Issues In the Wyoming Election. A Series. Issue No. 1. The Economy

In this post we don't propose economic solutions.  Indeed, while we have in the past, and will do so again in the future, this post doesn't attempt to do that. 

What this asks is the simple question, with a complicated answer, of whether the candidates running this year actually have a grasp of Wyoming's economy.

So far the evidence isn't great that they all do.  If they do, they may not be willing to really admit it in the current political climate.

Every single candidate for the Governorship of Wyoming is campaigning, extremely vaguely, on the economy.  So far, excluding Dahlin who has been nearly mute, and the exceptional example of Throne, and then excepting Galeotos a bit, they're all singing the same tune.

With that tune being basically that they'll be good for the economy.

Wyoming's economy took a beating due to a decline and oil and gas prices, and the outright collapse of the coal industry, during Governor Mead's term.  Mead had nothing to do with that.  Prices of those commodities had everything to do with that.  The economy hasn't really recovered.

So, we'd expect that to be a campaign focus, but if we break it down further what we find is that there's a general concept amongst the candidates that steers a backwards course from Matt Mead's Governorship and which basically takes the view that the extractive industries are Wyoming's bread and butter and if we only got the Federal Government out of the way, everything would be fantastic.

Let's break that down a bit further.

Probably the most defining comment from any of the right wing candidates on the economy has come from Harriet Hageman which took the view that Wyoming's economy is a three legged stool.  She stated it, but it's clear that the other right wing candidates take the same view.  Those legs are, according to this view, that the legs of the economy are the extractive industries, tourism, and agriculture.

Matt Mead's more centrist view was similar but he was of the view that we definitely needed to take the stool to the shop and add a couple of new legs. This is because he was Governor as one of the legs became wobbly, the extractive industries, and the others aren't the same length. So Governor Mead, continuing the analogy, felt that Wyoming's economy was a wobbly three legged stool with legs of unequal length.  He hoped to work on building a new stool which is why he sponsored and backed the ENDOW effort to identify areas where the economy could be improved.  That program has just gotten rolling and is just starting to work on its results.

To listen to Hageman, Freiss, and Gordon, however, all that really needs to happen is the Federal government needs to get out of the way and the extractive industries will take off like a shot.  Taking it a step further, I suppose, Dodson promises that as U.S. Senator he'll stay in front of Pacific Coast Governor's offices Occupy Wall Street style until they open up exporting Wyoming's coal to whomever wants to buy it overseas.  We need to do nothing else.  That will make the economy fine.

Is this view of the economy right?

Not really.

We'll deal more specifically with the oil and gas industry and coal industries later, but we'd note that we already have.  But a little here.

Coal is on a slide that has been going on for over a century for reasons that have everything to do with the end users switching to other fuels.  Like a lot of things, even when the end begins that doesn't mean that it sets in right away, so Wyoming's coal industry ironically peaked well after the fate of coal became obvious, but that doesn't change that.  Even most realistic industry optimist now hold the view that the current level of coal employment, which never came back to boom levels, is going to decline and the best we can hope for is that it is a slow decline.

Mead put a lot of hope into being able to isolate carbon and revive coal's futures and Wyoming has poured a lot of money into that. One thing any new Governor will have to do is to determine whether or not to continue that effort.  So far, it's shown little promise, but Wyoming has a lot of coal.  Maybe it's worth it.  More on that in a moment.

Oil and gas, has rebounded notably recently, which shows us something else.  Oil and gas are fungible products whose fortunes are nearly 100% market driven.  The popular concept in Wyoming, borne of economic desperation and now maintained due to this campaign, that government regulations significantly depress the ability to produce it is largely wrong.  Indeed, in recent months many of those regulations have been removed, and unless candidates take the view that no regulation will cause a sustaining boom, their points on this now have been proven to be incorrect.

Price controls these industries, and swings in price have lead to Wyoming's boom and bust economy.  It's a big one in Wyoming, to be sure, but unless the next Governor put a lot of regulations on the extra regulations on these industries, and they're not going to, the entire ideal that the Governor can impact production is, frankly, highly suspect at best.

So does that mean we have to accept that the economy is doomed?

It actually might.  But it is worth noting that this leg of the stool is one of at least four legs, not three.  I've dealt with that earlier as well.

Three of them are those already mentioned. The fourth is government.

All of this was discussed in our earlier magnum opus post on this topic;

The Wyoming Economy. Looking at it in a different way.

 

 Big Horn foothills. There's a reason why I've posted this here, but you'll have to slog through the post to discover why.

I thought about starting this thread just the other day.  On what must surely be a "Great Wyoming Minds Think Alike" type of day, Neil Waring, on one of his blogs (like me, he keeps more than one blog) posted this item on the same topic:

I won't seek to repeat that thread, but what I will note is that very little attention in real terms is given to thinking about agriculture or tourism.  Candidates like to be photographed wearing cowboy hats and near horses, but they don't talk at all what can be done for the agricultural sector of the economy, which is Wyoming's oldest.

A lot could be.  For one thing, Wyoming could take a page out of statutory books of state's like Iowa and restrict agricultural land ownership to individual owners who actually work directly in the field, literally and figuratively.  We'll discuss that more in a following post as well.  Or they could seek to utilize products and market then locally, and distribute them after being produced locally.  But we don't.  Indeed, the state does next to nothing for agriculture in stark contrast to the constant focus on the extractive industries.  Money, i.e., the money that 's generated in good times, has a lot to do with that. But the notable thing here is that candidates pay lip service to agriculture as a leg of the economic stool and then go on to ignore it.

The same is true of tourism.  It's just more or less ignored.

Government, on the other hand, is out right disdained. But the irony of that is that government spending, like it or not, has kept the Wyoming economy afloat, at least on a local level, in some areas.  Massive construction projects fueled with government dollars were a factor is softening the bust at least in Natrona County, and no doubt in others. 

 

Former Union Pacific Depot in Cheyenne, which came about due to a Federal government transportation program.

Indeed, Wyomingites complaint about the Federal government but are keen on Federal dollars.  If they didn't come in, we'd probably cry that this was unjust, even though it'd be getting what we asked for.  And if Cheyenne didn't redirect some money to construction projects a lot of Wyoming would be the poorer for it, in every sense.

