December 2, 1918. Wilson speaks, the Papers Comment, Some Troops Come Home, Some go to their Final Resting Place, the Post War World National and Local starts to emerge.

This day, which was a Monday in 1918.  Woodrow Wilson gave his fist post war State of the Union address. 

It's interesting to note that Wilson, in spite of serving a full eight years during which the world was at war for four of which, and during which the United States teetered close to war for nearly the entire time, he only delivered one address while the nation was actually at war.

The address was a significant one dealing with the post war world, how Wilson envisioned it, and the peace.

The address:

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS:

The year that has elapsed since I last stood before you to fulfill my constitutional duty to give to the Congress from time to time information on the state of the Union has been so crowded with great events, great processes, and great results that I cannot hope to give you an adequate picture of its transactions or of the far-reaching changes which have been wrought of our nation and of the world. You have yourselves witnessed these things, as I have. It is too soon to assess them; and we who stand in the midst of them and are part of them are less qualified than men of another generation will be to say what they mean, or even what they have been. But some great outstanding facts are unmistakable and constitute, in a sense, part of the public business with which it is our duty to deal. To state them is to set the stage for the legislative and executive action which must grow out of them and which we have yet to shape and determine.

A year ago we had sent 145,918 men overseas. Since then we have sent 1,950,513, an average of 162,542 each month, the number in fact rising, in May last, to 245,951, in June to 278,760, in July to 307,182, and continuing to reach similar figures in August and September, in August 289,570 and in September 257,438. No such movement of troops ever took place before, across three thousand miles of sea, followed by adequate equipment and supplies, and carried safely through extraordinary dangers of attack,-dangers which were alike strange and infinitely difficult to guard against. In all this movement only seven hundred and fifty-eight men were lost by enemy attack, six hundred and thirty of whom were upon a single English transport which was sunk near the Orkney Islands.

I need not tell you what lay back of this great movement of men and material. It is not invidious to say that back of it lay a supporting organization of the industries of the country and of all its productive activities more complete, more thorough in method and effective in result, more spirited and unanimous in purpose and effort than any other great belligerent had been able to effect. We profited greatly by the experience of the nations which had already been engaged for nearly three years in the exigent and exacting business, their every resource and every executive proficiency taxed to the utmost. We were their pupils. But we learned quickly and acted with a promptness and a readiness of cooperation that justify our great pride that we were able to serve the world with unparalleled energy and quick accomplishment.

But it is not the physical scale and executive efficiency of preparation, supply, equipment and despatch that I would dwell upon, but the mettle and quality of the officers and men we sent over and of the sailors who kept the seas, and the spirit of the nation that stood behind them. No soldiers or sailors ever proved themselves more quickly ready for the test of battle or acquitted themselves with more splendid courage and achievement when put to the test. Those of us who played some part in directing the great processes by which the war was pushed irresistibly forward to the final triumph may now forget all that and delight our thoughts with the story of what our men did. Their officers understood the grim and exacting task they had undertaken and performed it with an audacity, efficiency, and unhesitating courage that touch the story of convoy and battle with imperishable distinction at every turn, whether the enterprise were great or small, from their great chiefs, Pershing and Sims, down to the youngest lieutenant; and their men were worthy of them,-such men as hardly need to be commanded, and go to their terrible adventure blithely and with the quick intelligence of those who know just what it is they would accomplish. I am proud to be the fellow-countryman of men of such stuff and valor. Those of us who stayed at home did our duty; the war could not have been won or the gallant men who fought it given their opportunity to win it otherwise; but for many a long day we shall think ourselves "accurs'd we were not there, and hold our manhoods cheap while any speaks that fought" with these at St. Mihiel or Thierry. The memory of those days of triumphant battle will go with these fortunate men to their graves; and each will have his favorite memory. "Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, but hell remember with advantages what feats he did that day!"

What we all thank God for with deepest gratitude is that our men went in force into the line of battle just at the critical moment when the whole fate of the world seemed to hang in the balance and threw their fresh strength into the ranks of freedom in time to turn the whole tide and sweep of the fateful struggle,-turn it once for all, so that thenceforth it was back, back, back for their enemies, always back, never again forward! After that it was only a scant four months before the commanders of the Central Empires knew themselves beaten; and now their very empires are in liquidation!

And throughout it all how fine the spirit of the nation was: what unity of purpose, what untiring zeal! What elevation of purpose ran through all its splendid display of strength, its untiring accomplishment! I have said that those of us who stayed at home to do the work of organization and supply will always wish that we had been with the men whom we sustained by our labor; but we can never be ashamed. It has been an inspiring thing to be here in the midst of fine men who had turned aside from every private interest of their own and devoted the whole of their trained capacity to the tasks that supplied the sinews of the whole great undertaking! The patriotism, the unselfishness, the thoroughgoing devotion and distinguished capacity that marked their toilsome labors, day after day, month after month, have made them fit mates and comrades of the men in the trenches and on the sea. And not the men here in Washington only. They have but directed the vast achievement. Throughout innumerable factories, upon innumerable farms, in the depths of coal mines and iron mines and copper mines, wherever the stuffs of industry were to be obtained and prepared, in the shipyards, on the railways, at the docks, on the sea, in every labor that was needed to sustain the battle lines, men have vied with each other to do their part and do it well. They can look any man-at-arms in the face, and say, We also strove to win and gave the best that was in us to make our fleets and armies sure of their triumph!

And what shall we say of the women,-of their instant intelligence, quickening every task that they touched; their capacity for organization and cooperation, which gave their action discipline and enhanced the effectiveness of everything they attempted; their aptitude at tasks to which they had never before set their hands; their utter self-sacrifice alike in what they did and in what they gave? Their contribution to the great result is beyond appraisal. They have added a new lustre to the annals of American womanhood.
The least tribute we can pay them is to make them the equals of men in political rights as they have proved themselves their equals in every field of practical work they have entered, whether for themselves or for their country. These great days of completed achievement would be sadly marred were we to omit that act of justice. Besides the immense practical services they have rendered the women of the country have been the moving spirits in the systematic economies by which our people have voluntarily assisted to supply the suffering peoples of the world and the armies upon every front with food and everything else that we had that might serve the common cause. The details of such a story can never be fully written, but we carry them at our hearts and thank God that we can say that we are the kinsmen of such.

