Sheridan Enterprise for September 5, 1916. Big Labor Day celebration in Sheridan, riots in El Paso.

The Casper Record for September 5, 1916: "School has started--Have you got that uniform?"

Something we've addressed here before, but which would seem alien to many locals today. The era in which the local high school required uniforms.

For girls, anyhow.

Boys had a uniform they couldn't avoid, as we've already noted, but one which their parents, relieved of buying school clothes, were often glad to have imposed. The military uniform of JrROTC.  Girls, on the other hand, had a prescribed uniform.  What exactly it was in 1916 I'm not sure, but a basic blouse and dress is likely what was required.

In other news current residents of Natrona County would be shocked to see that the county fair was, at that time, held in late September.  Gambling with the weather?   And the tragic death of Mildred Burke, front page news in Cheyenne, had hit the Casper paper.

Lex Anteinternet: The Big Picture: Rail and Stock Yards, Omaha Nebraska in 1916

Lex Anteinternet: The Big Picture: Rail and Stock Yards, Omaha Nebraska in 1916

We've run this one before, in 2013, but we're repeating it on the centennial of its publication.

Note the boxcar with a beer brand on it's side.  I can't make out the brand.

Lex Anteinternet: Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages....

Lex Anteinternet: Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages....: The film Intolerance was previewed in Riverside California on this day in 1916.  Regarded as a masterpiece of this era, the film is a se...

Officially released on this day in 1916.

How to loose money by being cheap.

I will confess that I'm fairly cheap. 

One of our family friends referred to me as "frugal".  I probably am.  Or maybe I'm just cheap. 

Or economical.

Its a virtue taught to me by my parents.  They never splurged on things and they didn't spend money unwisely.  This doesn't mean that they didn't buy some nice things, they did, but they didn't waste money and they almost never bought anything a person would consider a luxury.  Somehow or another, that quality was passed on to me, although I often think that I compare very poorly with them in these regards and I tend to feel guilty when I purchase something I really don't need, particularly if it is for myself.

I often ponder purchases a very long time even when they are a good idea. That often saves me money as over time I'll find that I didn't buy it, and lost interest in it, whatever it is, or that the item was sold to somebody else and therefore the opportunity to buy it is gone. As I didn't need it, I don't worry about it.  It's habits like that which will keep me, for example, from every owning a Harley-Davidson as I while I might admire the occasional Harley, the length of time that I'd deliberate on buying one virtually guarantees that I'll never own one. And that's okay, as I'll save money by not buying it.

That doesn't always work, however.

This is my sad Jeep.

I love my Jeep.

Ever since I bought it I have been pondering buying a RedRock grill guard.  And only a grill guard but also a Or-Fab swinging tire carrier/rack for the back and a winch. All of these things are very useful for a Jeep, and the Jeep is very useful.

Well, Or-Fab went out of business last month, although their website says they're going to be reorganized and back in business soon, so when I went to order the tire carrier, which I decided on last month, it was no longer available.

And I've never ordered the grill guard.

Well, the Jeep lost this contest with a large ungulate yesterday.  If I had the grill guard I'd be buying a new one.

But instead I'll be buying a new radiator, grill, fenders and hood. 

I'm going to spend a lot more than I would have for the grill guard and what's more, I knew I needed a grill guard for just this sort of thing.

Frankly, I'm sick about it.  I'll loose use of the Jeep for a month now thanks to all of this, and mostly thanks to myself.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, Glendo Wyoming

Churches of the West: Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, Glendo Wyoming

This is Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in the small town of Glendo, Wyoming. This church is served by the Parish in Douglas and was built in 1953.

First Annual International Sweepstake Race, Cincinnati Motor Speedway, Sept. 4, 1916

LOC Title:  First Annual International Sweepstake Race, 300 miles, Cincinnati Motor Speedway, Sept. 4, 1916

Late Summer, 2016

I can't wait for the fall to arrive.

The Best Post of the Week for the Week of August 28, 2016

What happened to banded collar shirts?

Sign of the times? Casper Petroleum Club to close

Founded in 1949 with the purpose to “aid the industrial and productive interests of the State of Wyoming" the Casper Petroleum Club, a longstanding local institution, is giving up the ghost.  Hitting the news on September 1, the Club has announced:

September 1st, 2016

Dear Members of the Casper Petroleum Club:

As you are all aware, the Casper Petroleum Club has been experiencing decreased membership attendance for the past 15 years. It is with heavy hearts that the Board must announce the the situation has now reached a level that requires the Casper Petroleum Club to close permanently.

It is the Board’s desire that the Club be able to remain open until December 31st, 2016 in order to honor current reservations, allow staff to make future arrangements, and provide the members ample opportunity to enjoy the Club through the holiday season.

In order for the Club to maintain the ability to remain open until December 31st, you, the membership, must double your efforts to make the Casper Petroleum Club your choice for your lunches and dinners in each of these remaining 4 months. If September attendance is not strong, members should expect the Club to close in October.

Additionally, after reviewing the evening dinner service attendance for the past fiscal year, the Board found that dinner service for Monday and Tuesday nights is consistently unattended, or attend with less than 5 nightly reservations. As a result, beginning September 12th and 13th, the Club will no longer be open for Monday and Tuesday dinner service. Existing Monday and Tuesday event reservations will be honored.

Members, as the Club reaches its twilight, we eagerly invite you to come often to celebrate the legacy, food, and ambiance of the Casper Petroleum Club for the rest of the year.

Regards,

Your Board of Directors

Done.

The Club survived numerous booms and busts, and even managed to use the bust of the 1980s to its advantage when it went from being the last tenant of the old downtown Townsend Building (now the Townsend Justice Center)  to a building vacated by the 1810 Mining Company, a 1970s era boom restaurant.  

I'd never been in the club when it was in the Townsend other than to peek through the door from the Townsend lobby into it, which gave you a glimpse of a dark bar from the bright lobby of the Townsend as the Townsend slid, or rather rapidly fell, into true devastation even as its restaurant continued to do a thriving lunch business.  The attachment of the still thriving Petroleum Club showed how vibrant the Townsend must have been in the 1950s.

I was never a member of the CPC, but I'd been in it many times.  The county bar association used to have monthly lunches there and the firm sometimes had an annual Christmas or New Years lunch there, and at least one time a Christmas party there.  I attended a few big wedding receptions there, as well as a few large funeral receptions there, including those of people to whom I am very closely related.  More than a few times people I knew well just decided to have lunch there, and I along with them.