So, the candidates who speak only about the extractive industries are ignoring the reality of Wyoming's economy.  The extractive industries bring in massive wealth, when they're going well, but when they bust it creates a corresponding massive set of problems. The industries themselves are changing and will employ fewer, at least on a per project basis, than they used to do (more on that in a future post).  Agriculture has been here since the beginning, as has, in actuality, tourism, but are ignored.

And like it or not, government spending has been a factor in Wyoming's economy since day one as well.  Trappers may have been the first European Americans to set up shop in Wyoming, but the Army, with Army bucks, was right behind them.

So, looked at realistically, Wyoming's economy is a four legged stool right now, with one that's wobbly due to the way it was manufactured.  All the focus has been on that one leg, and very little of that focus is realistic.  Candidates can promise to deregulate the oil and gas industry and coal industry but it can't really be realistically more deregulated than it currently is.  Candidates can promise to feed the Chinese coal for breakfast if they wish, but there's very little Wyoming can do, in spite of vague suggestions we'll sue Oregon or California, to open up ports to supply coal to a region that is now itself switching away from it.

In this mix we have the Endow study, which proposes to open up areas of Wyoming's economy that are not well developed.  And that can be done, it is clear.  So far Galeotos and Throne are the only ones really going in that direction. That is, basically, they propose to work to add a leg to the stool.  Maybe Freiss might look at that but his campaign platforms are so vague, it's impossible to know.  You'd think that Senatorial candidate Dodson, who keeps remaining us that he was a successful businessman, would emphasize that, but he isn't.

So what does all of this leave us with.

In reality, Wyoming's economy is a four legged stool right now, and those legs are made of:

1.  The extractive industries

2.  Agriculture

3.  Tourism

4.  Government.

No part of our economic fortunes are going to do well by ignoring that.

Beyond that, of those industries:

1.  The extractive industries are made up of the petroleum industry and the coal industries.  The petroleum industry doesn't need any help from Wyoming and to pretend that we can impact its fortunes is foolish.  The petroleum industry is global in scale and its a lot bigger deal globally than Wyoming is.  It can impact our fortunes, but we can't impact its fortunes.  It knows that.

Coal is dying and inside the field insiders acknowledge that.  Governor Mead knew it as well and was hoping to revive its fortunes through. . . government spending on studying to address its principal problems.  Maybe that will work, maybe not, but what all this leads to is this'

Candidates who promise to bring back perpetual happy days through deregulation are backing a concept that won't work and in the current Administration is actually counter to the reality on the ground.  

2.  Agriculture has its own boom and bust problems bu the state has just flat out ignored it for years.  The current candidates are going to as well.  It may be at least worth asking if they have any ideas here, as based on their campaign's lack of attention, they don't.

It'd be worth noting here that agriculture remains one of the industries that is an American export industry.  However our Republican president threatens to harm this sector of our economy with a trade war. What do the candidates, particularly the Republican candidates, think of this and why are they so silent on this?

4. Tourism.  None of the current candidates are vocal on this and perhaps there's no reason to be.  Or maybe there is.  Two of the current candidates are sort of just long staying tourist in the view of natives anyhow. That's relevant in that one thing that's rampant in the tourism industry is underpaying the help.  Underpaying people is, of course, a Democratic issue, but we're not hearing things much there either.  While we'll also look at this topic later, why is it that the candidates don't discuss anything about the tourism industry, where the workers are often underpaid, where jobs actually exist on a continual basis, and which is generally under taxed.

5.  Government.  Everyone like to pick on the government, but with out Federal DOT dollars, Federal money spent on the public lands (which Wyoming doesn't have to spend), the USFWS, the Forest Service, the BLM, and the United States Air Force (yes, the military is part of the government) our economy would be a lot worse off than it current is.  

On top of it, it's clear that in order to address some of the systemic problems with Wyoming's economy, government spending on the state level is going to be necessary.  Transportation is one such area, including air transportation.  I suspect that in the near future we'll find this to also be the case for rail transportation.   Education is an obvious area where this is true, and every candidate claims he wants Wyoming's educational system to be first rate even though that cost government money.

Why do the hard right candidates, or generally the candidates in general, so despise a sector of our economy that's actually there and what is it that the government is supposedly doing to us that's so mean?  More on that later as well.

6.  The new leg.  Mead has clearly been trying to diversify Wyoming's economy.  Galeotos and Throne have this as centerpieces of their campaigns.  Galeotos is a conservative on social issues and seems to be the only Republican candidate who actually grasps that this is going to be necessary if Wyoming isn't going to have a 19th  Century economy in the 21st Century world.  So far, his plans are vague, but at least they aren't lashed to a pre Mead view of the economy that's failed before.  Throne is also focusing on this.  Her views on social issues are presently unknown, at least to me.

So there we have it.  The economy is a central feature of every candidates campaign, but to listen to most of them its the mid 1970s and Jimmy Carter is in the White House imposing regulations on everything.  Those days are gone.  Of the current candidates, none of them are willing to speak about the role of the government in Wyoming's economy, and only Galeotos and Throne seem to share what Mead acknowledged, that we have to develop a broader economic base.

On a final  note, it's up to the electorate to be educated.  When candidates come around and say things, it's worth pinning them down.  This year, when they or their supporters show up, I frankly intend to.

Related Posts:

Issues in the Wyoming Election. A Series

The Battle of Belleau Wood. June 10 to the conclusion.

On June 10 the Marines resumed the assault in the Belleau Wood, but without success.  The Germans resorted to using massive amounts of mustard gas to blunt the Marine attack as well as devastating fire.  That didn't keep the US from resuming the attack the next day very early in the morning, however, to greater success. That June 11 attack also incorporated U.S. Army units of the 2nd Division.

Over the next few days the Marines attacked again and again, until finally on June 26 the Wood was reported as being in U.S. hands.

US casualties had been severe, with over 1800 killed and 7900 wounded.  German losses remain unknown but 1600 Germans surrendered over the course of the battle.

