Land Values and American Agriculture

Recently I happened to be out in the sticks doing some livestock type stuff when the person I was with, who does livestock type stuff full time, asked me what I thought of a recent place I know relatively well having sold.  I didn't know it had sold, which shows how I'm both out of it, and how local news really is.

 Nebraska homesteaders. These homesteaders were likely doing well, as they had a couple of horses, some sort of implement a wagon and a band of sheep.

Indeed, not only had the place sold, it had sold for a very high price.  Now, the interesting part of this is that it sold for a middle high six digit figure to the family that just sold it, when they purchased it about 30 years ago. The current sales price was over 10 times higher than that old one.

Now, on that, I'll first observe, and I think it important, that 30 years ago a lot of agricultural land, including Western agricultural land, was at a depressed price due to an economic slump that the country had entered combined with some insurance companies having invested heavily, at that time, in agricultural land.  This combination caused a lot of land to go on the market at a depressed price, for one reason or another. So, those mid 1980s values may not have been realistic or reflective of true worth at the time.  They undoubtedly were not, so the price was probably deflated by 1/3d at that time, meaning that the true long term value was higher, and the recent price in actual dollars was probably more like nine times higher than the mid 1980s price.

And while the 1980s weren't a period of hyper inflation like the early 1970s were, the fact of the matter remains that we still continue to experience inflation and that means nearly any time we look at a figure we find in the past, we  have to take that into account. And it turns out that a 1980 dollar wold be worth about $2.00 in current money, so realistically the rise in price of this parcel of land is really probably a factor of about seven.

Still, something increasing in value by a factor of seven isn't insignificant. What's up?

Well one thing that's up is that the agricultural land that's being sold right now in the West is clearly not being sold at a price reflective of its production value.  A realtor I spoke to told me that its been the case for a very long time that ranches generally only generate 1% to 2% of a return annually, although I'm not sure what the 1% to 2% is based on (I should have asked).  I.e., 1% of what?  With the current high prices, I'd be surprised if they generated that much on a return in investment.  But what is obvious is that a lot of ranch land is currently priced at a level that is aimed at the very wealthy, who only wish to own a lot of land, or at people who have perhaps come into a lot of land and need to invest it.  If you had, for example, $10,000,000 from selling your oil sodden farm in North Dakota, putting it into a $8,000,000 ranch in Wyoming might make sense, as a economic endeavor.  It doesn't make sense if you made $10,000,000 from your widget business in New Jersey, but you might wish to purchase a lot of land as it's an attractive idea if you are in New Jersey (I'll note that I don't know anything about New Jersey, I'm sure parts of New Jersey are very nifty, so I'm not taking shots at New Jersey).

 Nebraska homestead with rather odd windmill.

Or maybe there are all sorts of factors I don't appreciate, as I don't have $10,000,000 to spend on anything, and probably don't grasp the concerns that people with that sort of cash have.  What I can say, however, is that there are people who buy ranch land in the west for emotional and psychological reasons, rather than economically practical ones, and that most land right now is priced at a level that, if its an actual unit, only the very wealthy can afford it.

This is an interesting, and perhaps disturbing, trend.

There is only so much land on earth and not all of that land is suitable for agriculture by any means.  Having started off with so much of it in the US, mentally we're used to the idea that there's land for everyone, including farm land if people want it. That was probably also never really true, but it was truer here than elsewhere.

  

 Nebraska homestead, probably a stock raising outfit.

The originating nature of American agriculture is found in Europe, and the story is ancient.  At one time, small homesteaders, in the loose use of that term, farmed tiny plots. But even as early as the later stages of the Roman Empire, the central government claimed a right to doll out parcels of land.  When Rome fell, land occupation at first went back to that rude sort of homesteading.  And that continued for some time. Even the Vikings were more farmers than raiders, violent homesteaders if you will.  But in the early Medieval period the families that had started off as little more than strongmen became the sovereigns, and were regarded as owning everything in their countries.  In Shakespeare, when a character refers to Henry V as England, it makes sense. Henry V, like every other sovereign, wasn't only the king of his country, in a land ownership sense, he was the country.