Well, we can't say that the current bust killed it, but it must not have helped.  The decline in clubs in general probably didn't help much either.  Various former members that I used to know who kept a membership there, and indeed at one time it was something that people who had arrived had, no longer were keeping one.  Odd to think of, at one time it was a place where lawyers  and oilmen commonly went to lunch, but I haven't been in there now for several years.

Well, its a shame.

Romania Joins The War I THE GREAT WAR Week 110

The British Uniforms of World War 1 I THE GREAT WAR Special

Cheyenne State Leader for September 3, 1916. The Eight Hour Day becomes law.

This is an interesting 1916 item to say the least.  The moment at which the eight hour day became the American standard.

We're so used to thinking of the average working day lasting eight hours that we hardly give any thought to there being an error in which this wasn't the case. But there certainly was.  Prior to 1916, many laborers worked well over eight hours pre day. After September 3, 1916, that work day was established and the modern work day became law.

Which is not to say that there  hasn't been some retreat on this. There certainly has.  At least for the "professional" class of worker the eight hour day has long ago expanded into more hours than that, and well over forty hours per week. As more and more Americans have entered this category, the working hours of American have been increasing in recent decades, with wages not doing the same.

What happened to banded collar shirts?

 One of the two banded collar shirts I have.  Ironically, this shirt was made by the Arrow Shirt Company.

Up until at least the end of World War Two, banded, or "collarless" shirts were a relatively common item for men, in some places.

Not equally in all countries at all times, however.  They were less common in the United States, but they weren't uncommon at all early in the 20th Century and in some places into mid century.  Now, they're sort of hard to find, and when you do find them, they can be really expensive.  It's weird.  It's too bad as well, as I really like them.

As recently as last year, the Wall Street Journal declared that "band collar" (collarless, banded collar, they're all the same thing) was the shirt for the summer.  Stated the Journal:

When the heat closes in, men want chill-out clothing. That’s why a shirt that’s shed its stifling collar—aka a ‘band-collar’ shirt—might be the most important piece of the season.

Well, if so, it'd be nice if a person was able to find one around here.

The Journal tapped right into the history of the shirt, partially, and that goes where I want to go a bit here as well.  The Journal observed:

Though the breezily incomplete look also enjoyed a vogue in the bohemian 1970s, its roots go back to the era when collars were starchy, detachable things that men fastened to a basic collarless shirt to appear properly dressed. (The advantage: You could just launder the collars while rewearing a shirt a few times.) That so many contemporary designers are now marketing such shirts to be worn on their own speaks to the steady casualization of modern men’s style. First went the tie, now goes the collar. “Guys just aren’t wearing ties as much,” said Mr. Olberding. “And with a band collar, it’s the anti-tie shirt. You just simply can’t wear [a tie].”

Yep, exactly right (but wait, it's a bit more complicated than that actually).  Hence the scarcity of the shirt type as well. 

While the thought of rewearing a shirt, rather than a collar, probably would strike a modern audience as gross, the Journal is right on. We've dealt with it at length in another post, but before the invention of the modern washing machine, people re-wore clothes. They had fewer clothes, they wore quite a bit of wool, and they didn't wash things nearly as often. Frankly, people could do that today, it would not raise a might stench like you might suppose, but people generally don't do that.  I, for one, will toss an Oxford cloth work shirt in the laundry pile after I wear it at a work for one day.  I could, I'm sure, get away with hanging it back up and pressing it for a second, or third, go, but I don't.

But if I had to wash it by hand, I might. And therefore, back in the day, it was easier and practical to have a starched collar that I'd launder first.  Collars get dirty.  And the shirt cold keep on keeping on.  When I was home and not wanting to wear the collar I'd detach it, which of course would give the shirt its casual look by default right then.

 Drew Clothing  Company advertisement for collars, April 1913.  Man, who hasn't had these problems?

When I say "I'd launder", I should note that I mean I'd likely send the collars to the laundry.  Indeed, some laundries advertised this very service.  For example, when Lusk Wyoming had a new laundry come in, prior to World War One, it specifically advertised washing and starting collars.

This small building in Wheatland, Wyoming is still in use.  A newer sign above the door says "Coin Operated Laundry", so perhaps its still in its original use, although presumably not as a "steam laundry".  Its location is just off of the rail line, which was likely a good location for a laundry, although this is a surprisingly small structure, much smaller than the laundry in Lusk was. Anyhow, while we think of laudrimats as being the domain of students and apartment dwellers today, prior to the invention of the washing machine they were a big deal for regular people.  From Painted Bricks.

Indeed, that laundries would  advertise such a service says a lot about the state of washing prior to the invention of the household washing machine.  Most people don't send routine washing to the laundry unless they live in an apartment or are students. But at that time, they did quite often, as the alternatives were basically non existent. Today, quite a few businessmen and women still retain the practice of having their shirts laundered, I should note, and indeed I do (something I adopted after I got married for some reason, as I used to launder all my shirts myself, but after we had kids, it seemed to be a chore I was happy to omit. . . maybe some things don't change as much as we think).  Laundries were so important at the time that they are specifically given a priority in the state's laws on water appropriation.

41-3-102. Preferred uses; defined; order of preference.

(a) Water rights are hereby defined as follows according to use: preferred uses shall include rights for domestic and transportation purposes, steam power plants, and industrial purposes; existing rights not preferred, may be condemned to supply water for such preferred uses in accordance with the provisions of the law relating to condemnation of property for public and semi-public purposes except as hereinafter provided.

(b) Preferred water uses shall have preference rights in the following order:
(i) Water for drinking purposes for both man and beast;
(ii) Water for municipal purposes;
(iii) Water for the use of steam engines and for general railway use, water for culinary, laundry, bathing, refrigerating (including the manufacture of ice), for steam and hot water heating plants, and steam power plants; and
(iv) Industrial purposes.
(c) The use of water for irrigation shall be superior and preferred to any use where water turbines or impulse water wheels are installed for power purposes; provided, however, that the preferred use of steam power plants and industrial purposes herein granted shall not be construed to give the right of condemnation

Detachable collars got their start early in 19th Century and by mid century they were fairly common. This isn't to suggest that their use was universal, which would not be true.  It was never true. But it became common.  Men bought banded collar shirts and detachable collars. Sometimes they also bought detachable cuffs.  When the collars were dirty, they were boiled and restartched, and then buttoned back onto the shirt. That way a person could have both a clean collar, and one that was incredibly stiff. Such shirts were, of course, worn with ties.

I've never seen anything directly linking it in, but I strongly suspect that the banded collar shirt, at least of this type, was  partial victim of the laundry machine. Again, while we've dealt with the revolutionary device, the washer, before, its impact on things was so significant that it's ignored, and of course, when people want to talk about revolutionary machines, they want to talk about Computers, or Enigma Machines, not washers and dryers.  But people ought to take a second look.  Just as it was Maytag, not Rosie the Riveter, that took women out of a mandatory domestic role, good old Maytag attacked the banded collar shirt and defeated it.