And now we are sure of the great triumph for which every sacrifice was made. It has come, come in its completeness, and with the pride and inspiration of these days of achievement quick within us, we turn to the tasks of peace again,-a peace secure against the violence of irresponsible monarchs and ambitious military coteries and made ready for a new order, for new foundations of justice and fair dealing.

We are about to give order and organization to this peace not only for ourselves but for the other peoples of the world as well, so far as they will suffer us to serve them. It is international justice that we seek, not domestic safety merely. Our thoughts have dwelt of late upon Europe, upon Asia, upon the near and the far East, very little upon the acts of peace and accommodation that wait to be performed at our own doors. While we are adjusting our relations with the rest of the world is it not of capital importance that we should clear away all grounds of misunderstanding with our immediate neighbors and give proof of the friendship we really feel? I hope that the members of the Senate will permit me to speak once more of the unratified treaty of friendship and adjustment with the Republic of Colombia. I very earnestly urge upon them an early and favorable action upon that vital matter. I believe that they will feel, with me, that the stage of affairs is now set for such action as will be not only just but generous and in the spirit of the new age upon which we have so happily entered.

So far as our domestic affairs are concerned the problem of our return to peace is a problem of economic and industrial readjustment. That problem is less serious for us than it may turn out too he for the nations which have suffered the disarrangements and the losses of war longer than we. Our people, moreover, do not wait to be coached and led. They know their own business, are quick and resourceful at every readjustment, definite in purpose, and self-reliant in action. Any leading strings we might seek to put them in would speedily become hopelessly tangled because they would pay no attention to them and go their own way. All that we can do as their legislative and executive servants is to mediate the process of change here, there, and elsewhere as we may. I have heard much counsel as to the plans that should be formed and personally conducted to a happy consummation, but from no quarter have I seen any general scheme of "reconstruction" emerge which I thought it likely we could force our spirited business men and self-reliant laborers to accept with due pliancy and obedience.

While the war lasted we set up many agencies by which to direct the industries of the country in the services it was necessary for them to render, by which to make sure of an abundant supply of the materials needed, by which to check undertakings that could for the time be dispensed with and stimulate those that were most serviceable in war, by which to gain for the purchasing departments of the Government a certain control over the prices of essential articles and materials, by which to restrain trade with alien enemies, make the most of the available shipping, and systematize financial transactions, both public and private, so that there would be no unnecessary conflict or confusion,-by which, in short, to put every material energy of the country in harness to draw the common load and make of us one team in the accomplishment of a great task. But the moment we knew the armistice to have been signed we took the harness off. Raw materials upon which the Government had kept its hand for fear there should not be enough for the industries that supplied the armies have been released and put into the general market again. Great industrial plants whose whole output and machinery had been taken over for the uses of the Government have been set free to return to the uses to which they were put before the war. It has not been possible to remove so readily or so quickly the control of foodstuffs and of shipping, because the world has still to be fed from our granaries and the ships are still needed to send supplies to our men overseas and to bring the men back as fast as the disturbed conditions on the other side of the water permit; but even there restraints are being relaxed as much as possible and more and more as the weeks go by.

Never before have there been agencies in existence in this country which knew so much of the field of supply, of labor, and of industry as the War Industries Board, the War Trade Board, the Labor Department, the Food Administration, and the Fuel Administration have known since their labors became thoroughly systematized; and they have not been isolated agencies; they have been directed by men who represented the permanent Departments of the Government and so have been the centres of unified and cooperative action. It has been the policy of the Executive, therefore, since the armistice was assured (which is in effect a complete submission of the enemy) to put the knowledge of these bodies at the disposal of the business men of the country and to offer their intelligent mediation at every point and in every matter where it was desired. It is surprising how fast the process of return to a peace footing has moved in the three weeks since the fighting stopped. It promises to outrun any inquiry that may be instituted and any aid that may be offered. It will not be easy to direct it any better than it will direct itself. The American business man is of quick initiative.

The ordinary and normal processes of private initiative will not, however, provide immediate employment for all of the men of our returning armies. Those who are of trained capacity, those who are skilled workmen, those who have acquired familiarity with established businesses, those who are ready and willing to go to the farms, all those whose aptitudes are known or will be sought out by employers will find no difficulty, it is safe to say, in finding place and employment. But there will be others who will be at a loss where to gain a livelihood unless pains are taken to guide them and put them in the way of work. There will be a large floating residuum of labor which should not be left wholly to shift for itself. It seems to me important, therefore, that the development of public works of every sort should be promptly resumed, in order that opportunities should be created for unskilled labor in particular, and that plans should be made for such developments of our unused lands and our natural resources as we have hitherto lacked stimulation to undertake.

I particularly direct your attention to the very practical plans which the Secretary of the Interior has developed in his annual report and before your Committees for the reclamation of arid, swamp, and cutover lands which might, if the States were willing and able to cooperate, redeem some three hundred million acres of land for cultivation. There are said to be fifteen or twenty million acres of land in the West, at present arid, for whose reclamation water is available, if properly conserved. There are about two hundred and thirty million acres from which the forests have been cut but which have never yet been cleared for the plow and which lie waste and desolate. These lie scattered all over the Union. And there are nearly eighty million acres of land that lie under swamps or subject to periodical overflow or too wet for anything but grazing, which it is perfectly feasible to drain and protect and redeem. The Congress can at once direct thousands of the returning soldiers to the reclamation of the arid lands which it has already undertaken, if it will but enlarge the plans and appropriations which it has entrusted to the Department of the Interior. It is possible in dealing with our unused land to effect a great rural and agricultural development which will afford the best sort of opportunity to men who want to help themselves and the Secretary of the Interior has thought the possible methods out in a way which is worthy of your most friendly attention.

