Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Casper Wyoming

Churches of the West: St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Casper Wyoming:

And now state government . . .

 

 The Wyoming State Capitol the way many of us see it, over the hoods of our pickups as we are driving in Cheyenne.

Yesterday it was announced that Governor Mead has ordered State agencies to trim their budgets by 8%, in light of lower than expected revenues.  It's possible that this won't be the last such order either.

I have a big post on the Wyoming economy coming up, and government spending will be part of the topic in it (with the comment probably not being what folks would expect), so I won't comment too much here but this is an obvious part of the ripple effect of low coal and oil prices, which will itself have a ripple effect.  Some of the agencies are reorganizing right now to save money, and not necessarily in the way you might suspect.

A couple of small items on this.  First, as noted, I'm going to write out a big post on the Wyoming economy shortly.  It's about half done now, but it's probably a good thing I didn't get it all done as this would have impacted it a bit (and of course it's not like this page has high readership anyhow even though it has excessively high publication). 

Secondly, I'm going to do a post on comments on on-line journals, newspapers and enormous blogs.  I've been seeing a trend that doesn't apply to the smaller more specific interest ones that's both interesting and a bit disturbing.

 

The rainy days for Cheyenne and Wyoming are clearly here.

The Casper Daily Press for Holy Saturday, April 22, 1916

Train robberies, something more associated with the 19th Century over the 20th Century, appear once again as the late famous series of those events in this year reoccurred in Wyoming.

And Casperites received the opportunity to appear as extras in a movie.

Friday Farming: The Rural Population

Carrying on our look at 1916 here, and keeping in mind that today is Earth Day, and also keeping in mind that everyday is Earth Day for farmers, some tables on the percentage of Americans  that were "rural" awhile back.

Circa 1916

Table 1.  Urban and Rural Population:  1900 to 1990--cont.

                                                1930         1930                                         1920         1920                                         1910         1910
                                   1930         total        total      1930    1930         1920         total        total      1920    1920         1910         total        total      1910    1910
                                   total        urban        rural    percent percent        total        urban        rural    percent percent        total        urban        rural    percent percent
                                population   population   population   urban   rural      population   population   population   urban   rural      population   population   population   urban   rural

    UNITED STATES               123,202,624   69,160,599   54,042,025    56.1%   43.9%    106,021,537   54,253,282   51,768,255    51.2%   48.8%     92,228,496   42,064,001   50,164,495    45.6%   54.4%