The battle was a significant one for a variety of reasons.  For one thing, it was the first really large scale American operation of the war in France.  It was not the first time Americans had been in action by any means, but this action involved two US divisions and a French division under American command, although most of the fighting fell to the Marines in the 2nd Division.  Five German divisions were engaged at various points during the battle.  And it was the successful test of the American theory of combat which varied enormously from that which was being applied in the British and French ranks.  American troops had successfully turned and reacted to a German assault and then they had declined to retreat and declined to entrench.  This reflected the views of American leadership which was critical of the way that the Western Allies had fought the war to date.  Instead the Americans fought a modified large scale version of war the way they had practiced it since prior to the American Civil War.

Moreover, the Americans, while green, proved to be a tenacious enemy to the Germans which the Germans themselves noted.  By this stage in the war few units on either side were willing to engage in risks to the degree to which the Americans were, to the German's surprise.  American rifle file, moreover, proved to be highly accurate, reflecting American marksmanship in general and also the fact that most of the troops engaged in this battle on the American side were Marines.  Indeed, while the American forces were green in general, the unusual use of Marines as regular infantry changed the way that they'd be ever after used in the American military and pitted the Germans against a force whose NCO corps was incredibly gruff and in fact experienced.

Whether the US would have been able to continue fighting this way indefinitely has often been questioned.  Pershing's theories about fighting in France were vindicated in this battle, but that does not mean they were proven. They certainly took the Germans very much off guard.  But as troops became more experienced it is questionable if they would have been willing to continue to fight so recklessly.  On the other hand, American troops were now flooding into France with fresh divisions and they'd continue to be fresh for quite some time.

At any rate, Belleau Wood was a seminal American victory.  An American division had stopped the advance of more numerous Germans, and then a second American division had driven them back.  While the Germans continued on with their Spring offensive, the offensive advanced no further here.  The German Spring offensive was, in fact, reaching an end just as American troops were arriving in large numbers and engaging in action very effectively.

Churches of the West: Sts. Cyril & Methodius Catholic Church, Rock Springs, Wyoming

Churches of the West: Sts. Cyril & Methodius Catholic Church, Rock Springs Wyoming:

This Romanesque church was built in 1912 after a protracted period of time in which efforts were made to build a church specifically for the Catholic Slavic population of Rock Springs, which was quite pronounced at the time. The church was named after brothers Cyril and Methodius who had been the evangelists to the Slavs.  The first pastor was Austrian born Father Anton Schiffrer who was suited to the task given his knowledge of Slavic languages.

Best Post of the Week of June 2, 2018

The Battle of Belleau Wood Commences. The German assault at Marigny and Lucy. June 3, 1918.

On the Nature of our Work: Hurting people.

Did we miss the Battle of Château-Thierry?

The Battle of Belleau Wood. The Allies strike. June 6, 1918. "Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?"

The Vulgarians

The Battle of Belleau Wood. June 7-9, 1918 Stalemate

Issues in the Wyoming Election. A Series

The Kaiserschlacht Repeats. June 9, 1918. Operation Gneisenau

The unhappy urbanites

The unhappy urbanites

Houston Texas

From McGill:

How Happy are Your Neighbours? Variation in Life Satisfaction among 1200 Canadian Neighbourhoods and Communities

Online access to NBER Working Papers denied, you have no subscription

John F. Helliwell, Hugh Shiplett, Christopher P. Barrington-Leigh

NBER Working Paper No. 24592 Issued in May 2018 NBER Program(s):Labor Studies, Public Economics

This paper presents a new public-use dataset for community-level life satisfaction in Canada, based on more than 400,000 observations from the Canadian Community Health Surveys and the General Social Surveys. The country is divided into 1215 similarly sampled geographic regions, using natural, built, and administrative boundaries. A cross-validation exercise suggests that our choice of minimum sampling thresholds approximately maximizes the predictive power of our estimates. Our procedure reveals robust differences in life satisfaction between and across urban and rural communities. We then match the life satisfaction data with a range of key census variables to explore ways in which lives differ in the most and least happy communities. The data presented here are useful on their own to study community-level variation, and can also be used to provide contextual variables for multi-level modelling with individual life satisfaction data set in a community context.

You may purchase this paper on-line in .pdf formatfrom SSRN.com ($5) for electronic delivery.

No surprise.

You'd have to pay to read that, which I haven't done, so perhaps a press summary suffices instead.

From columnist Tom Purcell:

According to The Washington Post, the Vancouver School of Economics and McGill University have determined that people who live in rural areas and small towns are happier than those who live in congested urban and large metro areas. 

McGill’s happiness researchers have found that the happiest communities have shorter commute times, less expensive housing, less transience and people who have a greater “sense of belonging” in their communities.

This is obvious to anyone, I think, who has experience in this area. And yet we push people towards the unnatural urban world as if its an imperative.  Cities grow and grow, people move from one to another, and the level of despair grows higher and higher.

Yes, surely, not everyone in cities is miserable, to be sure.  But the nature of large cities combined with the highly unnatural nature of modern work combines to make much of it miserable.  And it makes a mockery about much of modern life.  The conveniences of cities, the "things to do", end up about being as appealing to most people in the end as being a caged tiger in a zoo is to them.

Of course people with money can buy their way around this, and often attempt to.  They'll buy expensive memberships to walk in artificial pastures called golf courses, and go on expensive vacations that take them out of the cities and back to the country.  Some will in fact take their urban generated income and relocate to more rural areas, often at the expense of the rural landscapes where they have relocated.  Indeed, this election cycle here locally features no fewer than three businessmen who have relocated to small town, well one small town and one wealthy enclave, in the state. 

But most people don't do that.  Having become rootless, and often having lost all connection with anything with roots at all, they're lost souls.  Indeed, the cities themselves provide far fewer roots now than they ever did before, when at least most of them, even fairly recently, were basically collections of borderless villages.

So this report is no surprise.

The Kaiserschlacht Repeats. June 9, 1918. Operation Gneisenau

Operation Gneisenau

 

The map again. The fourth German drive again attempted to exploit the gap beetween the British and the French. As it would turn out, it also ended up pitting the Germans against the newly arrived American Army.  The offensive was sucessful to a degree in that it gained ground, but the ground gained was much smaller than prior German drives.

