Tuesday, October 24, 1972. Jackie Robinson passes.

Jackie Robinson died on this day in 1972.

He was only 53 years old when he died of a heart attack, a condition brought on by diabetes and heart disease.

Silent screen actress Clair Windsor, whose career bridged into sound, died at age 80.

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat conveyed a council of war in which he announced plans to launch a limited war against Israel.

Field Marshal Sadeq, had not reported to the Supreme Council what the purpose of the meeting was to be, and even though he was ordered to prepare a plan of war by October 1, he was fired a few days later.

The Japanese crime syndicate the Yakuza divided its operations into territories, thereby ending years of inter gang strife.

Saturday, October 24, 1942. Lighting The Torch

A naval task force departed the United Kingdom for North Africa containing the invasion force for Operation Torch.  At the same time, the main Task Force, which included one of my late partners who was a naval officer, left Hampton Roads, VA and Casco Bay, ME.

USS Charles Carroll on which one of my late partners served. She's see action all over the globe.

They were all bound for landing sites in North Africa.

Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma took command of the Afrika Korps after George Stumme was reported missing. Stumme would be found later, dead, but without wounds, although it was learned that his car had been attacked by the British and his chief signals officer killed in the attack.

Stumme had high blood pressure and may have had a heart attack during the stressful event.

Stumme did not take the precautionary measures that Rommel did while traveling in North Africa, and may ultimately have paid for it with his life.

The Japanese launched attacks on the Lunga perimeter on Guadalcanal. The attacks were unsuccessful.

The Saturday Evening Post went to the stands with an illustration by Mead Schaeffer of an American soldier carrying a Thompson Submachine Gun, in a jungle.  Starting in November, the focus of the American Press would very much switch to the war against the Germans.

Tuesday, October 24, 1922. Mussolini speaks and the Fascist March

Mussolini made a speech to a crowed of 60,000 diehard Fascist supporters, Blackshirts, declaring that the party would either govern by consent or seize power by marching on Rome.  Just a few days later, they'd do just that, leading Italy into tragedy.

His speech stated:

Fascists and citizens! It may be, or rather it is almost certain, that my eloquence will disappoint you, accustomed as you are to the impetuosity and rich imagery of your own orators. But since I realize my incapacity for rhetoric, I have decided to limit myself, when speaking, plain to necessity. We have gathered together here at Naples from every part of Italy to perform an act of brotherhood and love. We have with us our brothers from the borderland of betrayed Dalmatia, men who do not intend to yield. (Applause, and cries of "Long live Italian Dalmatia!") There are also the Fascists from Trieste, Istria and Venezia Tridentina, Fascists from all parts of Northern Italy, even from the islands, from Sicily and Sardinia, all come together to affirm quietly and positively the indestructibility of our united faith, which means to oppose strongly every more or less tasked attempt at autonomy or separatism.

Four years ago the Italian infantry, made great through twenty years of work and hardship, the Italian infantry in which the sons of your country were so largely represented, burst from the Piave and, having defeated the Austrians, surged on towards the Isonzo, and only the foolish democratic conception of the war prevented our victorious battalions from marching through the streets of Vienna and the highways of Budapest.

From Rome to Naples. A year ago at Rome, at one time, we found ourselves surrounded by a secret hostility, which had its origin in the misunderstandings and infamies characteristic of the uncertain political world of the capital. We have not forgotten all this.

Today we are happy that all Naples—this city which I call the big safety-reserve of the nation—welcomes us with a sincere and frank enthusiasm, which does our hearts good, both as men and Italians. For this reason I request that not the smallest incident of any kind shall disturb this meeting, for that would be a mistake, and a foolish one. I demand also, as soon as the meeting is over, that every Fascist not belonging to Naples shall leave the town immediately.

All Italy is watching this meeting, because—and let me say this without false modesty—there is not a post-war phenomenon of greater interest and originality in Europe or the world than Italian Fascism.

You certainly cannot expect from me what is usually called a big speech. I made one at Udine, another at Cremona, a third at Milan, and I am almost ashamed to speak again. But in view of the extremely grave situation in which we find ourselves today, I consider this an appropriate opportunity to establish the different points of the problem in order that individual responsibilities may be settled. The moment has arrived, in fact, when the arrow must leave the bow, or the cord, too far stretched, will break.

The Solving of the Problem. You remember that my friend Lupi and I placed before the Chamber the alternatives of this dilemma, which is not only Fascist but also national; that is to say, legality or illegality; Parliamentary conquest or revolution. By which means is Fascism to become the State? For we wish to become the State! Well! By October 3rd I had already settled the question.

When I ask for the elections, when I ask that they shall take place soon, and be regulated by a reformed electoral law, it is clear to everyone that I have chosen my path. The very urgency of my request shows that the tension of my spirit has arrived at breaking point. To have, or not to have, understood this means to hold, or not to hold, the key to the solution of the whole Italian political crisis.

The request came from me; but it also came from a party consisting of a formidably organised mass, which includes the rising generations in Italy and all the best, physically and morally, of the youth of the country; and from a party, too, which had a tremendous following among the vague and unstable public.

But, gentlemen, there is more. This request was made upon the morrow of the incidents of Bolzano and Trento, which had made plain to all eyes the complete paralysis of the Italian State, and revealed, at the same time, the no less complete efficiency of the Fascist State.

Well! In spite of all this, the inadequate Government at Rome puts the question on the footing of public safety and public order!