    Northeast Region             34,427,091   26,706,683    7,720,408    77.6%   22.4%     29,662,053   22,403,858    7,258,195    75.5%   24.5%     25,868,573   18,563,203    7,305,370    71.8%   28.2%
    New England Division          8,166,341    6,311,976    1,854,365    77.3%   22.7%      7,400,909    5,620,384    1,780,525    75.9%   24.1%      6,552,681    4,805,791    1,746,890    73.3%   26.7%
      Maine                         797,423      321,506      475,917    40.3%   59.7%        768,014      299,569      468,445    39.0%   61.0%        742,371      262,248      480,123    35.3%   64.7%
      New Hampshire                 465,293      273,079      192,214    58.7%   41.3%        443,083      250,438      192,645    56.5%   43.5%        430,572      223,152      207,420    51.8%   48.2%
      Vermont                       359,611      118,766      240,845    33.0%   67.0%        352,428      109,976      242,452    31.2%   68.8%        355,956       98,917      257,039    27.8%   72.2%
      Massachusetts               4,249,614    3,831,426      418,188    90.2%    9.8%      3,852,356    3,468,916      383,440    90.0%   10.0%      3,366,416    2,995,739      370,677    89.0%   11.0%
      Rhode Island                  687,497      635,429       52,068    92.4%    7.6%        604,397      555,146       49,251    91.9%    8.1%        542,610      493,938       48,672    91.0%    9.0%
      Connecticut                 1,606,903    1,131,770      475,133    70.4%   29.6%      1,380,631      936,339      444,292    67.8%   32.2%      1,114,756      731,797      382,959    65.6%   34.4%
    Middle Atlantic Division     26,260,750   20,394,707    5,866,043    77.7%   22.3%     22,261,144   16,783,474    5,477,670    75.4%   24.6%     19,315,892   13,757,412    5,558,480    71.2%   28.8%
      New York                   12,588,066   10,521,952    2,066,114    83.6%   16.4%     10,385,227    8,588,586    1,796,641    82.7%   17.3%      9,113,614    7,188,131    1,925,483    78.9%   21.1%
      New Jersey                  4,041,334    3,339,244      702,090    82.6%   17.4%      3,155,900    2,522,435      633,465    79.9%   20.1%      2,537,167    1,938,612      598,555    76.4%   23.6%
      Pennsylvania                9,631,350    6,533,511    3,097,839    67.8%   32.2%      8,720,017    5,672,453    3,047,564    65.1%   34.9%      7,665,111    4,630,669    3,034,442    60.4%   39.6%
    Midwest Region               38,594,100   22,351,089   16,243,011    57.9%   42.1%     34,019,792   17,775,966   16,243,826    52.3%   47.7%     29,888,542   13,487,199   16,401,343    45.1%   54.9%
    East North Central Division  25,297,185   16,794,908    8,502,277    66.4%   33.6%     21,475,543   13,050,086    8,425,457    60.8%   39.2%     18,250,621    9,620,277    8,630,344    52.7%   47.3%
      Ohio                        6,646,697    4,507,371    2,139,326    67.8%   32.2%      5,759,394    3,677,136    2,082,258    63.8%   36.2%      4,767,121    2,665,143    2,101,978    55.9%   44.1%
      Indiana                     3,238,503    1,795,892    1,442,611    55.5%   44.5%      2,930,390    1,482,855    1,447,535    50.6%   49.4%      2,700,876    1,143,835    1,557,041    42.4%   57.6%
      Illinois                    7,630,654    5,635,727    1,994,927    73.9%   26.1%      6,485,280    4,403,677    2,081,603    67.9%   32.1%      5,638,591    3,479,935    2,158,656    61.7%   38.3%
      Michigan                    4,842,325    3,302,075    1,540,250    68.2%   31.8%      3,668,412    2,241,560    1,426,852    61.1%   38.9%      2,810,173    1,327,044    1,483,129    47.2%   52.8%
      Wisconsin                   2,939,006    1,553,843    1,385,163    52.9%   47.1%      2,632,067    1,244,858    1,387,209    47.3%   52.7%      2,333,860    1,004,320    1,329,540    43.0%   57.0%
    West North Central Division  13,296,915    5,556,181    7,740,734    41.8%   58.2%     12,544,249    4,725,880    7,818,369    37.7%   62.3%     11,637,921    3,866,922    7,770,999    33.2%   66.8%
      Minnesota                   2,563,953    1,257,616    1,306,337    49.0%   51.0%      2,387,125    1,051,593    1,335,532    44.1%   55.9%      2,075,708      850,294    1,225,414    41.0%   59.0%
      Iowa                        2,470,939      979,292    1,491,647    39.6%   60.4%      2,404,021      875,495    1,528,526    36.4%   63.6%      2,224,771      680,054    1,544,717    30.6%   69.4%
      Missouri                    3,629,367    1,859,119    1,770,248    51.2%   48.8%      3,404,055    1,586,903    1,817,152    46.6%   53.4%      3,293,335    1,393,705    1,899,630    42.3%   57.7%
      North Dakota                  680,845      113,306      567,539    16.6%   83.4%        646,872       88,239      558,633    13.6%   86.4%        577,056       63,236      513,820    11.0%   89.0%
      South Dakota                  692,849      130,907      561,942    18.9%   81.1%        636,547      101,872      534,675    16.0%   84.0%        583,888       76,469      507,419    13.1%   86.9%
      Nebraska                    1,377,963      486,107      891,856    35.3%   64.7%      1,296,372      405,293      891,079    31.3%   68.7%      1,192,214      310,852      881,362    26.1%   73.9%
      Kansas                      1,880,999      729,834    1,151,165    38.8%   61.2%      1,769,257      616,485    1,152,772    34.8%   65.2%      1,690,949      492,312    1,198,637    29.1%   70.9%
    South Region                 37,857,633   12,904,248   24,953,385    34.1%   65.9%     33,125,803    9,300,055   23,825,748    28.1%   71.9%     29,389,330    6,622,658   22,766,672    22.5%   77.5%
    South Atlantic Division      15,793,589    5,698,122   10,095,467    36.1%   63.9%     13,990,272    4,336,482    9,653,790    31.0%   69.0%     12,194,895    3,092,153    9,102,742    25.4%   74.6%
      Delaware                      230,380      123,146      115,234    51.7%   48.3%        223,003      120,767      102,236    54.2%   45.8%        202,322       97,085      105,237    48.0%   52.0%
      Maryland                    1,631,526      974,869      656,657    59.8%   40.2%      1,449,661      869,422      580,239    60.0%   40.0%      1,295,346      658,192      637,154    50.8%   49.2%
      District of Columbia          486,869      486,869       -        100.0%    0.0%        437,571      437,571       -        100.0%    0.0%        331,069      331,069       -        100.0%    0.0%