Operation Blucher-Yorck was followed by a new German offensive, Operation Gneisenau which was designed to exploit the successes of the earlier offensive operations.  The French, however, anticipated the June 9 assault and launched a massive counterattack two days into it, on June 11.  While the Germans had advanced nine miles in that two days, the French counterattack caused them to call off further operations on June 12.  This resulted in a month long German pause while they postponed a large operation that was supposed to have exploited the May 27 through June 5 advances.

La na mBan occurs in Ireland

A large protest by the Irish Women's Workers Union occurred this day in Dublin, Ireland.   The protest, besides the crowds associated it with it, featured a pledge, which read:

A Solemn Pledge from the Women of Ireland.

Because the enforcement of conscription on any people without their consent is tyranny, we are resolved to resist the conscription of Irishmen. We will not fill the places of men deprived of their work through refusing enforced military service. We will do all in our power to help the families of men who suffer through refusing enforced military service.

The union itself came about as labor unions in Ireland were closed to women.  Perhaps ironically the first head of the union was male.  At any rate, this protest provided another example of how things were really not going that well for the Allies at this time.  Indeed, they were close to loosing the war.

Consider, in this early June day in 1918, the Germans had launched their fourth major attack in their Spring Offensive and only the intervention of American troops had prevented the last one from succeeding.  They appeared to be capable of resuming such activity again and again.  Russia was now out of the war.  Conscription in Canada had met with such opposition that the opposition was effectively preventing it from contributing any conscripted men to the war effort at all and the same thing was occurring in Ireland.

Poster Saturday: EEE Yah Yip. Go over with U.S. Marines

Best Post of the Week of May 27, 2018

Getting around to posting this one a week late.

The Kaiserschlacht Carries on. May 27, 1918. Operation Blücher-Yorck.

The first major offensive action of the AEF. Cantigny

Miss Helen Chamberlain with Buzzer the cat. May 28, 1918

Memorial Day

Joseph R. Smith of Weiser, Idaho.  Killed in action at Catigny, May 29, 1918.

Mrs. Hammond, American Red Cross, serving water to badly wounded British soldiers on platform of railroad station at Montmirail, France. May 31, 1918.

Tailspin. A different look at the Boomers

US 3d Division arrests the German advance at Château-Thierry, May 31, 1918.

3d Division Order of Battle, 1918

The Battle of Belleau Wood Commences. June 1, 1918.

Issues in the Wyoming Election. A Series

Certain issues repeat again and again in Wyoming's political ads and commentaries.  All the politicians have comments on them, even if only in the vaguest (indeed often in the vaguest) possible sense.

I could summarize them in my other election thread, but they'd get lost and be even less meaningful than they otherwise would be here on this blog (it's not like we're going to sway the election one way or another after all).  So, I'm starting a running series on them.

Issues in the Wyoming Election.  Let's look at them one by one and see how they stack up, who is saying what, what that means, and, yes, are they even real issues.

And yes, as if they had the spare men to deploy, the Germans send. . .

3,000 men in support of the Georgia to the Caucasus.  Even more amazing, the goal was to help Georgia prevent the Ottomans, a German ally, from gaining control of oil in the Baku region.

Kress von Kressenstein, their commander.

The mostly Bavarian force would end up being the last German force to return to Germany after the war ended, making it back to Germany in April 1919.

Perhaps, in context, this made sense.  After all, oil was important and this was a small number of men.  But it does demonstrate that the Germans were not able to fully disengage in the East.  Additionally, it shows how complicated things had become in the East, as the Germans were now openly aiding a country that the Ottomans had been at war with just days prior when the Ottomans had been a German ally.

Today In Wyoming's History: June 8, 1918. The Eclipse of 1918.

Today In Wyoming's History: June 8:

1918  A total eclipse of the sun was experienced in Southwest Wyoming, as well as in Denver Colorado.

What We Remember. What we Don't. And Rapidly Changing Fashions

American Cemetery at Belleau Wood in 1918.  This ground was actually ceded to the United States by France following the war in gratitude for the American sacrifice.

The American military cemetery at Belleau Wood is reportedly gigantic.  It is, apparently, three times as large as the one in Normandy for those buried there following their deaths, in the Second World War, in 1944.

Something to pause and consider.

Nothing will ever take away the deserved honor of those who died liberating France in 1944, nor in particular those who landed on the Norman Coast on June 6, 1944, and the following horrific days.  It was a horror that can hardly be imagined, and US troops there, together with troops from the UK, Canada, and yes France, deserve to be remembered.

But it's hardly recalled that June 6 was also the opening phase of another big battle in France in which American troops would also serve valiantly, arguably save France, and die in large numbers.  The Battle of Belleau Wood.

French refugees in Paris, June 7, 1918.

On another topic, I've (rather obviously) been posting a lot of photographs from 1918.  And something really shows in them.

It's sort of a triviality, but women's fashions changed enormously in the two decades between the Great War and World War Two.  

Indeed, they'd changed enormously by the 1930s, and for younger women, by the 1920s.

The photograph shown above is a tragic scene.  But only the little girls in the photo could be misaken, maybe, for a little bit later era.  Everyone else is definitely clothed in a pre 1925 fashion.  What happened to cause that?

The Battle of Belleau Wood. June 7-9, 1918 Stalemate

The Marines now held a foothold in the Belleau Wood.  The Germans were in the Wood as well.

At midnight on June 7, the Germans launched as assault on the Marines and were completely stopped.  The Marines, in turn, launched an assault on the Germans on June 8 and it was likewise halted, taking so many casualties by this point that the Marine battalion that participated in it had to be relieved and replaced by a more fully manned one.

On June 9 French and U.S. artillery virtually destroyed the Wood, a former pristine hunting ground.  The Germans, in turn, fired artillery into Lucy and Bouresches and reorganized inside the Wood.

But note what wasn't happening.  The Americans had not fought this battle according to script at all. . . and the Germans were not advancing.

The news of the Marine Corp's actions of a day ago hit the front page back home, with dramatic results. This was likely the first time Americans had really thought of the Marine Corps in this fashion.

What was missed in these accounts is a significant factor.  American troops of the 1st, 2nd and 3d Divisions were in action, and as American divisions. But they were not in the overall command of an American Army.

Rather, these divisions had been supplied by the U.S. command, somewhat reluctantly, after it became convinced that the Germans might break the French and British lines.  So, while the divisions fought under their U.S. commanders, these three divisions, made up all of regulars, were above that level now in the French sector under French command, albeit temporarily.

