Sunday, July 5, 2020

July 5, 1920 Delegations.

James M. Cox was chosen by the delegates to the Democratic Party to be that party's nominee for President for the 1920 race.  His running mate was Franklin D. Roosevelt.


Cox was the Governor of Ohio at the time, but he's best remembered today for being a newspaperman who founded Cox Enterprises.  He lived until 1957.

On the same day, the Spa Conference in Spa, Belgium, commenced. The conference was between the victorious Allied powers of the Great War and Weimar Germany.

Allied delegates to the Spa Conference.

The topics were principally those associated with implementing the details of the Versailles Treaty.


Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Peter Canisius Catholic Church, Grassy Butte, North Dakota.

Churches of the West: St. Peter Canisius Catholic Church, Grassy Butte, ...:

t. Peter Canisius Catholic Church, Grassy Butte, North Dakota



This Prairie Gothic Catholic Church in tiny Grassy Butte, North Dakota, is closed, a victim of the declining fortunes of small farming towns in the West and Midwest.  The church was quite active until the fortunes of the town changed and services were switched to another local building that had more modern amenities.  In 2007 the Diocese of Bismarck, North Dakota, sold the church and its obviously fairly well maintained, although I don't know what its current use is.




The name of the church reflects the German heritage of the town, as St. Peter Canisius was a Dutch Jesuit who was active and successful in countering the Reformation in Germany.

Saturday, July 4, 2020

Best Posts of the Week of June 28, 2020.

The best posts of the week of June 28, 2020.

Vandals. Colorado Civil War Memorial and the Zeitgeist


Flags of Somebody Else's Fathers


Debbie Harry turns 75 today.


Disaster and Direction. Right, left, and center


Worth Reading: Opinion: You want a Confederate monument? My body is a Confederate monument


The missed opportunity. 40 Acres and a Mule.


A July 4th Visit


July 4, 1920. Remembrance and Forgetting



July 4, 1920. Remembrance and Forgetting

On this day in 1920, the coal mining town of Hanna, Wyoming dedicated its memorial to its World War One Veterans.  

The monument before it was damaged.

An item about that appears in one of our companion blogs here:

Today In Wyoming's History: July 4: Today is Independence Day

1920  Veterans memorial to World War One veterans dedicated in Hanna, Wyoming.

The Hanna Museum's website has an article about the dedication here.

The monument is still present, and it looked like this 2012 when I photographed it.  However, since that time the actual plaque on the monument was stolen in 2015.  It was found damaged in a nearby ditch. The town was working to raise funds to repair the monument and buy a new plaque, which was apparently still the case at least as of 2019.


World War One Service Memorial, Hanna Wyoming



This is a memorial in Hanna Wyoming dedicated to all from the region who served in World War One.  Hanna is a very small town today, and the number of names on this memorial is evidence of the town once being significantly more substantially sized than it presently is.

The memorial is located on what was the Lincoln Highway at the time, but which is now a Carbon County Highway.  This was likely a central town location at the time the memorial was placed.

Hanna also is the location of the Carbon County Veterans Park which contains a substantial number of additional monuments.

I'd note that this entire item is nearly symbolic of where we are at, in some ways, as a nation today.  In 1920 the town, heavily made up of immigrants from Eastern Europe, proudly dedicated a memorial to its sons who had served in the recent war.  The Town had, at that time, barely recovered from two prior major disasters, the mine collapses at its Number One Mine. Those events had resulted in massive loss of life, and yet the town survived it.

The names of Hanna's men who served in World War One.

A century later its monument to its men who served in the Great War was damaged by would be thieves and the town is a mere shadow of its former self.

This is, of course, the second memorial I've written about this week that was damaged in acts that are acts of vandalism, not social justice.  The word "vandalism", of course, comes from the name of one of the Germanic tribes that invaded Rome in its late period who became famous for acts of destruction due to their ignorance.  The name has been used ever since for people who commit similar acts, the difference in our case is that our own failings have lead to the ignorance and the modern vandal is part of us, not an invading army from the north.

Even the monument to the huge loss of life at the Number One Mine bears a scar from a bullet.


It's pretty hard to be really optimistic on July 4, 2020.

On the same day, in the same region, Lewistown Montana endured a major flood.

A July 4th Visit



I heard clanking in the kitchen.  I thought it was the dog, but it was so early, even for me, I got up.  Going out to see what was going on, I was surprised by the spectral image of George Washington in there, trying to figure out how to grind coffee with the coffee grinder.



Ah, fine and hale fellow, I cannot find the crank on this infernal coffee contraption.  Has it failed us?, he queried.

Um, no, it's electric, I said taking the grinder from him and pouring in a parcel of Boyd's Denver Blend.

I say, good man, ought you to be drinking java that hails from the Mile High City?  The late Mayor Stapleton informs me that its residents, most of whom appear to be perpetually herbally besotted, have determined its existence an offense to the rights of man?, said Washington.  It was an odd question.

