Tuesday, April 28, 1914. President Wilson orders Federal troops into the Colorado Coalfield War.

On this day in 1914, President Wilson ordered Federal troops to Colorado at the request of Gov. Eliam M. Ammons following days of fighting (the Ten Day War) between miners, Colorado National Guardsmen and mine owners that had broken out with the April 20 Ludlow Massacre, which we should have covered but managed to omit, occured.

Tensions had been high since the summer of 1913 between miners of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) and the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron (CF&I) due to low pay and dangerous working conditions.  Colorado's mine accident rate was much higher than elsewhere in the US at the time.  The UMW had started making demands to address the situation without success and adopted demands on September 16, 1913, calling for a seven-step plan of improvements and recognition of the UMW.

On September 23, they went on strike during a rainstorm.  Soon, 20,000 miners were evicted from their company housing. The union supplied tents, and tent cities resulted.  80.5% of the miners went on strike, far higher than the company's had expected. Mary J. Harris, "Mother Jones", spoke on September 23 in Trinidad, stating:

Rise up and strike! If you are too cowardly, there are enough women in this country to come in here and beat the hell out of you.

The companies brought in strike-breaking forces, and law enforcement was generally aligned with the companies.  They also had influence in the Colorado National Guard, which would soon be deployed, which was extremely unfortunate as the Guard had been working since the early 20th Century to escape this role specifically, and had made progress in that regard with the passage of the Dick Act, which made them the official reserve of the Army.  In classic Western form, gunmen were recruited from Texas and New Mexico, some of whom became National Guard "recruits".  Colorado's National Guard CO, Gen. John Chase, had, additionally, played a role in suppressing strikes at Cripple Creek in 1903-04, making him literally a pre Dict Act figure, as the Dick Act, which officially established the Guard system, came into effect in 1903.

In October 1913 the Colorado National Guard was called out, but six months later the financial drain on the state caused all but two companies to be withdrawn.  When more fully deployed miners had welcomed it, as it was a neutral party, but the change, with quite a few of the Guardsmen deployed in that period being imported strikebreakers with no military experience, changed things considerably.  Strikebreakers were additionally brought in by the mines in the form of Baltwin-Felts detectives, who had experience in the same from West Virginia.

Clashes occured all winter long, with the Guard sometimes acting as strikebreakers and sometimes acting as intervening parties between strikers and private strikebreakers.  Things had largely calmed down by early 2014, but the death of a strikebreaker near Ludlow caused increased tension once again.  Mother Jones returned in late March and was detained in dank conditions.

On Orthodox Easter, April 20, 1914, many of the miners were Greek immigrants, fighting broke out after early morning negotiations between the parties, the miner's UMW representative Louis Tikas being among those participating in discussion. The negotiations were brought about by rising tensions and threads the prior day.  Perhaps ironically, Tikas, who had initially refused to meet, was encouraged to do so by Colorado National Guard Major Patrick J. Hamrock, who had been with the Army at Wounded Knee.

UMW rep John McLennan and Patrick Hamrock.  Hamrock would be charged with murder for his actions at Ludlow, but was acuitted.  He later went on to command the Colorado National Guard.

The two parties nonetheless began to move for position and fighting broke out.  

The remaining Guard companies attacked the camp and fighting went on all day long. At some point Lt. Karl "Monte" Linderfelt, a notable figure in the actions locally, butt stroked Tikas in the head, although later examinations showed Tikas, who was a Cretan immigrant, to have multiple gunshot wounds. Linderfelt's unit had been kept some distance from Ludlow as he was so inclined to violence. Thirty-two strikers or their families, including women and children, were killed, and thirty-seven Guardsmen lost their lives. Four Hundred miners were arrested, and the camp was destroyed.

The violence at Ludlow led to a union call to arms throughout Colorado and a switch to miner sympathy on the part of the press.  The Southwestern Mine Co.'s Empire Mine was laid under siege on April 22, with the miners yielding after 21 hours, a ceasefire being negotiated by a Protestant minister.  An attempt to take Delagua, Colorado, was made by strikers who were republished, but three mine guards were killed in the assaults.  A mine guard was killed at Tabasco and the Las Animas County Sheriff's Department cabled that it had been defeated and requested Federal troops.