What we have asked the Government. The whole question has been approached in a fatally mistaken manner. Politicians ask what we want. We are not people who beat about the bush. We speak clearly. We do good to those who do good to us, and evil to those who do evil. What do we want, Fascists? We have answered quite simply: the dissolution of the present Chamber, electoral reform, and elections within a short time from now. We have demanded that the State shall abandon the ridiculous neutral position that it occupies between the national and the anti-national forces. We have asked for severe financial measures and the postponement of the evacuation of the third Dalmatic zone; we have asked for five portfolios as well as for the Commission of Aviation. We have, in fact, asked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the War Office, the Admiralty, the Ministries of Labour and of Public Works. I am sure none of you will find our requests excessive. But to complete the picture, I will add that I shall not take part with the Government in this legal solution of the problem, and the reason is obvious when you remember that to keep Fascism still under my control I must of necessity have an unrestricted sphere of action both for journalistic and polemic purposes.

A Ridiculous Answer. And what has been the Government's reply? Nothing! No; worse than that, it has given a ridiculous answer. In spite of everything, not one of the politicians has known how to pass the threshold of Montecitrio in order to look the problem of the country in the face. A miserable calculation of our strength has been made; there has been talk of Ministers without portfolios, as if this, after the more or less miserable experiences of the war, was not the culmination of human and political absurdity. There has been talk of sub-portfolios, too; but that is simply laughable! We Fascists do not intend to arrive at government by the window; we do not intend to give up this magnificent spiritual birthright for a miserable mess of ministerial pottage. Because we have what might be called the historical vision of the question as opposed to the merely political and Parliamentary view.

It is not a question of patching together a Government with a certain amount of life, but of including in the Liberal State—which has accomplished a considerable task which we shall not forget—all the forces of the rising generation of Italians which issued victorious from the war. This is essential to the welfare of the State, and not of the State only, but to the history of the nation. And then...?

A Question of Strength. Then, gentlemen, the question, not being understood within its historical limits, asserts itself and becomes a question of strength. As a matter of fact, at turning-points of history force always decides when it is a question of opposing interests and ideas. This is why we have gathered, firmly organised and strongly disciplined our legions, because thus, if the question must be settled by a recourse to force, we shall win. We are worthy of it. It is the right and duty of the Italian people to liberate their political and spiritual life from the parasitic incrustation of the past, which cannot be prolonged indefinitely in the present, as it would mean the death of the future.

It is then quite natural that the Government at Rome should try to divert and counteract the movement; that it should try to break up the Fascist organisation, and to surround us with problems.

These problems have the names of the Monarchy, the Army and Pacification.

The Acceptance of the Monarchy. I have already said that the discussion, abstract or concrete, of the good and evil of the monarchy as an institution is perfectly absurd. Every people in every epoch of history, given the time, place and conditions necessary, has had its regime. There is no doubt that the unity of Italy is soundly based upon the House of Savoy. (Loud applause.) There is equally no doubt that the Italian Monarchy, both by reason of its origin, development and history, cannot put itself in opposition to the new national forces. It did not manifest any opposition upon the occasion of the concession of the Charter, nor when the Italian people—who, even if they were a minority, were a determined and intelligent minority—asked and obtained their country's participation in the war. Would it then have reason to be in opposition today, when Fascism does not intend to attack the regime, but rather to free it from all those superstructures that overshadow its historical position and limit the expansion of our national spirit? Our enemies in vain try to keep this alleged misunderstanding alive.

Fascism and Democracy. The Parliament, gentlemen, and all the paraphernalia of Democracy have nothing in common with the monarchy. Not only this, but neither do we want to take away the people's toy—the Parliament. We say "toy" because a great part of the people seem to think of it in this way. Can you tell me else why, out of eleven million voters, six million do not trouble themselves to vote? It might be, however, that if tomorrow you took their "toy" away from them, they would be aggrieved. But we will not take it away. After all, it is our mentality and our methods that distinguish us from Democracy. Democracy thinks that principles are unchangeable when they can be applied at any time or in any place and situation.

We do not believe that history repeats itself, that it follows a given path; that after Democracy must come super-Democracy. If Democracy had its uses and served the nation in the nineteenth century, it may be that some other political form would be best for the welfare of the nation in the twentieth. So that not even fear of our anti-Democratic policy can influence the decision in favour of that continuity of which I spoke just now.

The Army. As regards the other institution in which the regime is personified—the army—the army knows that when the Ministry advised the officers to go about in civilian clothes to escape attack, we, then a mere handful of bold spirits, forbade it. We have created our ideal. It is faith and ardent love. It is not necessary for it to be brought into the sphere of reality. It is reality in so far as it is a stimulus for faith, hope and courage. Our ideal is the nation. Our ideal is the greatness of the nation, and we subordinate all the rest to this.

For us the nation has a soul and does not consist only in territory. There are nations that have had immense possessions and have left no traces in the history of humanity in spite of them. It is not only size that counts, because, on the other hand, there have been tiny, microscopic States that have left indelible marks in the history of art and philosophy. The greatness of a nation lies in the aggregation of all these virtues and all these conditions. A nation is great when its spiritual force is transferred into reality. Rome was great when, from her small rural democracy, little by little, her influence spread over the whole of Italy. Then she met the warriors of Carthage and fought them. It was one of the first wars in history. Then, bit by bit, she extended the dominion of the Eagle to the furthermost boundaries of the known world, but still, as ever, the Roman Empire is a creation of the spirit, as it was the spirit which first inspired the Roman legions to fight.