Um. . . well its a local coffee. . . I can't get the stuff from Jackson here regularly. . . geez this is a weird dream anyway, I best get back to bed, I replied.

It's no dream.

The voice came from the sofa.  Thomas Jefferson was reclining there.  I hadn't noticed him until then.


More of a nightmare, really, he added.

Now, having two of the founders of the Republic was startling and therefore I started to turn to say something, but George spoke first.

Electricity!  Well, I'll be!  I wish Ben could have joined us, but his faults were so well known in our own day that he seems to have received his parole on this one. . . and he's likely still working of the debts forged in life in Purgatory at that!, George declared, seemingly bemused and delighted.

I was working on one that worked on wind power. .  .Jefferson started to add, but then seemingly recalling where he was, morosely stated, when will that coffee be done?  I'd just put in in machine.

About three or four minutes, I noted, beginning to become concerned that this looked less and less like a dream.  Say, what are you guys doing here?

Oh, another citizen of this fair republic who wants us gone. . . come on George, Jefferson stated.

No, I didn't mean that,. . . what I meant is. . . well you guys have been dead for some time.

Well yes, George said cheerfully.  Gone but not forgotten, as they say, or said.  

We've been sentenced to haunt the Republic for a time to make up for our transgressions in this life, said Jefferson.  And to serve as a reminder, in rendering that service, what the ideals of this representative republic were.  Jefferson was studying the coffee maker by this point.

Transgressions?, I asked.

Yes, transgressions. Surely you are aware of what we speak of.  Jefferson replied.

Well, um, I stumbled on my words,  . .  the coffee appears done.  I poured three cups.

Yes, transgressions, Washington replied. Tom and I were slave owners as you know, and slavery is not admirable.

We never claimed that it was, Jefferson immediately noted.

No, we never did, but we lived and profited from it, Tom.  Washington was quick with the retort.

That we did. We were weak men. . Jefferson started to say, and then Washington came in and elbowed him, careful not to spill his cup of coffee. . but some of us had bigger weaknesses than others!, he noted.

She was my wife's half sister and I was a widower, George!  And lonely.

Tsk, tks, say how is she doing?  They both seemed to know who they were speaking about and the conversation had become sort of a private one.

Oh Sally is fine, and my Martha too. They get together frequently on the other side where all men's equality is always recognized, Jefferson replied.

Well, you see, added Jefferson, the dilemma. We know better, to be sure.  And we expressed our ideals.  We acted as well.  But we weren't saints, and in some ways fell very short.

Saw George III the other day, by the way, added Washington, speaking to Jefferson but looking around the room. . . he says hello.  He's haunting Westminster working off that entire ascendancy problem in Ireland and says the royal household is a mess and that Queen Mary was right all along.  He also says that the next crop of royals is a hopeless set of goofballs and he wishes he'd just book a boat over and joined us in the rebellion.

That's nice, replied Jefferson . . . Louis XVI was asking about him.

Oh, how is he?  Washington's question appeared very sincere.

Fine, fine. . . he was packing for the final barque, having worked off his worldly debts.  He was planning on catching up with Lafayette next Thursday.  Jefferson spoke as if he might hope to join them.

A voice came from down the hall, Is that coffee I smell?  Abe Lincoln went to the cupboard and poured himself a cup without asking.



Hmmm. . not bad, he stated, reminds me of when I was splitting rails, we'd start off each day with a fresh brewed pot of coffee, well one time . . .

You too?  It was a bit rude, as I was interrupting Lincoln, but he kindly put the story aside.

Oh yes, kicked out of the republic I saved. What's a fellow to do?

Why?

Well, like these fellows.  I wasn't perfect.  Sure, I emancipated the slaves, but I didn't make it clear that I wanted them granted their own. . . acted like I was going to live forever. . . you know how it is.

Geee, I stated.  Even Abe Lincoln.

Oh, don't worry, he stated.  Theodore Roosevelt and I are going to kick around for a few days before we leave.  We've hung around trying to inspire you folks enough.  Time to go on with the ancients.

Roosevelt?  I was now worried for TR.

Oh yes.  He was for civil rights but as you know, he was a bit aggressive from time to time.  He nearly shot at an Indian too in the 1890s.  You folks claim to desire too much perfection to separate the man from the ideals. Lincoln seemed surprised that I had even asked.

I became a bit uneasy, that word "claim" had a bit too much emphasis.  So I asked.  Um, "claim"?

Yes, claim, Washington replied.  Lincoln was already pouring himself a second cup and making a new pot.  He seemed to know how the coffee maker worked.

I looked to Washington but it was Jefferson who replied.

We stated the ideals, and gave you the right to pursue happiness. . but you've seen to forgotten that pursuit does not equate with it being a gift and that both physics controls the world and what we are and metaphysics sets the ideal.

We can be what we want, but this determines what we want. The voice was that of T. E. Lawrence, he'd materialized in a chair in the corner.