 The ruined Abby at Abbotsbury, England.  Picturesque, but it depicts a bleak history.  The Abbey was closed by Henry VIII sacking of the monasteries and the land in England was largely owned by wealthy large land owners up until after World War One, which a change in inheritance eliminated primogeniture and the tax structure changed, causing a rise in the fortunes of individual farmers for the first time in generations.

Kings dolled out land to lessor nobles who rented it to tenants, and that situation, very much developed, is the one that most of our European ancestors fled from.  Farming as a tenant isn't so much fun, in a worrying about how your crop is doing sort of sense.  Owning your own land, and being a "yeoman", is much preferable.  And as England and France (unlike Spain) allowed colonist to do that, in the New World, the inducement to emigrate was a strong basic one.  People like to imagine that all their immigrants were brave souls fleeing oppression, but a lot of them were just desperate farmers fleeing a life of rent.

Land in North America was always cheap, and prior to the Civil Ware there were always ways to acquire it nearly free of cost, with some states granting state homesteads or land grants. Sometimes the grants were tied to military service in a war, much like Roman land grants had been.  One state actually held a lottery for land.  But during the American Civil War the government passed the Homestead Act to encourage the populating of the American West.

Settlement of the west was already occurring.  Americans had been going to Texas (and receiving Mexican grants) since before Texas' Independence, which probably was a source of lasting regret to Mexico, and Americans began to flood into California starting in 1849.  The fact that the US would even think of doing a semi bizarre wartime act of encouraging the working age population to move beyond the draft really says something about the power of the northern states in comparison to the southern ones.  Who does something like during war time?  "Hey John, be prepared to go into the Army. . . or think about moving to Oregon. . . "  Weird.

Anyhow, that the entire process took to the US to a new level in all sorts of ways including that the Federal government now actually dolled the property out for free, to some extent, to those who simply worked it.  And they could buy more at a very low price.

 19th Century Nebraska Homesteaders.  Apparently this family thought sufficiently well of their cow to allow it to graze on their sod roof. 

Now, a couple of corrections are in order here about the story of homesteading.  In the popular imagination, some hardy homesteaders moved to the frontier, and put in a farm.  That sort of skips a step.  In actuality, homesteading was pretty hard.  It probably seems easier in our collective imaginations as most Americans at that time came from an agrarian background and they didn't have to be taught how to farm, usually.  And if they did, their homestead was likely doomed.  And in actuality a homestead required a pretty significant investment.  Storing up stuff for years in order to be able to do it was not common.  Even in the photo above we can see that the homesteading family has at least two mules, some sort of implement, and a cow.  No doubt they had more than that, but at a time when resources were thin, purchasing anything was pricey.  Keep in mind that this group apparently had six people to feed and clothe in addition.  

Most homesteads failed and contrary to the common belief there was a lot more 20th Century homesteading than 19th Century homesteading. Most 20th Century homesteads failed.  You can see photos of some failed homestead here, if you like, together with ones that didn't fail.  The whole process really didn't end until the 1950s, when the last of the homestead entries made before the expiration year of 1932 were finally proved up, save for a small number that were taken out in a special post World  War Two program.  And throughout the homestead period, but particularly later in the 20th Century, it was pretty common for farm and ranch families to dream of a better, easier life, they imagined existed in town.  Indeed, the irony of romantically looking back on homesteading is that homesteaders romantically looked forward to a non farm future for their descendants, in quite a few instances.

But it was still the case, in spite of the extremely difficult work and the very high chance of failure, it was still possible to acquire land that way for a person of modest means.  In order to succeed, including succeed out here in the arid livestock raising West, years had to typically go into the preparation to take out a homestead, contrary to the common view, but it could still be done.  A young man might, for example, work for a decade as a cowboy, acquire a small herd of his own, and then homestead.  Or a family might scrape enough together to give it a go.  As one of my old friends told me about the Homestead Act which his Russian immigrant grandparents had taken advantage of, "It was a good deal for poor people." 

