knowing what it means.  That's found here.

Though life has continued unabated in Wyoming – upriver from the swollen sections of the North Platte – the devastation felt across the state’s 138-mile border could ripple into the agrarian economy of the Equality State.

Agrarian economy?

Wyoming doesn't have an agrarian economy and it never has had one, save for perhaps the very early New Mexican vegetable farmers who lived  out on the Mexican Hills outside of Ft. Laramie.  They probably could be regarded as being agrarians, but they're the only ones.

Agrarianism is the production of agriculture principally for self subsistence.  Lots of North Americans engaged in agrarian agriculture at one time, even into the 20th Century, but Wyoming's agriculturist never did, or never did on any substantial level.  Agrarians can and have existed in modern economies, so we shouldn't mistake that fact, but that style of agriculture emphasizes self subsistence and reliance over the market, and production is sold that's surplus.  A surplus crop, however, is never the principal goal.

Almost all early North American farming was agrarian.  At the time of the Civil War much of American agriculture and nearly all of the edible crop and animal farming in the South was agrarian (cotton and tobacco farming were production agriculture, not agrarian agriculture).  All farming of all types at that point retained some agrarian aspects, and that remained true up until after World War Two.

At that point, following World War Two, the South's agriculture, which featured the last remaining bits of agrarian agriculture, was rapidly disappearing. That was a result of the policies of the New Deal, which were hostile to it.  Quebec's agriculture remained highly agrarian at that point, but it too would start to really fade quickly.

Wyoming's agriculture, however, and Nebraska's as well, was always principally production agriculture.  The farming of wheat and large scale corn is production, not agrarian, in nature.  Cattle ranching in the West, outside some regional pockets in New Mexico and southern Colorado, has also always been production agriculture.

All of which we'll explore in a future post.

At any rate, pray for Nebraska and its farmers.  This is a true disater.

Friday Farming: Marcus Cato on Farming

It is true that to obtain money by trade is sometimes more profitable, were it not so hazardous; and likewise money-lending, if it were as honorable. Our ancestors held this view and embodied it in their laws, which required that the thief be mulcted double and the usurer fourfold; how much less desirable a citizen they considered the usurer than the thief, one may judge from this. And when they would praise a worthy man their praise took this form: "good husbandman, good farmer"; one so praised was thought to have received the greatest commendation. The trader I consider to be an energetic man, and one bent on making money; but, as I said above, it is a dangerous career and one subject to disaster. On the other hand, it is from the farming class that the bravest men and the sturdiest soldiers come, their calling is most highly respected, their livelihood is most assured and is looked on with the least hostility, and those who are engaged in that pursuit are least inclined to be disaffected.

Marcus Cato, De Agri Cultura

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March 29, 1919. Illustrations.

The Saturday news magazines hit, as always, on this day in 1919, with a slate of war related images on their cover.  The Saturday Evening Post went to the stand with a Norman Rockwell item called "The Little Model", featuring a Salvation Army woman with a tambourine.

Judge, a popular magazine of the day, went full sappy.

Leslie's, in comparison, went full martial.

The Stanley Cup finals ended this year due to the Spanish Flu.  Too many players became ill to carry on.

And Marines on occupation duty in Germany gathered for a photograph.

Lex Anteinternet: Challenges legal and financial to the extractive i...

Yesterday we ran this item

Lex Anteinternet: Challenges legal and financial to the extractive i...: I haven't written much on energy topics recently, and a I have a lingering two part series that's related to this that I have yet t...

In today's tribune we learned that the coal industry lost a little under 200 jobs last year, which all in all, given the circumstances, isn't as big of decline as might have been feared.

And its reported that Wyoming is ninth in the nation in income, which of course is good for the state.

Both would suggest that there's been a period of stability or perhaps the coal decline is slowed while oil has picked up. 

Challenges legal and financial to the extractive industries and therefore to Wyoming's economy.

I haven't written much on energy topics recently, and a I have a lingering two part series that's related to this that I have yet to finish, but a couple of recent events bring this topic back to the forefront, so on this Wednesday, when I usually feature something to do with the topic of work, I'll bring this back up.

Neither are really good developments for Wyoming's economy.

The first is that a Federal District Court judge of the District of Columbia ruled on March 19, in a sixty page opinion, that the BLM had failed to comply with Federal environmental laws by failing ot have taken into account climate change in issuing certain Federal leases in Wyoming.