Yes. . me too. . imperfect agent of colonialism and all.  He looked tortured, as if he'd never stopped worrying about the treaty of 1919.

Oh. . I see, I stated.

Which is why Marx was laughing until he hit the bottom of the pit.  The voice was Lincoln's again.

Eh?, I asked.

Oh yes, Karl. . he's where you might expect him to be. . but he's delusion was that of the modern age.  I fear he'll have a lot of company.  Jefferson stated.

He already does. . .you know that.  It was Joe McCarthy.



Tail Gunner Joe?  I exclaimed.

Yup. . you thought I'd be where Marx is, didn't you?  Even in death his breath smelled like bourbon.

He must have realized that.  Nope, just about to depart, worked off my debt.  I had drinks just the other day with Ho Chi Minh and we're booking the ferry together. 

Ho?  I declared.  I'd have thought. .

Oh, he's had a lot of explaining to do, but he's worked it off.  Most of his torment has been having to walk the streets of Hanoi.  Poor fellow, just sits in front of the Hanoi Victoria's Secret and cries and cries.  Anyhow, it's like me,  you know.  I keep hearing how I was a big bully and ruined people's lives, but nobody ever seems to note that the people I accused were pretty much all guilty of what I accused them of.  When will that coffee be done Abe?  McCarthy's eyes looked bloodshot even in death.

Just a couple of minutes Joe. . . say where was it that you got those names anyhow, Lincoln asked.

From me.  The answer came in the form of a giggle.  J. Edgar Hoover stepped out of the shadows.



I'd wondered about that.  I stated.

Yes, I went too far.  Extrajudicial, as they say. But it was the flavor of the day.  Even Frank kept tapes you know. Hoover stated. . . he was by that time going through the books upstairs and making me a bit nervous.

Frank?, I asked.

Yes, Franklin Roosevelt.  You didn't think that Dick came up with that did you?  Hoover was looking through my contacts on my Iphone.

I'm not a crook. Richard Nixon appeared.

Not welcome to this gathering Dick, Washington stated.  Nixon went through the door and departed.

Where was I?, Hoover asked.  With my Presidency, old boy, came the answer.



FDR looked good.  He was walking and thin, looking youthful.  He was smoking however and I started to worry how I was going to explain that to my wife. . .

Yes, he cheerfully proclaimed.  I carried us through the Depression and beat the Axis in World War Two, but I didn't integrate the services and didn't really do all that much on civil rights. . .and of course there's that entire interment of the Japanese matter.

Who let these rubes in?  The voice was clear and commanding.  I turned to see who it was.

Fred?  Lincoln stated.  I thought surely you'd have gone to the other side right way, he stated.  As he did, Nixon, McCarthy and Hoover were leaving. The speaker had been directing his retort to them.

Oh, I didn't stay long, and I'm here to escore others over. And some should be taking a separate barque. Richard, Edgar, Joe. . . depart this honored company.  As he said it he stepped out of the shadows.

Frederick Douglass?  I stated started.



Why yes, are you surprised?  Malcolm and Martin came to guide these honored men to the barque.

Well, you and Martin, stated the tall thin man.  You have to admit that you're being polite in including me, he added.



Why Malcolm, you were getting there, cut down in your prime.  Its for that really that you are honored., Douglass stated.

Yes, about to get back home to my father's faith, as you well know.  From Little to X and back to Little. Malcolm stated.

And you'll recall that man Edgar found some fault in me as well, Frederick, in turning to face him I could see right away it was Martin Luther King, although the voice alone betrayed him.  It was for my ideals, not always my imperfect personal conduct, that I'm recalled.




True, said Douglas.  But then we're all men, and its our higher ideals, not our daily failings, that we're recalled for, he stated.  Let us depart.

Will everyone be leaving?  I asked

All in good time, my boy, Roosevelt answered.  We all take that barque in the end.

No, I meant will all the hero's be leaving? I asked

It seems you want it that way, Lincoln answered.  Perfection, save for perfection in yourselves, seems to have become the standard.  But as there with perfection being solely self defined, there shall be none.

A republic if you can keep it, Jefferson was referring to Benjamin Franklin.  But it doesn't look like you'll be able to.  I didn't think you would.  It was the first I noted that he was reading a copy of Small Farmers Journal and had a copy of Rural Heritage in his coat pocket.

No, stay, stay, we need you., I declared, but as I did they all went through the door.

Plato on finding fault.

Bad men, when their parents or country have any defects, look on them with malignant joy, and find fault with them and expose and denounce them to others, under the idea that the rest of mankind will be less likely to take themselves to task and accuse them of neglect; and they blame their defects.

Plato

Friday, July 3, 2020

July 3, 1920. Gorgas and Georgism

Portland, Maine.  Fire Department No. 1.  July 3, 1920.

Portland, Maine, Fire Department, #2, July 3, 1920

The Surgeon General of the U.S. Army during World War One died on this day in 1920.  He was 65 years old.