Our Syndicalism. What we want now is the greatness of the nation, both materially and spiritually. That is why we have become syndicalist, and not because we think that the masses by reason of their number can create in history something which will last. These myths of the lower kind of Socialist literature we reject. But the working people form a part of the nation; and they are a great part of the nation, necessary to its existence both in peace and in war. They neither can nor ought to be repulsed. They can and must be educated and their legitimate interests protected. We ask them: "Do you wish this state of civil war to continue to disturb the country?" No! For we are the first to suffer from the ceaseless Sunday wrangling with its list of dead and wounded. I was the first to try to bridge over the gap which exists between us and what is called the Italian Bolshevist world.

How Peace can be obtained. To prove this, I have just recently signed an agreement most gladly; in the first place because it was Gabriele d'Annunzio who asked me to, and in the second place because it was, as I thought, another step towards a national peace.

But we are no hysterical women who continually worry themselves by thinking of what might happen. We have not the catastrophic, apocalyptic view of history. The financial problem which is so much talked about is a question of will-power. Millions and millions would be saved if there were men in the Government who had the courage to say "No" to the different requests. But until the financial question is brought on to a political basis it will not be solved. We are all for pacification, and we should like to see all Italians find the common ground upon which it is possible for them to live together in a civilized way. But, on the other hand, we cannot give up our rights and the interests and the future of the nation for the sake of measures of pacification that we propose with loyalty but which are not accepted in the same spirit by the other side. We are at peace with those who ask for peace, but for those who ensnare us and, above all, ensnare the nation, there can be no peace until after victory.

A Hymn to the Queen of the Mediterranean. And now, Fascists and citizens of Naples, I thank you for the attention with which you have listened to me.

Naples gives a fine display of strength, discipline and austerity. It was a happy idea that led to our coming here from all parts of Italy, that has allowed us to see you as you are, to see your people who face the struggle for life like Romans, and who, with the desire to rebuild their lives and to gain wealth through hard work, carry ever in their hearts the love of this their wonderful town, which is destined to a great future, especially if Fascism does not deviate from its path.

Nor must the Democrats say that there is no need for Fascism here, as there has been no Bolshevism, for here there are other political movements no less dangerous than Bolshevism and no less likely to hinder the development of the public conscience.

I already see the Naples of the future endowed with an even greater splendour as the metropolis of the Mediterranean; and I see it together with Bari (which in 1805 had sixteen thousand inhabitants and now has one hundred and fifty thousand) and Palermo forming a powerful triangle. And I see Fascism concentrating all these energies, purifying certain circles, and removing certain members of society, gathering others under its standards.

And now, members of the Fascio of all Italy, lift up your flags and salute Naples, the capital of Southern Italy and the Queen of the Mediterranean!

Today, without a shot being fired, we captured the vibrant soul of Naples, the soul of all Southern Italy. The demonstration is an end in itself and can not turn into a battle, but I say to you with all the solemnity that the moment requires: either we will be given the government or else we must take it by marching on Rome. It is necessary for action to be simultaneous in every part of Italy.

And so, with a speech, Mussolini launched a march that would help take large portions of Europe into fascism, and from there, all of Europe and ultimately the world into war.

The German Reichstag voted 310 to 77 to postpone the 1924 elections into 1925 due to political unrest. It also voted to extend the term of President Ebert into 1925.  

On the same day, former German Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow gave an interview in which he indicated there was no chance for a return of the German monarchy as the republican forces were stronger than the "nationalist" ones.  He also predicated that Communism would not take hold of the country.

Closer to home, a tragedy, well actually a series of tragedies, appeared on the front page of the newspaper.

For reasons I'm unsure of now, I've mentioned Dr. Norwood, DDS's, death here before.  He came to Casper and homesteaded west of town at what is referred to here as "Six Mile Lakes".  There are some wet spots out in that general area, so presumably that's what's being referred to here.  He wasn't married and apparently desired to be a rancher while also practicing dentistry.  He rode a horse into town to his office every day.

Horse use, of course, was still very common, and a second tragedy, the automobile/team collision in a snow storm also gives us a glimpse of one of the dangers of the era.

NOTE:  These seemed familiar as I'd run them before. That's a 1920 newspaper, not a 1922 newspaper.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Denver Colorado.

Churches of the West: Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Denver Colorado.: 

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Denver Colorado.

This is Our Lady of Mount Carmel in North Denver, Colorado.

Built between 1899 and 1904 for an Italian population, the church is located in a neighborhood known as Little Italy, although its rapidly gentrifying and experiencing a change in neighborhood character.  Nonetheless, one Mass per month is offered in Italian.

Friday, October 23, 1942. The High Water Mark for Nazi Germany

The Second Battle of El Alamein began.

Montgomery watching his armor in action.

The British offensive was really the first under Bernard Law Montgomery, and pitted slightly larger Allied forces against the Afrika Korps.  Of note, the British had considerably more armor than the Germans.  It would result in an Allied victory, of which Churchill stated; It may almost be said, "Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat".

On that theme, arguably today was the high water mark for the Axis, or perhaps yesterday.  The Germans and their European Allies had advanced as far as they were going to in the Soviet Union, having taken the Stalingrad tractor factory several days prior.  They had expelled the British from Europe and defeated all of their enemies there, although guerilla campaigns were going on against them.  In North Africa, they had advanced up to El Alamein, but they had not taken it.