This hasn't been really well reported on. The ruling does nothing about current oil and gas drilling, as some seemed to think. Rather,  it holds up issued and existing leases that were part of a specific set of issued leases.  Having said that, it isn't an insignificant number of leases.  Turning to the decision:

BLM issued 282 leases through the Wyoming Lease Sales, encompassing approximately 303,000 acres of federal land across multiple BLM planning areas. Pls. Mem. at 1. The leased parcels are managed by ten different BLM field offices—which are responsible for drafting and 9 implementing the resource management plans and EISs governing the parcels—overseen by three district offices. 6 See Fed. Defs.’ Cross-Mot. Summ. J. & Opp’n Pls. Mem. (“BLM Mem.”) at 7, ECF No. 63. Those three district offices conducted the lease sales at issue here in May, August, and November 2015, and May and August 2016.7 Id. at 7–8.8 For each lease sale, each district office involved prepared (1) an EA tiered to the relevant resources management plans and EISs issued by field offices at the land use planning stage; and (2) a FONSI disavowing the need for a new, leasing stage EIS. In total, therefore, the record contains nine EA9 /FONSI10 combinations, tiered to nineteen resource management plan/EIS combinations, including resource management plan amendments. Id. WildEarth participated in the comment and protest periods for each of the challenged lease sales

282 leases over 303,000 acres is a lot of leases.

This decision remanded the matter to the BLM, from which it came, with instructions that the BLM complete the environmental assessments that the Court felt were required but lacking.

Okay, so what does this do?

Well, it's hard to say, but at least right now the Court in D.C. is on record that climate change needs to be considered by the Federal lease issuing entities.  It's likely that the decision will be appealed, but appeals aren't super speedy.  So these leases will be held up for some time, probably, on appeal.

I feel that this decision is unlikely to hold up on appeal, but I also had wondered for a long time when this approach in this court would be taken.  It's a really obvious legal strategy and that it took somebody so long to attempt it is the surprising thing.  The challenger in this instance isn't alone, however, as just a couple of months ago I read of a similar approach being taken by a teenage plaintiff.  With this ruling on record, it won't be easy to dump her case as lacking merit on its face.  Ultimately, therefore, resolution at the appellate level will be critical.  Whichever side looses, and I'd guess it would be those supporting this decision, will appeal it to the United States Supreme Court, but my further guess is that unless one of the Circuit Court of Appeals takes the same approach, the United States Supreme Court is unlikely to take it up.

The Court of money, i.e., the stock exchange, took up the topic of coal's viability to an extent when the New York Stock Exchange suspended trading on Cloud Peak Energy's stocks. The coal company has been in financial trouble, but coal itself has been so this isn't that surprising of a development.

We note this story as well as the latter certainly is one that is significant to a state in which the majority of the funding for education comes from coal severance taxes.  The recent ups and downs of the extractive industries have continued on into this year, when there was a lot of hope they would not, and now there's some added dimensions to those stories.

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.

Mid Week At Work: Aiding the wounded.

There's a little thing going on in this photograph, but a lot, including a lot of unknowns, behind it.

This photo shows an American soldier giving minor first aid of some sort (but apparently significant enough that it's actually being done, to a White Russian Cossack, probably in the far north of Russia.

The Cossack is traditional attire.  It was probably taken in the Spring of 1919.  He's well equipped.

In 1919 the White position in the far North was getting imperiled, but the Whites were advancing rapidly in the East.  The Reds were prevailing in the West and were now threatening Poland and even Germany.  Soon that would reverse, however, and the Poles would advance, before retreating once again.

What happened to the people in this photograph?  I really wonder, and indeed, I often wonder about things like that.  The American probably came home and went about his life.  Almost certainly. What about the Cossack?  Did he survive the war?  If he did, did he survive the peace?

March 26, 1919: Hatching

Baseball season, then as now, was just around the corner.

Well I guess I'll skip listening to my downloaded Sunday Morning news shows.

I never catch them live, as I have other things to do on Sunday mornings.  But I usually do catch them the following week.

But as they were released prior to the news coming out that there was no collusion by Trump with the Russians, they'll be obsolete.  Later this week, hopefully, more details will come out, including whether or not Attorney Mueller felt that there was collusion, maybe, but not of a type sufficient to levy indictments for, maybe.  My predictions are that will be cleared up later this week.

My further predictions are that parties in the Democratic left that were howling that the report would surely lead to an impeachment will turn on somebody and howl all week that Mueller ought to be run out of D.C. on a rail because he's a bady, now that the hoped for result isn't coming in. And I also predict that parties in the GOP right will howl how this demonstrates a benighted sense of duty on the part of the President who should now be given all credit on everything.

We'll have to wait to next Sunday to get the better punditry analysis, maybe.