      Virginia                    2,421,851      785,537    1,636,314    32.4%   67.6%      2,309,187      673,984    1,635,203    29.2%   70.8%      2,061,612      476,529    1,585,083    23.1%   76.9%
      West Virginia               1,729,205      491,504    1,237,701    28.4%   71.6%      1,463,701      369,007    1,094,694    25.2%   74.8%      1,221,119      228,242      992,877    18.7%   81.3%
      North Carolina              3,170,276      809,847    2,360,429    25.5%   74.5%      2,559,123      490,370    2,068,753    19.2%   80.8%      2,206,287      318,474    1,887,813    14.4%   85.6%
      South Carolina              1,738,765      371,080    1,367,685    21.3%   78.7%      1,683,724      293,987    1,389,737    17.5%   82.5%      1,515,400      224,832    1,290,568    14.8%   85.2%
      Georgia                     2,908,506      895,492    2,013,014    30.8%   69.2%      2,895,832      727,859    2,167,973    25.1%   74.9%      2,609,121      538,650    2,070,471    20.6%   79.4%
      Florida                     1,468,211      759,778      708,433    51.7%   48.3%        968,470      353,515      614,955    36.5%   63.5%        752,619      219,080      533,539    29.1%   70.9%
    East South Central Division   9,887,214    2,778,687    7,108,527    28.1%   71.9%      8,893,307    1,994,207    6,899,100    22.4%   77.6%      8,409,901    1,574,229    6,835,672    18.7%   81.3%
      Kentucky                    2,614,589      799,026    1,815,563    30.6%   69.4%      2,416,630      633,543    1,783,087    26.2%   73.8%      2,289,905      555,442    1,734,463    24.3%   75.7%
      Tennessee                   2,616,556      896,538    1,720,018    34.3%   65.7%      2,337,885      611,226    1,726,659    26.1%   73.9%      2,184,789      441,045    1,743,744    20.2%   79.8%
      Alabama                     2,646,248      744,273    1,901,975    28.1%   71.9%      2,348,174      509,317    1,838,857    21.7%   78.3%      2,138,093      370,431    1,767,662    17.3%   82.7%
      Mississippi                 2,009,821      338,850    1,670,971    16.9%   83.1%      1,790,618      240,121    1,550,497    13.4%   86.6%      1,797,114      207,311    1,589,803    11.5%   88.5%
    West South Central Division  12,176,830    4,427,439    7,749,391    36.4%   63.6%     10,242,224    2,969,366    7,272,858    29.0%   71.0%      8,784,534    1,956,276    6,828,258    22.3%   77.7%
      Arkansas                    1,854,482      382,878    1,471,604    20.6%   79.4%      1,752,204      290,497    1,461,707    16.6%   83.4%      1,574,449      202,681    1,371,768    12.9%   87.1%
      Louisiana                   2,101,593      833,532    1,268,061    39.7%   60.3%      1,798,509      628,163    1,170,346    34.9%   65.1%      1,656,388      496,516    1,159,872    30.0%   70.0%
      Oklahoma                    2,396,040      821,681    1,574,359    34.3%   65.7%      2,028,283      538,017    1,490,266    26.5%   73.5%      1,657,155      318,975    1,338,180    19.2%   80.8%
      Texas                       5,824,715    2,389,348    3,435,367    41.0%   59.0%      4,663,228    1,512,689    3,150,539    32.4%   67.6%      3,896,542      938,104    2,958,438    24.1%   75.9%
    West Region                  12,323,800    7,198,579    5,125,221    58.4%   41.6%      9,213,889    4,773,403    4,440,486    51.8%   48.2%      7,082,051    3,390,941    3,691,110    47.9%   52.1%
    Mountain Division             3,701,789    1,457,922    2,243,867    39.4%   60.6%      3,336,101    1,217,988    2,118,113    36.5%   63.5%      2,633,517      944,863    1,688,654    35.9%   64.1%
      Montana                       537,606      181,036      356,570    33.7%   66.3%        548,889      172,011      376,878    31.3%   68.7%        376,053      133,420      242,633    35.5%   64.5%
      Idaho                         445,032      129,507      315,525    29.1%   70.9%        431,866      119,037      312,829    27.6%   72.4%        325,594       69,898      255,696    21.5%   78.5%
      Wyoming                       225,565       70,097      155,468    31.1%   68.9%        194,402       57,095      137,307    29.4%   70.6%        145,965       43,221      102,744    29.6%   70.4%
      Colorado                    1,035,791      519,882      515,909    50.2%   49.8%        939,629      453,259      486,370    48.2%   51.8%        799,024      402,192      396,832    50.3%   49.7%
      New Mexico                    423,317      106,816      316,501    25.2%   74.8%        360,350       64,960      295,390    18.0%   82.0%        327,301       46,571      280,730    14.2%   85.8%
      Arizona                       435,573      149,856      285,717    34.4%   65.6%        334,162      120,788      213,374    36.1%   63.9%        204,354       63,260      141,094    31.0%   69.0%
      Utah                          507,847      266,264      241,583    52.4%   47.6%        449,396      215,584      233,812    48.0%   52.0%        373,351      172,934      200,417    46.3%   53.7%
      Nevada                         91,058       34,464       56,594    37.8%   62.2%         77,407       15,254       62,153    19.7%   80.3%         81,875       13,367       68,508    16.3%   83.7%
    Pacific Division              8,622,011    5,740,657    2,881,354    66.6%   33.4%      5,877,788    3,555,415    2,322,373    60.5%   39.5%      4,448,534    2,446,078    2,002,456    55.0%   45.0%
      Washington                  1,563,396      884,539      678,857    56.6%   43.4%      1,356,621      742,801      613,820    54.8%   45.2%      1,141,990      605,530      536,460    53.0%   47.0%
      Oregon                        953,786      489,746      464,040    51.3%   48.7%        783,389      390,346      393,043    49.8%   50.2%        672,765      307,060      365,705    45.6%   54.4%
      California                  5,677,251    4,160,596    1,516,655    73.3%   26.7%      3,426,861    2,326,959    1,099,902    67.9%   32.1%      2,377,549    1,468,419      909,130    61.8%   38.2%
      Alaska                 *2      59,278        7,839       51,439    13.2%   86.8%         55,036        3,058       51,978     5.6%   94.4%         64,356        6,141       58,215     9.5%   90.5%
      Hawaii                        368,300      197,937      170,363    53.7%   46.3%        255,881       92,251      163,630    36.1%   63.9%        191,874       58,928      132,946    30.7%   69.3%