The Germans knew they were in trouble at this point.  While it was not obvious to casual observers, their offensive in the Soviet Union had stalled without defeating the USSR and without even bringing to an end the fighting before the onset of winter.  Their advances in the country had been massive, but insufficient, and they knew it.  Additionally, massive Axis efforts on the land, air and sea had failed to drive the British out of North Afrika and, on this day, the British would recommence advancing.

Starting on this day, the Germans would be losing ground every day.

The Battle for Henderson Field commenced as well, with a large-scale Japanese assault designed to take the airfield.

In the Pacific War, the Japanese were already in the position of not really advancing any longer, although the war in New Guinea made that unclear.  Resources were still thin in a theater that was limited to Australian and American forces, with the Japanese war being much more recent than the European one.  Having said that, the Japanese run in the Pacific was over.

Elanor Roosevelt arrived in the UK and met with the King and Queen.

The latter event emphasizes, again without the public really realizing it, that the Western Allies already knew that they would win the war at this point, and the Soviets may have realized it by this point as well.  Lots of the war was yet to be fought, but the final results were dimly in view.

Monday, October 23, 1922. Bonar Law becomes Prime Minister.

Bonar Law of the Conservative Party became the British Prime Minister.

Law had been born in New Brunswick, which was at the time a separate British colony and not part of Canada.  His father was a Presbyterian minister from Scotland, and the family returned to Scotland when Law still young after the death of his mother. He left school at the age of 16 and went to work in the office side of the iron industry, which was not unusual at the time.  He was a wealthy man by age 30.

He'd be Prime Minister for less than a year, resigning in May 1923, as he became increasingly ill from throat cancer.

Out of Sync. The Hail Mary makes a surprising appearance in advertising.

How you can tell you are: 1) out of sync with the culture, and 2) Catholic.  I thought this Coca-Cola tweet was about real Hail Mary's, the prayer.

Go big or go home, that’s what game day is all about! Here’s to giving every game and watch party your all. #CocaCola

coca-cola.com

Savor Every Moment

Coca-Cola was referring, of course, to the long desperate forward pass in football which has been irreverently nicknamed after the prayer.  I don't watch football (it's titanically boring), and it took me a minute to realize what this was referring to.

The Hail Mary is, of course, the ancient Christian prayer petitioning Mary for assistance.  Its basic text is:

Hail, Mary, full of grace,

the Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou amongst women

and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

pray for us sinners,

now and at the hour of our death. 

Amen.

I actually learned it in the post Vatican II American Church as:

Hail, Mary, full of grace,

the Lord is with you.

Blessed are you amongst women

and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

pray for us sinners,

now and at the hour of our death. 

Amen.

The formulation of the prayer is a little lost to history, but it seems to have come about gradually.  Some of it's text, of course, comes right from the New Testament.  References to early forms of the prayer appear in the mid 11th Century through the 13th.  It rose in the Latin Rite and therefore, the early versions took shape in Latin, which of course was also the language of the Latin Rite up until the 1960s.

In Latin, it's the Ave Maria, the text of which is:

Ave Maria, gratia plena

Dominus tecum

benedicta tu in mulieri­bus, 

et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.

Sancta Maria mater Dei,

ora pro nobis peccatoribus, 

nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. 

Amen.

Contrary to what some seem to think, it has an Eastern Rite expression as well, and therefore also an Orthodox one.  The Eastern version is not used as extensively as the Latin Rite version, but isn't infrequently used.  Its text is:

Θεοτόκε Παρθένε, χαῖρε,κεχαριτωμένη Μαρία, ὁ Κύριος μετὰ σοῦ. εὐλογημένη σὺ ἐν γυναιξί, καὶ εὐλογημένος ὁ καρπὸς τῆς κοιλίας σου, ὅτι Σωτῆρα ἔτεκες τῶν ψυχῶν ἡμῶν.

Translating from the Greek is a little dangerous, as terms can be translated straight across and lose their meaning, but using that sort of translation, this translates to:

God-bearing Virgin (Theotokos), rejoice, grace-filled Mary, the Lord with thee. Praised thou among women, and praised the fruit of thy womb, because it was the Saviour of our souls that thou borest.

The Slavonic version, used in some of the Eastern Rite churches, is:

Богородице дѣво радѹйсѧ

ѡбрадованнаѧ Марїе

Господь съ тобою

благословена ты въ женахъ,

и благословенъ плодъ чрева твоегѡ,

Якѡ родила еси Христа Спаса,

Избавителѧ дѹшамъ нашимъ.

The prayer not only has crossed certain lines following the Great Schism, but it's done the same in regard to the Reformation, being used in the Lutheran churches and in the Anglican Communion.

All of which goes to show something, and among the things shown by Coca-Cola's use is that somebody at Coca-Cola is as clueless on certain things as I am.

Best post of the week of October 16, 2022.

The best posts of the week of October 16, 2022

Culpability for murder.

Lost as to what to do, Stepping back to the bench, Leaving and coming back, and Cultural heritage. More conversations, was Lex Anteinternet: Mid Week At Work. Overheard retirement conversations.

Rennovating the University of Wyoming law school?

