John Myers, 14 years old, Oklahoma City. An after school job. April 3, 1917.
And a 12 year old, who was working there full time.
Monday, April 3, 2017
Working in the ice cream cone bakery.
John Myers, 14 years old, Oklahoma City. An after school job. April 3, 1917.
And a 12 year old, who was working there full time.
Lex Anteinternet: Woodrow Wilson addresses a Joint Session of Congre...
Opinions on Wilson's speech, posted here yesterday:
If you have comments, please add them to the original thread. I'd love to read them.
Lex Anteinternet: Woodrow Wilson addresses a Joint Session of Congre...: Woodrow Wilson went before a special joint session of Congress on this day in 1917 to ask for a Declaration of War against Germany. G...All in all, not a bad speech in context. I was surprised an immediate vote on war didn't follow, and indeed, when I originally posted it and went to the next days newspapers, I'd assumed it had.
If you have comments, please add them to the original thread. I'd love to read them.
The Cheyenne State Leader for April 3, 1917: US to declare war today (actually, it wouldn't).
The Cheyenne State Leader was predicting that war was going to be declared today. They hadn't counted on Senator LaFollette delaying the vote.
President Wilson was reported as asking for a 500,000 men army. . . a fraction of what would prove to be needed in the end. Wyoming was ready to contribute.
The Lodge scuffle of yesterday hit the Cheyenne news.
It appeared that two companies of the Wyoming National Guard were to start off the impending war guarding the Union Pacific. . . things would soon change.
The Laramie Boomerang for April 3, 1917: Senator LaFollette a Traitor?
Given the stories I've been focusing on, this one is a bit off topic, but I couldn't resist the headline declaring "Battling Bob" LaFollette a traitor for using a parliamentary move to delay the vote on President Wilson's request for a declaration of war. Seems a bit much.
The scarlet fever outbreak in Laramie seemed under control.
Winter wouldn't leave.
The Wyoming Tribune. April 3, 1917: War Action Blocked
"Battling Bob" LaFollette used a procedural move to keep the vote on Wilson's request for a Declaration of War from occurring. The vote would of course occur. Something like that was a mere delay.
Governor Houx was pleading that the state a "contingent of rough riders" to the war. Of course, given the way the war news was reading, a person might debate if that was to fight Germany or Mexico. But anyhow, Wyoming was looking to supply cavalry.
West Point was going to follow the Navy's lead and graduate the 1917 class of officers early.
The Casper Record. April 3, 1917: Villa is to Fight US if War with Germany
Hmmm. . . . interesting speculation on what our relationship with Mexico, or in this case one segment of Mexico, would be if war was to be declared.
And young men were being urged to joint up to fight on the high seas.
The price of sheep, important to Wyoming, was up. And Casper was getting a new big office building as part of the World War One boom and an ice processing company.
Anyone know what building that is, by the way? Whatever it was, it's no longer there.
The scuffle Senator Lodge had yesterday hit the headlines, giving the typesetters the rare chance to use the word "biff".
Sunday, April 2, 2017
Woodrow Wilson addresses a Joint Session of Congress and ask for a Declaration of War Against Germany
Woodrow Wilson went before a special joint session of Congress on this day in 1917 to ask for a Declaration of War against Germany.
Congress did not vote on the matter on that day.Gentlemen of the Congress:
I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making.
On the 3d of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and after the 1st day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean. That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial Government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft in conformity with its promise then given to us that passenger boats should not be sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were meagre and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe-conduct through the proscribed areas by the German Government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle.
I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to the humane practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the at tempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been built up, with meagre enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded. This minimum of right the German Government has swept aside under the plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons which it could use at sea except these which it is impossible to employ as it is employing them without throwing to the winds all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the world. I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of noncombatants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people can not be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.
It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion.
When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of February last, I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavour to destroy them before they have shown their own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all. The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual; it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents. There is one choice we can not make, we are incapable of making: we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life.
With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it, and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end the war.