On a local note, the school district in Casper (there was more than one in the county at the time) had purchased property that would become Roosevelt School in 1922.  The school was, rather obviously, named after the recently departed President  Theodore Roosevelt.  It was in use for decades, having completed its service as an alternative high school, and was recently closed and transferred to another entity for a veteran's facility.

This is a situation the US had hoped earnestly to avoid.  Indeed, while the German 1918 Spring Offensive was no surprise whatsoever, the US high command in France had studied it under Gen. Fox Connor and determined that the Allies could resist it successfully without U.S. help, and this would leave the Americans ready to go into action in the Fall and Winter, bringing the war to a conclusion in 1919.

Whether the US was right about that or not can be debated. There was good reason to feel that the Americans were flatly wrong about the French ability to hold out without US assistance by this point in 1918.  And in fairness by this point the American high command was convinced and the three US divisions made up of regulars did in fact start fighting, but not under an overall US command like the Americans had planned on. This would develop into a inter allied spat of a rather serious nature as the summer rolled on.

The Vulgarians

Rosanne Barr has lost her television show due to having made a Twitter comment about Valerie Jarrett.  Jarrett is black and the comment was:

Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj

It's shocking and disgusting.  Barr deserved to be pulled from television and if that killed the show for her co-stars, oh well.

Some right wing folks are noting that Samantha Bee hasn't been pulled and are claiming a double standard.

Bee's comment, which came in the context of commenting on a photograph of Ivanka Trump and her child, is immediately below, and I'm not going to edit it.  Proceed with caution

You know, Ivanka, that's a beautiful photo of you and your child, but let me say, one mother to another, 'Do something about your dad's immigration practices, you feckless cunt.
Put on something tight and low-cut and tell your father to fucking stop it.

So is there a double standard?  I'd have to say yes.  Bee's comments are even worse than Barr's in a way, if comparisons can be made in this area, as they're so vulgar.

But let's be honest about it.  Neither Barr nor Bee should have jobs in anything more significant than a Mini Mart.

Barr is a disgusting low class American "comedian".   Bee is a disgusting Canadian vulgarian. 

Neither are the slightest bit amusing in any fashion nor are they funny.  They were both hired as they are disgusting and vulgar.  Barr was hired as some clever entertainment executive likely figures that she appeals to a certain element in the disaffected Trump right.  Bee was hired as so similar executive likewise likely figured that she appealed to the Rachael Maddow left.

Both have apologized. But it shouldn't matter. They should bear the burden of their comments or be made to make a public demonstration of satisfactory repentance.  Just a comment, for stuff like this, doesn't suffice.  Barr's comments endorse a heavily racist view that comes from people who have heavily racist views.  An apology won't erase that.  Bee's comments endorse a violent view of female sexuality that come really close to the bizarre objectification of women that some women on the left  have and fully support.

Indeed, in a way, both of these individual's camouflaged past make their comments all the more reprehensible.  Barr grew up in a Jewish family in Salt Lake City, something that should have familiarized her at least to some degree with what it is like to be a minority and characterized with racist stereotypes.  And as a person with a less than appealing visage, her going after the appearance of another woman is bizarre.  And while she's associated with Trump now, she's been all over the map politically which would suggest that she's at least familiar with people who hold a wide range of views (she was once in the Green Party).

Bee is a Canadian and in that sense a living example of the complete fraud of American immigration which makes her comments in that suspect.  American immigration policy is supposed to favor the desperate or fill a role in our economy which can't be filled by those already living here. We have plenty of vulgar "comedians" already and really didn't need to import one from Canada, although given the Canadian absolute emphasis on being polite in all circumstances, it's easy to imagine there being no role in her native land for her.  I can't imagine, for example, a "Full Frontal" going after Justin Trudeau, or even Stephen Harper.  Bee, the product of a broken home and raised by a grandmother, is also another embarrassing example of a Catholic education, having attended the Catholic school her grandmother worked at.  As we Catholics (I didn't attend a Catholic school) already have to contend with such examples as Madonna on that, we really ought to wonder about what is taught there.  Having said that, this does mean that she would be familiar with certain basic standards of decent conduct even if she's not Catholic (and a large number of students who attend such schools are not).

Well, a pox on both of their houses.  May we never hear from them again.

And may we stop and think. Why did we tolerate such people in the first place on our television sets?

The Battle of Belleau Wood. The Allies strike. June 6, 1918. "Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?"

Bain News Service photograph of U.S. Marines in France, June 6, 1918.  Note that these "Soldiers of the Sea", assigned to the U.S. 2nd Division, are wearing a stripped down uniform and are marching without their service coats, something that in June 1918 you will would not be likely to find in regards to soldiers of the U.S. Army.  The Marine Corps expanded for World War One, but even more than the Army it contained a high percentage of pre war enlistees, many who were rather salty.

At 0345 on this day in 1918, the Allies went on the offensive at Belleau Wood.  Once again, the battle was featuring nighttime fighting.

The Marines Brigade assaulted Hill 142 with the French supporting their left flank.  The Marines unfortunately had not scouted Hill 142 and accordingly a German infantry regiment was present that was not expected.  Marine Corps looses were massive but as tended to be the case for fresh American troops entering action for the first time, they advanced anyhow in spite of nearly a complete loss of their officer corps.  By the end of the day they had repelled a German counterattack and held Hill 142.

During the German counterattack Marine Gunnery Sergeant Ernest A. Janson won the Congressional Medal of Honor.  His citation reads:

The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor (Army Award) to Gunnery Sergeant Charles F. Hoffman, United States Marine Corps, for extraordinary heroism while serving with the 49th Company, 5th Regiment (Marines), 2d Division, A.E.F. in action at Chateau-Thierry, France, 6 June 1918. Immediately after the company to which he belonged had reached its objective on Hill 142, several hostile counterattacks were launched against the line before the new position had been consolidated. Gunnery Sergeant Hoffman was attempting to organize a position on the north slope of the hill when he saw 12 of the enemy, armed with five light machineguns, crawling toward his group. Giving the alarm, he rushed the hostile detachment, bayoneted the two leaders, and forced the others to flee, abandoning their guns. His quick action, initiative, and courage drove the enemy from a position from which they could have swept the hill with machinegun fire and forced the withdrawal of our troops.