Proving Lawrence right.

 M1911 pistol, like the type that equipped the U.S. Army until the M9 Beretta, and which equipped a fair number of British officers, including T. E. Lawrence, through private purchase during World War One.

Archeologist have found a 230 gr .45 caliber bullet at Hallat Ammar, Saudi Arabia (it's literally on the Jordanian border)

So what you ask?

Well, that is a location which, in 1917, the Hashemite Arab Revolt ambushed and destroyed a Turkish train.  T. E. Lawrence wrote about it in his book Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

So, some would say, what's the big deal.  Wouldn't we expect bullets to be found at a place where combat had taken place?

Yes we would.

But almost as soon as the ink was dry on the Versailles Treaty people have begun to question T. E. Lawrence's role in the Arab Revolt.

And that's because his role loomed so large, the natural question was, was he the Arab Revolt?

The answer to that would be no, but frankly the Arab Revolt would have been a horribly muddled and inefficient affair, if not an outright disaster, without Lawrence.  He didn't start  the revolt, but he frankly did take a revolt that he found that wasn't doing well, reformed its nature, organized it, to include at least partially politically reorganizing it, and took it on to near success.

 Col. T. E. Lawrence

I say near success, as to the extent it wasn't successful is that, the Hashamites, having won that part of the war, lost the peace in very real terms. Rather than uniting the Hajez with Jordon and Syria, the whole thing fell apart in very real terms as the French took Syria and the Saudis, in fairly short order, took the Hajez.  The Hasmites continue on in Jordon, of course, and they received Iraq as a consulation prize, but Iraq is about he worst prize in the box of Middle Easter Cracker Jacks that a person could conceivably get.

Now, why wold anyone doubt Lawrence's role?

Well, there are a lot of reasons.

Lawrence himself contributed to this a bit.

Lawrence was an enigmatic man, to say the least.  A  lively archeologist before the war, he turned out to be a natural military genius, perhaps aided a bit by his extensive study of the Crusades.  Warfare tends to be warfare, irrespective of the era.

But he wasn't comfortable with that role even during the war, and particularly after enduring an assault by a Turkish officer while briefly a prisoner.  He developed what today we'd recognize as a titanic case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and he had a massive case of guilt on top of it.  Lawrence came from very devout, if strangely non observant in one fashion, Anglican Anglo-Irish parents and he struggled both with PTSD and with the knowledge that he had, in part due to his own fascination with his goal, deceived both the Arabs and the British in his efforts.   He never got over it.

And in not getting over it, while he wrote a brilliant account of it which turns out more and more to have been very accurate, he obfuscated some details that he could have been clearer on, on military details, and he spent all the rest of his life, after the peace negotiations, hiding, more or less.

But that's far from the only reason.

A second reason is that he was so stunningly successful, and the Arabs have had to live with that.

That may sound odd, but in the history of revolutions, there's rarely an example of where such an insular people have so successfully been lead by a foreigner to whom  they own nearly all the success.  During our revolution, for example, we had the aid of French, German and Polish military men, but they didn't lead our entire army.  Lawrence basically did that for the Arabs. They were doing badly before he started that, and their success came under him, and is really attributable to him.

That's been a heavy burden for the Arabs ever since.

If the Arabs themselves can't really claim the mantle of success for their independence what does that do for their image? Are they even real countries?

 Sayyid Hussein bin Ali, Sharif and Emir of Mecca, King of Hejaz, and self declared Caliph.

Clearly, the Arab nations are real countries, but the whole thing is highly related to British efforts and even the countries that came to exist did so due to what the British did, and didn't do.  The King of Jordan today is the king as the British allowed a Hashemite to be king.  Iraq is a country as the English, perhaps mistakenly, decided it would be.  Syria is a nation as the British acquiesced to French control of Syria and French creation of Lebanon (with some indication that hte French might actually fight the British for both of those).  Kuwait is a country as the British decided that their monarchical leaders ought to be, instead of being part of Iraq.  Saudi Arabia is a state as it was a client, albeit not a good one, of India when India was part of the Empire, and the British decide not to back the Hajez against the House of Saud for some reason.  Everyone in that scenario, except the House of Saud, owes a debt, therefore, to a war time colonel in the British army.

 Prince Feisel, with aids, including Lawrence, at the peace talks.  The black man in the back row is likely a slave, slavery still being practiced amongst the Arabs at that time.  If not a slave, he's certainly a retainer of Feisel's.  Feisel became the King of Iraq.  He died ostensibly of a heart attack at age 48, but poisoning remains suspected.

And amongst the people whom gave birth to Islam, Lawrence provides a problematic reminder that the Arabs have often not really been all that observant of Muslims.  Today, in no small part due to events since 1970, we tend to think of all Middle Eastern people as being devout Muslims, but this is far from true. Amongst the Muslims themselves, even the Arabs have tended not to exhibit the sort of fanatic singular devotion, all of the time, that we associate with groups like ISIL today.  T. E. Lawrence was a Christian leading an Arab army whose seat of power was Mecca. That's a pretty stunning thought.  The Arabs themselves were in rebellion against the Otttoman Turks, whose leader was theoretically a Caliph and who had declared the Turkish effort a jihad.

Mehmed V, who was the Caliph during World War One.  He died in 1918 before the war ended, at age 73.

Abdulmecid II, the last Caliph of the Ottoman Empire.  He's live in exile in France after his position was abolished by the Ottoman parliament.

And he lead them very well.  And was not alone in being a singular English Arab advisor to the Arab forces.  Indeed, the English would continue to play a role in Arab forces right up until the mid 1950s. English officers served with the Jordanian Arab Legion during the 1948 Arab Israeli War.

Well, history is what it is.  And in spite of the embarrassment of some, and the wish that things might have been otherwise by others, we should take it as we find it.

And, perhaps fittingly, we re-find Lawrence the way he found Arabia. . . through archeology.

And now Uranium

In the just can't catch a break department, Cameco, a uranium producer, announced it was laying off 85 employees in Wyoming and Nebraska due to depressed uranium prices.  Prices fell in 2011 due to the Fukushima Daiichi incident in which it was damaged due to a 9.0 scale earthquake in Japan.

Stuff like this shows the weird things that nuclear power, which is incredibly safe, has to contend with.  There aren't any forms of electrical power generation that do not resort in injuries and deaths.  Not to pick on coal, but it's certainly the case that there are a lot more coal mining and coal power plant injuries in a year than there are such incidents from nuclear power plants and Uranium mining.