Collars on shirts had been around, of course, for a long time.  But as noted, if you were working in an office and wearing a clean white shirt, that collar wouldn't look so clean for so long.  But with the washing machine things changed.

Indeed, the fact that the changed is illustrated nicely by the history of Cluett Peabody & Company, a collar manufacturing firm. As washing machines began to come in during the 1920s, their fortunes declined. The reason was that the demand for dress shirts with attached collars increased and the shirt with the collar began to supplant the banded collar shirt.  Cluett Peabody and Company, thinking it over, figured a way out of the problem by 1929. The Arrow Collar Shirt.

 Arrow collar ad, 1907.  The fellow with the checkered touring cap is wearing an Arrow collar, to the apparent distress of the fellow with the starched white collar in the background.   The fellow to the left appears non pulsed and I fear a duel may break out latter.  All of the collars in this 1907 advertisement are likely of the detachable type except for hte arrow collar.

Now, in fairness, Americans have always had a stronger attachment to the collared shirt than seemingly Europeans did, and collared shirts no doubt made up the majority of shirts in the US, even taking the position of collarless shirts in certain roles that banded shirts did in Europe.  The US was a heavily rural nation up until the mid 20th Century and as a result, most men didn't have a real pressing need for s starched collar on a daily basis and instead wore a collared shirt.  Indeed, Americans always wore a lot of conventional collared shirts as dress shirts even in the starched collar era.

 Theodore Roosevelt, 1910.  This photo was originally posted on our Caps, Hats, Fashion and Preceptions of Decency and being Dressed. In this photo a very formally dressed Roosevelt is wearing a spread collar shirt, a type that's still in common use.

Theodore Roosevelt in 1914, in three piece wool suit and tie,with a spread collar shirt.  This photo is also from our Caps, Hats, Fashion and Preceptions of Decency and being Dressed thread.

Indeed, the recent idea we've picked up from television that everyone in the 19th Century, including folks like cowboys, were wearing banded collar shirts is simply wrong.  Sure, you'd see a banded collar shirt out on the plains occasionally, but that's because that fellow was pressing a dress shirt into that service for some reason.  More likely, cowhands would be found with collared shirts.  Indeed, a favorite shirt of the 19th Century cowhand was the collar U.S. Army shirt introduced for frontier service after the Civil War.

Actor Francis X. Bushman wearing an Arrow collar and subtly smirking in 1917.  Maybe he was smirking as he knew that US troops were fighting in collared shirts under their service coats, while Tommies were wearing banded collared shirts.  Or not.

We have to add here, however, that Europeans, and those on the British Isles in particularly, seemingly picked up a fondness for banded collared work shirts in a way that we here in North America never did, and that does complicate this story a bit. Well, more than a bit, sort of.  Anyhow, Europeans adopted banded collared shirts in the early industrial era, and they spread to all sorts of workmen fairly quickly, in a way that in the US might rival the collared chambray shirt.  This lead to a sort of shirt called the "Granddad Shirt" that's particularly associated with Ireland for some reason, but which was really the working man's shirt of Great Britain up until after World War Two.  The British working man's use of the shirt (and the Irish use of it) was very widespread, and they even were adopted into official use by the British Army as the service shirt that went under the service blouse, which was a light blue shirt at first, and all the way through World War One, but which became an olive (or khaki, in British parlance) by World War Two.

 Arrow made shirts and collars both, as this 1920 advertisement in Powell attest to.

That's telling as well, as the U.S. Army, unlike European armies, never went for banded collared shirts.  It did issue one mid 19th Century, but that shirt was an undergarment meant for field use, not for outerwear.  After the Civil War, when the hot conditions of the West meant that solders were stripping down to shirtsleeves, the Army started issuing a collared shirt that could be worn without the service coat.  (As an aside, the routine wear of wool coats in most conditions in the Civil War must have made summer service beastly hot.).

 Detail from Edgar Paxon's remarkable Custer's Last Stand.  The incredibly detailed painting is incredibly accurate, including its depicition of cavalrymen fighting in blue wool shirts (stained reddish due to dust) and wearing flannel shirts underneath them.  At this time, in one minor error, the issue flannel shirt worn under the blue shirt was gray.

Federalized National Guardsmen at the time of the Punitive Expedition, from the earlier thread on hats.  The U.S. Army was downright odd at the time in having a shirt that could be worn like these New York National Guardsmen are wearing it. . . alone with no service coat.  This was likely a remnant of the Frontier Era when soldiers commonly omitted the coat during the summer months.

European armies, in contrast, sometimes issued banded collar shirts in that role, and did for a really long time.  The British in particular did..  Not all retained them the same length of time, but the British, as noted, issued a wool, banded collar, shirt for wear underneath its service jacket all the way through World War Two, although it was of the "granddad" variety we otherwise discuss in this thread.

American workmen, quite frankly, tended towards collared shirts also, as they were buying shirts to work in, not to double as nice dress shirts. Those shirts may in fact have so doubled, but that doesn't mean that they gave priority to the dress shirt. Europeans, or at least the British, were otherwise wearing banded collared shirts anyway.

As arrow collars were rising in the workplace, supplanting banded collars, a couple of other competitors came in too to really do in the banded collar shirt.  The big victor was the button down collar.  It came in during the 19th Century in the United Kingdom, but not as a dress item. It was worn by polo players to keep the collar down in hard play.  Obviously the polo shirt was somewhat different at the time.  In the 1896, however, Brooks Brothers, the famous clothiers, took note of them and introduce dress shirts that buttoned down, which is why Brooks Brothers still refers to them as a "polo collar", basically claiming pride of place in their introduction.  Oxford cloth button down shirts became so dominant over time in men's wear that they nearly define business dress, and even business casual and casual.  This was so much so that the early comedy lp of Bob Newhart, who had been accountant, could be titled The Button Downed Mind of Bob Newhart with no explanation being needed.  You see button down Oxfords everywhere, every day.