I have spoken of the control which must yet for a while, perhaps for a long long while, be exercised over shipping because of the priority of service to which our forces overseas are entitled and which should also be accorded the shipments which are to save recently liberated peoples from starvation and many devastated regions from permanent ruin. May I not say a special word about the needs of Belgium and northern France? No sums of money paid by way of indemnity will serve of themselves to save them from hopeless disadvantage for years to come. Something more must be done than merely find the money. If they had money and raw materials in abundance to-morrow they could not resume their place in the industry of the world to-morrow,-the very important place they held before the flame of war swept across them. Many of their factories are razed to the ground. Much of their machinery is destroyed or has been taken away. Their people are scattered and many of their best workmen are dead. Their markets will be taken by others, if they are not in some special way assisted to rebuild their factories and replace their lost instruments of manufacture. They should not be left to the vicissitudes of the sharp competition for materials and for industrial facilities which is now to set in. I hope, therefore, that the Congress will not be unwilling, if it should become necessary, to grant to some such agency as the War Trade Board the right to establish priorities of export and supply for the benefit of these people whom we have been so happy to assist in saving from the German terror and whom we must not now thoughtlessly leave to shift for themselves in a pitiless competitive market.

For the steadying, and facilitation of our own domestic business readjustments nothing is more important than the immediate determination of the taxes that are to be levied for 1918, 1919, and 1920. As much of the burden of taxation must be lifted from business as sound methods of financing the Government will permit, and those who conduct the great essential industries of the country must be told as exactly as possible what obligations to the Government they will be expected to meet in the years immediately ahead of them. It will be of serious consequence to the country to delay removing all uncertainties in this matter a single day longer than the right processes of debate justify. It is idle to talk of successful and confident business reconstruction before those uncertainties are resolved.

If the war had continued it would have been necessary to raise at least eight billion dollars by taxation payable in the year 1919; but the war has ended and I agree with the Secretary of the Treasury that it will be safe to reduce the amount to six billions. An immediate rapid decline in the expenses of the Government is not to be looked for. Contracts made for war supplies will, indeed, be rapidly cancelled and liquidated, but their immediate liquidation will make heavy drains on the Treasury for the months just ahead of us. The maintenance of our forces on the other side of the sea is still necessary. A considerable proportion of those forces must remain in Europe during the period of occupation, and those which are brought home will be transported and demobilized at heavy expense for months to come. The interest on our war debt must of course be paid and provision made for the retirement of the obligations of the Government which represent it. But these demands will of course fall much below what a continuation of military operations would have entailed and six billions should suffice to supply a sound foundation for the financial operations of the year.

I entirely concur with the Secretary of the Treasury in recommending that the two billions needed in addition to the four billions provided by existing law be obtained from the profits which have accrued and shall accrue from war contracts and distinctively war business, but that these taxes be confined to the war profits accruing in 1918, or in 1919 from business originating in war contracts. I urge your acceptance of his recommendation that provision be made now, not subsequently, that the taxes to be paid in 1920 should be reduced from six to four billions. Any arrangements less definite than these would add elements of doubt and confusion to the critical period of industrial readjustment through which the country must now immediately pass, and which no true friend of the nation's essential business interests can afford to be responsible for creating or prolonging. Clearly determined conditions, clearly and simply charted, are indispensable to the economic revival and rapid industrial development which may confidently be expected if we act now and sweep all interrogation points away.

I take it for granted that the Congress will carry out the naval programme which was undertaken before we entered the war. The Secretary of the Navy has submitted to your Committees for authorization that part of the programme which covers the building plans of the next three years. These plans have been prepared along the lines and in accordance with the policy which the Congress established, not under the exceptional conditions of the war, but with the intention of adhering to a definite method of development for the navy. I earnestly recommend the uninterrupted pursuit of that policy. It would clearly be unwise for us to attempt to adjust our programmes to a future world policy as yet undetermined.

The question which causes me the greatest concern is the question of the policy to be adopted towards the railroads. I frankly turn to you for counsel upon it. I have no confident judgment of my own. I do not see how any thoughtful man can have who knows anything of the complexity of the problem. It is a problem which must be studied, studied immediately, and studied without bias or prejudice. Nothing can be gained by becoming partisans of any particular plan of settlement.

It was necessary that the administration of the railways should be taken over by the Government so long as the war lasted. It would have been impossible otherwise to establish and carry through under a single direction the necessary priorities of shipment. It would have been impossible otherwise to combine maximum production at the factories and mines and farms with the maximum possible car supply to take the products to the ports and markets; impossible to route troop shipments and freight shipments without regard to the advantage or-disadvantage of the roads employed; impossible to subordinate, when necessary, all questions of convenience to the public necessity; impossible to give the necessary financial support to the roads from the public treasury. But all these necessities have now been served, and the question is, What is best for the railroads and for the public in the future?

Exceptional circumstances and exceptional methods of administration were not needed to convince us that the railroads were not equal to the immense tasks of transportation imposed upon them by the rapid and continuous development of the industries of the country. We knew that already. And we knew that they were unequal to it partly because their full cooperation was rendered impossible by law and their competition made obligatory, so that it has been impossible to assign to them severally the traffic which could best be carried by their respective lines in the interest of expedition and national economy.

We may hope, I believe, for the formal conclusion of the war by treaty by the time Spring has come. The twenty-one months to which the present control of the railways is limited after formal proclamation of peace shall have been made will run at the farthest, I take it for granted, only to the January of 1921. The full equipment of the railways which the federal administration had planned could not be completed within any such period. The present law does not permit the use of the revenues of the several roads for the execution of such plans except by formal contract with their directors, some of whom will consent while some will not, and therefore does not afford sufficient authority to undertake improvements upon the scale upon which it would be necessary to undertake them. Every approach to this difficult subject-matter of decision brings us face to face, therefore, with this unanswered question: What is it right that we should do with the railroads, in the interest of the public and in fairness to their owners?