What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable cooperation in counsel and action with the governments now at war with Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to those governments of the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so far as possible be added to theirs. It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible. It will involve the immediate full equipment of the Navy in all respects but particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the enemy's submarines. It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States already provided for by law in case of war at least 500,000 men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training. It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well conceived taxation....
While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world what our motives and our objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not believe that the thought of the nation has been altered or clouded by them I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the 22d of January last; the same that I had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the 3d of February and on the 26th of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth ensure the observance of those principles. Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.
We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their Government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools. Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbour states with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs.
A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honour, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honour steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.
Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual attitude towards life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian people have been added in all their naive majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a league of honour.
One of the things that has served to convince us that the Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting communities and even our offices of government with spies and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, our peace within and without our industries and our commerce. Indeed it is now evident that its spies were here even before the war began; and it is unhappily not a matter of conjecture but a fact proved in our courts of justice that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the country have been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and even under the personal direction of official agents of the Imperial Government accredited to the Government of the United States. Even in checking these things and trying to extirpate them we have sought to put the most generous interpretation possible upon them because we knew that their source lay, not in any hostile feeling or purpose of the German people towards us (who were, no doubt, as ignorant of them as we ourselves were), but only in the selfish designs of a Government that did what it pleased and told its people nothing. But they have played their part in serving to convince us at last that that Government entertains no real friendship for us and means to act against our peace and security at its convenience. That it means to stir up enemies against us at our very doors the intercepted note to the German Minister at Mexico City is eloquent evidence.
We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that in such a government, following such methods, we can never have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured security for the democratic governments of the world. We are now about to accept gage of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretence about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.
Just because we fight without rancour and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.
I have said nothing of the governments allied with the Imperial Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our right and our honour. The Austro-Hungarian Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified endorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore not been possible for this Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the Ambassador recently accredited to this Government by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; but that Government has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other means of defending our rights.
It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity towards a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck. We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early reestablishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between us -- however hard it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts. We have borne with their present government through all these bitter months because of that friendship -- exercising a patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impossible. We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions towards the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy, who live amongst us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it towards all who are in fact loyal to their neighbours and to the Government in the hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few.
It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts -- for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.
Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Off Topic: Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, Quebec
Churches of the West: Off Topic: Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, Quebec
My mother, with the Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre in Quebec, behind her.
My mother, with the Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre in Quebec, behind her.
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge strikes constituent Alexander Bannwart
Lodge in 1909
In a rather unusual event, 67 year old Senator Henry Cabot Lodge struck his constituent, Alexander Bannwart, on this day. The event took place in Lodge's office.
What exactly occurred is disputed. What is not is that Bannwart, a former minor league baseball player and present manager, and two companions stopped in the office of their Senator, Lodge. Bannwart had his fellows were pacifist and they came to complain about the impending American entry into World War One. Heated words were exchanged, and then shoving, and Bannwart was struck by Lodge. Police soon arrested Bannwart. Reports indicated that Lodge determined not to press charges against Bannwart, but then with what little detail we have, it would have perhaps made more sense if Bannwart had pressed charges against Lodge. Perhaps the shoving by the 36 year old Bannwart was of a more serious nature than the existing reports indicate, particularly given their respective ages, and perhaps Lodge was simply defending himself.
Bannwart is often reported in these matters as being simply a minor league baseball player, but in fact he'd been a successful manager in the Colonial League. He was a 1906 Princeton graduate, having come to the United States as a boy.
Lodge voted for U.S. entry into the war. An event not surprising, given that Lodge was a Republican and a close associate of Theodore Roosevelt.
Saturday, April 1, 2017
Scott Joplin, the "King of Ragtime Writers", died at age 49
Ragtime composer Scott Joplin, no doubt the greatest of all ragtime composers, died on this day in 1917. Hid death of syphilis, from which he'd been suffering due to dementia for a year as a result of, closed out the ragtime era.
Joplin's music was hugely popular in its day, and he may remain the only ragtime composer widely known today. At least a few of his more popular tunes remain well known, including The Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer, the later of which revived in popularity during the 1970s due to the move The Sting.