 

Two Wyoming Students Mauled By Grizzly Outside of Cody; One Tried to Pull Grizzly Off Of Friend

 

Poisonous Death Cap Mushrooms Already In Mountain West, Will Spread To Wyoming Soon

Free Derry

 Well, not really.

Nice British Army Land Rover seen on the local streets.

Wednesday, October 21, 1942. Mark Clark's Mission, Eddie Rickenbacker's plight.

Clark in November, 1942.

Today in World War II History—October 21, 1942: Maj. Gen. Mark Clark lands by submarine at Cherchel, Algeria, for a clandestine meeting with the Vichy French in preparation for the upcoming Allied invasion.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.

The photogenic Clark was a favorite of the Press during the early part of World War Two. This event, resulting in the beginning of the formal separation of the French military from Vichy, may have been the high point, in real terms, of his career.  His later command in Italy, where he was in command until the war's end, has been subject to less impressive analysis by historians, and he was held in bitter contempt by veterans of the 36th Infantry Division who had taken huge casualties trying to cross the Rapido.  The sought, and received, a post-war Congressional investigation of that incident, for which Clark was cleared.

During the Korean War he was commander of the United Nations forces following the command of Matthew Ridgeway.  He occupied that role from May 12, 1952 until the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953.  He retired that following October, after which he became president of The Citadel.  He died in 1988, at age 84.

That last item is worth considering.  It means, for example, that when Clark was dispatched to negotiate with the French, he was 41, and when World War Two ended he was 44, younger than we often imagine World War Two generals to be.  In reality, in the U.S. Army, they tended to be relatively young.

Sundin also reports that a B-17D provided by the Army to Eddie Rickenbacker went down in the Pacific.  Rickenbacker was on a tour of Pacific air bases to review operations and living conditions.  Faulty navigational equipment caused the plane to go widely off course and run out of fuel over the open ocean.  The crew was adrift thereafter for twenty-four days before being picked, with one of the men dying from dehydration.  Ultimately, the men split up in lift rafts at sea, but they were found.

The experience caused the Navy to alter life raft equipment to incorporate fishing equipment in them.

She also notes that the Revenue Act of 1942 went into effect in the US, which increased individual income tax rates and corporate tax rates, with top tax rates going from 31% to 40%.  The act also reduced personal exemptions.  An excess profits tax of 90% was also put in effect.  Medical expenses became a deduction for the first time.

The war ushered in an era of generally high upper tax rates that remained in effect for the next couple of decades, meaning that they remained high during the boom years of the 1950s.  The concept that American tax rates were unfairly high really didn't come about until Ronald Reagan's presidency.

Saturday, October 21, 1922. Fall

Country Gentleman appeared at the stands with a Fall theme.

The Shriners held a huge barbecue in Washington, D.C.  Presumably the Budweiser was alcohol free.

The Saturday Evening Press had a fall theme too, but it was less obviousl

And there was the news of the day.

Rennovating the University of Wyoming law school?

And, we might note, to the tune of $30,000,000, at least if what reports from a recent event I went to indicate.  The public, i.e., State of Wyoming money, portion of that is $10,000,000, which is important to keep in mind, although that's wroth pondering in and of itself. That means anyway you look at it that 2/3s of that come from donations, which is amazing, if accurate.  

UW's summation of the project is as follows:

A 19,300sf, two-story addition will wrap the northwest end of the existing building. 25,000sf of the existing facility will be renovated creating spaces for clinics, accessible restrooms and improved vertical circulation. The facility expansion and improvements will bring the College of Law into compliance with American Bar Association standards, centralize College of Law clinics with the broader legal education program and allow students, professors, and the community better access to resources. The project will greatly enhance the recruitment of potential students and faculty to the College of Law and support the public legal service the University of Wyoming provides to the citizens of Wyoming.

Super nifty, eh?

Hmmm. . . maybe not so fast.

First, as is so often the case, a little history.

1926 University of Wyoming debate team.  I wanted to put up a photo of the 1923 College of Law graduating class, which I think would be the first one, but I couldn't find one.

A big renovation that occurred some years after I went there also was to "bring the College of Law into compliance with American Bar Association standards. . . "

At least if this goes forward, and it seems like it certainly shall, the 1970s styling of the current law school will be abandoned for a more traditional look.  That's good, as the current law school is really ugly.

Apparently, the new structure will look like this:

And apparently it will include something called the Alan K. Simpson Center for Clinical and Experiential Learning.¹ 

And as a graduate of the institution, I'm thrilled. . . . well, like a lot of lawyers if you talk to them quietly. . . I'm not.

Why are we doing this?  And don't give me the "ABA says. . . ".  If it's the case that the school falls out of ABA compliance on a fairly regular basis, there's either something systemically wrong with the school, or the ABA standards.

The law school was founded in 1920 and was the first professional degree program offered by the University of Wyoming, if "profession" is constrained to its original meaning, that being an occupation that professes by its nature, it would include only law, divinity and medicine.  That definition is probably too narrow by contemporary terms, but it would still be limited, in spite of the American social trend to define everything as a profession, to the law, divinity, broadly defined medical occupations (human medicine, veterinary medicine dentistry) and accounting.  Looked at this way, FWIW, the medical fields have expanded their knowledge and reach, taking over two areas that were formerly practiced by tradesmen (dentistry and veterinary medicine) and accounting has become so complicated that it's a subspecialty of the law in reality. 