Some time in this same era tab collars and tie bars also came in, which served the same purpose, but in a way that retains a more formal appearance.  A tie bar holds the knot of the tie forward and, quite frankly, gives it a certain spiffy appearance as accented by the gold or silver tie bar.  Tie bars had become sufficiently widespread by the early 20th Century such that British officers routinely wore tie bars for that purpose by World War One, as the British had, by that time, introduced an opened collared service coat for officers and collared shirt, with tie, for them.  When the US did the same in 1923, wearing of tie bars by American officers was also common.  Every once in a while you'll see a shirt with pin holes manufactured in it for a specialized type of tie bar, although that's rather rare.  Anyhow, tab collared shirts had a tab that buttoned behind the tie knot that did the same thing, which also aided in the spiffy appearance.  I'll confess to having a couple of tabbed collared shirts in my collection, although as I've aged (becoming I find, more and more like my father in these regards) I tend to dress up nicely for work less often, which is something I likely should address.  And I'll admit to having had several tie bars as well, although never more than one at a time.  I lose them.

By the 1920s, stiff starched collars were on their way out, and also with them the banded collared shirt in the US.  Daily armor, for some reason, of the working man and man in the field (both the agricultural field and the field of war) they kept on keeping on in the British Isles.  But after the war they died away there too.  Perhaps they were just too old fashioned.

Well, while they've waned, they've never really disappeared entirely.  They revived a bit in the 1960s, in the counter culture era, as a hip alternative to a shirt that could take a tie, and then they nearly vanished again. But they are back now, both here and in Europe.  Here, as the Wall Street Journal relates, they've become a cool shirt that's an alterntaive to a button downed Oxford, and I've seen quite a few of them worn as dress shits even with sports coats.  Sometimes with full suits, giving a sort of cool, if not somewhat Middle Eastern, appearance.  But they sure aren't cheap, as the journals listing of available shirts reveals:

From left: Michael Bastian Shirt, $425, mrporter.com; Boglioli Printed Shirt, $375, Barneys New York, 212-826-8900; Half Raglan Shirt, $198, stevenalan.com; 1883 Poplin Shirt, $195, Hamilton Shirts, 713-264-8800.

If you are paying $425 for a shirt, man, you are paying too darned much.

The always amusing J. Peterman Catalog lists a couple as well, with its fantastic short story form advertising copy. Consider, for example, the "Gatsby Shirt".

Gatsby was amazing. He even managed to see to it that the book about him was regarded as a novel, as pure fiction, as though he didn’t exist.

Even Fitzgerald, by the time he was through writing it, believed he’d made the whole thing up.

There were those who knew the truth all along, of course; knew everything except where all that money came from. (Even by today’s standards, when millions mean nothing, only billions matter, Gatsby was incomprehensibly rich.)

Gatsby walked into rooms wearing a shirt with no collar. Even a little thing like that made people talk. And probably will still do so.

Our uncompromising replica of Gatsby’s shirt has the same simple band collar. The placket is simpler, also narrower. The cotton we have used is so luminous, in and of itself, that even a person who notices nothing will notice something.

Gatsby, of course, could afford stacks of these shirts — rooms of them. Never mind. All that matters is that you have one, just one. A piece of how things were.

What a hoot.

The protagonist of Fitzgerald's novel, of course, would have worn banded collar shirts, probably, unless he was wearing one of the up and coming Arrow Collars. But he sure would have worn a starched collar with him, in that heavily tied era.  Indeed, in that era of rebellion the young were dressing up, not down, and women had affected the tie, dressing with starched collars themselves.  Indeed, the irony, perhaps, of that era so long ago is that men and women's dress, amongst the fashionable, came about as close to resembling each other as they ever would, something that perhaps those in perpetual angst over such topics should consider.

The Peterman outfit charges $89 for its Gatsby shirt, but only $69 for its "Irish Pub Shirt", which is a Granddad Shirt.  The ad copy is just as delightful, however.

It’s Friday night at the Hog & Fool, a 200-year-old pub off O’Connell Street in Dublin. World headquarters for conversation.

Dark mahogany walls. Lean-faced men. Ruddy-faced women.

The bursts of laughter aren't polite, but real, approaching the edge of uncontrollability.

The stories being told are new, freshly minted, just for you, my dear. There is no higher honor.

The room roar is high (but still, not as bad as in certain New York restaurants where you can’t make out what it is you just said).

These Irishmen, in collarless Irish shirts, under dark herringbone vests and tweed caps, have managed to keep their mouths shut all week, saving up the good stuff for now, for Friday night, for this very place, for this very moment...

How could one single city possibly give birth to Yeats, Shaw, Joyce, Wilde, Beckett... and all those here tonight as well?

Again, what a hoot.  And at least $69 approaches affordability, which $89, after shipping, doesn't, in my cheap view. Which is the same problem afflicting Orvis' Granddad shirt, which otherwise looks pretty nice.

Well, would that a person could find one locally.  You can't.

A glimpse into getting jilted in an earlier era

A newspaper from Chicago, 1916, linked in through Reddit's 100 Years Ago subreddit.

It was linked into note the ABA's cheering of the passage of the 8 hour day, but a person can't help but note the "heart balm" law story that appears so prominently on the front page. Truly, a glimpse into another era.

First air to air radio communication between aircraft. September 2, 1916

On this day, in 1916, the first air to air radio communication between aircraft took place.  The plane was U.S. Army's "No. 50"" piloted by Lt. A. D. Smith and U.S. Army "No 51" piloted by Lt. Dargue.  The message was part of an ongoing effort lead by the U.S. Army's Cpt. C. C. Culver and involved aircraft that had been involved in radio experimentation.  The message, "North Island makes new world record" was written by California Congressman Kettner.  The aircraft were two miles apart and less than 1,000 feet in the air.

Curtis JN4 on the border with Mexico, 1916.

The event was more significant than it might now seem.  

The U.S. air fleet itself was minuscule at the time and, given the rapid development of aircraft due to the war in Europe, it lagged behind technologically.  It was deployed in the effort in Mexico, where the limitations of the aircraft had demonstrated themselves.  Like aircraft everywhere in military use, the scouting role and potential of the airplane was evident, but like the cavalry that it was seeking to augment in this role, delivery of information obtained in the air was largely by direct word of mouth.  Faster, obviously, than cavalry in these regards, it still wasn't instant.

Cpt. Cluver had been working on this situation as early as 1910, remarkably early, and was responsible for an Army effort that was studying "wireless" and aircraft.  In that year, his efforts yielded the first ground to air radio communication.  In 1915 he was billeted to the Army aviation school in San Diego California to continue to pursue his efforts, which included designing purpose built radios for aircraft.

Culver, then a Colonel, in 1918.

While radio had obvious application to aircraft, in all sorts of ways, and indeed would revolutionize much about flying, including military flying, advancements did not come rapidly enough to really see the new technology used much during the Great War.  Some use was made, and at least the British experimented with some air to ground communication in a scouting and artillery spotting role. But, while the technology was developed, it didn't develop rapidly enough to really come into practical use to a great extent until after the war.