Linderfelt, who was also tried for murder but acquitted.  

Linderfelt had served in the Philippine Insurrection and in China with the U.S. Army and Colorado National Guard.  He's also served in the Mexican Army in 1911 and his name was in the Colorado newspapers frequently due to that at the time, usually under his nickname "Monte".  Prior to the 1913 mine labor troubles in Colorado, he's been working as a mine guard.  He was activated again during the Puntive expedition and then again for World War One, during which he rose to the rank of Colonel in the Colorado National Guard in spite of Ludlow.  His name was frequently in the news in the teens, with the papers being very hostile to him at first, but later more sympathetic as the Punitive Expedition and World War One rolled on.  The troops he was in command of did deploy to France, but not until October 1918, making it unlikely that hey saw much, if any, wartime combat.  In 1919 he purchased a farm in Custer County, Colorado.  In 1922, however, he was being foreclosed upon. He died at age 80 in 1957, at which time he was living in Los Angeles.    

While this was going on, the UMW briefly organized a truce, but at the same time the Governor attempt to deploy the National Guard to what had become a 175-mile-long front.  Of the 600 Guardsmen who were expected to answer the call, only 362 men reported showing that the insurrection and public sympathy had passed to the miners, who now had the press's full support nationwide.  One of the cavalry troops of the Colorado Guard, which included two of the Colorado Guard's commander's sons, mutinied and had to be removed from deployment.  Artillery was deployed from Denver, but the miners also secured firearms.

The Chandler Mine near Cañon City was fired upon on April 25, breaking the truce. On the 26th, 1,000 armed miners attacked and took the town.  Residents of Walsenburg's fled.  Greek miners grew unhappy with union officials and began guerilla attacks on the town and attacked the McNally Mine.  Communiques from both sides took on the nature of those from regular combatants.

The Women's Peace Association staged a sit in Denver starting on April 25, which forced Governor Ammons to act, sending his request on the 25th.  On the 26th, protesters in Denver demanded the impeachment of Governor Ammons.  One of the speakers was former Denver Police Commissioner George Creel.

The National Guard deployed in force on April 27 near Trinidad, where Tikas' funeral was scheduled to, and did, take place without incident. There had been plans to retake the town, which was in miner control, but the assault did not occur.

On this day, the Battle of Heclar Mine in Louisville took place, with that mine owned by the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company.  This was considerably further north than the other mine attacks and fairly near Denver.  National Guardsmen that had been rotated off of the southern front were sent to quell that attack.

The Army was on its way.

Ironically, perhaps, on the same day a mine explosion in Eccles, West Virginia, killed over 180 miners.

British suffragettes Hilda Burkitt and Florence Tunks burned down the Felixstow Bath Hotel in Suffolk as part of an ongoing suffragette terror campaign.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, April 26, 1914. No longer in doubt.

1910s, 1914, Cheyenne Wyoming, Exploration, Food, Mexico, Newspapers, Occupation of Veracruz, Roosevelt–Rondon Scientific Expedition, Theodore Roosevelt

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Snapshot from the war in Finland

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Snapshot from the war in Finland

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Transporting by rail

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Transporting by rail

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Skijoring Finnish Troops?

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Skijoring Finnish Troops?

World War I in Photos: Introduction - The Atlantic

World War I in Photos: Introduction - The Atlantic

The Big Picture: General Fitzhugh Lee

Mustang ROTC program turns 100

Mustang ROTC program turns 100

I posted this item yesterday, but did not comment on it.  In thinking on it, I should have.

As the article notes, NCHS's JrROTC program is a century old.  Indeed, I've heard, and believe it to be correct, that it's the oldest JrROTC program in the United States.  Pretty remarkable, really.

As such, it's an institution that's marked the passage of time, and tells us something about the times.  Therefore, it fits into the subject area of this blog ideally, and is worth a closer look.

I graduated from this high school, but was not in JrROTC.  My wife (also not in ROTC) graduated from there as well. . . as well as both of my inlaws, a lot of my cousins, and my father and his siblings.  Our connection with NCHS goes way back, but not all the way back to 1914.

