Poster Saturday: "Hey Fellows"

A poster for a campaign that started the week the war ended:

Countdown on the Great War, November 10, 1918: A Socialist Provisional Government forms in Germany, the Naval War continues on, and Mildred Harris weds.

American engineers constructing a bridge in a ruined French city.  November 10, 1918.

1.  The HMS Ascot, a minesweeper, was sunk by the UB-67 with the loss of 51 hands.  The HMT Renarro, a British Navy trawler hit a mine and sank as did the Italian 36PN torpedo boat.

2.  Romania, which earlier surrendered to Germany, came back into the war in order to retake territory it had lost in the peace to Bulgaria. Allied forces entered Svishtov and Nikopol in Bulgaria.

3.  The Council of the People's Deputies becomes the provisional government of Germany with the aim of negotiating a peace with the Allies.  It's membership is completely comprised of members of the Social Democratic Party and the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany, making it a highly left wing ruling body, which came about when the SDP, which had evolved into a much less radical party in recent years, co-opted some revolutionary councils the day prior after it found it could not stop them from pushing forward.  The inclusion of the USDP was a distasteful necessity at first, even though the SDP did not see eye to eye on most things.

This essentially meant that to a degree the aims of the German revolutionaries had been partially recognized and in fact a government partially installed by them was in power, although one that had, due to the SDP, much less radical aims than the USDP.  The government would sweep away Germany's tiered franchise and introduce many liberal reforms before yielding to the Reichstag in 1919, by which time the USDP had pulled out of the government and the SDP was ruling alone.   The SDP under Friedrich Ebert, it's leader, would find itself thereafter increasingly aligned with Germany's conservative elements and it even would rely upon the Freikorps to take on left wing revolutionaries during the German civil war.

4.  With the war winding down, even celebrity news, albeit local celebrity news, started to reappear on the front page of the papers.

The Cheyenne girl was Mildred Harris.  As we've reported on her before:

Mildred Harris.  Her entry in Today In  Wyoming's History:  

1901  Mildred Harris, movie actress, born in Cheyenne.  She was a significant actress in the silent film era, having gone from being a child actor to a major adult actress, but had difficulty making the transition to talking pictures.

Harris is also evidence that, in spite of my notation of changes in moral standards elsewhere, the lives of movie stars has often been as torrid as they are presently.  Harris married Charlie Chaplin in 1918, at which time she was 17 years old and the couple thought, incorrectly, that  she was pregnant.  She did later give birth during their brief marriage to a boy who was severely disabled, and who died only three days after being born.  The marriage was not a happy one.  They divorced after two years of marriage, and she would marry twice more and was married to former professional football player William P. Fleckenstein at the time of her death, a union that had lasted ten years.  Ironically, she appeared in three films in 1920, the year of her divorce, as Mildred Harris Chaplin, the only films in which she was billed under that name. While an actress probably mostly known to silent film buffs today, she lived in some ways a life that touched upon many remembered personalities of the era, and which was also somewhat stereotypically Hollywood.  She introduced Edward to Wallis Simpson.

She died in 1944 at age 42 of pneumonia following surgery.  She has a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  A significant number of her 134 films are lost or destroyed due to film deterioration.  Her appearances in the last eight years of her life were minor, and unaccredited, showing the decline of her star power in the talking era.

Stories like hers, however, demonstrate that the often held concept of great isolation of Wyomingites was never true.  Harris was one of at least three actors and actresses who were born in Wyoming and who had roles in the early silent screen era.  Of those, she was arguably the most famous having risen to the height of being a major actress by age 16.

Some say the Vikings took cats with them.

Welcome to Norway

Roads to the Great War: How Finland Gained Its Independence

Roads to the Great War: How Finland Gained Its Independence: From "The Baltic States from 1914 to 1923: The First World War and the Wars of Independence,"  Lt. Col. Andrew Parrott, Baltic ...

Countdown on the Great War, November 9, 1918: The End of the German Empire.

1.  Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany abdicates as Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia, facing the reality of the revolution in Germany.  The abdication is announced by Chancellor Maximilian of Baden who resigns later that day in favor of Social Democrat Freidrich Ebert.  Germany is then declared a republic.  This made the impending end of the war inevitable and obvious to all.

The Casper Daily Tribune was not subtle in its views on the Kaiser.

The German empire, which came into being in 1870, with the King of Prussia perpetually as its Emperor, was at an end.  Monarchy in Germany, which saw many royal titles lessor than Emperor including various kings, was also at an end.  Wilhelm went into exile in the Netherlands where he would live to see the beginning of World War Two, passing away in June 1941.

The Casper Daily Press was more subdued in its reporting and correctly noted that things weren't over yet.  It was incorrect in the establishment of a German regency. . . and in the spelling of cavalry.  It noted, however, the ongoing disaster of the Spanish Flu, which the other Casper paper managed to miss.