The use of Joplin's music in The Sting was ironic in that it was quite out of context. The film, set during the Depression, takes place in an era well after Joplin's own era had closed. As it was his death in 1917 came on the cusp of the jazz revolution.
Joplin was born in Texas and learned to play piano as a boy. When ragtime hit in the 1890s he was well situated, and very ambitious, so as to be able to exploit the sound. He was highly talented and relocated to various urban areas, spending his final years in New York.
New York Governor Charles Seymour Whitman speaking to an audience at New York City revival of evangelist Billy Sunday, April 1, 1917.
Mr. Whitman arriving.
This was apparently in connection with the opening of a tabernacle by Evangelist Billy Sunday in New York City.
Poster Saturday: Are You in ths?
Apparently a World War One era poster commissioned by Lord Baden Powell, the creator of the Boy Scouts.
Best Posts of the Week of March 26, 2017
The best posts for the week of March 26, 2017:
Autocephalous? Eh? A Sunday Morning Scene Post.
Budgeting in the era of Trump: Getting a grasp on the local via the proposed budget. Philosophy, Subsidiarity, Distributism, Socialism, Wisonism, FDRism, . . . oh my! Or, did we really mean that when we said it?
FDR Handbill.
and trying to determine what's causing it, other than the GOP refusing to hold hearings on Judge Garland.
Neil Gorsuch
Friday, March 31, 2017
Friday Farming: Blog Mirror; Beef-The secret reason why ranchers are so happy
From Beef:
The secret reason why ranchers are so happy
Secret? Well if that's a secret, it's one that apparently I was in on, as I've said the same thing here on more than one occasion, as for example:
Lex Anteinternet: The caged tiger isn't happy? Mixed news on the medical front.Truth be known, we were evolved to live out in nature. But we've developed our society to live indoors, with indoor occupations, which is deeply unnatural. Or, as Beef states:
Farmstead, Pennsylvania. The life many left for life in cities.I sort of feel that this story;Lex Anteinternet: The caged tiger isn't happy?: Heard in an interview of a doctor regarding depression: "Major depression is unheard of in hunter gatherer societies".is related to this one:As per a new study published online Dec. 11 in the Journal Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders, high stress could increase risk factor for many cognitive functions that can lead to the Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Gayatri Devi, a neurologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said the latest study shows link between high stress levels and chances of developing diseases like Alzheimer’s.From the Northern Californian.
However, despite these worries, it turns out people who work with the land are in an occupation that lends itself to happiness.Is it the fresh air? Being your own boss? Managing livestock? Building something from the ground up? Growing plants from the soil? What is it that makes farmers and ranchers so good natured, even in the worst of times?Now, I can't take credit for knowing everything revealed in the article, for example:
Mycobacterium vaccae is the substance under study and has indeed been found to mirror the effect on neurons that drugs like Prozac provide. The bacterium is found in soil and may stimulate serotonin production, which makes you relaxed and happier.Now, I know that in our deeply urban society, this will be translated by many into "so spend the weekend in the park!" And indeed, that'd be better than not doing that. But at the end of the day, the glass and steel world we've made is operating against us. Your nature would rather see you in nature, every day.
Transfer Day: The United States takes possession of the Danish West Indies
The Dannebrog, the Danish flag, being lowered at the Governor's Mansion for the last time on this date in 1917. Note the fence made of chain and cannon.
On this day in 1917 possession of the Danish West Indies from Denmark to the United States was accomplished, although it appears the official start of US ownership of the islands was the following day, April 1. The treaty and other events leading to this were addressed earlier on this blog.
The day is commemorated on the US Virgin Islands as Transfer Day.
The Cheyenne State Leader for March 31, 1917: Zimmerman defends his note
Well, at least you have to give Zimmerman credit for not denying the plot.