And uranium offers a means of generating power that's actually really green compared to generating methods that rely on fossil fuels. 

No matter, the weird sort of view that people have of such things has condemned nuclear generation to a seemingly increasingly marginal role.  Just like hydroelectric power, it addresses most of the complaint that people have with other forms of electrical generation, but the opponents of nuclear power can't see past the radioactive glow that haunted the imagination since the Cold War.

So, while it has nothing at all to do with what's plaguing coal, a price decline, like for petroleum oil, is causing layoffs in an industry that once showed great promise in the 1960 and 70s for Wyoming.

The Casper Weekly Press for Good Friday, April 21, 1916

Blog Mirror: Matthew Wright: What if Germany won the First World War? Would we have avoided Hitler?

Matthew Wright continues his conterfactual examination of the Great War:

What if Germany won the First World War? Would we have avoided Hitler?

Posted on April 21, 2016 by Matthew Wright

I posted the other day about the way Germany nearly won the First World War in spring 1918. . .

Casper Daily Press for April 20, 1916

Blog Mirror: Casper Journal; What do you do when those good mining jobs go away?

The journal has run an interesting column on the now nearly forgotten plight of Fremont County in the 1980s.  One of Bill Sniffin's articles, which are always good, it recalls a Lander Wyoming that was a mining town, now something nearly forgotten:

MY WYOMING

What do you do when those good mining jobs go away?

by Bill Sniffin

It is a recession when you lose your job. It is a depression when I lose mine. – Old saying.
With the loss of more than 5,000 energy jobs, it should be interesting to readers to read about what happened during the last Wyoming bust at the most mining-oriented town in the state. Here is that story:

It's well worth reading.

I'd guess a lot of current Wyomingites, particularly those born since 1990, would be shocked to learn that Lander had been a mining town.  Some time ago I passed by the old Taconite mine and meant to photograph it, but I was in a hurry and didn't.  I wish I had now.  At any rate, Sniffin is quite correct.  Lander was a mining town.

Indeed, Lander and Hudson were union towns and heavily Democratic.  To run for office there you practically had to be a Democrat.  Some of those old Democrats are still around, and still active in politics, but they are Republicans now.  Indeed, in the same race in which Governor Mead took his first nomination a serious contender for that nomination was a really well respected Republican Legislator, who had been a long time Democratic Legislator prior to switching parties.  The big switches that took place, and the fact that Fremont County today has some of the state's most conservative Republican political figures, says a lot about the fate of the Wyoming Democrats over the years.

And the current nature of Lander does as well.  If you went into the town today you'd be hard pressed to realizes that it had every been a mining town.

As an aside, I continue to be impressed by the columnists in the Casper Journal.  They're good.  Indeed, even though the Journal and the Tribune have common ownership, the Journal, a weekly paper, has better columnist as a rule.  Not always, the Tribune has some good ones, but it also has some that I really wonder why they run.  Bill Sniffin, of the journal,  never fails to publish an interesting article, and he's not the only one in the Journal we can say that about.  The Tribune does run some good national columnists, and some I could leave, but that's common for folks like me who read national columnists.  Some you like, and some you don't.  On local columnists their Mary Kettl almost always runs an interesting column as does Mike Kuzara, but in contrast, while Mary Billiter's have much improved, I still can't get into them. And likewise I'm consistently bored and disappointed by Edith Cook's column, which I'd not run if I were the editor.

The Escadrille Américaine formed, April 20, 1916.

 Members of the Lafayette Escadrille and their mascots, two lion cubs (Whiskey and Soda), one of which is partially obscured by the sitting dog.

The Escadrille Américaine established by the French on this day in 1916.   The squadron famously was made up principally of American volunteers who came to fly for France, although they were, in fact, not al French.  It would be later renamed the Lafayette Escadrille by which it is more commonly known.

Mid Week at Work: Colonia Dublan, 1916

Casper Daily Press for April 19, 1916. Mexico, Germany and the early campaign for Henry Ford, yes that Ford, for President

This edition has a note about something we have largely forgotten.

Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motors, was a candidate for the Presidency in 1916.  He ran on the GOP ticket, and he took Nebraska's and Michigan's delegates that year.

That's all he took, but for a time Ford, who was of course a well known businessman (and of course that calls to mind Trump invariably) and an opponent of entry into World War One to such an extent that he opposed military preparation, which was a big ongoing deal at the time, did well in those two states and was a sort of serious contender.

 

Blog Mirror: Horses for War: A Market for Wyoming Stockmen

Horses for War: A Market for Wyoming Stockmen

Horses for War: A Market for Wyoming Stockmen

Horses for War: A Market for Wyoming Stockmen

The bronc, "a keen-lookin' bay wild as a rabbit," began bucking as soon as Floyd Bard mounted. It bucked its way up a Sheridan, Wyo. alley by the Bucket of Blood Saloon, then across Main Street and up to the O'Mare grocery store, which had a big glass door. - See more at: http://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/horses-war-market-wyoming-stockmen#sthash.PZWmkntx.dpuf

he bronc, "a keen-lookin' bay wild as a rabbit," began bucking as soon as Floyd Bard mounted. It bucked its way up a Sheridan, Wyo. alley by the Bucket of Blood Saloon, then across Main Street and up to the O'Mare grocery store, which had a big glass door. - See more at: http://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/horses-war-market-wyoming-stockmen#sthash.PZWmkntx.dpuf

Horses for War: A Market for Wyoming Stockmen

Rebecca Hein

Horses for War: A Market for Wyoming Stockmen

The bronc, "a keen-lookin' bay wild as a rabbit," began bucking as soon as Floyd Bard mounted. It bucked its way up a Sheridan, Wyo. alley by the Bucket of Blood Saloon, then across Main Street and up to the O'Mare grocery store, which had a big glass door.