JrROTC was incorporated in the curriculum of the school in 1914 as a mandatory class, on the nation's run up to World War One.  The high school is a land grant school.  We tend to think of land grant schools being colleges and universities, but that category included some high schools as well, and NCHS is one.  As such, back in 1914, the US could require NCHS to have a class on military preparedness, which it did.  The University of Wyoming introduced one about the same time.

This applied only to boys, of course, in an era when solders were in fact almost all male.  It was a very gender differentiated world in those days.  And it was a pretty serious course at that.  The young men were issued uniforms and taught basic solder skills. Drill and Ceremony, some marksmanship, and the like.  They didn't come out of it soldiers, but it took the edge off military ignorance in an era when most Americans hadn't had a family member in the service since the Civil War.   The Army was attempting to speed up training a bit, and it probably accomplished that.

After the Great War, the school kept the program, and kept it mandatory.  It was mandatory all the way up until the mid 1970s when, in the wake of the Vietnam War, the school board made it an elective.  By that time, the district had a second high school which didn't have an ROTC program at all.

In that intervening period, a lot had changed.  During the 1930s the program, I'm told, was one that parents appreciated as the school issued a set of uniforms in an era when money was really tight, and the extra clothing appreciated.  For a time the school even departed from the actual official Army uniform of the era and issued its own, very fancy, blue uniform, although this passed as the nation began to prepare for World War Two.  Keep in mind that money was so tight in this era that the 115th Cavalry Regiment of the Wyoming National Guard was effectively recruiting right in the schools, through a music teacher, and the kids and their parents were glad to join for the extra income.  Not all those recruits were of legal service age either.

It was probably World War Two that really started the changes in JrROTC.  The program was strong during the war, of course, but post war it actually saw some returning servicemen assigned back into it, as they went to complete an interrupted high school career. Suffice it to say, they were a disaster as ROTC cadets.  And the post war world saw a big military with a big training program, and a lot of men in the general population who had military service.  In short, JrROTC was no longer really needed anywhere in the same way that it had been in 1914.  I've actually heard of a story once where an NCHS graduate, who had of course been in JrROTC (he was male) found himself in a formation during basic training in which the DI asked if anyone had been an ROTC cadet. Indicating that he had, he found himself singled out by the DI, who instructed the other trainees to ignore whatever he did.

Juniors in NCHS, in 1946.  Note how many are wearing their JrROTC uniforms for their class picture.

Still, with a big military commitment existing during the early Cold War the district kept the program, and a person can find interesting recollections regarding it.  One really dedicated sports shooter I know noted that it was in JrROTC, which had a rifle team with actual .22 rifles as late as the late 1970s, early 1980s when I was in high school, where he was introduced to the sport.  Another individual I know recalled, in a less nifty recollection, that in the 60s when he was in NCHS they were still issued the old World War Two service uniform, which had wool pants and a wool jacket, and they never took them home for cleaning.

Locally, after Kelly Walsh was built in the early 1960s, and the decision was made not to have a JrROTC program there, an odd situation was created in that students had no choice as to what school to attend as this was determined geographically.  Boys at NC were in JrROTC.  Across town at KW they were not.  Amazingly, the program lived on through the Vietnam War, which says a lot about how the war was viewed in this region.  But times caught up with the program, and in the mid 1970s the decision was made to make it an elective.  I can vaguely recall the school board making that decision, when I was in grade school.  In my mind the number of years between that decision and my own period in high school seems vast, but it really isn't.  I only missed mandatory JrROTC in high school by a few years.

As an elective, it's lived on.  When I was in high school it was carried as a physical education class.  The students who enrolled in it seemed to do so either as they definitely knew that they were going into the service, or in order to have a PE credit that avoided the rough and tumble nature of high school PE here at the time.  Indeed, for some of us who may have been mildly interested, or even definitely interested, in the program the thought that we'd be regarded as shirking PE was enough to keep us out of it. Some no doubt joined it so they could get on the rifle team, which was the only way to do that, and I recall pondering that myself, as I wanted to be on the rifle team. By that time, girls as well as boys were in JrROTC, and there were female shooters on the team.  In that distant era, the indoor range was actually inside the school.