In a lot of ways, he was the worst possible German monarch for his times, taking his imperial role seriously even until his death, and remaining a German chauvinist in spite of the disaster that he had lead his nation into.  Ironically, his parents had very much sympathized with republican ideals and likely would have moved the country in that direction if they'd been allowed to. Wilhelm, however, idolized imperial military ideals since his childhood.

This Cheyenne paper correctly predicted the probable remaining length of the war.

His resignation paved the way to an end of the war in very short order, but it also permanently tainted the new Socialist German republic with the legacy of defeat and would help doom the democratic order in Germany.

The Laramie Boomerang was most subdued of all, but had the interesting headline of about the war solving the "social problem", demonstrating how war changes everything.  Also, a tragic community loss due to the war was reported.

Also complicit in the end of Imperial Germany, in all sorts of ways, was its Army.  And directly implicit in the final act of the German Empire was the Army's abandonment of the monarchy, something it would forget in short order as it began to reconstruct a false narrative of the war's end.

2.  The battleship HMS Britannia was sunk by the German submarine UB-50 with the loss of 50 hands.

The HMS Britannia sinking.

3.  The American Navy's cargo ship the USS Saetia was sunk by a mine laid by the U-117.

USS Saetia.

4.  Pieter Jelles Troelstra declared that a socialist revolution was possible in Denmark, leading to the arming of Dutch police officers.

5.  The Mexican government issues orders to discharge soldiers younger than 18 years of age.

Holscher's Hub: The Chute

Holscher's Hub: The Chute

Proper dressing for the Yeomanette. November 8, 1918.

Comparisons and Constrasts

A century old secretary that belonged to my Great Aunt Philomene who served as a Canadian nurse in World War One. . . an almost new computer. . . a fountain pen in electric green.

Countdown on the Great War: The Kingdom of Bavaria ceases

Munich awakes on the Morning of November 8, 1918.

1.  The German armistice delegation meets with Foch and refers Allied terms back to Berlin by 1300.

2.  Senior German commanders inform the Chancellor that the German Army cannot be relied upon to suppress domestic insurrections, essentially informing the German government that they do not back the government due to the unreliability of their troops and implying that Kaiser Wilhelm must go.

The action seals the fate of the Kaiser and amounted to the leadership of the German army siding with the ongoing existence, they hoped, of their army over that of their Kaiser.  While their declaration that German soldiers were in fact unreliable (front line troops were more reliable than those in Germany, and the navy was completely unreliable) was both rational and correct, rationality came a bit late in the day.  It would ultimately result in the survival of the German army as an institution which would tragically lead to the Nazis and World War Two.

3.  British capture Avesnes and cross the Schledt.

4.  The People's State of Bavaria was declared in Bavaria as a self declared Bavarian socialist state.  None of its leaders were Bavarian.

5.  Ernest August, King of Wuerttemberg and Duke of Brunswick, abdicated his thrown in Brunswick.

Ernest August, King of Wuertemmberg and Duke of Brunswick.

6.  Crowds gather in Berlin demanding the resignation of the Kaiser.  Troops occupy essential services.

The 2018 Wyoming General Election (and the national election too).

Somehow it seemed like it was long in coming, perhaps because the primary seemed quite long, and then the post primary season was surprisingly anticlimactic.

Columbia is watching you. Do the right thing.

But it's finally here.

So, informed reader, go out and vote.

That's all that makes a democracy work, after all.

And everyone and everything depends upon an informed electorate.

What will occur?

Well, in this election in Wyoming the results seem pretty predictable, but we'll see by the end of the night.

And the national election, which in recent years have proven to be unpredictable, will be big news no matter what.

So, as the famous movie line goes, buckle up, we may be in for some bumpy weather. . . .or at least almost certainly some bumpy punditry, going into the news cycle tonight and certainly into the weekend news shows.

This post, of course, will one of those that will be updated as we find out what happened.

_________________________________________________________________________________

November 6, 2018

The use of red and blue for GOP and Dems just drives me nuts.  For the historically minded, it makes no sense at all.

Eee gads, whatever news network that came up with that several years ago should be sentenced to remedial history lessons.

_________________________________________________________________________________

November 7, 2018

It was a night of low drama in the Wyoming election. All the expected candidates won and by comfortable margins.

Mark Gordon took the Gubernatorial race with 67.4% of the votes, a commanding margin.  Mary Throne had run a good race, but her best chances were always in the event that one of the more right wing Republicans took the primary.  For awhile Gordon, whose race it "was to lose" according to one of the early reports about the GOP primary, looked like he might fall short in the primary, but when he prevailed in the GOP contest the results were predictable.  Perhaps what was not was the margin, as she took only 27.7%, a small percentage for a well run campaign.