Let me say at once that I have no answer ready. The only thing that is perfectly clear to me is that it is not fair either to the public or to the owners of the railroads to leave the question unanswered and that it will presently become my duty to relinquish control of the roads, even before the expiration of the statutory period, unless there should appear some clear prospect in the meantime of a legislative solution. Their release would at least produce one element of a solution, namely certainty and a quick stimulation of private initiative.

I believe that it will be serviceable for me to set forth as explicitly as possible the alternative courses that lie open to our choice. We can simply release the roads and go back to the old conditions of private management, unrestricted competition, and multiform regulation by both state and federal authorities; or we can go to the opposite extreme and establish complete government control, accompanied, if necessary, by actual government ownership; or we can adopt an intermediate course of modified private control, under a more unified and affirmative public regulation and under such alterations of the law as will permit wasteful competition to be avoided and a considerable degree of unification of administration to be effected, as, for example, by regional corporations under which the railways of definable areas would be in effect combined in single systems.

The one conclusion that I am ready to state with confidence is that it would be a disservice alike to the country and to the owners of the railroads to return to the old conditions unmodified. Those are conditions of restraint without development. There is nothing affirmative or helpful about them. What the country chiefly needs is that all its means of transportation should be developed, its railways, its waterways, its highways, and its countryside roads. Some new element of policy, therefore, is absolutely necessary—necessary for the service of the public, necessary for the release of credit to those who are administering the railways, necessary for the protection of their security holders. The old policy may be changed much or little, but surely it cannot wisely be left as it was. I hope that the Con will have a complete and impartial study of the whole problem instituted at once and prosecuted as rapidly as possible. I stand ready and anxious to release the roads from the present control and I must do so at a very early date if by waiting until the statutory limit of time is reached I shall be merely prolonging the period of doubt and uncertainty which is hurtful to every interest concerned.

I welcome this occasion to announce to the Congress my purpose to join in Paris the representatives of the governments with which we have been associated in the war against the Central Empires for the purpose of discussing with them the main features of the treaty of peace. I realize the great inconveniences that will attend my leaving the country, particularly at this time, but the conclusion that it was my paramount duty to go has been forced upon me by considerations which I hope will seem as conclusive to you as they have seemed to me.

The Allied governments have accepted the bases of peace which I outlined to the Congress on the eighth of January last, as the Central Empires also have, and very reasonably desire my personal counsel in their interpretation and application, and it is highly desirable that I should give it in order that the sincere desire of our Government to contribute without selfish purpose of any kind to settlements that will be of common benefit to all the nations concerned may be made fully manifest. The peace settlements which are now to be agreed upon are of transcendent importance both to us and to the rest of the world, and I know of no business or interest which should take precedence of them. The gallant men of our armed forces on land and sea have consciously fought for the ideals which they knew to be the ideals of their country; I have sought to express those ideals; they have accepted my statements of them as the substance of their own thought and purpose, as the associated governments have accepted them; I owe it to them to see to it, so far as in me lies, that no false or mistaken interpretation is put upon them, and no possible effort omitted to realize them. It is now my duty to play my full part in making good what they offered their life's blood to obtain. I can think of no call to service which could transcend this.

I shall be in close touch with you and with affairs on this side the water, and you will know all that I do. At my request, the French and English governments have absolutely removed the censorship of cable news which until within a fortnight they had maintained and there is now no censorship whatever exercised at this end except upon attempted trade communications with enemy countries. It has been necessary to keep an open wire constantly available between Paris and the Department of State and another between France and the Department of War. In order that this might be done with the least possible interference with the other uses of the cables, I have temporarily taken over the control of both cables in order that they may be used as a single system. I did so at the advice of the most experienced cable officials, and I hope that the results will justify my hope that the news of the next few months may pass with the utmost freedom and with the least possible delay from each side of the sea to the other.

May I not hope, Gentlemen of the Congress, that in the delicate tasks I shall have to perform on the other side of the sea, in my efforts truly and faithfully to interpret the principles and purposes of the country we love, I may have the encouragement and the added strength of your united support? I realize the magnitude and difficulty of the duty I am undertaking; I am poignantly aware of its grave responsibilities. I am the servant of the nation. I can have no private thought or purpose of my own in performing such an errand. I go to give the best that is in me to the common settlements which I must now assist in arriving at in conference with the other working heads of the associated governments. I shall count upon your friendly countenance and encouragement. I shall not be inaccessible. The cables and the wireless will render me available for any counsel or service you may desire of me, and I shall be happy in the thought that I am constantly in touch with the weighty matters of domestic policy with which we shall have to deal. I shall make my absence as brief as possible and shall hope to return with the happy assurance that it has been possible to translate into action the great ideals for which America has striven.

The importance of the speech wasn't lost on the press, which reported on it that very day.  Not surprisingly, in a railroad town like Laramie, the press noted that Wilson wasn't in favor of relinquishing government control of the railroads.  This had been a major feature of the war and in fact the country had nationalized the lines during the war, something it didn't have to do during World War Two. That rationalized rail transport and kept labor demands in check, but it wasn't universally popular and had some odd collateral impacts.

Colorado Midland advertisement. The Colorado Midland had seen its business dramatically expand, and then collapse, under government control.  It went bankrupt in 1918 as a result.

The Boomerang was late on U.S. troops arriving in Germany.  They'd already done that.

Cold and snow as in the forecast, just like the day on which I'm writing this.

The Cheyenne paper reported on the speech as well, but it was also noting the shopping frenzy of the season in a cartoon, once again giving evidence to the popular concept of the commercialization of Christmas being a recent phenomenon to be in error.

The Cheyenne paper was reporting on a royalist plot in Germany.  I'm not familiar with that event, but then I'm not familiar in detail with all of the chaotic events of the immediate post war world in Germany.