It's kept on keeping and I think today its simply an elective for people who are seriously contemplating military service.  I don't believe its a PE elective, and the atmosphere of the times that existed in my high school years is gone on a a lot of things.  In some ways the odd atmosphere created by the Vietnam War on all things military really didn't creep into Wyoming until the late 1970s, and of course never did to the full extent that they did in other regions, but JrROTC suffered for awhile because of that.  I also think that over time the program has evolved, like a lot of such programs, into more of a leadership and service program than a truly fully martial one. As late as my period of service in the Army National Guard the JrROTC cadets trained for a week at Camp Guernsey, engaged in some sort of annual war game, and had actual rifles for drill team use, none of which I believe to be true any longer.  I can recall being detailed to retrieve the trucks that had been loaned to them by the Army  Reserve, and can also recall having M1 Garands in our Armory that belonged to JrROTC. 

Anyhow, it's interesting how an institution like this, which has survived for so long in the schools, but which is a bit unusual for most schools, marks and reflects the times.

Postscript.

NC's JrROTC program is in the news again this morning, although this time it's for the fine performance of their air rifle team, which won a significant competition for the tenth year in a role.

I note that here, however, as this also illustrates the changing times. The article notes that the rifle team itself dates back to 1914, at which time they used M1903 rifles.  That means they were shooting service rifle competition at the time.

California National Guard rifle team at Camp Perry, 1908.  They are equipped with brand new M1903 rifles.

That's pretty remarkable in some ways as the M1903 is a fully sized rifle, although chances are that the boys on the team had all already shot full sized rifles.  The competition was not of the type that air rifles do at all, but was along range match.  In short, they were shooting in a fully adult competition using rifles that were the Army standard at the time.

Camp Perry, Ohio, where the national championship for service rifle competition was held, and still is.

When my father went to NCHS, JrROTC was equipped with M1917 rifles.  The M1917 rifle was a rifle that the US Army purchased during World War One to supplement the supplies of M1903s, which were arsenal built by the Army itself.  M1917s were built by Winchester and Remington, which had started off making them as the P14, in a different cartridge, for the under supplied British (the "14" stands for the year 1914).  More M1917s existed by the end of World War One than M1903s, although only barely so, and they continued on in some numbers in US use thereafter.  During World War Two the M1903 was used in great numbers, even though the M1 Garand became the most common rifle in US use during the war.  The M1917 saw much less use, but did see some, equipping Chemical Mortar and Artillery units early on, and State Guard units throughout the war.  Apparently it was also supplied to JrROTC units.  My father could remember the serial number of the one he had in JrROTC his entire life.

British Home Guardsmen with P14 during World War Two.

U.S. Marine training during World War Two with M1903 rifle.  One in Seven of all U.S. infantrymen were equipped with the M1903 during the war, and the rifle was the standard rifle for some formations, such as the Military Police.

Just before I was in high school the JrROTC unit there actually had M14s, which is a surprising thought.  I believe that they had the firing pins removed, but that both shows the extent to which JrROTC units had access to real arms, and the depth to which the M14 had fallen as a service rifle.  The M1903 was officially replaced as a line rifle after World War Two, and it had become a specialist rifle during the war at that.  It soldiered on for years and years after the war, but an improved variant of it in the new official NATO cartridge was adopted in the late 1950s. That rifle, the M14, never managed to supplant the Garand and it never even made it into Guard and Reserve units as the standard rifle before the Vietnam War brought on the M16, which ended up replacing it before it had really fully replaced the M1 Garand.  A highly regarded marksmanship rifle, the M14 lived on for a time as a service rifle competition rifle, but it also ended up in a lot of Guard armories and secondary use in the Army when its fortunes fell.

Soldier early in World War Two training with a M1 Garand.

Still, that JrROTC units had M14s is surprising.  At some point in the mid 1970s, however, they were removed and sent back to the Army, which began to reconsider the rifle for certain uses.  The rifle ended up coming roaring back into service in the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where its accuracy and long range performance made them a better rifle for trained marksmen than the M16 which had originally replaced it.  