 Ernest A. Janson.

On the same day the Marines entered the Wood itself and took it in a late day assault.  Again, the advance was made under massive fire and resulted in massive casualties.  During the advance Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Dan Daily, a recipient of a prior Congressional Medals of Honor for action in the Boxer Rebellion, urged his men forward with the memorable question  "Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?"  He won his second Medal of Honor for this engagement.

 Dan Daly

Fighting in the Wood became hand to hand.  By the end of the day both the Germans and the Marines held positions in the woods.

Today In Wyoming's History: Sad News In Sheridan County. June 6, 1918

Today In Wyoming's History: June 6:

1918  Sad news arrived in Sheridan County on this day, according to the Sheridan Media history column, when relatives of Roy H. Easton, 25, homesteader from Verona, received news that he had been killed in action in France.  He was the first Sheridan County resident to die in World War One.

Occupation of Chateau Thierry Sector, June 6-July 14, 1918, Second Division

Getting the news of the American victory on the Marne and having a giant overreaction in Sheridan. June 6, 1918.

On June 6 the American victory at Château-Thierry was beginning to become a little more clear, although the newspapers anticipated more action.  That action was ongoing in the Belleau Wood, which was just next door and which really is part of the same battle.

In Sheridan the town in engaged in an absurd overreaction and the schools burned German books.  Learning German certainly didn't make a person some sort of German sympathizer and indeed, learning the language of your enemy is a good idea.

A Natrona County resident measuring 6'7", very tall for any age, enlisted in the Army.  I'm somewhat surprised that his height didn't disqualify him for service.  You can be too tall to join.

Mid Week At Work: "Girls-Are You Interested In A Job?" Scenes from another era.

Did we miss the Battle of Château-Thierry?

Yes.

Um, no.

Well, it depends.

Actually, we did catch the first day of a battle at Château-Thierry, in our post here:

The Battle of Belleau Wood Commences. June 1, 1918.

Following the first major offensive action by the U.S. just a few days prior, a much more major battle commenced on this day in 1918, following the successful defense of Château-Thierry the prior day.  The Battle of Belleau Wood.  It would continue on until June 26, making it a much more protracted battle than Cantigny.  It would also be one that would result in lasting fame for the 2nd Division and its Marine contingent.

On May 31 the U.S. 3d Division held the German advance at Château-Thierry and the German offensive turned right to outflank it, as we have seen..  On 1 June, Château-Thierry and Vaux then fell, and German troops moved into Belleau Wood.  The 2nd Division, a composite Army and Marine Corps Division, was brought up on the Paris Metz Highway to counter the German effort.  The night of June 1 the Americans were flanked again when the Germans moved to the left and breached a French held line.  The German advance, however, was stopped by a night march and the following action by the 2nd Division, resulting in a successful parry in an all night time action.  The net result was not only the halt of the German flanking action but the U.S. ended up holding an extended line as a result.

This wouldn't be the end of the fight. . .

That post noted that  the U.S. 3d Division had become engaged at Château-Thierry on May 31.  We treated, and properly, as the opening phase of the Battle of Belleau Wood.

But if you look up the battle of Château-Thierry you might see, rightly, ongoing fighting there on June 1 through 4, which we didn't cover.  We likely should have.

But that probably isn't the Battle of Château-Thierry you are thinking of.

Be that as it may, the 3d Division stayed engaged at Château-Thierry after June 1 and on June 3-4 it pushed the Germans back across the Marine at Jaulgonne.  This was the second significant American offensive action, if taken as a single action, of the war. 

Belleau Wood. The news hits home. June 5, 1918.

On June 5 all the newspapers were full of the early news from Bealleau Wood, although the battle had not yet acquired that name.

The death of Charles Fairbanks, Theodore Roosevelt's Vice President, was also on the front page.  Fairbanks hadn't been the Vice President all that long ago, but already the major figures of the early Progressive Era were starting to pass on.

It what might have been the first news of it's type to hit US newspapers (maybe), the press was also starting to worry about seaborne air raids, at this time in the form of aircraft transported by submarines.  As absurd as that may sound, the Japanese did in fact do that during World War Two, having perfected the ability between the wars, and used them in at least one small raid off of the Pacific Northwest.

Early summer weather was significant enough to make the front page in Laramie, and as any Laramie resident can attest, early Summer weather in Laramie can in fact be "unsettled."  Summers in Laramie are beautiful, but they feature some spectacular storms.

Food Conservation (From World War One)

Today In Wyoming's History: Updates for June, 2018

Updates for June, 2018

Major F. J. McCoy speaking in sigh language with Goes In Lodge, Arapaho Chief, 1923.

June 4, 1918.  Casper newspaper added for 1918.  Item on Parco added in relation to post on Amelia Earhart.

June 4, 1918.  Tornado in Campbell County and bare knuckle boxing in Cheyenne.

On the Nature of our Work: Hurting people.

One of the things that people like to claim not to understand is how certain people commit certain acts in the course of their work, historically.

Now, it's not put that way, but let me note some example.

And let me make them the extreme ones.

How did German soldiers commit horrible atrocities.  Not the SS, which was full of hate indoctrinated fanatics, but regular German conscripts. How did they do that?

For that matter, how did American soldiers of the Frontier Era occasionally go to far?

We always comfort ourselves that we, benighted moderns that we are, never do such horrible things.

And of course, we don't.  Not like I've noted here.  Or at least its highly unlikely that we will.  None of us or going to be conscripted anymore, and we're certainly not going to be conscripted into the the 1939-1945 Heer.

Nor are we going to end up in a 19th Century Indian/European conflict of any kind.

And hence we're usually able to comfort ourselves that we would not do such horrible things, and if we were there at the time, we wouldn't.  We, we imagine, would have been the Soldat that said "Nein!"

You hypocrite! First remove the beam out of your own eye,

and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Maybe we ought to reconsider that.

Now, let me be frank, this sort of analysis doesn't apply equally to everyone all the time, and I don't intend i to to.

Which is why I'm turning directly to what I do on a daily basis.  Practice law.