William C. Gorgas.

Gorgas was an interesting character.  The son of a northern born Confederate Civil War officer, he had joined the Army as a physician in 1880.  In the Army, he'd become a specialist in tropical diseases, surviving a bout with yellow fever himself.  

His experiences in tropical areas lead him to become a Georgist, a fairly difficult to grasp economic theory which holds that a "Land Value Tax" is somehow the cure for all of society's ills.  The theory had some well known adherents, including Winston Churchill and William F. Buckley.

Connecticut College, July 3, 1920

Gorgas was 65 when he died.  He fits into a certain pattern for men who have endured the stress of command in war. They die soon after the conflicts have concluded.  An examination of the lives of officers from the Civil War, World War One, and World War Two, pretty clearly demonstrate that trend.

The missed opportunity. 40 Acres and a Mule.

"The end of the line of one hundred thirty Negro farmers with mule teams who are buying their cotton seed and other supplies cooperatively at Roanoke Farms, North Carolina."  1938.

Every once and a while in  history you can look back on a specific event and know exactly when the opportunity to cause a different historical outcome was lost.  It's rare, but it does occur.

And eschewing Radical Reconstruction following the Civil War is one such example, the tragic consequences of which we are still living with today.

That opinion, which I've held for a very long time, has not been a popular one in American history for the reason, I'd submit, that the compromise of the 1870s followed by the renewed rise of Southern aristocracy and the glorification of the "Lost Cause" worked an inaccurate historical revision on it, or at least upon its attitude.  Suffice it to say, most historians have tended to herald the demise of Radical Reconstruction following the Lincoln assassination and have taken the position instead that Lincoln wouldn't have approved of it, and as the great reuniter, he would have done what Andrew Johnson did . . . reconstruction, but not so radical.

I'm not so sure.  Lincoln was a shrewd man, something often forgotten about him.  A man willing to endure the war that he did may have been willing to thrown in with the radicals in his final term and forced the conclusion of the effort that was started in 1860.  There are, of course, reasons to believe that he would not have taken that path, he was after all acting in a conciliatory way as the war ended, but there are reasons to believe the opposite  He was a shrewd politician, and one of conviction, who had proven unusually willing to endure extreme hardship in order to obtain a goal. Would any other newly elected President have been willing to take the country into a Civil War in 1860 without any effort to placate the states attempting departure?

We'll never know, of course, but we can wonder and truly not know.  We can know, however, that not following through with the goals of the Radical Republicans was a mistake.

A huge mistake.

The Radicals would have taken steps to reform, in the true sense of the word, the South politically, economically and socially (and for all practical purposes in that order, while simultaneously). That would have meant politically disenfranchising the treasonous portion of the white Southern population while enfranchising the blacks, but it would have meant far more than that.  Indeed, the one good bit of evidence that Lincoln would have gone with the Radicals is that politically enfranchising the former slave population in fact did occur during Lincoln's late administration and it continued on during Johnson's.  Blacks were made citizens and given the right to vote, even achieving a majority black government in South Carolina for a time.

But it also would have meant, in some form, putting the black population into the economic shoes formerly owned by the treasonous planter class who dominated the South economically and politically. And that would have meant busting up the plantations and distributing land to the freed slaves.

And that idea was definitely around by the mid point in the Civil War.  Indeed, it was definitely circulating around in the Army, which had occasionally taken a liberating view towards slaves even early in the war.  It was expressed in the sentiment that caused General William T. Sherman to issue Special Field Order Number 15, which read:
Special Field Orders No. 15.
Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi, In the Field, Savannah, Ga., January 16, 1865.