"T" Rex Rammell, as he took to calling himself, fell flat getting only 3.3% of the vote.  The Constitution Party candidate had claimed that Republicans had asked him to run on the basis that Gordon was securing the GOP ticket by way of some sort of conspiracy and at least in debates he seemed to truly believe that he was the state's only hope against "turning blue" but rather obviously the voters were not impressed.   This isn't the first defeat for Rammell who should be receiving a message by now as a result.

Laurence Streumpf, who sounded surprisingly good in the debates (or at least the one debate I heard) came in below everyone else at 1.6%.  That's not good for the Libertarian candidate, but it does say something about Rammell's effort as its somewhat comparable and Streumpf hard ran at all.

In other races Edward Buchanan took the Secretary of State position with over 68% of the vote.  Melissa Racines absolutely dominated the race for Auditor, receiving 73.3% of the vote.  Curt Meier did nearly as well  with just under 73% of the vote.

John Barrasso turned out to easily defeat Gary Trauner, with Barrasso receiving 67.1% of the vote. Trauner, who nearly unseated Barbara Cubin in a race for Congress some years ago, ran a good campaign but it obviously fell far short in the end.  Likewise, Liz Cheney was reelected to the House with nearly 64% of the vote.  In both instances Albany County and Teton Counties voted for the Democratic candidate, which sends some sort of a message regarding those counties.  Trauner of course lives in Teton County and Democrat Greg Hunter lives in Albany County.

In other words, the Republicans not only had a good night in the Wyoming election, they dominated it, even picking up a State House Seat that had been occupied by a Democrat, although they also lost one to an Independent as well, so perhaps that was a numerical wash.  The GOP likewise picked up a Senate seat at the expensive of an incumbent Democrat.

Well what about the races nationwide, or more particularly for Congress?

Going into this election there was talk by the chromatically challenged press of their being a strong potential for a "blue wave", i.e., a large-scale Democratic victory in which Democrats would pick up the U.S. House and Senate. That was scaled back in recent days but there was still talk of a blue wave swamping the House.  It didn't occur.

The Republicans gained two seats in the Senate. The Democrats picked up 26 seats in the House in an election that received unusually high turn out. They thereby took the House.

For reasons that aren't really clear to me, a party needs 218 seats to control the House of Representatives and the Democrats secured 219, giving them control of the House.  That's nothing to sneeze at, but they barely made it and that wasn't what was anticipated early on.  And, moreover, in recent elections the House changing parties mid term has been the norm.

So what does that mean? Well, it means that we're back to an episode of divided government.  The Democrats have the House and the Republicans have the White House and the Senate.

Given the degree of polarization in Washington right now, indeed the nation, that likely means that for the next two years next to nothing will get done legislatively.  The Senate will be able to continue to confirm Presidential nominations with impunity so that part of President Trump's agenda will go unabated.  The Democrats in the House will have the subpoena power and will use it to hit many with the same for investigations it will no doubt launch.  Legislatively, anything that's not pretty much universally agreed to by both parties simply won't happen at all.  Maybe that's what people secretly want.

What it also means is that the Democrats are gong to have to determine what to do about Nancy Pelosi, who has given every sign of wanting to be Speaker of the House again.  Her prior recent episodes of leadership have not been stellar and there are Democrats who are indicating that they will challenge her.  My prediction is that she'll prevail and end up Speaker again, where she'll be no more effective than she has been on previous occasions.

What the national election additionally shows is that both parties have to demonstrate what they're about.  The GOP struggled with that unsuccessfully the past two years and never really came a definitive vision of itself.  In the Senate, where it remains more old school conservative than the house, the Republicans did well, which should tell them something.  In the House, where the message wasn't as clear, they did not do as well, although in fairness the House normally goes to the other party, at least recently, in the mid terms.  But the Democrats have not really done any better.  They did prevail, but the party retains very old leadership while having a base that in this election varied from the very far left, to the just mad, to a bit of a "blue dog" resurgence.  Nobody's message seems to be hitting home.

Everyone now has two years to ponder it and try to work that message out. During that two years, not much legislatively will be happening, which both parties will have to live with.

It probably should be additionally noted that the Democrats did really well with Gubernatorial races around the nation, which in recent years they have not.  They picked up seven seats to where they now hold 22 of the nation's 50. That's a big change from the current situation in which they had held 15.  Ted Cruz managed to hold on to his seat, but only barely.  Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts and one time candidate for President is going back to Washington as a Senator from Utah.  Across the nation, irrespective of the final numbers, some well known incumbent members of both parties went down in defeat, possibly showing that in at least some areas people are simply flat out mad.

Countdown on the Great War, November 7, 1918: The False Armistace, the Bavarian monarchy falls, the French and British explain the war against the Ottomans.