I'd be tempted, I'd note, to add engineering, which is now a licensed profession.  It isn't the only one, however, by any means.  Teaching is subject to licensure as well, and so now is being a geologist, which it was not when I graduated back in the dawn of time with a Bachelor's of Science in Geology (the earth was still cooling back then).

So my definition may, I'll confess, be too narrow.

The law school originally held classes on a floor in the old UW library building, meaning that two of the lawyers I once practiced with had gone to the school there.  It was moved to a separate building in 1953, and I practiced with some lawyers who went there at that time.  The current building was opened in 1977, with additional library space added in 1993, after I went there.

Somewhere I have some photos of the pre 93 building, but I've never uploaded them.

The move in 1953 makes sense, and the move in 1977, even if the latter's 1970s architecture leaves a person less than inspired.

But this?

I don't really know why the University added a law school in 1920, but I can guess. UW is a land grant university and was seen as a big step towards statehood when it was formed in 1886.  As that 86 date indicates, it predates statehood.  Land grant universities tended to focus on what was deemed necessary for the state.  I don't know what classes were offered in the early days, but they probably were ones that focused on agricultural and industrial areas that were vital to the state.

Law is vital to the state.  

Indeed, it's vital to a civil society.  It's indeed remarkable that lawyers were the only institution in the entire state that bucked the "election stolen" myth when 41 of them, followed by 52, dared to take on Trumps anointed Harriet Hageman, herself a graduate of the University of Wyoming College of Law, on her backing the stolen election lie.

Law isn't the only thing vital to the state, however, and this is frankly a bit much.

For that matter, I thought the post 93 renovations, while nice, were a bit much.  You can see a little bit of them here:

University of Wyoming College of Law Large Moot Court, Laramie Wyoming

This is the large Moot Court Room for the University of Wyoming.  Having been in most of the courtrooms in the state I can safely say that its one of the nicest in the entire state.

The back half, or gallery half, of the courtroom has a moveable wall that can open up to allow greater space, or perhaps just more conventional space in the courtroom and also allow the courtroom to function as a lecture hall.  Viewed as a courtroom, what we see here in front of us is the bar of the court.

When I went to UW's College of Law it didn't have a moot courtroom at all, now it has two, a large one and a small one (I have yet to see the small one).  This particular room was the large classroom at the time.  It is quite a facility and I guess it demonstrates how much the physical assets of the College of Law have improved in the past three decades.

According to the University, the College of Law will allow the courtroom to be used by the state courts upon request, if it is not already in use.

Indeed, the degree to which a law school is necessary is pretty open to question now.  When I got out of the College of Law in 1990, it was still the case that the state had a state specific section of the bar exam. Since that time, the Supreme Court caused the State Bar to go to the Uniform Bar Exam.  This was controversial at the time, as it should have been.  The net impact of it was to allow out of state lawyers to easily transfer their licenses to Wyoming, which was pretty easy to do beforehand.  Now the floodgates are open. The current exam has no state section whatsoever, and therefore it's just as easy to get a degree from the University of Ohio, or whatever, and hang out a shingle as a "Wyoming lawyer".  Indeed, lawyers who are members of any of the state legal organizations will inevitably find out of state, usually Colorado, lawyers in positions in those organizations.

Indeed, it should be noted that part of the propaganda for the law school renovations is 

The project will greatly enhance the recruitment of potential students and faculty to the College of Law and support the public legal service the University of Wyoming provides to the citizens of Wyoming.

That really should be read as:

The project will greatly enhance the recruitment of potential out of state students and faculty to the College of Law and support the public legal service the University of Wyoming provides to the citizens of Wyoming in the form of aid to the those on the lower rung of society.

Now, let me note, helping those on the lower run of society is a good thing, but that's what law school clinics do.  That's fine.

But recruitment of out of state students?  That's a byproduct of a collapsing enrollment base.  

Indeed, there have been persistent rumors ever since the Supreme Court mandated the UBE that this was done to try to aid UW and that UW's College of Law wanted it.  The thought, the rumor maintains, was that the UBE would help UW graduates go to Colorado or elsewhere, and thereby boost the school by divorcing it from the practice inside the state.  If that was the thought, it achieved the polar opposite and didn't really help the school.

It also didn't help the school when a former Dean of the Law and a former, then new, UW President got into an enormous spat over the focus of the school. The students sided with the Dean, but they had little knowledge on what they were really achiving. The Dean, at that time, was really focusing on small time law, seemingly haveing given up on the long history of big time law inside the state. The President wanted to link the law school's focus to the energy industry. The Dean resigned and the President failed.

What all this gets to is this.  When the state had a state focused bar exam almost all the students know that they were going right into practice with Wyoming firms and the like.  Now, many leave, sometimes nearly half.  Going to UW still provides a direct link to Wyoming firms, but not the hard and fast way that it used to.  It's signficant, but reduced.

Given all that, the point of having a law school is now somewhat debatable.

Alaska doesn't have one.

Now, this is not to say that most Wyoming lawyers aren't from UW, they still are, which speaks for its survival. And it should also be noted that while law is a profession, it's also sort of a trade, and a law school in Laramie serves as sort of a trade school.  Graduaing from there means you are respected by Wyoming firms.

Indeed, the law has long been an occupation for polymaths to a degree, and even more than that, an occupation for lost polymaths.  The law is full of people who liked lots of stuff but not one thing in particular, or who couldn't make a living in that one thing they really liked.  But to be brutally frank, it's also a haven for people who'd reached career dead ends early in life and found the back alley of the law an easy one, or maybe the only one, to duck into.  Sure, there are those who "always wanted to be a lawyer", but right now, of the state's entire population, that's five people.