I. The islands from Charleston south, the abandoned rice-fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the Saint Johns River, Fla., are reserved and set apart for the settlement of the BLACKS now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States.
II. At Beaufort, Hilton Head, Savannah, Fernandina, Saint Augustine, and Jacksonville the blacks may remain in their chosen or accustomed vocations; but on the islands, and in the settlements hereafter to be established, no white person whatever, unless military officers and soldiers detailed for duty, will be permitted to reside; and the sole and exclusive management of affairs will be left to the freed people themselves, subject only to the United States military authority and the acts of Congress. By the laws of war and orders of the President of the United States the negro is free, and must be dealt with as such. He cannot be subjected to conscription or forced military service, save by the written orders of the highest military authority of the Department, under such regulations as the President or Congress may prescribe; domestic servants, blacksmiths, carpenters, and other mechanics will be free to select their own work and residence, but the young and able-bodied negroes must be encouraged to enlist as soldiers in the service of the United States, to contribute their share toward maintaining their own freedom and securing their rights as citizens of the United States. Negroes so enlisted will be organized into companies, battalions, and regiments, under the orders of the United States military authorities, and will be paid, fed, and clothed according to law. The bounties paid on enlistment may, with the consent of the recruit, go to assist his family and settlement in procuring agricultural implements, seed, tools, boats, clothing, and other articles necessary for their livelihood.
III. Whenever three respectable negroes, heads of families, shall desire to settle on land, and shall have selected for that purpose an island, or a locality clearly defined within the limits above designated, the inspector of settlements and plantations will himself, or by such sub-ordinate officer as he may appoint, give them a license to settle such island or district, and afford them such assistance as he can to enable them to establish a peaceable agricultural settlement. The three parties named will subdivide the land, under the supervision of the inspector, among themselves and such others as may choose to settle near them, so that each family shall have a plot of not more than forty acres of tillable ground, and when it borders on some water channel with not more than 800 feet water front, in the possession of which land the military authorities will afford them protection until such time as they can protect themselves or until Congress shall regulate their title. The quartermaster may, on the requisition of the inspector of settlements and plantations, place at the disposal of the inspector one or more of the captured steamers to ply between the settlements and one or more of the commercial points, heretofore named in orders, to afford the settlers the opportunity to supply their necessary wants and to sell the products of their land and labor.
IV. Whenever a negro has enlisted in the military service of the United States he may locate his family in any one of the settlements at pleasure and acquire a homestead and all other rights and privileges of a settler as though present in person. In like manner negroes may settle their families and engage on board the gunboats, or in fishing, or in the navigation of the inland waters, without losing any claim to land or other advantages derived from this system. But no one, unless an actual settler as above defined, or unless absent on Government service, will be entitled to claim any right to land or property in any settlement by virtue of these orders.
V. In order to carry out this system of settlement a general officer will be detailed as inspector of settlements and plantations, whose duty it shall be to visit the settlements, to regulate their police and general management, and who will furnish personally to each head of a family, subject to the approval of the President of the United States, a possessory title in writing, giving as near as possible the description of boundaries, and who shall adjust all claims or conflicts that may arise under the same, subject to the like approval, treating such titles altogether as possessory. The same general officer will also be charged with the enlistment and organization of the negro recruits and protecting their interests while absent from their settlements, and will be governed by the rules and regulations prescribed by the War Department for such purpose.
VI. Brig. Gen. R. Saxton is hereby appointed inspector of settlements and plantations and will at once enter on the performance of his duties. No change is intended or desired in the settlement now on Beaufort Island, nor will any rights to property heretofore acquired be affected thereby.
By order of Maj. Gen. W. T. Sherman:
L. N. DAYTON, Assistant Adjutant-General.
— William T. Sherman, Military Division of the Mississippi; 1865 series - Special Field Order 15, January 16, 1865.
What Sherman ordered had a limited application, but others had a broader one in mind. And Sherman had seen something and appreciated it which made his act no only charitable, but political.  His armies had just marched across the American South from west to east and he'd seen nearly all of the Southern heartland.  He well knew that the economic power of the South was completely vested in large plantations and that the plantations and the planters are what had supported, and caused, the war.  Deprive the planters of their slaves and the Southern cause was over.

Indeed, most Southern soldiers were yeomen, which provided in some ways the ultimately irony of the Southern fight.  Yeomen by and large did not own slaves, although a few did. Their lives were marked by fierce independence and they were more or less aligned against everyone but their immediate families and neighbors.  Their stalwart independent frames of mind made them good soldiers in combat but also made them unreliable as well, figuring into both the length of the Southern war against the odds and the high desertion rate of the Southern armies, and even some instances of outright rebellion of various regions, West Virginia being the most notable, against the Confederacy.  In the antebellum period the yeomanry had been hostile to blacks but their hostility was not merely racist (it certainly was in part) but economic, viewing blacks as economic implements used against them by their real class enemies, the planters.

There was real hope in the post war period that enfranchising blacks with land would convert them to yeomanry and even the yeomanry seems to have grasped that in some places, forming tentative alliances in the post Reconstruction period with blacks as the planter class reasserted itself and disenfranchised everyone else.  In the immediate post war period, however, the real opportunity was presented, and lost.

Radical Republicans would have redistributed the planter landholdings to freed slaves. The logic was inescapable to everyone.  Plantations had been built and worked on forced black labor.  They would not have existed but for it. Deprive them of it, and they wouldn't exist.  Moreover, as that labor was forced it could be regarded as stolen, with the reparation of the worked land as compensation for the theft.

Most of the Southern black population had farming skills in an era when most Americans were farmers. What they lacked was land, animals and implements.  Lost to the modern American romantic notion of "homesteading", building up sufficient resources in order to start a farm was very difficult and nobody just simply "did it".  Homesteaders often took years building up sufficient assets in order to strike out on their own even when supported by paying employment or (farming) families.  Freed blacks in the South had, at best, their household possessions at the time they were freed.  They were universally poor.

Hence the "40 acres and a mule" ideal. What that really meant was the vesting of 40 acres, the basic American agricultural unit, and a mule, the most durable farm animal and one that could be used for planting and transportation.  Inherent in that phrase was the provision of basic implements.  All of these were readily available in the South and capable of quick obtainment and distribution.