1. The False Armistice resulted in celebrations throughout the Allied nations as a false report that Germany had entered into an Armistice circulated and was widely reported.

A couple of Wyoming's newspapers, including the Casper Daily Tribune, did note the reports, but were hesitant about reporting them as fully accurate.  They would turn out not to be.

2.  The German Revolution spread to Hanover, Brunswick, Frankfurt, and Munich.  King Ludwig III of Bavaria was forced to flee with his family for what he thought would be a temporary departure, but which would not see him return as king.

The Bavarian Royal Family.

There was some irony to his being the first German monarch to fall.  He was already in his upper years at the time he had become king, in 1913, and therefore was not a long reigning German monarch.  He was additionally a staunch supporter of the direct right to vote, thereby putting him in sympathy with democratic aims.  Indeed, he'd run, unsuccessfully, as a candidate for the Reichstag and there was some belief that if the German Emperor were an elected position, he would likely have been the Emperor.

He was not in the direct line of succession for the Bavarian crown and also came to it by way of a change in the Bavarian constitution which allowed for the regent to declare himself king upon the incompetency of the rightful occupant, which he then did, thereby ending his regency for the severely mentally ill King Otto.

Ludwig was a direct descendant of both the French King Louis XIV and the Norman Duke and English King William of Normandy.

3.  The UK and France issued (maybe. . .it might have been November 9) the Anglo French Declaration retroactively declaring their war aims in the fight against the Ottoman Empire to have been the "complete and final" liberation of nations that had been part of the Ottoman Empire.

4.  The U.S. Third Army was established at Chaumont, France.  It would not see a mission until after the Armistice.

5. The English fishing smack Conster hit a mine and sank.

Roads to the Great War: Remembering a Veteran: “The Angel of Siberia,” Nur...

Roads to the Great War: Remembering a Veteran: “The Angel of Siberia,” Nur...: Elsa Brändström By James Patton Elsa Brändström (1888–1948) is famous for her work to improve the conditions for Central Powers ...

Countdown on the Great War, November 6, 1918. Americans switch horses in the middle of the stream, Wyomingites vote to go dry, French and Americans take Sedan, the Kaiser urged to go.

1.  It happened the day prior, November 5, 1918, but on this day the news of the Republican landslide that swept the nation hit the press, including the Wyoming press, where GOP candidates swept the field.

The news was surprising in some ways.  Wilson had done nationally, as had the Democrats, in recent elections, following the Republican civil war that had caused the party to split.  But something about the war changed everything, as wars do, and even though Americans had solidly backed the war effort, or at least most Americans had, going into the peace they were rejecting the President and his party.

Even Robert Carey Jr. was benefiting from the Republican rise. Carey had been the subject of a lot of reporting in the Fall as Governor Houx had offered him the command of the Wyoming National Guard and he'd declined, and then belatedly accepted after that position had been filled (as it was, the Wyoming National Guard, like many Guard units, didn't not go to Europe as a single unit anyhow).  In an era in which people publicly shamed "shirkers" that Carey was able to politically survive this decision is really remarkable.  Indeed, as Carey was only forty years old in 1918, his declination is in fact somewhat inexcusable.  No matter, Houx went down in the election.

And this would matter in the upcoming effort to secure a peace. Wilson had outlined his vision in his Fourteen Points.  Would a GOP Congress support it?  As would be seen, it wouldn't.

And that wasn't the only big election news.

Wyomingites also voted to go dry, voting two to one in favor of the Constitutional amendment to bring in Prohibition.

2.  The leader of the Reichstag urged Kaiser Wilhelm II to abdicate, in favor of a new monarch, seeing the only alternative to be the success of a socialist revolution.

3.  The American and French armies took Sedan and the surrounding territory.  The French army too Rethel and Vervins. The Canadian army entered Belgium.  Foch assigns the American Army to advance into Lorraine.

4.  The Polish Soviet of Delegates, obviously styling themselves after the Soviets of the USSR, established the Provisional People's Government with Ignacy Daszynski as Prime Minister. As a body, it would exist only an additional week until it turned over its duties to Jozef Pilsudski, famous Polish revolutionary leader, who was newly freed from German imprisonment.  On the same day, polish peasants led by Communist Tomasz Dabal took control of Tarnobrzeg Galicia and proclaimed it an independent republic.

5. The Dutch cargo ship Bernisse struck a mine and sank.

6. The Kiel rebellion begins to spread wildly to various German cities. 

The news could always be worse. . . . Finnish "National Jealousy Day"

From the New York Times:

HELSINKI, Finland — Shortly after 6 a.m. on Thursday, people began lining up outside the central office of the Finnish tax administration. It was chilly and dark, but they claimed their places, eager to be the first to tap into a mother lode of data.