Related Posts:

The Punitive Expedition and technology. A 20th Century Expedition

The Punitive Expedition and technology. A 20th Century Expedition. Part Two. Radios and Telegraph

The Punitive Expedition and technology. A 20th Century Expedition. Looking at Horses and Tack. Part 3(a), the Equines

Woodrow Wilson delivers his acceptance speech for the 1916 Democratic nomination

Wilson delivered the speech on this day, in 1916.  Odd to think that this was once so late in the year (he said, wishing they still were).  The convention was actually held in June, and then the nomination delivered later, to be accepted later.

The St. Louis Democratic Convention.

Senator James, Gentlemen of the Notification Committee, Fellow-Citizens:

I cannot accept the leadership and responsibility which the National Democratic Convention has again, in such generous fashion, asked me to accept without first expressing my profound gratitude to the party for the trust it reposes in me after four years of fiery trial in the midst of affairs of unprecedented difficulty, and the keen sense of added responsibility with which this honor fills (I had almost said burdens) me as I think of the great issues of national life and policy involved in the present and immediate future conduct of our Government. I shall seek, as I have always sought, to justify the extraordinary confidence thus reposed in me by striving to purge my heart and purpose of every personal and of every misleading party motive and devoting every energy I have to the service of the nation as a whole, praying that I may continue to have the counsel and support of all forward-looking men at every turn of the difficult business.

For I do not doubt that the people of the United States will wish the Democratic Party to continue in control of the Government. They are not in the habit of rejecting those who have actually served them for those who are making doubtful and conjectural promises of service. Least of all are they likely to substitute those who promised to render them particular services and proved false to that promise for those who have actually rendered those very services.

Boasting is always an empty business, which pleases nobody but the boaster, and I have no disposition to boast of what the Democratic Party has accomplished. It has merely done its duty. It has merely fulfilled its explicit promises. But there can be no violation of good taste in calling attention to the manner in which those promises have been carried out or in adverting to the interesting fact that many of the things accomplished were what the opposition party had again and again promised to do but had left undone. Indeed that is manifestly part of the business of this year of reckoning and assessment. There is no means of judging the future except by assessing the past. Constructive action must be weighed against destructive comment and reaction. The Democrats either have or have not understood the varied interests of the country. The test is contained in the record.

What is that record? What were the Democrats called into power to do? What things had long waited to be done, and how did the Democrats do them? It is a record of extraordinary length and variety, rich in elements of many kinds, but consistent in principle throughout and susceptible of brief recital.

The Republican Party was put out of power because of failure, practical failure and moral failure; because it had served special interests and not the country at large; because, under the leadership of its preferred and established guides, of those who still make its choices, it had lost touch with the thoughts and the needs of the nation and was living in a past age and under a fixed illusion, the illusion of greatness. It had framed tariff laws based upon a fear of foreign trade, a fundamental doubt as to American skill, enterprise, and capacity, and a very tender regard for the profitable privileges of those who had gained control of domestic markets and domestic credits; and yet had enacted anti-trust laws which hampered the very things they meant to foster, which were stiff and inelastic, and in part unintelligible. It had permitted the country throughout the long period of its control to stagger from one financial crisis to another under the operation of a national banking law of its own framing which made stringency and panic certain and the control of the larger business operations of the country by the bankers of a few reserve centers inevitable; had made as if it meant to reform the law but had faint-heartedly failed in the attempt, because it could not bring itself to do the one thing necessary to make the reform genuine and effectual, namely, break up the control of small groups of bankers. It had been oblivious, or indifferent, to the fact that the farmers, upon whom the country depends for its food and in the last analysis for its prosperity, were without standing in the matter of commercial credit, without the protection of standards in their market transactions, and without systematic knowledge of the markets themselves; that the laborers of the country, the great army of men who man the industries it was professing to father and promote, carried their labor as a mere commodity to market, were subject to restraint by novel and drastic process in the courts, were without assurance of compensation for industrial accidents, without federal assistance in accommodating labor disputes, and without national aid or advice in finding the places and the industries in which their labor was most needed. The country had no national system of road construction and development. Little intelligent attention was paid to the army, and not enough to the navy. The other republics of America distrusted us, because they found that we thought first of the profits of American investors and only as an afterthought of impartial justice and helpful friendship. Its policy was provincial in all things; its purposes were out of harmony with the temper and purpose of the people and the timely development of the nation's interests.

So things stood when the Democratic Party came into power. How do they stand now? Alike in the domestic field and in the wide field of the commerce of the world, American business and life and industry have been set free to move as they never moved before.

The tariff has been revised, not on the principle of repelling foreign trade, but upon the principle of encouraging it, upon something like a footing of equality with our own in respect of the terms of competition, and a Tariff Board has been created whose function it will be to keep the relations of American with foreign business and industry under constant observation, for the guidance alike of our business men and of our Congress. American energies are now directed towards the markets of the world.

The laws against trusts have been clarified by definition, with a view to making it plain that they were not directed against big business but only against unfair business and the pretense of competition where there was none; and a Trade Commission has been created with powers of guidance and accommodation which have relieved business men of unfounded fears and set them upon the road of hopeful and confident enterprise.

By the Federal Reserve Act the supply of currency at the disposal of active business has been rendered elastic, taking its volume, not from a fixed body of investment securities, but from the liquid assets of daily trade; and these assets are assessed and accepted, not by distant groups of bankers in control of unavailable reserves, but by bankers at the many centers of local exchange who are in touch with local conditions everywhere.

Effective measures have been taken for the re-creation of an American merchant marine and the revival of the American carrying trade indispensable to our emancipation from the control which foreigners have so long exercised over the opportunities, the routes, and the methods of our commerce with other countries.

The Interstate Commerce Commission is about to be reorganized to enable it to perform its great and important functions more promptly and more efficiently. We have created, extended and improved the service of the parcels post.

So much we have done for business. What other party has understood the task so well or executed it so intelligently and energetically? What other party has attempted it at all? The Republican leaders, apparently, know of no means of assisting business but "protection." How to stimulate it and put it upon a new footing of energy and enterprise they have not suggested.

For the farmers of the country we have virtually created commercial credit, by means of the Federal Reserve Act and the Rural Credits Act. They now have the standing of other business men in the money market. We have successfully regulated speculation in "futures" and established standards in the marketing of grains. By an intelligent Warehouse Act we have assisted to make the standard crops available as never before both for systematic marketing and as a security for loans from the banks. We have greatly added to the work of neighborhood demonstration on the farm itself of improved methods of cultivation, and, through the intelligent extension of the functions of the Department of Agriculture, have made it possible for the farmer to learn systematically where his best markets are and how to get at them.