Can anyone recommend a book on that?

Anyhow, this event was mentioned in a lot of newspapers at the time, and in fact the upper ranks of the German military never really lost their royalist views.  Indeed, one of the often missed features of the Nazi militarization of the 1930s was a dedicated effort to wrestle control of the military away from the German aristocratic class, something that would have an overall negative impact on world events as the new officers very often indeed had Nazi loyalties, where as the old officer class was loyal principally to its own class.  Neither situation was great, obviously, but Nazi loyalties were obviously worse.

The paper in Cheyenne also reported that the Bolsheviks in Russia were up to no good, which indeed was true.

The Casper paper also reported on the plot in Germany but a preview of coming attractions was given in the report of a shooting at the Midwest Hotel in Casper.  Casper's population had exploded during the war and an old red light district had expanded into a major feature of the town, the legendary Sand Bar district. The Midwest Hotel was literally right on the boundary of the district.

The papers at that time typically wrote headlines in this frankly racist fashion.  Violence in the Sand Bar was hardly confined to one race, but when African Americans were involved in it, their race was featured, as here, in the headline all too often.

Of course, with the war now over (save for in Russia) a lot was going on elsewhere. . .

 RMS Mauretania in New York City with American aviators and other troops returning from Europe after World War I on December 2, 1918.

The rather shocking speed at which the United States demobilized in 1918-1919 is demonstrated by the above.  The RMS Mauretania brought home more than aviators, it also brought home ground troops, who disembarked in New York.  The U.S. was already bringing soldiers home.  Indeed, the American military was clearing out of the United Kingdom as quickly as possible.

There are a lot of reasons that this was the case, but it shows the old line about the Vietnam War, often said about World War Two, may not be fully informed.  That classic assertion is that at the end of the Second World War there was a long stay in Europe or Asia followed by a long sea voyage home where as during the Vietnam War you were just brought home and dumped off.  There's something to that, but at least at the end of World War One the U.S. was speeding some troops home. These guys would not be in uniform long.  

Of course, that says nothing really about what happened during the second war.  There were a lot of U.S. mistakes made in regard to everything in World War One, and things may very well have been different some twenty plus years later.

Graves Registration Service This skirmish line (detail of Company A, 321 Labor Battalion) is searching for bodies along the south bank of the Vesle River, near Bazoches. The stretchers are used to transport the bodies to the cemetery. December 2, 1918

Not everyone was coming right home, of course.  Over 1,000,000 U.S. troops in France were going into Germany for occupation duty.

And some American soldiers were never coming home.  These photographs show the grim details of a Grave Registration unit at work.  Note that this unit is all black, showing how the inclination to assign black troops to service units was there during World War One.  More black troops served in service units than in combat units in the Great War, a trend that would continue on into World War Two when almost all black troops were in service units until the end of the war, when that policy in the still segregated Army was reversed (the Marines didn't take in black enlistees at all until mid World War Two).  During WWI there were black combat units including some state units with mostly black officers, however, so things actually were somewhat more equitable in WWI than they became by WWII.

 One of the trenches ready for the reception of the bodies at the cemetery at Fère-en-Tardenois / Signal Corps, U.S.A.

Some of those troops who would be coming home were convalescing in England and France.  Here, some of those in the UK put on a show for local residents, who seemed to enjoy it, but must have found it odd after their own sons and daughters had been serving for a full four years in many instances.

This soldier in a wheelchair is supposed to be a tank. Note he's holding a M1917 revolver, no doubt removed from the holster of the soldier who is pushing him.

Sunday Morning Scene: Some Gave All: Belleau Wood, France. Chapel

Some Gave All: Belleau Wood,France.

This is part of a much larger set of photographs on our Companion Blog, Some Gave All which is dedicated to memorials.

Belleau Wood, France

These are photographs of the American memorial at Belleau Wood, the site of the epic 1918 battle involving American ground troops for which the Marine Corps is particularly well remembered.  The photographs include the memorial chapel and cemetery, as well as scenes of the battlefield itself.

MKTH photographs

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Some Gave All: Parisian Railway Workers Memorial, Paris France

Some Gave All: St. Joan D'Arc, Notre Dame de Paris

Some Gave All: British Empire Memorial, Cathedral de Notre Dame

Thanksgiving Day, 1918

November 30, 1918. Americans enter Germany for the first time, Villa threatens Juarez, Wyomingites get Reserve Plates, Teenage Bride Mildred Harris Chaplin rumored to be planning a visit home, No beer for New Years.

The Central American Mess and Citations to the Statue of Liberty. Nobody is going to do anything, probably.

The Statue of Liberty from a distance view, the way its likely often seen by people who live in the neighborhood.

Somewhere on this blog I have some posts about arguments you shouldn't make. That is, things that when you hear them, you ought to just quit listening as the argument has become a cliche of a cliche ("think of the children" is one such example, although I still haven't posted that example, which remains in draft).

One of the things I should include in that list would be citations to the poem The New Colossus and references to the Statue of Liberty in general.  Indeed, I've made that argument here before.  But sure enough, any time a debate on immigration comes up, somebody will drag out The New Colossus as if its a foundational document for the country.  It isn't.  It's just bad poetry.

Frankly, I'm not all that super wild about the Statue of Liberty either, although I will credit it a great deal more.  Our copy of the statue is version 2.0, a prior smaller one having existed in France, where its designers lived.  It's a fairly typical French statue of the period, which tended to feature women with very muscular features (as in the French Railway Workers Memorial post the other day).  I'm not exactly sure what was up with that, but it was quite common at the time.  The Statue of Liberty is actually one of the better examples of such statues and it is attractive, which doesn't make it over all absolutely great art, save for its gigantic size.

Anyhow, any time the question of immigration comes up, if the suggestion is anything other than just open the borders up in a country that has the most open borders on the planet, somebody will drag out the Statue of Liberty and the poem and post it as an argument.  I just saw the first one regarding the refugees from Central America in the paper this morning in the form, predictably, of a political cartoon in which the statue wonders if she should go back to France (which is a totally absurd argument given that the annual immigration rate into Europe is minuscule as a rule compared to the United States.)