Pamplona can boast of the running of the bulls, Rio de Janeiro has Carnival, but Helsinki is alone in observing “National Jealousy Day,” when every Finnish citizen’s taxable income is made public at 8 a.m. sharp.

Yikes.

Is citizenship a birthright? Politics and the U.S. Constitution.

I frankly thought that this was a universal norm.  I.e., I thought that every nation basically held that point of view.

It turns out that I was wrong, which surprises me:

Where Is Citizenship Granted By Birth?

As can be seen, it's actually a minority of countries that hold this view, although a substantial minority. Forty-one countries to be exact, although in five of them, that's somehow qualified in some manner (and I don't know in what manner).

This comes up, of course, due to the recent news that President Trump may attempt, by executive order, to hold that children born of non citizens are not American citizens.  This brings up the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which we hear about all the time in other context, but rarely in this one. The part of the Fourteenth Amendment we're hearing about now provides:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

We don't hear about this much as it hasn't been a matter of contested law.  I think everyone pretty much has held the view that the Fourteenth Amendment means that if you are born in the U.S., you are a citizen.

Now, it's actually a bit more nuanced than that, particularly in a historical context, but not much.

The amendment came about in the wake of the Civil War as there was some doubt about this due to the results of the war.  By and large it had always been the American view that if you were born in the United States you were a citizen, just as it had been the English view that if you were born anywhere in the United Kingdom or its Empire that you were a "subject" of the King.  The American oddity, however, is that this view cannot be accommodated to slavery, which was legal everywhere when the United States became a nation.  This was less of a problem, oddly enough, for the English as being a citizen isn't quite the same as a subject, but it was clearly an early problem for the United States.  Americans obviously couldn't accommodate slaves as citizens nor could the accommodate Indians as citizens, at least automatically, either.

The early U.S. Constitution didn't address this at all, except in reserving to Congress the right to deal with Indian tribes, implicitly thereby recognizing their sovereignty and thereby creating a peculiar subset of sovereignty, which in fairness also somewhat, but somewhat not, dated back to the Colonial era.  Indian tribes were sovereign, but only as sovereign as the U.S. decided they were.  Indians tribes that weren't fully incorporated into society at large were not citizens.  Slaves, of course, were also not citizens in those states were slavery was legal, but were where it wasn't.  If that seems really odd, keep in mind that before women were given the franchise nationally, they had the right to vote in some states and not others.  Allowing states to decide such things was pretty common.

But following the bloodbath of the Civil War disenfranchising blacks was obviously contrary to the position of the victor. That is, however, exactly what some Southern states would have done, maybe all of them, treating them effectively as non citizens due to their race, the same way that many Indian tribes were non citizens, although for a theoretically different reason.  The Fourteenth Amendment was passed to clear that issue up, along with a bunch of others.

The issue was cleared up for Indians in 1924, as shockingly late as that may seem, by way of a statutory provision, which stated:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all non citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States:

Provided That the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property.

Approved, June 2, 1924. June 2, 1924. [H. R. 6355.] [Public, No. 175.]
SIXTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. Sess. I. CHS. 233. 1924.

Note that the Indian Citizenship Act was tied to being "born within the territorial limits of the United States."  In other words, it adopted the same

So how does a question like this even come up?

It seems to have come up several years ago in the context of the children born of immigrants who have been given the term "anchor babies".  I.e., there was a concept that immigrants were running across the border just to have children so that these children could claim U.S. citizenship later on, and perhaps their parents could then legally migrate into the U.S., sponsored by their child.  I have no idea how common that was, but I suspect it wasn't hugely common.  Not that illegal immigrants don't have children in the U.S., they of course do, but the anchor baby situation was likely not terribly common.

I heard that term for the first time in a long time the other day again, but I think those who started opposing birthright citizenship several years ago had spread the concept out and left the anchor baby thing behind and instead were arguing that birthright citizenship doesn't exist in the U.S. because the reading of the Fourteenth Amendment that's generally accepted is incorrect.

Which takes us into odd territory.

Americans claim to love their Constitution, but in reality people tend to love parts of it, and others not so much.  The Constitution should be given its plain and ordinary meaning whenever possible, and then interpreted based upon legislative history when it can't be, but people oddly only like partially doing that.

Here, for example, I suspect that a lot of the people who are claiming that the plain and ordinary meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment is wrong and that birthright citizenship isn't protected by the Constitution would argue that the plain and ordinary meaning of the Second Amendment means exactly what it says.  I think they both mean exactly what they say.

Which takes us to this.  If people don't like the text of the Constitution, they can argue to change it. But people don't get to argue that one part should be interpreted as written while another should be read in a strained manner.

And yet politically, that tends to be what both camps do.