The workingmen of America have been given a veritable emancipation, by the legal recognition of a man's labor as part of his life, and not a mere marketable commodity; by exempting labor organizations from processes of the courts which treated their members like fractional parts of mobs and not like accessible and responsible individuals; by releasing our seamen from involuntary servitude; by making adequate provision for compensation for industrial accidents; by providing suitable machinery for mediation and conciliation in industrial disputes; and by putting the Federal Department of Labor at the disposal of the workingman when in search of work.

We have effected the emancipation of the children of the country by releasing them from hurtful labor. We have instituted a system of national aid in the building of highroads such as the country has been feeling after for a century. We have sought to equalize taxation by means of an equitable income tax. We have taken the steps that ought to have been taken at the outset to open up the resources of Alaska. We have provided for national defense upon a scale never before seriously proposed upon the responsibility of an entire political party. We have driven the tariff lobby from cover and obliged it to substitute solid argument for private influence.

This extraordinary recital must sound like a platform, a list of sanguine promises; but it is not. It is a record of promises made four years ago and now actually redeemed in constructive legislation.

These things must profoundly disturb the thoughts and confound the plans of those who have made themselves believe that the Democratic Party neither understood nor was ready to assist the business of the country in the great enterprises which it is its evident and inevitable destiny to undertake and carry through. The breaking up of the lobby must especially disconcert them: for it was through the lobby that they sought and were sure they had found the heart of things. The game of privilege can be played successfully by no other means.

This record must equally astonish those who feared that the Democratic Party had not opened its heart to comprehend the demands of social justice. We have in four years come very near to carrying out the platform of the Progressive Party as well as our own; for we also are progressives.

There is one circumstance connected with this program which ought to be very plainly stated. It was resisted at every step by the interests which the Republican Party had catered to and fostered at the expense of the country, and these same interests are now earnestly praying for a reaction which will save their privileges,?for the restoration of their sworn friends to power before it is too late to recover what they have lost. They fought with particular desperation and infinite resourcefulness the reform of the banking and currency system, knowing that to be the citadel of their control; and most anxiously are they hoping and planning for the amendment of the Federal Reserve Act by the concentration of control in a single bank which the old familiar group of bankers can keep under their eye and direction. But while the "big men" who used to write the tariffs and command the assistance of the Treasury have been hostile,?all but a few with vision,?the average business man knows that he has been delivered, and that the fear that was once every day in his heart, that the men who controlled credit and directed enterprise from the committee rooms of Congress would crush him, is there no more, and will not return,?unless the party that consulted only the "big men" should return to power:  The party of masterly inactivity and cunning resourcefulness in standing pat to resist change.

The Republican Party is just the party that cannot meet the new conditions of a new age. It does not know the way and it does not wish new conditions. It tried to break away from the old leaders and could not. They still select its candidates and dictate its policy, still resist change, still hanker after the old conditions, still know no methods of encouraging business but the old methods. When it changes its leaders and its purposes and brings its ideas up to date it will have the right to ask the American people to give it power again; but not until then. A new age, an age of revolutionary change, needs new purposes and new ideas.

In foreign affairs we have been guided by principles clearly conceived and consistently lived up to. Perhaps they have not been fully comprehended because they have hitherto governed international affairs only in theory, not in practice. They are simple, obvious, easily stated, and fundamental to American ideals.

We have been neutral not only because it was the fixed and traditional policy of the United States to stand aloof from the politics of Europe and because we had had no part either of action or of policy in the influences which brought on the present war, but also because it was manifestly our duty to prevent, if it were possible, the indefinite extension of the fires of hate and desolation kindled by that terrible conflict and seek to serve mankind by reserving cur strength and our resources for the anxious and difficult days of restoration and healing which must follow, when peace will have to build its house anew.

The rights of our own citizens of course became involved: that was inevitable. Where they did this was our guiding principle: that property rights can be vindicated by claims for damages and no modern nation can decline to arbitrate such claims; but the fundamental rights of humanity cannot be. The loss of life is irreparable. Neither can direct violations of a nation's sovereignty await vindication in suits for damages. The nation that violates these essential rights must expect to be checked and called to account by direct challenge and resistance. It at once makes the quarrel in part our own. These are plain principles and we have never lost sight of them or departed from them, whatever the stress or the perplexity of circumstance or the provocation to hasty resentment. The record is clear and consistent throughout and stands distinct and definite for anyone to judge who wishes to know the truth about it.

The seas were not broad enough to keep the infection of the conflict out of our own politics. The passions and intrigues of certain active groups and combinations of men amongst us who were born under foreign flags injected the poison of disloyalty into our own most critical affairs, laid violent hands upon many of our industries, and subjected us to the shame of divisions of sentiment and purpose in which America was contemned and forgotten. It is part of the business of this year of reckoning and settlement to speak plainly and act with unmistakable purpose in rebuke of these things, in order that they may be forever hereafter impossible. I am the candidate of a party, but I am above all things else an American citizen. I neither seek the favor nor fear the displeasure of that small alien element amongst us which puts loyalty to any foreign power before loyalty to the United States.

While Europe was at war our own continent, one of our own neighbors, was shaken by revolution. In that matter, too, principle was plain and it was imperative that we should live up to it if we were to deserve the trust of any real partisan of the right as free men see it. We have professed to believe, and we do believe, that the people of small and weak states have the right to expect to be dealt with exactly as the people of big and powerful states would be. We have acted upon that principle in dealing with the people of Mexico.

Our recent pursuit of bandits into Mexican territory was no violation of that principle. We ventured to enter Mexican territory only because there were no military forces in Mexico that could protect our border from hostile attack and our own people from violence, and we have committed there no single act of hostility or interference even with the sovereign authority of the Republic of Mexico herself. It was a plain case of the violation of our own sovereignty which could not wait to be vindicated by damages and for which there was no other remedy. The authorities of Mexico were powerless to prevent it.

Many serious wrongs against the property, many irreparable wrongs against the persons of Americans have been committed within the territory of Mexico herself during this confused revolution, wrongs which could not be effectually checked so long as there was no constituted power in Mexico which was in a position to check them. We could not act directly in that matter ourselves without denying Mexicans the right to any revolution at all which disturbed us and making the emancipation of her own people await our own interest and convenience.