What was needed in order to do that was a legal vehicle to accomplish and the will to do it.  Both were lacking.

Legally,. the problem was the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution which provide that people's property simply can't be taken.  There are exceptions, of course, such as Eminem domain, but they they still require that the land taken be taken with "just compensation" to the owners.  Therefore if we can imagine a way in which the land would have been taken from planters we still have to imagine one in which the planters would have been compensated for it.

That might not, however, be as difficult to imagine as we might think.  For one thing, while it would have been a huge investment on the part of the United States, the land's value in 1865 wasn't what it was in 1860.  Purchasing plantations at fair market value, all that would have been owed, would have been getting a heck of a deal at the time.  Like Tara in Gone With The Wind, that land was a mess by the end of the war.

But more radical means may have been available as well.

The South would never have attempted to break away from the Union but for slavery. The slave holding class saw slavery as vital to the economy of the South (this turned out not to be true) and thought the elimination of slavery would destroy the Southern economy.  No matter how it was dressed up, that was the underlying basis for it all.  Most Southerners, as noted, were farmers but most weren't slaveholders. Balancing that out, it should be noted, there were a lot of mid sized farmers that owned a small number of slaves but who still worked their own lands. Not all slaveholders, in other words, owned large plantations.  Indeed, there were slaveholders who were not in agriculture at all, although most were.  But production agriculture based upon slave labor was the economic backbone of the South.

Political power in the South was very unbalanced in addition.  Whereas Jefferson, a slaveholder, could imagine in the late 1700s a republic in which most voters were free yeomanry, in reality the slave-holding class held the political reins.  Yeomanry, the most numerous class (outside of South Carolina) did not.  Everywhere, of course, blacks held no political power at all, which made the Southern claim of the Civil War that their departure from the Union represented the will of the people a lie.  The people's will didn't include, rather obviously, the will of the black residents.  In South Carolina, the majority of those residents were black.

This is all noted as there were no Southern states where support for succession wasn't backed by the slaveholding class directly and there were few planters who weren't connected, in some fashion, with the South's war against the nation.  Given that, they were implicated in treason, if we accept that reason not only included fighting in a rebel army against the nation, but serving in a rebel legislature or rebel government, or giving material support to the rebellion.  It would have been few in that class who could have really escaped being implicated in the war against the United States.

Now, a person can't be tried for treason simply because he was on the losing side of a rebellion in terms of his residents or regional residence. But the United States didn't bother attempting to try anyone for treason at all.  Treason, at that time, was a capitol offense.  Executing those who had committed it seriously would have been allowable under the law, but would not have been a wise thing to do.  But trying those, like Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis, who made war against their country and sentencing them to long prison sentences would have been warranted.  Indeed, Davis was held in anticipation of just such a trial, and a jury pool, half black and half white, raised in anticipation of that, before he was released.  In fairness, part of the reason he was not tried was a fear that succession would be held to be legal, a fear that was relieved in 1869 when the Supreme Court held it was not.

Lee and Davis both lost their plantations in fact, and others did as well. But what did not occur was the mass acquisition of them by the United States for redistribution to the freed slaves.  Freed blacks were well aware that land was economic freedom and none the less pursued it, but given their lack of resources they could never acquire it in the same volume that white southerners could and did.  Starting in the 1910s they began to give up and move out of the South, with the result that changed a situation in which 90% of blacks lived in the South in 1910, a figure that had held steady since 1790, to its current figure of just over 50%, which was reached in the 1970s.

Had blacks been able to acquire farmland in the 1860s, as they hoped to do, this history would undoubtedly have been radically different.  The breakup of the Southern plantation economy would have destroyed the planter class as an economic and political base, and vested it in a black and white yeoman class instead.  This is not to say that black and white yeomanry would have suddenly existed in harmony. Southern whites of all classes were hostile to blacks and steeped in generations of racism.  Northern whites, for that matter, held strong racist views.  But Southern yeomanry had shown an acclimation for appreciating their political position and making alliances accordingly.  It's not impossible to imagine them doing that fairly rapidly in the late 19th Century.

Of course history didn't take this path.  Lincoln was assassinated in 1865 and Andrew Johnson, surviving an attempt at impeachment, took the country down the road he thought Lincoln would have wanted to travel. Reconstruction was attempted, but not of the radical variety.

An opportunity was lost.

WWII Army Receiver Restoration - Crosley BC-654 Part 2

COWBOYS FILE 3 OF 5 - Wyoming State Archives Photo Collection

COWBOYS FILE 3 OF 5 - Wyoming State Archives Photo Collection

Thursday, July 2, 2020

Worth Reading: Opinion: You want a Confederate monument? My body is a Confederate monument

Caroline Randall Williams has written a remarkable editorial for the NYT that's also in at least the Houston Chronicle.