Countdown on the Great War, November 5, 1918. Heroism in the U.S. Army, Poland starts to form, German submarines hit again.

African American infantryman marching near Verdun, November 5, 1918.

1. The Allies inform Germany that negotiations may begin on the basis of President Wilson's Fourteen Points but that contact must be established through Marshall Foch.

2. Cpt. Marcellus H. Chiles engages in actions for which he would be awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor.  His citation reads:

When his battalion, of which he had just taken command, was halted by machinegun fire from the front and left flank, he picked up the rifle of a dead soldier and, calling on his men to follow led the advance across a stream, waist deep, in the face of the machinegun fire. Upon reaching the opposite bank this gallant officer was seriously wounded in the abdomen by a sniper, but before permitting himself to be evacuated he made complete arrangements for turning over his command to the next senior officer, and under the inspiration of his fearless leadership his battalion reached its objective. Capt. Chiles died shortly after reaching the hospital.

 Chiles entered the service from Denver Colorado.

 

Cpt. Chiles.

3.  The BEF cleared the Mormal Forest and the Canadians and British crossed the Grand Hornelle.

4.  The French take Chateau Porcien.

6. The Germans commence a retreat from the Meuse to Conde but order that the American Army is to be prevented from advancing north of Verdun.

7.  Enlisted sailors kill three officers and the captain of the battleship Koenig in the Baltic when they try to keep the sailors from hoisting a red flag as the sailors rebellion becomes increasing a radical Socialist one.  All German ships remaining in Kiel have the red flag hoisted on them on this day.

8.  The first Polish Soviet of Delegates meets to discuss establishing a Polish state. 

9.  The Lake Harris, an American armed merchant ship, was beached off of Lands End after a fire fight with a German submarine.  On the same day the Italian sailing ship Stavnos was sunk by the UC-74.

10.  Republicans win both houses of Congress by slim margins.  Due to the lack of instant reporting, however, you won't see any newspapers of today's date reporting that, as that would have to wait until the next day.

November 5, 1968. Election returns.

1.  From our companion blog, Today In Wyoming's History for November 5:

November 5

1968  Richard M. Nixon elected President of the United States.

Wyoming voted for Nixon, as it has for every Republican Presidential candidate after Lyndon Johnson.

1968  Republican John Wold elected as Congressman from Wyoming.  The Casper based oilman served one term as he gave up this seat to run unsuccessfully against incumbent Senator Gale McGee.

2. Shirley Chisholm of Brooklyn became the first African American woman elected to Congress, running on a Democratic ticket and defeating the heavily favored Liberal Party (but backed by the Republicans) candidate James L. Farmer, Jr.  In 1972 she ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic Party's Presidential nomination.

3.  Luis A. Ferre was elected Governor of Puerto Rico on a plat from seeking statehood.

Maybe not so much? RBG achieves Halloween costume status

Cuteness Overload: Kids & Pets In Ruth Bader Ginsburg Halloween Costumes

Simply adorable!

I have to think that Justice Ginsberg herself would find this odd.

It's odd in general how, every now and then, a public figures image just takes over and takes on a life of its own.  The "Notorious RBG's", the "Fabulous Ruth", etc, certainly has.  Halloween costumes wouldn't have occurred to me.

I can't think of a single other Supreme Court Justice to have every hit quite this status.  Indeed, I'm sure that none has.

No Kidding

From a Washington Post headline:

If Tiffany Trump wants to be just another Georgetown Law student, her plan isn’t working

No matter what you think of the President's family or the President one way or another, fitting in wasn't going to happen.

FWIW, I'm sufficiently ignorant on the President's family that I didn't know that there was a Tiffany Trump. 

Well, any way you look at it, she didn't have to go to law school, so she deserves credit for trying to do something.  Lots of folks from a famous family with lots of money wouldn't be motivated to do that.  It'll be interesting to see if she ever practices, as law is a very hard and difficult line of work that has been earnestly avoided by plenty of folks with law degrees, and with independent means, if they could, and they found out what it was like.

Countdown on the Great War, November 4, 1918: The last major battle on the Western Front and the Kiel Mutiny grows.

 New Zealanders scale the Sabre-Oise Canal wall in their last major action of World War One.  NOte that in this painting at least the officer at the bottom of the stairs is carrying a German P.08 and the one at the top appears to be as well.

1.  The British and French forces capture the Sambre-Oise, Le Qesnoy, and the towns of Guise  and Origney en Thierache in a series of abbltes known as the Battle of Sabmre, Second Battle of Guise and the Battle of Thierache.  Resistance was serious and heavy, but uneven, by the Germans and the British lost 1,150 men in the crossing of the canal.  Included in the causalities was the then unknown poet Wilfred Owen, whose poetry was actually not published until many years later.