U.S. paratrooper in Vietnam, equipped with M14, during 1967's Operation Junction City.  Junction City, fwiw, is the town just outside of Ft. Riley, Kansas.

U.S. infantryman in Afghanistan with rebuilt updated variant of the M14.

When the M14s went, the M1s came back, and when I was in high school they had some M1s.   The drill team used M1903s, however.  About the only time I saw the M1s was when I was in the National Guard, as we had their M1s on some occasion.  They had the firing pins removed.

Well, now times have changed and the rifle team, which shot at a range inside the high school, no longer uses firearms but instead shoots air rifles.  A person can make of that what they want, but its quite a change over a century.

 

Standards of Dress. Attending school

This is a 9th Grade (Freshman) Class in high school, 1946.  Specifically, is the Freshman class at NCHS in 1946 (the Class of 1949).

Now, some will know NCHS who might read this, others will not. But in 1946 this class attended school in a city that had under 30,000 residents.  It was a city, but it was a city vastly surrounded by the country, as it still somewhat is. This class of boys (there were more in it than those just in this photograph) were from the town and the country.  None of them were big city kids. Some were ranch kids.  I recognize one of them who was.. Some came from families that were doing okay, some from families that were poor.

So how do we see them dressed?  One is wearing a striped t-shirt.  Exactly one.  Every other boy here is wearing a button up long sleeved shirt.  Of those, all but one are wearing ties.

One of the ones wearing a tie is one of my uncles.

Did they turn out with ties just for their photographs that day?  Probably they did.  I suspect so, but even at that, they all actually could come up with ties.  And somebody knew hot to tie them.  None of these boys appears to be enormously uncomfortable wearing a tie.

 

NCHS Juniors in 1946, this is therefore the Class of 1947.

Here's a few of the boys in the Junior class that year.  Here too, this is probably a bit different depiction of high school aged boys than we'd see today. For one thing, a lot of them are in uniform. As already mentioned in the thread on JrROTC, it was mandatory at the school.  Based upon the appearances of the boys at the time the photograph was taken, this probably reflects relatively common daily male dress at NC.  Most of the boys are in uniform.  Of those who are not, most are wearing button up shirts, but no ties.  A couple have t-shirts.  Nobody's appearance is outlandish in any fashion, and nobody is seeking to make a statement with their appearance.

NCHS girls, Class of 1947, as Juniors in 1946.

Here are the Junior girls that year.  As can be seen, NCHS had a uniform for girls at that time, which appears to have been some sort of wool skirt and a white button up shirt.  They appear to have worn their uniform everyday, as opposed to the boys who must not have.

Uniforms at schools are a popular thing to debate in some circles, and I'm not intending to do that.  Rather, this simply points out the huge evolution in the standards of youth dress over the years.  This is s cross section of students from a Western town.  The people depicted in it had fathers who were lawyers, doctors, packing house employees, ranchers and refinery workers.  They're all dress in a pretty similar fashion, and the dress is relatively plan really.  No t-shirts declaring anything, as t-shirts of that type weren't really around. And no effort to really make a personal statement through dress, or even to really stand out by appearance.

Sunday, April 26, 1914. No longer in doubt.

The Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition completed its exploration of the River of Doubt by reuniting with a relief party led by Lt. Antonio Pyrineus.   The meeting had been prearranged.  

Three men died during the expedition, and Roosevelt had come very close to doing so.  His health never recovered, although he'd very soon be agitating for an American entry into World War One, and seeking appointment to a volunteer division for that effort.

The Cheyenne paper was predicting that was going to break out at any moment, but I mostly put this issue up for the interesting cereal and flour advertisement.

It is interesting that "The Girl I Left Behind Me" was still a popular military tune, apparently, at the time.

Post Toasties getting in the war mood, however, is a classic.

Apparently Cheyenne had its own brand of flour at the time.

Last prior edition:

Friday, April 24, 1914. Occupying Vera Cruz.