Allow me to first make a disclaimer, however.  I'm not pointing the fingers at anyone in particular.  Nor do I even have a singular example in mind.  So, I'm not saying "this lawyer does this or that bad thing"  No, I am not.

But what I am noting is that as a profession we get amazingly acclimated to hurting people.

Now, much of that is completely unavoidable.  But much of it is avoidable.

I'm constantly reading about lawsuit that are pretty dicey brought here and there around the county (and again, I"m not pointing to any particular example in my own state, where things aren't as bad, which doesn't mean we escape these either.

Detective Lt. Joseph Petrosiino, Inspector Carey and Inspector McCafferty escorting Mafia hitman Tomasso Petto, "Petto the Ox".  He's the second from the left.  I'm sure that if his employers were asked, and like if he had been, his answer about his work would have been, "It's nothing personal, only business".     

As lawyers, we forget, and indeed become acclimated, to the concept that the law is an adversarial system.  We convince ourselves, with little real room to believe it, that this serves a societal interest and that in fact what we are doing is noble.  Since the mid 20th Century, particularly accelerating since the early 1960s, we've expanded the boundaries of civil litigation so that cases can be brought that never ever could have been in earlier eras.  Not that some of this conduct wasn't always awful.  But in an earlier era, for example, it wouldn't really have been possible to complain that you were forced into a sexual relationship with somebody as he was your boss.  If the news broke, both of you would have been subjected to shame.

Every time somebody is sued, its a nightmare for them. We get used to that.  For them, even if they're insured, its traumatic and they live with it night and day.  Only in the cases where businesses are defendants can this be different, if they're used to being in this sort of situation, and some are.

Years ago, just at the time I became a lawyer, my father told me a story about the building he was a co-owner of, where his office was. Before he became a co-owner the owners had been sued for a slip and fall.  The enter thing had, it turned out, been set up.  One of the owners, not one of the lawyers, realized that the date the un-witnessed slip and fall had allegedly occurred was a no snow day.  He undertook to do the research to prove that, stopped a settlement from happening, and the case ended up being dismissed.

Anyhow, while the suit was pending depositions were taken and one of the plaintiff's lawyers, who was, or rather had been, a friend of one of the owners, told him before the deposition, "It's nothing personal".

He replied, "For me it is".

And indeed, it surely is.

Chief Big Foot, killed at Wounded Knee

But that's all how it has to be.  Right?

Not really.

Indeed, the United States is uniquely litigious.  It's well known that it's actually harmful to American business as so much more litigation goes on here than elsewhere.  Products litigation, lawyers will point out, has made American products safer.  But by the same token its made American products stupid, with warnings on every imaginable thing.

And to go one step further, lawyers can act horribly towards individuals in the course of litigation.  Just because somebody is a defendant doesn't make them a bad person.  It make them a defendant. Some defendants are bad people.  But a lot of them are far from that. Even where they are liable, many just screwed up and nothing more.  Treating them as if they are awful human beings is awful.

Indeed, as a profession we really don't have the leeway to do this.  A casual review of the newspapers shows that a humans, we fall as short as anyone else.

What is the point of this?   Well, not much.  It's just a plea.

Try to remember that in the course of work, we're not saints because its our work.  We should consider the impact of what we do.

Can the President Pardon himself?

No, he can't.

The entire question is absurd, so it's surprising to see Rudy Giuliani bring it up, but then a lot of what Giuliani has been bringing up is more than a little iffy.

The entire concept is that the President could pardon himself of acts he's committed in order to avoid impeachment.  Yes, the question hasn't come up before so there's no precedent.  There doesn't need to be.  It's a maxim of the law that it not be read to work an absurdity, and the entire question is rip snorting absurd.

Me Too? Hmmm. . . .

Apparently Monica Lewinsky has come on board the Me Too Movement, noting that President Clinton was her boss.  She's been diagnosed, she states, with PTSD due to the relentless press coverage following the breaking of the news of her affair with Clinton.

Somehow, this really cheapens this entire movement.  She was an adult, as was he, and they both engaged in this sordid affair under their own steam and with their own volition.  Yes, he was her boss. She could have said no.

Battle of Belleau Wood. General Bundy takes command and the French arrive. June 4, 1918.

On this day in 1918, Omar Bundy, U.S. Army, 2nd Division, took command of the entire Belleau Wood front thereby giving it a consolidated leadership. On the same day the French 167th Division arrived, which was placed under Bundy's command.

Omar Bundy, U.S. Army.

And the news of what would come to be known as the Battle of Belleau Wood began to hit the front page back in the US.

Officers, nurses, and hospital corps, Base Hospital, Camp MacArthur, Waco, Texas, June 4, 1918

The Battle of Belleau Wood Commences. The German assault at Marigny and Lucy. June 3, 1918.

 Pvt Lee Roy Todd, USMC, of Pike County, Georgia who was killed in action on June 3, 1918.  One of the Many Marine Corps casualties of the Battle of Belleau Wood.   Note Pvt. Todd's distinctive Marine Corps cut service coat, which was a darker green (and more of a true green) than the Army's, and the globe and anchor device on his M1911 campaign hate which show him to be a Marine.  He's wearing a highly faded set of canvas leggings.

On this day, the Germans having taken Belleau Wood, but having been arrested in their advance by the 2nd and 3d U.S. Divisions, launched an assault on the towns of Marigny and Lucy from the Wood.

 James Harbord, U.S. Army.  He wasn't impressed with his French instructions.

This event made it plane that the US did not intend to fight in France the same way that the Western Allies had.  The advance took the Germans through farm fields occupied by the Marine Corps Brigade assigned to the 2nd Division. The French had ordered the brigade to withdraw from this position and dig a trench line to their rear.  General James Harbord, U.S. Army, flat out disregarded the order and in fact countermanded it, ordering the Marines to hold in place. They accordingly dug shallow fighting pits, a long established U.S. practice.

The Germans advanced through the Marine held grain fields on this day. The Marines did not open fire until the Germans were within 100 yards and basically mowed the Germans down.  The survivors withdrew back to the Wood and then dug defensive positions at Hill 204 running just east of Vaux to Le Thiolet on the Paris-Metz Highway and north through Belleau Wood to Torcy.