The battles, featuring English, Canadian and New Zealand troops on the British side, French troops, and a few American troops, involved 28 Allied Divisions.  It was the last major battle for the Allies.  Following the battle Allied forces began to advance up to five miles per day.

This does not mean, however, that fighting had halted.  The Germans continued to resist, and sometimes stoutly.  And in the Meuse region the river had not yet been crossed.

2. American and French forces take Stenay and Dun sure Meuse

3. The Allies occupied the Tirol in Austria pursuant to the Armistice of Villa Giusti.  The Austrians further withdrew from Montenegro.

4.   German reservists were deployed to Kiel to put down the sailor's rebellion but large numbers of them joined the uprising upon reaching the city.  By the day's end the number of men declaring allegiance to the revolution number 40,000 and they issued fourteen demands upon the German government. The demands did not, interestingly, include the end of the monarchy, but they did demand that further defensive measures in the war not include bloodshed, which was tantamount to demanding a surrender.

5.  A massive late war dogfight over the western front occurred when forty German aircraft attacked nine British Sopwith Camels of No. 65 Squadron southeast of Ghent.  The British No. 204 Squadron joined the fight resulting in the loss of twenty two German aircraft.

6.  The Glacian region of Komancza (Eastern Lemko) declared itself a state with the intent of uniting itself to the West Ukranian People's Republic.  It would become part of Poland at the end of the Polish Ukranian War and today is part of Poland, Ukraine and Slovakia.

7.  The British ship War Roach collided with a mine and had to be beached off of Port Said, Egypt.

Sunday Morning Scene. Churches of the West: Our Lady of Light (Loretto) Chapel, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Churches of the West: Our Lady of Light (Loretto) Chapel, Santa Fe, New Mexico 

These photographs depict the Our Lady of Light (Loretto) Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Built from 1873 to 1878 for the Sisters of Loretto, who ran a school nearby, the chapel is famous for its spiral staircase, which has perplexed observers for decades. The staircase lacks a visible means of support, was built with only hammer and saw, and features only wooden nails.  The builder of the staircase is unknown, and left before being able to be paid.  Some claim the staircase as miraculous.  

The chapel was deconsecrated in 1971, following the closure of the school in 1968.  Today it is privately owned and features a museum and is used for a wedding chapel.

This chapel was built basically next door to the  Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, and was built while the cathedral was under construction.

Best Post of the Week of October 28, 2018

The bests post of the week of October 28, 1918.

Mid Week At Work (too late for National Cat Day): Cat on the Catwalk

Slowing down in more ways than one. . .

Poster Saturday: To The Young Women of London

Countdown on the Great War, November 3, 1918: A rebellion starts in Germany, Austro Hungaria gives up.

Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur of the 42nd Division, November 3, 1918, the day before the 42nd would return to the line and shortly before the then six time winner of the Silver Star was taken prisoner by soldiers of the 1st Division who mistook him for a German general.  He was always of unconventional dress.

1. The German Revolution of 1918-1919 starts with a mass meeting of German workers and sailors in Kiel who demanded "Peace and Bread". German police react by shooting into the crowd.  Sailors react by sending delegates out all over Germany.  In short order, the German Empire was facing the Allies in France and a revolution at home, following road that Austro Hungary had already gone down.  By November 4 Kiel itself would be in the hands of revolutionaries, soldiers having sent to restore order having been turned around or having joined in the rebellion.

2.  Austro Hungary signs the Armistice of Villa Guisti and quits the war.

3. The Provisional All Russian Government was established in Omsk to challenge the Bolshevik claim to government.  On the same day the Reds erected the Robespierre Monument in Moscow, which would collapse four days later.

Countdown on the Great War, November 2, 1918: British and Canadians take Valenciennes, German subs strike again, German sailors make demands, Polish Ukranian War spreads, and the Flu marches on.

Hugh Cairns, Canadian who posthumously won the Victoria Cross, the last VC awarded to a Canadian for action during the Great War.

1. Canadian and British troops capture Valenciennes, France, on the border with Belgium, after heavy fighting. During the fighting the heroism of Canadian Sgt. Hugh Cairns would result in his being awarded the last Victoria Cross of World War One to a Canadian soldier.  His citation reads:

For most conspicuous bravery before Valenciennes on 1st November, 1918, when a machine gun opened on his platoon. Without a moment's hesitation Serjt. Cairns seized a Lewis gun and single-handed, in the face of direct fire, rushed the post, killed the crew of five, and captured the gun. Later, when the line was held up by machine-gun fire, he again rushed forward, killing 12 enemy and capturing 18 and two guns.