The Laramie Boomerang for March 31, 1917: Mexican Situation Causing War Department Much Worry
And again, Mexico hit the front pages with concerns on the part of the War Department about Mexican and war.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Colorado criminalizes marijuana
On this day in 1917 Colorado's legislature passed a bill that criminalized marijuana. The act passed on this date stated:
An act to declare unlawful the planting, cultivating, harvesting, drying, curing, or preparation for sale or gift of cannabis sativa, and to provide a penalty therefore.The bill was in part inspired by the civil war in Mexico. It was being asserted that Pancho Villa funded his Division del Norte in part through the sale of cannabis. Whether this is true or not, marijuana was not unknown by any means in Mexico and it shows up even in music of the period at least to the extent that it features in the Mexican Revolution ballad La Cucaracha. The bill was introduced in Colorado by a Hispanic legislator from one of Colorado's southern counties which were and are predominately Hispanic in culture and where there was strong desire to disassociate themselves from Mexican refugees, including any assertion that they might approve of the use of the drug.
Section 1. Any person who shall grow or use cannabis sativa (also known as cannabis indica, Indian hemp and marijuana) that he has grown shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction shall be punished by a fine of not less than ten nor more than one hundred dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail not more than thirty days, or by both such fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the court.
Colorado was not the first state to address marijuana statutorily. At least California (1907), Massachusetts (1911), New York (1914), Maine (1914), and Wyoming (1915) had. Colorado was one of the states that enacted the prohibition of alcohol by that time and therefore not acting on marijuana would have been odd under the circumstances. It had already been addressed by Federal law to some extent at that time.
There's a certain irony in this, I suppose, in that Colorado is now a pioneer in a national movement that has seen several states decriminalize marijuana, although the irony would be diminished if the entire matter is considered in the context of its times. It remains subject to Federal penalties, something that has seemingly been lost in the discussion of this topic, and there is no sign that this will change any time soon. The Federal government, however, seems to have basically stopped enforcing the law on the Federal level for the time being, although that could change at any moment.
Circling back to Colorado, while often not noted in the discussion on this, Denver Colorado has provided a big test of the impact of the change in the law, and not in a good way. Almost any casual observer who is familiar with Denver over time has noted the impact of the change and Denver, which has had a fairly large homeless population for decades now has a larger, but rather weedy one. Open begging downtown for cash for marijuana is now common, and encounters with stoned younger people who are part of a marijuana culture will occur at some point if a person spends any time downtown at all. All of this is the type of discussion that does not tend to occur, for some reason, in discussions over the monetary impacts of the change or on the degree to which the substance itself is dangerous or how dangerous it is.
Suffragettes volunteering for war service.
The Cheyenne State Leader for March 30, 1917: Guardsmen mobilzing at Ft. D. A. Russell.
Ft. D. A. Russell was being used for Guard mobilization this time. It hadn't been a year prior for the Punitive Expedition.
The Wyoming Tribune for March 30, 1917: Germans spur Mexican outlaw murder?
Mexico remained on the front pages even with the US on the eve of war, this time once again in association with the Germans.
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Some Gave All: March 29 Designated National Vietnam Veterans Day
Some Gave All: March 29 Designated National Vietnam Veterans Day: By an act of Congress signed into law on this day by President Trump, March 29 will hence forth be National Vietnam Veterans Day.
Wyoming Fact and Fiction: A Few Thoughts on History – From an Old History Te...
Wyoming Fact and Fiction: A Few Thoughts on History – From an Old History Te...: I mentioned, in a speaking engagement a week ago, that new history consistently replaces older history. Things that happened in the past ...
Wait! What about "the Sacred Twenty": Was Lex Anteinternet: Women authorized to join U.S. Navy
Recently we posted this item on women being allowed to enlist in the Navy for the first time:
Lex Anteinternet: Women authorized to join U.S. Navy: Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels authorized the enlistment of women in the United State Naval Reserve Force. Both officers and enlis...
That was followed by this:
Lex Anteinternet: Loretta Perfectus Walsh becomes the first female sailor in the United States Navy: Loretta Perfectus Walsh joined the U.S. Navy, something that only became a legal possibility two days prior when first authorized by the Secretary of the Navy. She joined at the rank of Chief Yeoman.
Both went right to this blog's top ten of all time.
Well, some may say, what about the Navy's "Sacred Twenty"?