And the law school also serves as a place that people end up in as they're Wyomingites, have a degree, and have nowhere else to turn to.

Now, that's not intended as a slight to lawyers. Lots of lawyers who really would have preferred to be something else in their young lives are great lawyers.  Some of these, indeed many, so take to the law that, as noted in our recent threads on retirement, can't leave it or won't.  

But we have a law school and $30,000,000 is a lot of money.

It should be used for something else.

A veterinary school would be my choice.  We don't have one, but we sure have a lot of animals in this state, and a lot of those animals are agricultural animals  Wyoming veterinary students have to go somewhere else for their studies.  That speaks of their dedication, but it also speaks to the state's neglect.

A dental college also strikes me as a good idea. Not every resident in Wyoming has legal problems, but they all have teeth.

Massively expanded law school?  Don't need it.

We'll get one anyway.

Footnotes.

1. This would suggest that perhaps the Simpson family or his firm had some role in the donations.  That's just a guess.  He's a 1958 graduate of the UW College of Law.  His father Milward was a 1925 graduate of the Harvard College of Law.  His father, William, was also a prominent Wyoming lawyer, having read the law, rather than going to law school, under two other lawyers.  Alan Simpson's sons are also lawyers, one of whom is a currently sitting judge.

This is remarkable in that this means that the currently actively practicing members of the family are fourth generation lawyers.

Tuesday, October 20, 1942. Non-essential construction halted.

Today in World War II History—October 20, 1942: US War Production Board orders stop to all non-essential civil construction projects. Southern Conference on Race Relations issues Durham Manifesto .

From Sarah Sundin's blog.

Naval Air Station Melbourne, Florida, was commissioned.

 

Friday, October 20, 1922. First jump.

The Aerodrome: First Jump. October 20, 1922: 

First Jump. October 20, 1922

Lt. Harold R. Harris bailed out of a Leoning PW-2A over Dayton, Ohio, being the first U.S. military pilot to make an emergency parachute exist from an aircraft.  The aircraft crashed at 403 Valley Street without injuring anyone.

Harris.  He wasn't the first man saved by parachute, contrary to what this caption states.  Balloon crews had used them during World War One and passengers in disabled aircraft had used them before this day in 1922 as well.  He was the first aircraft pilot to use one.

Harris was a test pilot, and unlike many in that field, he lived a long life, serving in the military twice as well as having a role in commercial aviation.  He died at age 92 in 1988.

The crash site.

Indeed Crimean pilot Pavel Argeyev, who had served in the French and Imperial Russian militaries, died this day in an aircraft accident in Czechoslovakia, which he was flying as a test pilot.

Greece turned over the Gallipoli Peninsula to the Allies, who turned it over to Turkey.

A photo taken on this day in 1922.  I don't know what they were doing.

Lost as to what to do, Stepping back to the bench, Leaving and coming back, and Cultural heritage. More conversations, was Lex Anteinternet: Mid Week At Work. Overheard retirement conversations.

Lex Anteinternet: Mid Week At Work. Overheard retirement conversati...: Now it's 67, after a certain age. . . for the time being.  Just like Wyoming judges used to have to retire at 70 and Game Wardens at 60....

I posted this just the other day, but since that time have heard two more conversations, both among fellow lawyers, regarding retirement that made me pause.

The first was from a lawyer I know well, well I'm related to him, more or less (it's sort of complicated).

Anyhow, he stated something to the effect that he'd be completely lost as to what to do with his time if he retired and therefore, implicitly, has no intention of doing so.

Now, it's not the case that this individual is 80 years old or something.  He's in his mid 60s.  But still, this is remarkable for a variety or reasons that I'll not put in here.

One of the most remarkable things about it is that an individual with a really lively mind, in an occupation that appeals to polymaths by it very nature, wouldn't at some point to want to leave it to explore other interests, while they still could.

It truly baffles me, but I hear that a lot.

Of course, some of that view is subject to a person and pressure.  At least, from what I've observed, lawyers who have that view are the ones who have a very limited number of things going on at any one time.  Lawyers who are extremely busy seem to be more inclined to ponder retiring, as they really can't look into things other than what their work demands.

I'd note that there's a legal journal out there that notes this view as a problem for the law.  Some lawyers get to where they can't leave it, as they're so dedicated to their work. But their work starts to decline anyway with advancing age.

Not related to this conversation, but to another one that I recently also heard, a lawyer I know whose just past his mid 60s and who has been talking about retirement for years, now says he wants to step back to a more advisory role.

The concept that this can be done is something you'd read in things like the ABA Journal.  Maybe some small percentage of lawyers actually can do that, but I think it's pretty small, and it also depends on what they did.  Litigators?  Nah, can't be done.

Again, it's interesting.  A person goes from wanting to step back, and just take life easy, to wanting to step back and let somebody else carry the ball and only be called in for special plays.  But once you are the quarterback, if you will, you probably are going to be hesitant to do that, particularly with an older lawyer, who will tend to criticize your decisions, if you are younger.  And lawyers who do only what they want to do, in litigation, rather than what has to be done, don't turn out to be that much help and people know that.

Which leads to another random observation.  A couple of years ago I ran into a lawyer who had switched from some sort of business law field into litigation, and into insurance defense litigation at that.