For it is their emancipation that they are seeking?  Blindly, it may be, and as yet ineffectually, but with profound and passionate purpose and within their unquestionable right, apply what true American principle you will,?any principle that an American would publicly avow. The people of Mexico have not been suffered to own their own country or direct their own institutions. Outsiders, men out of other nations and with interests too often alien to their own, have dictated what their privileges and opportunities should be and who should control their land, their lives, and their resources,?some of them Americans, pressing for things they could never have got in their own country. The Mexican people are entitled to attempt their liberty from such influences; and so long as I have anything to do with the action of our great Government I shall do everything in my power to prevent anyone standing in their way. I know that this is hard for some persons to understand; but it is not hard for the plain people of the United States to understand. It is hard doctrine only for those who wish to get something for themselves out of Mexico. There are men, and noble women, too, not a few, of our own people, thank God! whose fortunes are invested in great properties in Mexico who yet see the case with true vision and assess its issues with true American feeling. The rest can be left for the present out of the reckoning until this enslaved people has had its day of struggle towards the light. I have heard no one who was free from such influences propose interference by the United States with the internal affairs of Mexico. Certainly no friend of the Mexican people has proposed it.

The people of the United States are capable of great sympathies and a noble pity in dealing with problems of this kind. As their spokesman and representative, I have tried to act in the spirit they would wish me show. The people of Mexico are striving for the rights that are fundamental to life and happiness,? 15,000,000 oppressed men, overburdened women, and pitiful children in virtual bondage in their own home of fertile lands and inexhaustible treasure! Some of the leaders of the revolution may often have been mistaken and violent and selfish, but the revolution itself was inevitable and is right. The unspeakable Huerta betrayed the very comrades he served, traitorously overthrew the government of which he was a trusted part, impudently spoke for the very forces that had driven his people to the rebellion with which he had pretended to sympathize. The men who overcame him and drove him out represent at least the fierce passion of reconstruction which lies at the very heart of liberty; and so long as they represent, however imperfectly, such a struggle for deliverance, I am ready to serve their ends when I can. So long as the power of recognition rests with me the Government of the United States will refuse to extend the hand of welcome to any one who obtains power in a sister republic by treachery and violence. No permanency can be given the affairs of any republic by a title based upon intrigue and assassination. I declared that to be the policy of this Administration within three weeks after I assumed the presidency. I here again vow it. I am more interested in the fortunes of oppressed men and pitiful women and children than in any property rights whatever. Mistakes I have no doubt made in this perplexing business, but not in purpose or object.

More is involved than the immediate destinies of Mexico and the relations of the United States with a distressed and distracted people. All America looks on. Test is now being made of us whether we be sincere lovers of popular liberty or not and are indeed to be trusted to respect national sovereignty among our weaker neighbors. We have undertaken these many years to play big brother to the republics of this hemisphere. This is the day of our test whether we mean, or have ever meant, to play that part for our own benefit wholly or also for theirs. Upon the outcome of that test (its outcome in their minds, not in ours) depends every relationship of the United States with Latin America, whether in politics or in commerce and enterprise. These are great issues and lie at the heart of the gravest tasks of the future, tasks both economic and political and very intimately inwrought with many of the most vital of the new issues of the politics of the world. The republics of America have in the last three years been drawing together in a new spirit of accommodation, mutual understanding, and cordial cooperation. Much of the politics of the world in the years to come will depend upon their relationships with one another. It is a barren and provincial statesmanship that loses sight of such things!

The future, the immediate future, will bring us squarely face to face with many great and exacting problems which will search us through and through whether we be able and ready to play the part in the world that we mean to play. It will not bring us into their presence slowly, gently, with ceremonious introduction, but suddenly and at once, the moment the war in Europe is over. They will be new problems, most of them; many will be old problems in a new setting and with new elements which we have never dealt with or reckoned the force and meaning of before. They will require for their solution new thinking, fresh courage and resourcefulness, and in some matters radical reconsiderations of policy. We must be ready to mobilize our resources alike of brains and of materials.

It is not a future to be afraid of. It is, rather, a future to stimulate and excite us to the display of the best powers that are in us. We may enter it with confidence when we are sure that we understand it,?and we have provided ourselves already with the means of understanding it.

Look first at what it will be necessary that the nations of the world should do to make the days to come tolerable and fit to live and work in; and then look at our part in what is to follow and our own duty of preparation. For we must be prepared both in resources and in policy.

There must be a just and settled peace, and we here in America must contribute the full force of our enthusiasm and of our authority as a nation to the organization of that peace upon world-wide foundations that cannot easily be shaken. No nation should be forced to take sides in any quarrel in which its own honor and integrity and the fortunes of its own people are not involved; but no nation can any longer remain neutral as against any wilful disturbance of the peace of the world. The effects of war can no longer be confined to the areas of battle. No nation stands wholly apart in interest when the life and interests of all nations are thrown into confusion and peril. If hopeful and generous enterprise is to be renewed, if the healing and helpful arts of life are indeed to be revived when peace comes again, a new atmosphere of justice and friendship must be generated by means the world has never tried before. The nations of the world must unite in joint guarantees that whatever is done to disturb the whole world's life must first be tested in the court of the whole world's opinion before it is attempted.

These are the new foundations the world must build for itself, and we must play our part in the reconstruction, generously and without too much thought of our separate interests. We must make ourselves ready to play it intelligently, vigorously, and well.

One of the contributions we must make to the world's peace is this: We must see to it that the people in our insular possessions are treated in their own lands as we would treat them here, and make the rule of the United States mean the same thing everywhere,?the same justice, the same consideration for the essential rights of men.

Besides contributing our ungrudging moral and practical support to the establishment of peace throughout the world we must actively and intelligently prepare ourselves to do our full service in the trade and industry which are to sustain and develop the life of the nations in the days to come.

We have already been provident in this great matter and supplied ourselves with the instrumentalities of prompt adjustment. We have created, in the Federal Trade Commission, a means of inquiry and of accommodation in the field of commerce which ought both to coordinate the enterprises of our traders and manufacturers and to remove the barriers of misunderstanding and of a too technical interpretation of the law. In the new Tariff Commission we have added another instrumentality of observation and adjustment which promises to be immediately serviceable. The Trade Commission substitutes counsel and accommodation for the harsher processes of legal restraint, and the Tariff Commission ought to substitute facts for prejudices and theories. Our exporters have for some time had the advantage of working in the new light thrown upon foreign markets and opportunities of trade by the intelligent inquiries and activities of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce which the Democratic Congress so wisely created in 1912. The Tariff Commission completes the machinery by which we shall be enabled to open up our legislative policy to the facts as they develop.

We can no longer indulge our traditional provincialism. We are to play a leading part in the world drama whether we wish it or not. We shall lend, not borrow; act for ourselves, not imitate or follow; organize and initiate, not peep about merely to see where we may get in.