- See more at: http://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/horses-war-market-wyoming-stockmen#sthash.PZWmkntx.dpuf

Horses for War: A Market for Wyoming Stockmen

Rebecca Hein

Horses for War: A Market for Wyoming Stockmen

The bronc, "a keen-lookin' bay wild as a rabbit," began bucking as soon as Floyd Bard mounted. It bucked its way up a Sheridan, Wyo. alley by the Bucket of Blood Saloon, then across Main Street and up to the O'Mare grocery store, which had a big glass door.

- See more at: http://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/horses-war-market-wyoming-stockmen#sthash.PZWmkntx.dpuf

Horses for War: A Market for Wyoming Stockmen

Rebecca Hein

Horses for War: A Market for Wyoming Stockmen

The bronc, "a keen-lookin' bay wild as a rabbit," began bucking as soon as Floyd Bard mounted. It bucked its way up a Sheridan, Wyo. alley by the Bucket of Blood Saloon, then across Main Street and up to the O'Mare grocery store, which had a big glass door.

- See more at: http://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/horses-war-market-wyoming-stockmen#sthash.PZWmkntx.dpuf

Casper Daily Press for April 18, 1916

The following evening, the paper was doubting the news of Villa's demise the day prior, and in a whimsical fashion.

A civil war in China, amazingly enough, managed to make the front page, in spite of the nearer strife.

Yikes! More scary petrol news

The Tribune reported yesterday that Ultra, Wyoming's largest gas producer, missed a $26,000,000 interest payment.  Clearly, that's not good.  The article went on to explore how Wyoming gas is below the profitable rate right now.  And, for those inclined to blame the Federal government for pricing woes in coal, the natural question is that if gas is so cheap its being sold at a loss, what hope is there of boosting the price of coal domestically?

And to compound woes, a meeting of the petroleum producing nations in Doha failed to come up with a production agreement, causing oil prices to drop 6% on the Asian market yesterday.  Oil prices had rebounded a bit lately, including at the pump.  We'll see if they can even remain stable at the current price now.

Monday at the bar: Judge Posner takes shots at the entire legal system (and the ABA notes the Blue Book)

Judge Posner, the well known Federal appellate jurist, has been taking shots at the entire legal profession, including the judiciary, recently.  Given his stature and prominence, it's worth noting what he's saying.

Most recently  he's doing this in a series of articles in something called The Green Bag.  I have no idea what the Green Bag is, and what the source of its odd name is, but the article really lights from fires.  He starts off taking on the much repeated pablum about our system being the envy of the world.

Another way to characterize the legal profession in all three of its major branches the academy, the judiciary, and the bar is that it is complacent,self satisfied. Chief Justice Roberts in his annual reports likes to describe the American legal system as the envy of the world. Nonsense. The system has proved itself ineffectual in dealing with a host of problems, ranging from providing useful (as distinct from abstract theoretical) legal training at bearable cost to curbing crime and meting out rational punishment, providing representation for and protection of the vast number of Americans who are impecunious or commercially unsophisticated (so prey to sharpies), incorporating the insights of the social and natural sciences (with the notable exception of economics, however), curbing incompetent regulatory agencies such as the immigration and social security disability agencies, and limiting the role of partisan politics in the appointment of judges. The system is also immensely costly (more than $400 billion a year), with its million lawyers, many overpaid, many deficient in training and experience, some of questionable ethics.

Wow.

That lays it on pretty thick, but in so far as our system being the "envy" of the world, Posner is right.  It might have been when much of the world didn't have a truly independent judiciary, but there's no reason to believe it is now.  He goes on to take on the entire adversarial system.  That's really amazing from an American legal writer, and he does a good job of describing the system in other countries.

Here's the comment that the ABA noticed and linked into their listserve:

There are changes at once desirable and feasible to be made at the federal court of appeals level too, some of form and some of substance.  At the level of form, the first thing to do is burn all copies of the Bluebook, in its latest edition 560 pages of rubbish, a terrible time waster for law clerks employed by judges who insist as many do that the citations in their opinions conform to the Bluebook; also for students at the Yale Law School who aspire to be selected for the staff of the Yale Law Journal they must pass a five hour exam on the Bluebook. Yet no serious reader pays attention to citation format; all the reader cares about is that the citation enable him or her to find the cited material. Just by reading judicial opinions law students learn how to cite cases, statutes, books, and articles; they don’t need a citation treatise. In the office manual that I give my law clerks only two pages are devoted to citation format.

Oh my.

And he goes on from there.

Casper Daily Press for April 17, 1916

The Casper paper, printing on Monday after a Sunday off, reports a rumor that turns out, as we know, to be in error.

If this seems odd, let's consider all the similar rumors about Osama Bin Laden  before he was ultimately killed in Pakistan.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Casper Wyoming.

Churches of the West: First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Casper Wyoming.

They could get by without electricity

 Snoqualmie Falls Hydroelectric Plant, built in 1899.

Some time ago I posted this item:

I've been breaking it down since, although my speed in doing that has been arrested a bit by the number of posts I've been putting up on the Punitive Expedition of 1916.  Even there, however, some daily living items have crept into the posts

Lex Anteinternet: Ancestry.com: 9 Reasons Your Great-Great-Grandpar...: An interesting item from Ancestry.com: 9 Reasons Your Great-Great-Grandparents Were More Awesome Than You As 21st-century adults, it...