1910s, 1914, baseball, Battle of Veracruz, Canadian Arctic Expedition, Heroes, Ireland, Larne Gun Running, Mexico, Occupation of Veracruz, Russia, Siberia, Sports, Ulster, United Kingdom, Vera Cruz Mexico

NCHS 1945-1946 Swim Team

The newest NC team at the time, in its third season.

The pool they used is just about to come down, the last swim team to use it having practiced in it this academic year.  Hopefully the voters will approve the bond that allows for a new pool to be built.

Friday Farming: Moving Cattle.

The Third Branch: Civil War Tore Apart Judiciary Too.

The Third Branch

Friday, April 24, 1914. Occupying Vera Cruz.

Fighting in Veracruz ceased and the occupation of the city began.

Raising the flat at Veracruz, April 27, 1924.

35,000 obsolescent German, Austrian and Italian rifles and 5,000,000 rounds of ammunition were smuggled into Ulster from Germany and distributed by automobile in the Larne Gun Running incident to Ulster loyalists in anticipation of fighting over the issue of independence, with the Ulster Volunteers opposed to it.

Captain Robert Bartlett and Kataktovik reached Emma Town having traveled 700 miles in their effort to secure relief for his stranded party.  They secured passage there to Emma Harbour, a weeks journey, so that he could travel to Alaska by ship from there.

Emma Harbor, 1921.

The Brooklyn Federal League team was photographed.

Last prior edition:

Thursday, April 23, 1914. Wrigley Field Opens, War Panic.

1910s, 1914, baseball, Battle of Veracruz, Chicago Illinois, Equine Transportation, Illinois (Chicago), Mexico, Mexico (Veracruz), The Press, Vera Cruz Mexico

Thursday, April 23, 1914. Wrigley Field Opens, War Panic.

 

April 23, 1914: Chicago Feds open Weeghman Park, later known as Wrigley Field

The first game was between the Chicago Whales and the Kansas City Packers.

The Casper paper may have been a bit off the mark:

Mexicans were not happy, however, about the massively heavy-handed overreaction of the United States at Veracruz.

Last prior edition:

Wednesday, April 22, 1914. Fighting in Veracruz

1910s, 1914, baseball, Battle of Veracruz, Mexico, Teenagers, U.S. Navy, United States Marine Corps, Vera Cruz Mexico

What a difference 100 years makes

What a difference 100 years makes

Wednesday, April 22, 1914. Fighting in Veracruz

Street fighting was engaged in at Veracruz between landed US forces and Mexican forces as US forces advanced beyond the waterfront to secure their positions.  The Mexican forces included civilians who had received distributed Mexican arms.

Street fighting was unusual for Americans at the time, and the sailors had trouble adapting to it, whereas the Marines quickly did.

The city center was taken by 11:00.

The Titanic Engineers' Memorial was unveiled at Southampton, UK.

Babe Ruth, age 19, pitched his first major league game for the Baltimore Orioles.

Last prior edition:

Monday, April 21, 1914. The Battle of Veracruz commences.

1910s, 1914, Advertising, Battle of Veracruz, Food, Mexican Border War, Mexico, Newspapers, The Press, Vera Cruz Mexico

Lawyer is tossed out of court for wearing shorts after knee surgery

Lawyer is tossed out of court for wearing shorts after knee surgery

The Big Picture: Wreck of the USS Maine.

Monday, April 21, 1914. The Battle of Veracruz commences.

A force of 2,300 U.S. Marines and Sailors landed in Vera Cruz over the spat the US was engaging in over the Tampico Affair.  Fighting broke out by noon and the Battle of Veracruz was on.

The House of Representatives voted 337 to 37 in favor of the intervention.

The papers were full of speculation about a war between the US and Mexico.

And Grape Nuts was advancing the "Spring Diet".

Last prior edition:

Saturday, April 18, 1914. Being petty.

1910s, 1914, Art, California (San Fransico), Mexico, panoramic, San Francisco California, The Big Picture, U.S. Navy, United States, Vera Cruz Mexico

Satuday, April 18, 1914. Being petty.

 It was Saturday.