This symbolizes a lot of the American problem with fixing immigration in the country, and it desperately needs to be fixed.  The current system, a byproduct of the mushy thinking of Senator Edward Kennedy, amplified by the destruction of internal immigration law enforcement in the 1970s, assumes that the United States is physically growing like a cancer cell and that its impossible to reach the point where the population of the country, mostly growing due to immigration, is harming the country as a whole both economically and environmentally  It's likely that we achieved that point quite some time ago, perhaps in the 1970s itself.

Which makes most of the arguments about immigration complete and unadulterated baloney.  Large immigration rates like we have are not necessary to sustain the economy in any fashion whatsoever, which is the the prime intellectual argument on their behalf.  It only serves to depress wages in a country in which the lower middle class is already having a very hard time.  In an era in which computerization is wiping out jobs, and in which General Motors just announced its taking out 14,000 jobs in manufacturing, importing no skilled labor is really detrimental to the lower middle class laboring demographic, let alone American born urban minorities, whom it directly impacts.  Indeed, ironically, at one time the leadership of the largely Hispanic United Farm Workers was actually violently opposed to illegal immigration for that very reason, and it could hardly have been regarded as a right wing organization.

What importing no skill labor does do is to create a pool of very low wage labor at the bottom end which is great for the upper middle class and the wealthy and it makes for low class domestic servant labor.

It's also okay, but not really great, for the immigrants who come in, in that class, which is why their plight can't be ignored and they can't be disregarded.  But simply citing a poem as policy is, frankly, stupid.

Immigration at the current rate, we should note, is also fueling, although only in part, the ongoing mass urbanization that chews up American rural areas daily, which is arguably an environmental disaster (again, that's only part of the explanation and in fact probably not the primary one. . . most immigrants don't live in those places and could hardly ever afford to).  And then there's the argument that "we're a nation of immigrants", which is a sort of race based argument taking the position, more or less, that the original native population doesn't really county (they were here, they weren't immigrants) and which isn't an argument anyhow rather than a statement.  A better argument related to that is that our diversity gives us strength, which likely is true, up to a point, but which doesn't actually counter the problems which immigration at our current levels create.

Which takes us to the current flood of Central American refugees trying to get into the United States, the members of the recent caravan being only part of a movement that commenced some time last year.

Refugees are a different deal entirely, and perhaps citation to the "Give me your tired" and all makes sense there.  I've posted along those lines here as well.  All peoples and nations have a duty to refugees no matter where they are from.

But what if you can solve the root problem causing the refugee crisis?

I.e., what if the United States, or a combination of nations including the United States, can solve the problem?

Something is clearly going on in Central America causing people to flee there, but what?  What's motivating this?

What's going on in Central America is what is always going on in Central America, but at epic levels.  

Anarchy is going on in Central America. . . or at least a lot of it.

Occasionally Naive Reddit Rubes will wax philosophic on Reddit's various economic forums about how anarchy would be nifty.  If you think so, just move to Honduras.  They have it.

Flag of the Federated Republic of Central America.  A Central American republic that existed in 1821, and then again from 1823 to 1840. There's been efforts to put it back together ever since.  From Wikipedia Commons, by grant of Huhsunqu.

To some degree, they always have, and all the things that flow from anarchy, including massive corruption, crime and violence.

The flag of Honduras.  Honduras became independent, in a sense, in 1821 when it became independent from Spain as part of the first federated Central American state.  Almost immediately after that, however, it became First Mexican Empire.  In 1823 it became independent of Mexico and part of the new United Provinces of Central America, a democratic federated Central American state.  That state repeatedly failed and Honduras carried on as an independent nation, but sadly it was one of the Central American countries that was most in favor of a single Central American nation, something that would have gone a long ways toward preventing the current crisis and much of the regions tragic history from occurring.  The United States intervened in Honduras militarily in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924 and 1925.

Things are so bad in Honduras, which underwent a coup in 2009 and then reemerged as a democracy about a year later, that even Dunkin' Donuts have armed security guards.  The majority of the current emigrants are from Honduras, and have traveled through helpless Guatemala and into Mexico (which resisted it at its southern border, something that's been largely missed in the news).  Things are otherwise not perfect in the neighborhood either.  El Salvador has become enormously lawless.  Nicaragua has gone form being a major tourist destination from being in crisis in just a year, following the removal of economic supports from Venezuela, which is also a mess.  Honduras, Guatemala (which is doing much better) and Nicaragua together are in a titanic economic and social mess or have the potential to be.  Only Costa Rica and Belize seem to be doing well.

Guatemala's flag, noting its 1821 independence date from Spain.  Guatemala's Independence came within the United Provinces of Central America, not as an independent nation.  The United States overthrew a left leaning democratic governing in the late 1950s (an earlier plan to do that in the early 50s was aborted when details started to leak) and the country fought a bitter civil war that came to an end in 1996.  Since then the Catholic Church provided enormous assistance in providing a means by which the country could overcome its violent past, something that's generally not appreciated by Protestant missionary groups that oddly regard the region as missionary territory.  The country has been doing well and recovering overall but at the current time it cannot help but be stressed by the massive human influx from Honduras.

They do have governments, to be sure, but those governments are not wholly admirable and the entire region has become embroiled in what is essentially a series of gang wars as the economy collapses. That's why people are leaving.  Entire regions are now controlled by criminal gangs and the governments, which in many instances in the past have been pretty criminal in and of themselves (I'm not familiar with any of the current governments).

The blue and white flag of El Salvador. . .notice the theme here?  Like Mexico, El Salvador went into rebellion when a Catholic Priest made a cry for justice and the same, in its case in 1811.  A revolution ensued.  It too was a province of the original Central American state which could not stay together.  Very densely populated, the country fought a war with its former co-province Honduras in 1969.  The country itself went into a civil war in 1979 that lasted until 1992, with the United States backing the right wing side and the left wing forces, including the Soviet Union and Cuba, backing the left wing side in one of the Cold War's proxy wars.