We have already formulated and agreed upon a policy of law which will explicitly remove the ban now supposed to rest upon cooperation amongst our exporters in seeking and securing their proper place in the markets of the world. The field will be free, the instrumentalities at hand. It will only remain for the masters of enterprise amongst us to act in energetic concert, and for the Government of the United States to insist upon the maintenance throughout the world of those conditions of fairness and of even-handed justice in the commercial dealings of the nations with one another upon which, after all, in the last analysis, the peace and ordered life of the world must ultimately depend.

At home also we must see to it that the men who plan and develop and direct our business enterprises shall enjoy definite and settled conditions of law, a policy accommodated to the freest progress. We have set the just and necessary limits. We have put all kinds of unfair competition under the ban and penalty of the law. We have barred monopoly. These fatal and ugly things being excluded, we must now quicken action and facilitate enterprise by every just means within our choice. There will be peace in the business world, and, with peace, revived confidence and life.

We ought both to husband and to develop our natural resources, our mines, our forests, our water power. I wish we could have made more progress than we have made in this vital matter; and I call once more, with the deepest earnestness and solicitude, upon the advocates of a careful and provident conservation, on the one hand, and the advocates of a free and inviting field for private capital, on the other, to get together in a spirit of genuine accommodation and agreement and set this great policy forward at once.

We must hearten and quicken the spirit and efficiency of labor throughout our whole industrial system by everywhere and in all occupations doing justice to the laborer, not only by paying a living wage but also by making all the conditions that surround labor what they ought to be. And we must do more than justice. We must safeguard life and promote health and safety in every occupation in which they are threatened or imperilled. That is more than justice, and better, because it is humanity and economy.

We must coordinate the railway systems of the country for national use, and must facilitate and promote their development with a view to that coordination and to their better adaptation as a whole to the life and trade and defense of the nation. The life and industry of the country can be free and unhampered only if these arteries are open, efficient, and complete.

Thus shall we stand ready to meet the future as circumstance and international policy effect their unfolding, whether the changes come slowly or come fast and without preface.

I have not spoken explicitly, Gentlemen, of the platform adopted at St. Louis; but it has been implicit in all that I have said. I have sought to interpret its spirit and meaning. The people of the United States do not need to be assured now that that platform is a definite pledge, a practical program. We have proved to them that our promises are made to be kept.

We hold very definite ideals. We believe that the energy and initiative of our people have been too narrowly coached and superintended; that they should be set free, as we have set them free, to disperse themselves throughout the nation; that they should not be concentrated in the hands of a few powerful guides and guardians, as our opponents have again and again, in effect if not in purpose, sought to concentrate them. We believe, moreover,?who that looks about him now with comprehending eye can fail to believe??that the day of Little Americanism, with its narrow horizons, when methods of "protection" and industrial nursing were the chief study of our provincial statesmen, are past and gone and that a day of enterprise has at last dawned for the United States whose field is the wide world.

We hope to see the stimulus of that new day draw all America, the republics of both continents, on to a new life and energy and initiative in the great affairs of peace. We are Americans for Big America, and rejoice to look forward to the days in which America shall strive to stir the world without irritating it or drawing it on to new antagonisms, when the nations with which we deal shall at last come to see upon what deep foundations of humanity and justice our passion for peace rests, and when all mankind shall look upon our great people with a new sentiment of admiration, friendly rivalry and real affection, as upon a people who, though keen to succeed, seeks always to be at once generous and just and to whom humanity is dearer than profit or selfish power.

Upon this record and in the faith of this purpose we go to the country.

Proposed land swap comes under fire for restricting public access

From the Douglas Budget:

Proposed land swap comes under fire for restricting public access: A proposed land exchange between the Wyoming Board of Land Commissioners and   Bonander Ranches, LLC is set to pose a significant loss of public land access for Wyoming sportsmen and hunters, according to a growing number who oppose the swap.

Doggone, enough is enough! 

And I've had enough of the State Land Board's actions on these things. At least the last one around here appeared to be quite inequitable and by and large these things just don't work out of the state, in a way that we appreciate.

And here's why:

If acquired, Wyoming’s hunters and recreationists face losing access to more than 4,000 acres of public land located in Albany County, according to Jeff Muratore, Casper board member of the Wyoming Chapter of Back Country Hunters & Anglers (BHA).

So what would the state get?

According to the detailed analysis report posted on the Office of State Lands and Investments website, Rick Bonander, owner of Windy Peaks Ranch, has proposed to trade 295 acres of Moskee lands within the Black Hills Forest, located in Crook County, for 1,040.67 acres of land located in the Laramie Peak area of Albany County, more specifically within elk hunt area 7 south of Douglas.

295 acres for 1,040.67.  Of course.

Now, the Black Hills land is worth a lot more, I'm sure, than the Albany County land. Well, most of us do not care. We do not care one whit.  And here's the reason why:

Although the state is in the process of trying to consolidate land and the Black Hills land is good for mineral processes, valued at more than three times as much as the land around Laramie Peak, it is a  “lopsided trade” in Mutatore’s opinion because it is being evaluated on a scale of “value to value” rather than “acre to acre for elk hunting.”

He argued that the problem is the 295 acres of Bonander land does not offer access to the part of elk area #7 that will be affected, therefore, the only gain for the public will be having access to the 295 acres of Moskee land in Crook County.

“It’s not a quality exchange because (the Moskee land is) mainly home to white tail deer and wild turkey,” Muratore said. “Hunting and fishing are a big part of Wyoming, especially when it comes to tourism and recreation, which brings a lot of money into the state. The number one reason people don’t hunt or fish . . . is because of access to land.”

In other words, those of us who are average folks here, are a lot more agrarian than the State. We don't like these trades.

Assistant Director for the Office of State Lands and Investments Jason Crowder said Bonander had applied for several types of land transfers. This exchange was chosen because it met the trust plan management objectives, thus it could move forward with the analysis and appraisal of the proposed land trade. In order of importance, the objectives are revenue and value to the state; efficiency to manage the property; and effect on community need, as well as benefit to public recreation. 

The Office of State Lands and Investments is “pursuing” this exchange “mainly because it’s a benefit to the trust land objective” and  “because of the value potential of lands in the Moskee area to appreciate,” Crowder said.

M'eh.

This provides, I'd note, one good reason why the State should never be allowed to get its hands on the Federal domain.  We'd see the same thing all over. 

Here's the State Link on this. And the state's resolution (its not a done deal yet, however) to support it.

Now, I'm not saying that Rick Bonander, the land owner, is a bad guy.  Not at all.  Indeed, he's done some great things for Casper.

But I am saying that this should be opposed. And I'm about at the point where any proposed land swap coming out of the state ought to be opposed, quite frankly.  And its not too late to oppose this one.