The news of the day was, in part, about the Wilson Administration's refusal to back down to Huerta, and continue to demand a salute at Vera Cruz.  Huerta was perfectly willing to apologize, so this was getting down, frankly, to the US insulting Mexico and being petty.

Panama-Pacific International Exposition. San Francisco.  April 18, 1914.

Last prior edition:

Friday, April 17, 1914. Budweiser praising Bismarck. Emmer Breakfast Food.

1910s, 1914, Agriculture, Alcohol, Casper Wyoming, Crime, Food, It was because of World War One, Mongolia, Otto von Bismarck, Railroads, Russia, World War One, Wyoming, Wyoming (Casper)

Friday, April 17, 1914. Budweiser praising Bismarck. Emmer Breakfast Food.

Imperial Russia dissolved the Mongolian Uryankhay Republic in the Tannu Uriankhai and Mongolian Uryankhay Krai.

Russian expansionism at work.

A bomb went off in Great Yarmouth. Authorities suspected suffragists.  This was the second such incident they were suspected of in recent days.

In Casper, the paper issued what must have been, maybe, a real estate edition, as the paper was full of advertisements for lots, and this before the big World War One boom.

"Emmer" was to be used for cereal and manufactured in Wyoming.

It's a type of wheat.  I'm sure you've had a hearty bowl of Emmer Breakfast Food.

Here's a relatively recent article on Emmer, mentioning the cereal company:

Ancient grains a story of what once was old is new again

There was talk, as noted above, of a new rail line.

There was a terrible death in the jail of a man accused, seemingly with reason, of improper actions towards his adopted daughter.  Interestingly, maybe, based on the old statutes we recently put up, he would have been guilty of three crimes at the time, as opposed to one now, that one also being a crime then.

Perhaps a bit more remarkable, he appears to have been dead for hours when discovered to be so.

All that is interesting, but it's actually the following advertisement for Budweiser that caused me to link in this issue:

This was 1914.  Soon the world would be at war.  Bismarck probably didn't receive such high marks after that.

Last prior edition:

Thursday, April 16, 1914. Marines contemplating Vera Cruz, Fallout from scandal in Japan, Chinese troops prevail.

1910s, 1914, boats and ships, China, Imperial Japanese Navy, Japan, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Tampico Mexico, United States Marine Corps, Vera Cruz Mexico

Thursday, April 16, 1914. Marines contemplating Vera Cruz, Fallout from scandal in Japan, Chinese troops prevail.

Coaling the USS Louisiana, April 16, 1914.

The 4th Marine Regiment was activated at Puget Sound with Col. Joseph Henry Pendleton as its CO in anticipation of military action in Mexico.

Ōkuma Shigenobu became Prime Minister of Japan for the second time, this time at the request of Emperor Taishō  after the administration under Yamamoto Gonnohyōe was dissolved due to the Siemens scandal.

The scandal had involved kickbacks from  European shipbuilders for contracts with the Japanese Navy. When World War One broke out the men were pardoned and one of the ships involved, the battlecruiser Kongō, was reordered.   Rebuilt as a battleship after World War One, she was sunk in November, 1945.

Chinese troops defeated the forces of Bai Yung-chang, the "White Wolf," near Sian-Foo in northwest China.

Last prior edition:

Wednesday, April 15, 1914. Troubles for the Mexican Federal Government.

1910s, 1914, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Tampico Mexico, U.S. Navy, Vera Cruz Mexico

Mid-Week at Work: U.S. Troops in Mexico.

All around the water tank, waiting for a train
A thousand miles away from home, sleeping in the rain
I walked up to a brakeman just to give him a line of talk
He said "If you got money, boy, I'll see that you don't walk
I haven't got a nickel, not a penny can I show
"Get off, get off, you railroad bum" and slammed the boxcar door

He put me off in Texas, a state I dearly love
The wide open spaces all around me, the moon and the stars up above
Nobody seems to want me, or lend me a helping hand
I'm on my way from Frisco, going back to Dixieland
My pocket book is empty and my heart is full of pain
I'm a thousand miles away from home just waiting for a train.

Jimmy Rodgers, "Waiting for a Train".