And that makes their plight genuine.

Nicaragua's flag, which is nearly indistinguishable from El Salvador's.

But nobody seems to be taking the root problem into account.

Unless the United States and Mexico are willing to absorb the entire population of Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador, a solution needs to be found what is going on.  And the agonizing truth of the matter is that the solution isn't going to come from inside any of those countries, or at least it appears unlikely that it will.  It's going to have to be imposed on them, or at least that can be argued for Honduras.  And they'll resist it, most likely.  And not without justification.

Indeed, we've had similar examples from Africa in the past couple of decades, and there have been local solutions that have worked.  They all principally involved an armed invasion by an upset neighbor.

And there you have it. The problem, the solution, and whether the solution is a problem itself.

At one time, what is going on inside of these countries, would have been solved by now.   Theodore Roosevelt would have solved it.  William Howard Taft would have solved it. Woodrow Wilson would have solved it.  Do we dare solve it in that fashion, and should we?  Would it be moral to?

Indeed, we're getting an ironic lesson, for which we do not appreciate the irony, and for which we aren't paying much attention, on why an entire series of Presidents didn't think twice about interfering in the affairs of Central American states and toppling their government.

Which may be both a theoretical solution today, as much as we hate to admit it, but which is also part of the root of the problem on what's going on today.

Today's crisis is partially a byproduct of our own actions, dating back to the 1950s, when we started heavily interfering in these nations in a Cold War context.  No, that's only partially true. . .their governments at the time and the forces inside those countries also reflected reaction and counteraction to actions we'd taken dating back to about 1900 or so. Well even that isn't right, as the entire region had an odd and chaotic 19th Century history.  But the Cold War interference was major and has cast a very long shadow.  We propped up a military government in El Salvador that prompted a left wing insurrection.  We did the same in Nicaragua with worse results which resulted in that country falling to a left wing government which turned out to be less left wing than we supposed but which is still in power and not completely democratic. That conflict helped spread another one into southern Mexico.  We overthrew the government of Guatemala. Our gunboat diplomacy evolved into CIA diplomacy, and now neglect is letting the boils that developed at that time really fester.  The whole region, save for Costa Rica, Belize and Panama, is a mess.

And its a mess that those countries probably can't fix themselves.

Of course, not only can they not fix them, those countries really shouldn't exist.  Frankly, they're too plagued with internal problems and too small to be able to address them. A federated state comprised of all of them, and probably Panama, would make more sense and be more stable but that's not going to happen.  Indeed, in a different context, it would have been easy to imagine the enter Central American region outside of Panama (which the U.S. created by backing a regional uprising against Columbia) being part of Mexico, given that it differs little culturally from southern Mexico.  Mexico, no doubt, is highly relieved that this never came about, but it shows the degree to which Mexico lacked territorial ambition as the United States, had it been in Mexico's geographic position, would undoubtedly have adsorbed the entire region.

But all of that could have occurred, and indeed darned near did.  In fact, it briefly did. . . more than once.

Emperer Augustin I, formerly Gen. Augustin Itubide, the first Emperor of Mexico.  When Mexico became an independent state those who brought that about weren't necessarily looking for a liberal democracy by any means.  In fact, while the revolution was initiated by a liberal Catholic Priest, it was taken up by Mexican Spanish aristocracy who didn't have a problem with aristocracy. . . just aristocracy in Spain.  Iturbe was from a Basque aristocratic family and have lived an aristocratic life.  He initially fought for the crown and against the Mexican rebels until switching sides.  He was actually a fairly popular emperor but the country was divided from the start and he served only briefly before going into exile, first in Italy and then in England.  He'd return later to Mexico where he was executed under dubious circumstances.  His last words were "Mexicans! In the very act of my death, I recommend to you the love to the fatherland, and the observance to our religion, for it shall lead you to glory. I die having come here to help you, and I die merrily, for I die amongst you. I die with honor, not as a traitor; I do not leave this stain on my children and my legacy. I am not a traitor, no."  He's interned in a cathedral in Mexico City.

Most of Central America became independent of Spain in 1821.  Interestingly, most of it became independent by default when Mexico obtained its independence.  With the exception of El Salvador, Central American countries did not rise up against the Spanish Empire. El Salvador did in 1811, however, the year after Mexico did, and by way of the same initiating source, the cry to rebellion by a Catholic Priest. The rest of the region found itself independent, however, in 1821 when Mexico was released by Spain.

The flat of the Mexican Empire, the nation that obtained independence from Spain, and which collapsed in 1823.

When that occurred, interestingly enough, two of the forces noted above in fact occurred.  There was a movement to form an independent confederation, but at first the region became a province of the Mexican Empire. The Mexican Empire, however, was itself short lived and collapsed under widespread opposition in 1823, at which time the Central American provinces formed their own country, the Federal Republic of Central America.  The country even expanded up into what today is the Mexican state of Chiapas.  Only Panama, which was part of Columbia, was not part of it.

Had the Central American Republic persisted, much would be different about the region today.  It only held together, however, until 1840 when it fell apart in civil war. All of the modern nations of Central America that were in it use a flag that's based on the one the Central American Republic had, and some of them use a national crest that's based upon it.  Even though the state fell apart, in some ways it was never forgotten and there were real efforts to recreate it, sometimes by force.  In 1907 all of its former regions, except for Belize, joined together in a political agreement to integrate their economies in a manner that all but contemplated future union. The agreement remains in force, but union has not been achieved.  In 1921 all of the old participants except for Nicaragua and Belize signed a treaty of union but did not follow up on it, making the 1921 agreement moribund.