Astute Navy historians and fans (although none posted about it) might have noted that on May 13, 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt signed a Naval
Appropriations Bill authorizing the establishment of the Nurse Corps as a
unique staff corps in the Navy. This followed the establishment of the Army Nurse Corps in 1901.
So, I was wrong, right?
Well, it's not quite that easy.
The "unique staff corps" element of it is the key here.
Yes, these women served the Navy. But in a role that was quite a bit different than conventional Navy personnel. At first they were not even provided room and board, which came a couple of years later actually, and instead had to find their own lodging and pay for their own meals. Basically, they were nurses in a special corps in service of the Navy, but they weren't really "sailors". They were not included in the Navy's ranking system, although at some point early on their were provided with uniforms. However, Public Health Service nurses were also provided with uniforms (although the Publish Health Service traditionally becomes part of the department of the Navy during war).
All of which is why Loretta Perfectus Walsh is regarded as the first female sailor. She joined as a sailor. There were women in the service of the Navy prior to that, albeit just barely, but the nature of their service is a bit murky.
The United States Naval Academy Class of 1917 Graduates.
And two months early.
The looming war caused the Naval Academy to graduate its class of 1917 on this date, in anticipation of the increased need for Naval officers.
The looming war caused the Naval Academy to graduate its class of 1917 on this date, in anticipation of the increased need for Naval officers.
Arthur Zimmerman addresses the Zimmerman Note
On this date, March 29, 1917, German foreign minister Arthur Zimmerman addressed his famous telegram. The speech did nothing to calm American anger of the telegram.
I wrote no letter to General Carranza. I was not so naive. I merely addressed, by a route that appeared to me to be a safe one, instructions to our representative in Mexico.
It is being investigated how these instructions fell into the hands of the American authorities. I instructed the Minister to Mexico, in the event of war with the United States, to propose a German alliance to Mexico, and simultaneously to suggest that Japan join the alliance.
I declared expressly that, despite the submarine war, we hoped that America would maintain neutrality.
My instructions were to be carried out only after the United States declared war and a state of war supervened. I believe the instructions were absolutely loyal as regards the United States.
General Carranza would have heard nothing of it up to the present if the United States had not published the instructions which came into its hands in a way which was not unobjectionable. Our behavior contrasts considerably with the behavior of the Washington Government.
President Wilson after our note of January 31, 1917, which avoided all aggressiveness in tone, deemed it proper immediately to break off relations with extraordinary roughness. Our Ambassador no longer had the opportunity to explain or elucidate our attitude orally.
The United States Government thus declined to negotiate with us. On the other hand, it addressed itself immediately to all the neutral powers to induce them to join the United States and break with us.
Every unprejudiced person must see in this the hostile attitude of the American Government, which seemed to consider it right, before being at war with us, to set the entire world against us. It cannot deny us the right to seek allies when it has itself practically declared war on us.
Herr Haase [note: a German socialist] says that it caused great indignation in America. Of course, in the first instance, the affair was employed as an incitement against us. But the storm abated slowly and the calm and sensible politicians, and also the great mass of the American people, saw that there was nothing to object to in these instructions in themselves. I refer especially to the statements of Senator Underwood. Even at times newspapers felt obliged to admit regretfully that not so very much had been made out of this affair.
The Government was reproached for thinking just of Mexico and Japan. First of all, Mexico was a neighbouring State to America. If we wanted allies against America, Mexico would be the first to come into consideration. The relations between Mexico and ourselves since the time of Porfirio Diaz have been extremely friendly and trustful. The Mexicans, moreover, are known as good and efficient soldiers.
It can hardly be said that the relations between the United States and Mexico had been friendly and trustful.
But the world knows that antagonism exists between America and Japan. I maintain that these antagonisms are stronger than those which, despite the war, exist between Germany and Japan.
When I also wished to persuade Carranza that Japan should join the alliance there was nothing extraordinary in this. The relations between Japan and Mexico are long existent. The Mexicans and Japanese are of a like race and good relations exist between both countries.