Here's another one of the interesting items.

3. They could get by without electricity.

Very true.  And a topic I haven't directly covered.  I'll have to add this one to the hopper.

So here we'll cover it, maybe.  And indeed, we'll combine it a bit with a second thread I was riffing off of, from a recent George F. Will column.  Zapping two birds with one birds with one bolt, so to speak.  I've been obliviously fascinated by the following quote from a recent George F. Will column:

In many ways, the world of 1870 was more medieval than modern. Three necessities — food, clothing, shelter — absorbed almost all consumer spending. No household was wired for electricity. Flickering light came from candles and whale oil, manufacturing power from steam engines, water wheels and horses. Urban horses, alive and dead, complicated urban sanitation. Window screens were rare, so insects commuted to and fro between animal and human waste outdoors and the dinner table. A typical North Carolina housewife in the 1880s carried water into her home eight to 10 times daily, walking 148 miles a year to tote 36 tons of it. Few children were in school after age 12.

It turns out that this topic, however, is something that's surprisingly hard to get good information on.

I thought it would be relatively easy to discover when houses were first commonly wired for electricity.  My suspicion was the 1920s, and indeed the 1920s might be right but it might have actually been a bit earlier, particularly depending upon a person's location. There's some suggestions to that effect out on the web, but unfortunately none of them are backed up by anything.  Be that as it may, it's clear that electrical generating was going on as a business proposition earlier than that.  Indeed, WyoHistory.org states that electrical lighting came to Casper on June 12, 1900, with electricity coming from a power plant near one of the refineries.  Indeed, the Natrona County Tribune reported the event on its June 14 front page, without really ever explaining where the electric lights were going to be.  Presumably that electricity was used for industrial and street lighting purposes, and not for average homes but, based upon what I read, I honestly can't say who had the first electric lights around here.  Clearly on June 12, 1900, there was probably not a single house in Casper that had electricity, and that would be true for almost every house in the United States.  But it wouldn't be that way long and even then it wasn't true everywhere.

Absolutely frightening electric toaster from 1908.

Starting around 1900 the amount of electrical power generated in the US expanded enormously.  The original power plants were small affairs, by modern standards, and were often petroleum fired generator affairs.  That sort of power generation still exists, of course, but not for domestic and large scale industrial use.  But soon more substantial generation facilities came into existance.  Electrical output from utility companies in the US went from 5.9 million kWh in 1907 to 75.4 million kWh in 1927 while the price of electricity declined 55%.  Not just lighting, but other electrical appliances began to appear in homes.  In 1903 the electric iron ws introduced, shwoing tghat there was indeed domestic power use at that time, and apparently electricity was trusted enough to be used in that fashion.  The electric toaster was introduced in 1909, followed by the popup toaster ten years later.  The electric vacuum was introduced in 1907.  The electric refrigerator was introduced in 1913.  The washing machine came on in 1930 and the dryer in 1935.

 Electric iron, 1908.  Note the outlet is a lamp.

Indeed, while we tend to think, for some reason, of electric lighting when we first think of electricity, we probably ought to think of the plethora of electrical appliances that came on after 1900.  Earlier in this blog, in our post Women in the Workplace: It was Maytag that took Rosie the Riveter out of the domestic arena, not World War Two, I've argued that it was domestic machinery, not the Second World War, that created the social change that altered the role of women in society, and I probably ought to expand on that to suggest that it was electricity that powered that social change.

Photograph from our earlier post about domestic machinery.  Woman in Montana vacuuming in her home, about 1940.  Of note, the book case on the right is a barristers case, something normally associated with lawyers.  She's vacuuming a large rug on a wooden floor.  What she isn't doing is packing that rug outside, probably with assistance, to beat it with a broom, which was in fact the time honored method of cleaning them.

Not that lighting is a minor matter.  And this taps into something I was going to make into a separate thread, but which is so close to the topic here I'll instead address it here, the thread I started as a draft first. I've quoted it above, and one of the things that Will stated was "No household was wired for electricity.  He also stated that "Flickering light came from candles and whale oil"  Perhaps, to set it in context, we should look at the quote again.

In many ways, the world of 1870 was more medieval than modern. Three necessities — food, clothing, shelter — absorbed almost all consumer spending. No household was wired for electricity. Flickering light came from candles and whale oil, manufacturing power from steam engines, water wheels and horses. Urban horses, alive and dead, complicated urban sanitation. Window screens were rare, so insects commuted to and fro between animal and human waste outdoors and the dinner table. A typical North Carolina housewife in the 1880s carried water into her home eight to 10 times daily, walking 148 miles a year to tote 36 tons of it. Few children were in school after age 12.

I don't dispute the details that Will recites here, but I do doubt the "more medieval than modern assertion.  Indeed, some of these things argue, I think, the other way around.  Still, it taps into what we're discussing here.  This is just the sort of thing that this blog exists to explore, particularly given that the time frame that Will is discussing, 1870 to 1970, fits right in with the time frame, sort of, that this blog is looking at, as earlier noted. 

Whale oil chandelier, photo from the Library of Congress.  Up until the Will entry, I'd never even considered there being such a thing as a whale oil chandelier.

What Will noted was quite true, but was this Medieval in character?  I'd assert not.  I don't really know, however.  Whaling has taken place to some extent since ancient times, but the widespread use of whale oil, I suspect, didn't come about until well after the Medieval period.  Indeed, it doesn't seem to have been done in an appreciably large manner until maybe the 17th Century, although whaling itself does go back much further than that.  Whale oil, once it became a common commodity, did see use in lamps in candles in an appreciable manner.   Starting in the 19th Century, however, kerosene began to come in.  Whale oil reached its peak in 1845 and then began to fairly rapidly decline thereafter as kerosene became more common, although whale oil would continue to see some use up until electrical generation replaced it in the early 20th Century, a fairly remarkable fact.