All of which shows that what I've noted here is not simply wild speculation.  The region was united as a province by Colonial Spain, achieved independence as a nation briefly, was absorbed by Mexico as a province, and then achieved statehood again before division drove the nations apart. Ever since then there's been efforts on their part to reunite, but they have not succeeded.

 The flag of Belize, a self governing English possession.  Belize was, early on, part of the Central American Republic but it quickly became a British possession in the wake of the republic's collapse.  The English have made efforts to make it an independent country but its' resisted.  Like much of Central America, Belize's economy has been dominated by foreign interests in its agriculture sector, in this case oddly enough in moder times by Coca Cola, but its developed a successful tourists sector and British political influence has lead to a stable political culture.

Had the Central American republic been able to hold together, it would still be a small nation, but it would be a bi-coastal nation with a somewhat diverse modern economy.  Indeed, if we somewhat assume that the rest of history played out as it did (not a safe assumption at all), it would be a nation today that would be surprisingly diverse in some ways.  Belize, which was part of it, fell into British rule almost as soon as the republic fell apart but today, in spite of having an economic monoculture like much of the various Central American states, has a stable economy and and a booming tourist trade, is surprisingly multicultural even including an Amish farming population.  Costa Rica is likewise booming due to the tourist trade and, for good or ill, has an increasingly large American ex-patriot population as well as a surprising number of citizens who immigrated from South America and Europe.

Costa Rica's flag.  Costa Rica's history in Central America has become unique as during the 20th Century, following upon the fall of a military dictatorship, it abolished its standing army. Thsi made the democratic regime highly stable and seemingly immune from American intervention in spite of its early democratic government being very left leaning.  Costa Rica's modern economy is dominated by the tourist industry.

Additionally, if the Central American Republic had managed to hold things together, it would have helped prevent the region from being sort of the "anti United States" in the Star Trek bizarro world way.  That is, almost everything that seemingly happened to make the US successful didn't happen in Central America.

 U.S. Marines in Nicaragua in 1926, displaying a captured Sandinista flag.  Nicaragua was occupied by the United States from 1913 to 1933.

Indeed, right from the outset, while the advantages  of union were obvious, as the region had been granted Independence due to the Mexican rebellion, rather than its own, there was no real unity in political views.  Now, that's the case with the early U.S. to a degree as well, but this was very much so for the small political class in Central America. As with Mexico, some of this class remained monarchist in view and had no real problem with their former Spanish rulers.  Others were radically republican in an era in which radical republicanism was spreading in Europe. . . after all, this was the era of Napoleon Bonaparte.  That basically doomed the republic and it frankly also made a mess of early Mexican history.  Liberals couldn't bet along with monarchists on anything, and the country simply fell apart. 

That early history carried on for decades and made political cohesion difficult in any of the individual states.  Moreover, it mean that the small states were always economically weak due to their economic monocultures and they were constant prey to foreign, i.e., European and American, economic and military intervention, the only often following the other.  That fact in turn further weakened them, and that all carried through well into the 20th Century.

All of which takes us back to the problem.  A person could argue that a regional or perhaps international mandate should be issued requiring states that aren't flying apart in the region to intervene and impose order.  That would amount to a type of invasion.  The type of invasion that the OAS has occasionally sanctioned in the past, and to which everyone has turned a blind eye, but nobody in the world would turn a blind eye to this.

 Panama's flat.  Panama was never part of the Central American Republic, it was part of Columbia until a U.S. sponsored rebellion separated it in 1903, although in fairness a long running war of rebellion had been trying to do the same for quite some time, and there had been prior efforts to do that as well.  While it doesn't share the history of the other Central American nations in once having been part of a unified nation, it would make sense that it would be, if one ever came together.

Nor perhaps should they.  These are all sovereign nations and while things seem to be flying apart now, they all made huge strides towards functioning democracy after the 1960s.  Even El Salvador, which fell in revolution to a government we thought was going to be a Communist one, didn't really take that turn and the Communists turned into liberal democrats, for the most part.

And would that type of intervention be even moral?  It's very doubtful.  Can in an international body suspend sovereignty in that fashion?  It could declare that it could, but that's problematic.  Of course, at some point governments can descend into such anarchy that they don't exist at all for a country in question, such as in the example of pre 9/11 Afghanistan.

Well, it's all academic. Nobody is going to do anything.  Instead we'll get trite arguments about the Statute of Liberty. 

Poster Saturday; the November 30, 1918 Saturday Evening Post

Another Leydecker illustration in which all the technical details are correct, but his color is off, way off.

It's really strange.  Leydecker obviously studied his topic so as to get material details to the point of high accuracy, including in this illustration the World War One vintage "Pershing Boots" issued to soldiers in Europe.  But his colors were almost always wrong for the U.S. Army uniform of World War One and in fact much closer to those for the German uniform.

I wonder why that was?

Watch on the Rhine, and on the Rio Grande, and on the Pimega. December 1, 1918.

Col. C.H. Hodges, First Division and interpreter, making arrangements with Inspector Ludveg, a German officer, for the use of Maximin Marracks. Treves, Germany. December 1, 1918.

American troops were pouring into Germany, and into occupation duty, on this day in 1918.

 Eighteenth Regiment Infantry. First Division , crossing bridge over Mosell River into Germany at Kalender Muhl. Kalender Muhl, Germany. December 1, 1918.

 View showing interest of German populace as Army mess kitchen goes through Treves. Treves, Germany, December 1, 1918.

 USS Orizaba which left Hoboken, New Jersey on Dec. 1, 1918 for Europe with journalists, photographers and others attending the Peace Conference after World War I

The press, meanwhile, was pouring into Europe as well, to watch and report on the drama of the peace negotiations.

That drama was clearly building.

At the same time, Villa's fortunes appeared to be reversing again.  And the Red Army suffered a reversal near Archangel in an action in which U.S. troops had played a part.

Cheyenne received some good news in the form of learning it was going to be an air mail hub, which it in fact did become.  And fans of the Marine Corps received some as well in learning that the Marines were going to keep on keeping on for at least awhile.