When, further, the Entente press affirms that it is shameless to take away allies, such reproach must have a peculiar effect coming from powers who, like our enemies, made no scruple in taking away from us two powers and peoples with whom we were bound by treaties for more than thirty years.
The powers who desire to make pliant an old European country of culture like Greece by unparalleled and violent means cannot raise such a reproach against us.
When I thought of this alliance with Mexico and Japan I allowed myself to be guided by the consideration that our brave troops already have to fight against a superior force of enemies, and my duty is, as far as possible, to keep further enemies away from them. That Mexico and Japan suited that purpose even Herr Haase will not deny.
Thus, I considered it a patriotic duty to release those instructions, and I hold to the standpoint that I acted rightly.
Man o War foaled, March 29, 1917
The legendary Thoroughbred Man o War was foaled on this day, March 29, 1917.
One of the greatest race horses of all time, Man o War was at Nursery Stud, near Lexington, Kentucky. He won he won 20 of 21 races he was entered into in 1919 and 1920 and took $249,465 in prize money. He and Babe Ruth shared accolades from the New York Times for 1920 as the greatest athlete of that year. He won the Belmont and the Preakness in 1920, but was not entered into the Kentucky Derby as his owner believed the young horse to be too young for the longer distance involved in that race. Because of his spectacular success, however, in 1920 he was retired to stud as he would have had handicap weights the following year that his owner thought prohibitive. One of his colts was the famous horse War Admiral. He died in 1947 at age 30, a fairly old age for a horse.
The Cheyenne State Leader for March 29, 1917: More Guardsmen needed
The Cheyenne State Leader ran a story about the national mobilization of Guardsmen. No way Wyoming could have mustered four regiments.
There was a tragic reminder, as well, that April and March are winter months in Wyoming.
The Laramie Daily Boomerang for March 29, 1917. Laramie's Guardsmen ordered to Ft. D. A. Russell as, maybe, the Kaiser makes a peace move?
The Medical Company of the Wyoming National Guard, based in Laramie, was ordered to Ft. D. A. Russell outside of Cheyenne. At the same time, the Laramie paper was hoping against hope that entry into the war might not be necessary. Who could blame them?
The Connor Hotel, by the way, still stands in Laramie, although I don't think it's a hotel anymore.
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Mustering of the 71st Regiment, New York National Guard. March 28, 1917
The Guard had just been released from Federal Service, and was now being called back up.
The Cheyenne State Leader for March 28, 1917: Calls to arms.
A general call to arms was going on, as Wyoming National Guardsmen were returning to service.
Monday, March 27, 2017
I've been watching the snit over Judge Gorsuch . . .
and trying to determine what's causing it, other than the GOP refusing to hold hearings on Judge Garland.
Neil Gorsuch
It's been really remarkable. Some of my liberal friends, including one who is a lawyer, even rejoiced over the Supreme Court reversing a decision he authored, an event that doesn't mean anything at all. To be a judge is to be reversed.
And then I read an article in the National Review on line that I think crystallized it.
Basically, the Democrats are Anti Democratic.
What this is all about is a fear that a Justice Gorsuch would apply the law as written. Democrats, who probably ought to rename themselves the Antidemocrats, hate that idea, as that would mean that their concepts for social revolution would have to go to the voters. . . who don't want it, or whom they fear don't want it.
At least since the early 1970s, and more likely dating back into the 60s, there's been some, granted a few, Supreme Court decisions of huge import that have no foundation in the Constitution. Obergefell is the most recent of those. The Obergefell decision is shockingly extra legal and it is based, at its essence, in social theory, not jurisprudence. The Democrats know that and they fear that a judge that sticks to the law won't make decisions like that.
They can likely rest easy that the damage done by Obergefell is in fact done for the time being a least, although if Roe v. Wade is any indicator it'll slowly become despised. Indeed, the Democrats have preservation of Roe, which at one time democracy loving liberals, when there were some, such as the The New Republic (before it was the sorry fish wrapper it is today) thought should be overruled. Now, the liberal Democrats, which has become nearly all of the Democrats, don't trust people or their legislators and would rather be ruled by the Platonic elite, the high nine of elderly sages who would enact their brave new world by fiat.