As a total aside, just as it is surprising, whale fat was also used for whale margarine, a truly odd thought now.

Electrical generation came first to towns and cities, and obviously first to one that had the means of generating electricity.  Coal, oil and hydroelectric generation all started to some in, in force, in the early 20th Century and even in the late 19th Century.  So, even though we haven't been able to really pin down a year for which most Americans in towns would have been using electricity domestically,  it does seem safe to say that it was no later than the 1920s, and maybe even a decade prior.  In the countryside, however, it took the Great Depression to bring electricity to the rural homes, farms and ranches.

Indeed, electricity is so common now that it probably doesn't seem as big of deal to us as it really was.  But it was a big deal to the nation.  Electricity hadn't been marketable enough to cause lines to be run to farms and ranches prior to the Depression, but by the Depression it was obvious to the administration that this was one of the areas where it seemed to be the case that rural Americans were falling behind urban ones in the standard of living.  How that would relate to a depression isn't instantly obvious, but you can make the case that extending electricity to rural homes would have a collateral economic impact.

Not all rural homes, it should be noted, lacked electricity.  Lots of rural homes, farms and ranches across the US had put in electricity on an "off the grid" basis by using wind power.  Now, electrical generation in that fashion always has some quirks, to be sure, and this would have been all the more the case at the time. Generators used for this purpose tended to be adapted from some other use and a lot of the on the spot electrification at the time would have been scary from our current prospective.  Added to that, wind isn't really reliable unless you have a lot of it, and a way to store the electricity that it generates. So, rural Americans using it were using it on a spotty basis. That was probably quasi adequate for their needs at the time but by the early 1930s it was becoming obviously less so. Still, it can't help but be noted that this is an aspect of the past that sort of oddly foreshadowed the future, as "off the grid" electricity is in vogue again.

The answer was a couple of government programs, including the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Rural Electric Administration, which brought power to the hinterlands.  REA was a big deal.

So, basically, going into World War Two, as the film Oh Brother Where Art Thou? would have it, "Everything's gonna be put on electricity and run on a payin' basis.", which is what occurred. The REA and other Federal agencies worked towards providing the rural areas of the nation with electricity and the entire country, pretty much, has been electrified ever since.  So much so that we are running something on electricity nearly all the time.

And that's the point really.  If we go back far enough, let's say 1896, we'd be in a recognizable time with recognizable people, but a tremendous amount of what we take for granted would not be, given the absence of electricity.  Even if we go only as far back to 1916, the year we've been focusing on a lot here, that would be true.  For average people in much of the United States what light you'd have at night would come from a lamp burning a fossil fuel.  And all that stuff we plug in for entertainment or convenience, just wouldn't be.

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Thoughts on the Impending Spring Blizzard

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Thoughts on the Impending Spring Blizzard: If the weather man is correct, it looks like we are in for another spring storm starting this evening. Prediction for 8-14 inches of heav...

The Casper Daily Press: April 15, 1916

In this edition we're reminded that Easter of 1916 was in mid April, unlike this year when it was in mid March.

Friday Farming: Alternative Energy

A deeper trail system well. 

Quite a bit different from the old windmill, of which I see fewer and fewer.  Solar panels, on the other hand, are increasingly common.

Casper Weekly Press: April 14, 1916

The Friday Casper paper, oil taking its place besides the Punitive Expedition and the slow march of the US towards entering World War One.

And now Peabody

In the 1970s John Prine released a song that continued to irritate the giant Peabody Coal Company ever after.  It's chorus lamented the disappearance of a town due to mining, laying that at the feet of Peabody in the chorus:

And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away.

Well, now it's Peabody that seems to be disappearing, at least in terms of being the giant it once was.  Yesterday it took Chapter 11 (reorganization) bankruptcy.

Peabody is the largest coal producer in the world.  And yet its fortunes have fallen so far and so quickly that over just a few years its value has been estimated to have declined from billions to millions, and now its in bankruptcy. It's coal trains, or rather those of railroads serving Wyoming, heavily laden with Campbell County coal were a common site in parts of Wyoming, but now I'm told that you can find idled locomotives reflecting the decline and a once proposed rail line has now been dropped.  Signs that are hard to ignore.

Blog Mirror: Matthew Wright; Spring Offensive: how Germany nearly won the First World War in 1918

Matthew Wright Spring Offensive: how Germany nearly won the First World War in 1918 

Posted on April 14, 2016 by Matthew Wright

It struck me the other day that amid all the ‘what if’ stories about Hitler winning the Second World War, there has been little speculation about the Kaiser winning the first one – which he very nearly did. Twice.

The Wyoming Tribune: April 13, 1916

Back to a Cheyenne morning paper for today, lacking the Casper paper.

The Punitivie Expedition: Advance back into Parral. April 13, 1916

U.S. cavalry reenters Parral to recover the body of cavalryman Pvt. Ledford.  The entry was under truce.  The US demanded an explanation for the Constitutionalist attack, demanded the body of Sgt. Richley, and presented a list of required provisions. The Mexican forces denied having fired first.

Mid Week at Work: Combat photographer.

"William Fox of the Underwood Photo News Service, official photographer with the U.S. Expeditionary Force in Mexico. Mexican-U.S. campaign after Villa, 1916"  Library of Congress

Casper Daily Press: April 12, 1916