NYT:

Opinion: You want a Confederate monument? My body is a Confederate monument

Houston Chronicle:

Opinion: You want a Confederate monument? My body is a Confederate monument

I'll noted that the editorial has been lifted, in its entirety, by at least one Facebook poster, but as that's no doubt pretty clearly a copyright violation, I'll forgo linking that in here.  But I will link in an item on her upcoming live reading of her editorial (the only time I've ever heard of that being done) and a snipped of that, which is a paragraph taken from the NYT editorial:














That's pretty powerful stuff.

A person can try to dive into the weeds on this and argue this and that, and at least on Twitter some are doing that. But when isn't that done on Twitter?  The fact is, this is a glaring aspect of the historical legacy of slavery and it remains a legacy of it in an odd sort of way today.

July 2, 1920 Temerity?


Some of the headlines of a century ago serve as a reminder that "the right side of history" might not be or simply that some major societal change having been enacted into law doesn't mean that people's hearts and minds have followed.

The Democrats were at war with themselves over Prohibition. . . which had just become law.  Clearly a lot of Democrats hadn't accepted that.


And one Frank Hanson, parachutist, died in a practice jump at the Casper airfield, which at that time was just outside of what is now Evansville.  The pilot was Bert Cole.


This was the second fatality involving Cole. His year had started off with the death of Maude Toomey, a local teacher was a passenger in his plane when it crashed shortly after takeoff.  He'd acquired a new plane, which he was using in this instance, and which he piloted into a dive to attempt to break Hanson's fall.  Obviously that effort failed.

Early aviation was incredibly dangerous.  These two accidents provided evidence of that, with parachuting being particularly dangerous at the time.

Disaster and Direction. Right, left, and center

I have a long slumbering post that I started at the beginning of the pandemic on the topic of what societal changes it may bring.  I didn't finish it as other things came up in the meantime, I'm not a full time writer, and as things evolved it risked being obsolescent.  That particularly became true following the death of George Floyd which put societal protests on top of the pandemic, and it may frankly have altered, and significantly, the likely outcomes that the pandemic seemed likely to bring.

Anyhow, and I through this out only for consideration and hopefully comment, I've started to read and hear a lot of commentary about how this will politically impact the country, long term. And interestingly, there's two very distinct views about how that will go.

One set of views holds that this crisis has shown the weakness of decentralization in the modern era.  There's been no concentrated overall national response, and the United States is suffering for that, this view holds.

The other holds that recent events, in particularly the overlay of the George Floyd protests, and implicitly the rise of left wing activism, will have the opposite effect and revive the law and order, anti gun control, conservative localism impulse in society.

It's interesting in part as the roots of both of these views is sort of planted in the same soil, fertilized by a person's pre disaster political views, and referenced with bonafide cites to history.

On the first view, it's very much the case that prior titanic disasters, and this is one such disaster, have in the past resulted in political centralization and a big concentration of power at the national level.  The Great Depression caused that to occur at a massive scale as states proved to be completely incapable of handling the events that followed October 1929 and the White House was slow to get around to it.*The Depression, in turn was followed by World War Two that amplified that trend.  Following the Second World War the nation shortly went into the Cold War, and it wasn't until the 1970s that there was any concept of reducing Federal involvement in anything.  

Indeed, up until Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, it was universally accepted by Americans that the Federal Government was the government and we've never come close to going back to the reduced role for the Federal Government, indeed all government, that existed in 1928.

Moreover, following World War Two there was very wide consensus that concentration of power at the Federal level was just fine.  It would surprise modern Americans to learn that 1) in the 50s Americans generally regarded the creation of a single world government as a fine development, should it occur; 2) Americans overwhelmingly supported the elimination of handguns as late as the 1970s; 3) Americans fully accepted Federal programs that had the accidental collateral impact of eliminating strongly ethnic neighborhoods.  It wasn't really until the late 1960s when Americans began to first balk at conscription followed by the 1970s when the courts ordered busing that this began to change at all.

So liberals have reason to suspect, as they openly are, that the Coronavirus pandemic will result in a Democratic administration which will centralize the pandemic response but which will also bring a host of left wing views and actions into government, which people will generally be fully accepting of.

In contrast, conservatives have been noting the turmoil of the 60s and 70s and how that gave rise to a law and order, my own is my own, pro gun set of politics in the mid 70s that bore fruit in the 1980s, starting with the election of Ronald Reagan.  And they likewise have reason to do that.  The Civil Unrest that has developed mirrors, from a distance, that of the 60s and 70s when the nation seemed to be coming apart.  By 1980s a population that had, only a decade prior, supported the elimination of handguns in public hands, heavy concentration of Federal power and which had not seen a real conservative in power since Hoover changed its mind.** ***What brought that about was the lawlessness and rootlessness of the 1960s and early 1970s, combined with a deep dive off the left end of the politica diving board by a significant portion of the Democratic Party in the very early 1970s.

So conservatives have reason to suspect that a population that's deeply concerned about a leftward societal and political trend that started in the last year of Obama's Presidency and which the Democrats have now fully embraced, combined with massive societal unrest, will cause a reaction mirroring that of the late 1970s.