Well, long term, in the modern world, dictatorships don't last. We can either have courts that apply the law as written and leave the legislation to legislators, or we can have broad contempt of court until the courts don't matter anymore. I'll take the former.
Budgeting in the era of Trump: Getting a grasp on the local via the proposed budget. Philosophy, Subsidiarity, Distributism, Socialism, Wisonism, FDRism, . . . oh my! Or, did we really mean that when we said it?
FDR Handbill.
For decades Republicans, and the majority of Wyomingites are Republicans, have decried the "out of control" Federal budget. And not without some reason. The Federal government has grown enormously in the past century. When this is mentioned the norm is to note the big expansion that came about during the Great Depression, but when we look at all of the 1916 and 1917 newspapers I've been posting for a little over a year now, it's clear that quite a bit of that trend existed even during the Progressive Era.
I've posted on budget matters and the concepts behind them, which are rarely discussed anywhere, here before and indeed I just posted one on the Trump proposed budget. I have a thread that I may or may not finish started on health care, and oddly enough, that fits into this topic nicely. But I'll address that (probably) elsewhere (probably).
Here I'm going to address something I've noted here quite a bit before, but which people seem to be otherwise noticing for the first time. And that topic is, so to speak, where the Federal money hits the road, particularly if it threatens to pick up and take the road out.
Starting off, I'll note that a recent issue of the The New Republic, to which I am a subscriber almost, had an article on this topic just recently. I say subscriber almost as I've let my subscription lapse. I've been a subscriber since, I think, 1985 when the magazine was given to me as a gift but it's descended into pathetic and I'm bailing out before it actually sinks. Anyhow, the recent article was written in a snarky almost "don't you love me?" style by some disaffected "blue" stater who was upset by the last election. His argument was that the "blue" states (which I think should be the "red" states in keeping with the international political color scheme used everywhere else) should just ignore the "red" states, fund themselves, and then sooner or later the blue states would come crying back, after seeing that they are economic freeloaders.
I think perhaps that author overestimates, massively, the degree to which a lot of red staters don't care about things blue staters do. This usually becomes obvious when we read letters to the editor in the local paper that read like "if you don't ban wolf hunting I won't go to Yellowstone". Don't come. We don't care.
Which doesn't mean that a lot of this budget stuff, if it actually passes, won't be noticed.
Yesterday we read in the paper that Cody might loose air service, for example.
Apparently Cody's air service is subsidized by the Federal government. I had no idea whatsoever, and I'll bet most Wyomingites don't either. I didn't know that the Federal government, outside of administering airports and air travel (which is a type of subsidy, but an absolutely necessary one) subsidized any air travel. But, it turns out, it does.
It does because it was recognized, when the airlines were deregulated, that the air carriers would abandon small towns. So a Federal program was put in to subsidize it.
British Antarctic Survey Plane at our airport. Our airport isn't subsidized, so it'll keep on keeping on and maybe even do better if small airports aren't subsidized.
I don't know.
On one had, I get it. This is a big state, and air travel is really useful. Indeed, just recently I looked into trying to fly into Cody as I had a funeral to attend in Powell, and I was in Houston. I didn't do it, but I could have.
But, on the other hand, it's hard for me to justify the United States paying for subsidized air travel into Cody.
Maybe the state could?
The state does in fact give a little funding to airports, and last year there was some discussion on this in regards to Riverton's airport. But, with a big budget crunch, I doubt that Wyoming has the bucks for subsidized air travel, and maybe philosophically it shouldn't bother. After all, is it the job of the government to subsidize the quickest means of transportation?
Well, some countries clearly think so, and lots at least build high speed rail. I don't know that high speed rail doesn't pay for itself, but I do know that I love the conventional speed rail put in by the City of Denver to downtown. Is it subsidized? I have no idea.
I do know that for a century the Federal government has been involved in funding highway construction, and this became a huge deal during the Eisenhower Administration. While dressed up in various ways the truth of the matter is that the Federal government just felt that a national highway system benefited everyone, and in particular commerce.