Subsequently, when the advance was held up by machine guns and field guns, although wounded, he led a small party to outflank them, killing many, forcing about 50 to surrender, and capturing all the guns. After consolidation he went with a battle patrol to exploit Marly and forced 60 enemy to surrender. Whilst disarming this party he was severely wounded. Nevertheless, he opened fire and inflicted heavy losses. Finally he was rushed by about 20 enemy and collapsed from weakness and loss of blood. Throughout the operation he showed the highest degree of valour, and his leadership greatly contributed to the success of the attack. He died on the 2nd November from wounds.

2.  Allied forces in the Balkans reach Bosnia but halt as cease fire with a crumbling Astro Hungarian Empire is signed.

3.  The war started yesterday between Ukrainians and Poles in the Austro Hungarian territoryof Galicia spread to Przemyśl. The fighting would go on, with occasionally cease fires, with the town going back and forth between the various sides, for ten days until the Poles prevailed and were accordingly able to send supplies to Lvov.  Today the town is on the Polish Ukrainian border.

In 1918 the town had an overwhelming Polish majority population, with the second largest ethnic group being Polish Jews.  Poles, Polish Jews, and Ukrainians all had formed militias to defend their parts of the city before fighting had broken out.

4.  The British cargo ship Murcia was torpedoed by the German submarine UC-74 in the Mediterranean with the loss of one hand.  The Germans scuttled four submarines on the same date.

5.  Miss Hattie Raithel of Denver Colorado, volunteer Red Cross nurse, died of the Spanish Flu in England.

6.  German sailors held an open air meeting in Kiel to air their grievances and to try to gain closure tied to German unions (many of which the working class sailors would have been close to anyhow), the Independent Social Democratic Party adn the Social Democratic Party.  The result was a call for a subsequent larger mass meeting the following day.

Blog Mirror: Anti-Semitism and the broken promise of America

Robert J. Samuelson's recent Op-Ed in the Washington Post:

Anti-Semitism and the broken promise of America

This ties into a post I'm slow motion working on (i.e., it's just an idea).  An article well worth reading (as of course mine will be), including from the historical prospective provided by Samuelson.

Well more in an upcoming brilliant article to be seen here soon.

November 1, 1968: Operation Rolling Thunder ceases, the death of a Greek democrat, the alphabet at the movies.

1.  Aerial bombardment of North Vietnam by the United States was stopped at 21:00.   Also ceased was naval and ground bombardment into North Vietnamese territory.

Naval air strike in North Vietnam.  Note downed bridge.

2.  The Motion Picture Association of America's moving rating system, which at that time provided letter ratings of G, M, R or X, went into effect.

3.  Former Greek Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou, recently arrested from house arrest which was imposed upon him following a 1967 military coup, died following surgery for a perforated ulcer.  He had been Prime Minister of Greece three times, including during part of World War Two (in exile) and had been an important Greek political figure dating back to World War One, where he was in the pro Allied, anti Monarchy, camp.

Countdown on the Great War, November 1, 1918. The Polish Ukranian War erupts, Prince Max polls his princely fellows, Allies continue to advance.

1.  Prince Maximilian of Baden wrote the various German princes to ask if they would accept the resignation of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

1.  French and American forces captured Buzancy and Le Chesne.

2.  The Serbian First Army took Belgrade.

3.  The Italian Navy attached Austro Hungarian ships at Pula, Croatia, in the last surface engagement of World War One.  The Austro Hungarian battleship SMS Viribus Unitis was sunk by Italian sabateurs during the engagement resulting in the loss of over 300 of her crew.

Polish youth organization fighting in the Lwow cemetary.

3.  Poles in Lemberg (Lviv, Lwow) rose up against the establishment of the West Ukrainian People's Republic in Galicia, igniting the Polish-Ukrainian War.

That this would occur at this point was emblematic of the mess that post war Europe would be.  The region surrounding Lemberg was in fact largely Ukrainian ethnically but the town itself was largely Polish.  The Austro Hungarians had moved Ukranian troops into the town late in the war and on this day Ukranian troops effected a coup against the Austrian government in the town and declared the region to be the West Ukrainian People's Republic, a name that had an obvious link to what was going on to the east in Russia.  Polish armed resistance broke out that very day, mostly via armed civilians (include Boy Scouts).

The incident resulted in the Polish Ukrainian War as the two very closely related peoples, separated by relatively slight linguistic differences but definite religious differences, fought out what their borders would be.  Lwow was under seige until November 21, but ultimately the Ukrainians withdrew but surrounded it.  The war would end with Lwow and Galicia solidly within Polish territory, which meant that Poland not only took in a largely Polish city but also took in a Ukrainian surrounding population.  Following World War Two Poland's eastern and western borders were massively redrawn and the city today, as well as the surrounded parts of Galicia, are within Ukraine.

4. The Banat Republic was formed within what is now Romania but which was then part of Austro Hungaria.

5. The Polish Scouting and Guiding Association was established. . . right in the midst of the Great War, an odd thought.