Which will be correct?

Well, it's not impossible that both will be, with the fist followed by the second.  But which is ultimately the trend, and how it impacts the nations, is all speculation right now.  Maybe neither will rapidly, although my guess is that one of the two will quickly.

*Indeed, the Trump Administration ought to be recalling right now that while Herbert Hoover is widely acknowledged to be one of the most intelligent men to occupy the White House, his slowness in reacting to the Depression, getting around to it only late, doomed his reelection bid.  Hoover did get around to trying to address the Depression, but by the time he did, it was too late to save his Presidency.

**Note that even a Southern Rock band like Lynyrd Skynyrd could have a hit with a song that declared "handguns are for killing" in the 1970s.  

***There were, to be sure, Republican Presidents following Franklin Roosevelt . . . well two. . who were more conservative than their Democratic opponents, but none of them were Buckleyite philosophical conservatives.  Eisenhower was a centrist who basically looked back to the GOP of the Depression era which was instinctively, but not philosophically, conservative.  Nixon was philosophically conservative, but of a different stamp than Reagan, and accordingly very comfortable the concept of massive concentration of power at the Federal level.  Ford was a centrist.

Restoring a WWII US Army Field Radio - Crosley BC-654 Part 1

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Debbie Harry turns 75 today.

The band Blondie in 1977, Debbie Harry front and center.

Debbie Harry, the central figure for the band Blondie, turns 75 years old today.

In the 1970s I was a big fan of the band.  Blondie fit in, in terms of the evolution of my musical taste, between Rock and Roll from the 1950s, swing and jazz (all of which I liked before "New Wave"), and Jimi Hendrix and the blues.

I have eclectic musical taste.

In that period, I really liked some New Wave bands, of which I liked Blondie the best.  I still have all their original albums.  

I still like Blondie, although their star faded for me a bit in the late 1970s when I was tasked to be the music reviewer for my high school newspaper.  Taking on the task in the late 1970s very early 1980s  meant that you were going to have to review "hard rock" and "heavy metal" albums, neither of which I've ever developed a taste for.  Knowing that I didn't really know that much about them other than a passing familiarity with what was then current in those genres, I did a little research on the, which was something much, much harder to do then than now.  No Internet.

That research lead me to Jimi Hendrix, which I think some fellow musically knowledgeable student lead me to.  I had to buy an album to know anything about his music, and that frankly blew me away.  Hendrix is, to this day, by far my most favorite musician.  Hendrix in turn lead me directly to the blues, which is by far my most favorite musical genre.  In spite of how he may be remembered, Hendrix was basically a blues musician.

But I retain a soft spot for Blondie.  And even a little bit of a soft spot for music that was in the same orbit at the time.

Nothing better serves to make you feel old, than to realize that pop figures you admired are old.

The march to receivership.


Along with all the other cheery news going on, there's been an increasing number of companies file for bankruptcy.

Chesapeake Energy, a major player in Wyoming, has filed for bankruptcy this past week.

The current economy has been extremely hard on oil and gas companies, a byproduct of oversupply. That's only partially attributable to the Coronavirus pandemic.  A downward trend in petroleum consumption was already ongoing prior to the disease and then the Russia/Saudi price war created a disastrous situation for the petro companies.

In addiction to Chesapeake, Lillis Energy, Covia and Sable Permian have also filed during the past week.

Aeromexico, a Mexican airline founded in 1934, also has.  Airlines have been in particular trouble in the Covid Recession due to the massive decrease in travel.

Another business likely impacted by a lack of travel due to the pandemic was Cirque du Soleil, the dance company, which also filed for bankruptcy this past week.

NPC, which owns the Pizza Hut and Wendy's franchises, filed for Chapter 11 protection this well.

Remington Arms, which has been in financial trouble for some time, is looking at taking bankruptcy.  The firearms industry has been volatile for some time and even though sales have been strong, and right now are very strong, changes in technology and the switch of emphasis in longarm sales from game fields to military style weapons has been hard on Remington.

Remington is the oldest firearms manufacturer in the United States, dating back to 1816.  In an interesting twist to the story, the company is likely to be sold in receivership and the likely buyer is the Navajo Nation which has recently been expanding its economic holdings, to include the acquisition of a coal mine in Wyoming.


Flags of Somebody Else's Fathers

Mississippi took the step, long overdue, of removing the Confederate Battle Ensign from the field of its state flag yesterday.

This means Mississippi, which took the flags down yesterday, returns to its antebellum status of having no flag at all.  It didn't have one until the Civil War, when it adopted a rather odd looking one which apparently wasn't used much at the time.

Mississippi's first flag.

In 1894 it adopted the first version of the flag it just departed from, which has had three versions over the past 126 years.  The state will pick a new flag at the polls in November.

Blog Mirror: Young woman and mail coach, 1940.

Young woman and mail coach, 1940.