That's the hardest kind of law there is, and people don't get in it when they are old.  But he must have entered into it in his 60s.  He was good at it, I'd note, but I think that's frankly crazy.  It's also a little pathetic.

It's crazy for one thing in that it's one of the fields of law that's 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all the time.  Just at the time most people would actually think about retiring, that's effectively retiring into backbreaking work.  It's like giving up a seat in the construction company's front office to go dig ditches.

Of course, there are some people who like fighting or crave field excitement.  That's why you see old guys try to volunteer for wars in some instances, or policemen who have worked as bailiffs for 20 years ask to go out on the street.  They probably really love their occupations, but felt less worthy of them as they'd never been in the thick of it.  People who have been in the thick of it are less likely to feel that way later on.

And on another overhead item; 

But that’s not what I came here to talk about. I came to talk about becoming native to this place—

Wes Jackson, taken grossly out of context.

There's a fellow (I'm clearly not going to name him) whom I first knew when he was part of a professional firm years ago.  It was significant, to be sure, and therefore, he was also, as part of it.

He left it for some reason, I never knew why.  In the following period, he practiced his profession on his own.  He ran for office in that time period.  I might have voted for him, I can't recall, but he remained a pretty serious figure and I recall at least contemplating voting for him.

Then he left the state.

For decades.

Things happened in the intervening decades.  People died, people arrived, new political figures came and replaced the old.

He returned. But, as would be the case, he returned a couple of decades older, or more than that, than he'd been when he left.

A couple of decades in a person's life is a long time.  We sometimes tend to forget that.  

Returns from long absences are not uncommon in this region.  People grow up and move out, taking jobs in far off regions of the country, and then come back in retirement.  Others, like the fellow I mentioned above, grow up here, go to work here, and then leave for brighter horizons, or due to marriages, or due to family, or just because they've become sick of living in a place where life is always hard, and life here is always hard. And then they return, having secured their fortunes, usually, in the form of some sort of secured retirement.

Everyone once in a while, however, a person returns to go back to their original pursuits. That's really rare.  That's the case here, however, in the instance of the fellow I'm mentioning.

This nameless essay is about all sorts of these folks.

When you leave a place, you leave it.  Some of that place remains with you, but it remains with you in a way that's sort of fixed in time.  Ft. Sill is that way with me.  It'll always be part of me, even though I wasn't there for eons, but it is the Ft. Sill that existed in the early 1980s.  It's changed since then.  I know that from people who have been there since.  Yes, much of what makes Ft. Sill, Ft. Sill, still exists, but the Army of 2022 isn't the Army of 1982.  I can look back and still see it in my distant rearward looking mental view, but that view isn't the same, exactly, for those who are receiving artillery training in 2022.

Now, things would be much different if I'd never left Ft. Sill.  It'd all be part of my mental makeup.

When you leave and go to a new place, and stay there for quite some time, that new place becomes part of you significantly.  At some point, while the old place never leaves you, what it is today isn't.  Or, in quite a few places in modern American life, quite frankly, no place becomes part of you.  You aren't native to this place. . . . you aren't native to any place.

The fellow I started this essay off with is beyond retirement age, which makes this sort of a strange return in the first place.  He's not retired.  He's at an age where he really should be, truly.

And in the intervening years, he's lost his relevance, but doesn't seem to know that. Due to a recent event in which he participated, he really ought to.  You really don't get to spend half your life somewhere else, and then go back to where you were from, and pick up again and expect people to know or care who you are, or to treat you like you are thirty years younger than you really are.  You are an old stranger in a country which, as Cormac McCarthy reminds us, is "no country for old men", at least to the extent that you were a young man when last here, grew old somewhere else, and came back as though you never aged.

Back to my original interlocutor, the other thing he noted is that he'd be worried whether or not he had saved enough money to retire.

Knowing him, I'll bet he has.  As we are from the same extended family and share the same general cultural roots, we're in the group of, essentially, blue collar Catholics who ended up lawyers.

There are, frankly, a lot of us, and in many instances our parents weren't industrial workers either.  But we're drawn from the same pool of Irish, Italian, and South Slavs by cultural heritage whose ancestors never would have thought of going to university prior to World War Two, and who worked in industries or agriculture in one way or another that were pretty working class in some fashion.  He tends to bring that up, in another form, more than I do.

The reason that matters is that we all live pretty modest lives, so it's not like we're taking big fancy vacations or driving new cars all the time.  

It also means, however, that even in our early 60s we probably still have kids in college and, due to the history of our families, we expect things to fail.  There's going to be an economic depression. There's going to be hyperinflation.  Things are going to be bad.  It's just earlier to work until we're sure that we're safe, and that day will never come.

Thursday, October 19, 1922. The fall of David Lloyd George.

 

Wyoming's long serving Senator, Francis E. Warren, on this day in 1922.  He is wearing his Congressional Medal of Honor from the Civil War.

The British Conservative Party pulled out of a coalition with the Liberal Party leading to the fall of the government that day, and ended David Lloyd George's eventual term in office as Prime Minister.

Painted Bricks: Women of Wyoming, Casper Wyoming

Painted Bricks: Women of Wyoming, Casper Wyoming: 

Women of Wyoming, Casper Wyoming

The spectacular, but hard to photograph, mural Women of Wyoming in downtown Casper.  It really must be seen, in part because It's hard to photograph it when it's not in shadow.