I've noted here before that this amounts to a subsidy of the trucking industry. Trucker are amongst the most "red" of "red stateers" (in the goofy American color reversal description, i.e., I don't mean truckers are Communist, far from it), and they would not be capable of accepting that they are subsidized, but they are. If truckers paid fully for their use of the highways, they'd howl, and of course the railroads, with home they are competing, would laugh all the way to the bank. Railroad are already the most efficient and green mans of hauling anything and they'd no doubt welcome the added business that would necessarily come about if the Federal government told the states "pay for your own darned roads".
I don't know what the Federal budget actually does, this go around, for road construction and maintenance, but I have to think that the states must be worried. Generally, I think, there's a general concept that the states like being able to maintain the roads themselves but its in the common good that the Federal government pay for things.
This, sort of, is also the way, very loosely, that a lot of environmental regulation works. In Wyoming the State Department of Environmental Quality actually administers most of the laws that the EPA does in states that haven't elected to run things themselves. Now, DEQ is worried what reduced EPA funding will mean to the DEQ. The answer isn't really clear.
Cutting back on all sort of Federal regulation, via the budgetary process, has long been a conservative dream and many in the state are gleeful that it appears that will occur. This gets to be less the case, however, when that money falls outside of the conventional regulatory category and into other areas. The state is now worrying, for example, about the upcoming fire season as its clear that if the budget goes through there's less money to fight forest fires and we're having a hard time with that already.
Here the equity of things would seem to demand that the Federal government, as the state's largest landowner, fund fighting fires on its own land. The irony of this, however, is that this is one of the very things those opposed to transferring the public domain, like me, argued about. There's no earthly way the Western states can pay for fire suppression. None-whatsoever. We can't do it. The Feds should. We need them to.
Casper Mountain Fire of 2012. It was bad. Federal money helped suppress it. It's not like the county could afford those fire bombers.
I'll note that at least if you are a sportsmen, budget cuts at the Federal level are really distressing. For well over a century, indeed dating back to at least the Theodore Roosevelt administration, Federal money and Federal programs have been very active in this area. Moreover, in quite a few of them, but not all of them, taxes on sporting equipment completely fund the programs. There wouldn't be a wild animal bigger than a rabbit left alive in this country, for example, but for sportsmen and the taxes they pay on their equipment.
So cutting this stuff is really distressing. Its an interesting example of, in many cases, a small segment of the population paying for something that benefits everyone. Could the states take over in this area?
Well, not in this era, that's certain. They don't want to.
That may sound cynical but that's the best evidence. It hasn't always been that way, however. The State of Wyoming was a real pioneer in game conservation and the ethos that caused that is still there. If recent evidence means anything, however, a spirit of "sell it" has taken over the minds of various legislatures. We would have had to really worry about the Wyoming legislature and the Utah legislature seems seized by delusion right now. The GOP in Montana is trying to disassociate itself with such views right now, realizing that its caused Democratic gains in the state. Wyoming Democrats didn't seem to gain, but the legislature did get a clue about 2.5 seconds before Cheyenne threatened to start looking, metaphorically, like a scene from a Sergei Eisenstein movie.
Protestors at the Legislature this year. . . oh wait, that's a poster for the Battleship Potemkin.
This is an interesting example how the principal of subsidiarity doesn't always work in the real world. Wyomingites would rather live in tents than have the public land sold, and they'd like to fund conservation efforts too. Most of them don't think the BLM is the Gestapo for that matter. But if you looked at the bad ideas coming out of our legislature last session, you wouldn't know that. For that matter, if you looked at the junk our representation in Washington supports you wouldn't realize that either, at least as to the public lands and their administration. Of course, they may know that too, which is why, maybe, they've avoided doing much in the way of public appearances while on recess.
Anyhow, what all this brings to mind is the fundamental question. What do we think we should fund, and should it be funded locally or nationally? Put another way, is it fair to the residents of New Jersey to tax them for air travel in Wyoming? What about highway travel?
As a nation, we've never really figures this out.
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