At this point the Marines positioned themselves to attack the German positions.  French retreating forces urged (but not ordered) them to withdraw.  Upon hearing the request, Marine Captain Lloyd Williams uttered the famous words "Retreat, hell!  We just got here."

M.G. Training School Camp, Camp Hancock, Augusta, Georgia. June 3, 1918.

Army Training School for Chaplains and approved chaplain candidates, Camp Zachary Taylor, Louisville, Ky., "Lining up for Mess". June 1, 1918.

Note that, in this last photograph, there's a chaplain or chaplain candidate who appears to be black, bottom row, fourth from left.  If that's correct, this would be a highly unusual example of a black officer serving in an integrated school at a time at which the Army was highly segregated.  Perhaps, given the roles chaplains fulfilled, this is a rare example of an exception to the prevailing rule of the time.

Military Mass, The Battery, New York City, May 1918

Poster Saturday: The Saturday Evening Post. June 1, 1918.

The work was entitled "Grave Of French Soldier".  Memorial Day had been that prior Thursday.

Here again J. C. Leydecker, the artists, oddly depicted the US uniform in a color that was much closer to the German uniform's colors.  He'd been born in Germany, as earlier noted, and had come over as a small child.  Still, I wonder if that somehow impacted his idea of what color U.S. Army uniforms were.  Having said that, this depiction also includes the French flag with blue shown as a color of grey, which makes me wonder about his color perception.  Uniform details were otherwise quite correct, except that that one, the pattern of legging depicted, was changing at that very moment.

Anyhow, this cover of the Post was in tribute to the French soldiers who had already given their lives in the Great War.

The Battle of Belleau Wood Commences. June 1, 1918.

Following the first major offensive action by the U.S. just a few days prior, a much more major battle commenced on this day in 1918, following the successful defense of Château-Thierry the prior day.  The Battle of Belleau Wood.  It would continue on until June 26, making it a much more protracted battle than Cantigny.  It would also be one that would result in lasting fame for the 2nd Division and its Marine contingent.

On May 31 the U.S. 3d Division held the German advance at Château-Thierry and the German offensive turned right to outflank it, as we have seen..  On 1 June, Château-Thierry and Vaux then fell, and German troops moved into Belleau Wood.  The 2nd Division, a composite Army and Marine Corps Division, was brought up on the Paris Metz Highway to counter the German effort.  The night of June 1 the Americans were flanked again when the Germans moved to the left and breached a French held line.  The German advance, however, was stopped by a night march and the following action by the 2nd Division, resulting in a successful parry in an all night time action.  The net result was not only the halt of the German flanking action but the U.S. ended up holding an extended line as a result.

This wouldn't be the end of the fight. . .

3d Division Order of Battle, 1918

The order of Battle for the 3d Division, which we've been discussing here recently.

All US divisions in World War One were big "square" divisions, much larger than those which the US went to after 1940. Indeed, they were absolutely enormous compared to the divisions of other armies, in part because the U.S. was capable of fully manning a division. Generally, U.S divisions contained at least 30,000 men, but some would swell up beyond that. The 3d Division is an example of that. By October 1918 it contained 54,000 men, well three times the size of a World War Two Division.

Indeed, this impacts histories of the war as many histories fail to note how large US divisions were.  As we'll see, in the Battle of Belleau Wood the 2nd Division took on elements of five German divisions. But by 1918 German divisions were rarely fully manned. For that matter, Allied ones were rarely fully manned either.  So while histories may note that one army or another had "x" divisions here and there, while the US had only "y", the US commitment at any one time was often much larger than those numbers would suggest.

Anyhow, the 3d Division was made up mostly of Regular Army units. For that reason, it was one of the first divisions in France and one of the first combat ready divisions.  As the U.S. Army did not keep divisions formed during peacetime, it was assembled just prior to the war.  Nonetheless, it was largely made up of Regular Army soldiers augmented in some areas, to flesh it out, with National Guardsmen (most likely) or recent inductees from civilian life.

Here's how the unit was formed.

Headquarters, 3rd Division

5th Infantry Brigade, consisting of;

4th Infantry Regiment, a regular Army regiment.

7th Infantry Regiment, also a regular regiment

8th Machine Gun Battalion.  I don't know the make up of this unit but machine gun battalions were a recent introduction into the Army.  World War One would prove to be unique for the combat use of such battalions and they'd not really reappear in the U.S. Army during World War Two.

6th Infantry Brigade, consisting of;

30th Infantry Regiment. Regular Army.

38th Infantry Regiment.  Regular Army.

9th Machine Gun Battalion

3rd Field Artillery Brigade, consisting of;

10th Field Artillery Regiment (75 mm)  Newly formed in 1916 at Camp Douglas, Arizona.

18th Field Artillery Regiment (155 mm).  Newly formed in 1916 at Ft. Bliss, Texas.

76th Field Artillery Regiment (75 mm).  Converted from regular U.S. Army's 18th Cavalry Regiment wholesale.  The 18th Cavalry was a newly formed Cavalry regiment authorized in 1916 which had a brief existence before being converted to cavalry Quite a few of the newly authorized cavalry regiments from the National Defense Act of 1916, and National Guard cavalry regiments, were reorganized from cavalry to artillery or transport.  Indeed, even some National Guard infantry was so reorganized.  The reorganization of available cavalry regiments made sense in context as the men in them were familiar with handling horses, and artillery was horse drawn at the time.

3rd Trench Mortar Battery.  Another new formation. Trench mortars were a major feature of World War One but would be obsolete by World War Two.

7th Machine Gun Battalion

6th Engineer Regiment

5th Field Signal Battalion

Headquarters Troop, 3rd Division.  This was a cavalry troop.  I'm not sure what cavalry regiment provided the troops for it.  Basically, however, cavalry troops were individual troops assigned from prewar cavalry regiments, quite a few of which were National Guard cavalry troops.

3rd Train Headquarters and Military Police.  Military police as a regular establishment was new to the Army at this time, and reflected its enormous growth.

3rd Ammunition Train.

3rd Supply Train

3rd Engineer Train

3rd Sanitary Train

5th, 7th, 26th, and 27th Ambulance Companies and Field Hospital

U.S. Military Farm No. I, at Versailles, May 30, 1918