Now, that same land is being sold in a lot of places for extremely high prices that certainly people of modest means, or even though quite well off but not extremely well off, can afford. 

Cheap land was an enduring feature of American history from day one, and in truth has a lot more to do with the success of the American nation (and Canadian one) than any concept of "American Exceptionalism" does.  The country became a big success because:  1) we had a lot of cheap land, and 2) we let people acquire it.  This isn't true of every country that has had a lot of land, but for those that did, and followed that recipe, they were guaranteed to be a success.  Australia and Canada provide other good examples.  I wonder what the meaning of the current situation is to us now?

It isn't as if this is exactly a new situation, but it is one that seemingly hasn't sunk in to people yet.  It's still a common bad drama scenario to have some guy tired of the stress of a big city go out and buy a farm or ranch.  One episode of the nighttime soap opera "Army Wives", for example, featured a series of plots in which a Specialist E4 is going to leave the Army and buy a ranch in Wyoming. Seriously?  On E4 pay you'd be lucky to afford a Lego Ranch.  But that idea, now matter how absurd, remains a common one.

And a bit of a heart breaking one for some.  I've been in groups of young men some 20 years my junior where they are working part time on ranches, or full time, and they speak of buying a ranch of their own some day, the same way that cowboys of 1890 could and actually did. They're not going to be able to, ever.  They probably know that, but dream otherwise.  At least a couple of the individuals I've heard express that sort of hope were working cowboys, who have to know that they can't possibly afford their own place at any point in the future.

This is a remarkable change in the history of the American nation, and maybe not a very good one.  If the foundational aspect of this country was the ability to go out and get your own land, and make a place for yourself, and if that is now dead, and it nearly is, what does it mean for the future of the country?

Now, some economist (and "futurist") would cheerfully (seriously) say that in the modern economy, agricultural production is an antiquated primitive means of generating wealth, and we should be happy as the new "homesteads" if you will, can be staked in the big city urban economy.  Can't start a ranch, well that's because society needs you to start a DotCom.

That's sort of a worrisome view to those inclined to worry, like men, however.  Another observed trend (but maybe not a new one) is that a majority of Americans do not like their work.  Now, chances are high that statisticians didn't take that figure in earlier times.  Did a majority of cigar makers in a cigar factory with no ventilation like their work?  I doubt it. What about a majority of coal miners in places like Hanna Wyoming where the mines collapsed and killed hundreds every now and then?  I doubt that too.

  Memorial to the Dead of the Number One Mine, in Hanna Wyoming.  Mine collapse killed over 200 miners in the first decade of the 20th Century at this location.  From Some Gave All.

Still, there's something about this that's distressing.

And indeed, its been distressing enough that in other countries it's been legislatively addressed.  In some European countries the transfer of farm land is pretty strictly limited to transfers to those who would farm.  Here in the US, an attempt to address can be found in various Young Farmers Programs that seek to provide funding, at a grossly inadequate level, to beginning farmers.  The US example, however, hasn't kept pace with the economic realities and, in addition, the government has worked at cross purposes with the Rural Home Administration also acting as a vehicle to fund the subdividing of land. 

Maybe there's no solution to this at all, and this reflects what happens when a country has over 300,000,000 people in it.  But it's a pretty significant change in the country that will impact its nature at some point.  Americans have tended to look at themselves as a hardy frontier people, but they're really a urban one and are closing the door to their rural past in real ways.  Part of that includes closing the door on people who would live as farmers if they could, thereby choosing a life of service for those people, or an urban life preferred by those who study numbers.

But wait!  Is this really a farm story, or a story that just happens to have been written about farmers.  In other words is the story broader than this. 

What if you wanted to open a grocery store?

 Neighborhood grocery store in Altoona Pennsylvania, 1930s.

When I was a kid, this town had several small locally owned grocery stores.  I can recall the Grant Street Grocery, Elk Street Grocery, Brattis' and two whose names I can't recall, one on Ash Street and another in North Casper.  Added to that were several small markets (whose names I also can't recall) that were sort of on the convenience store model, and not real grocery stores.  Of all of those, one survives, and it survives by being a specialty market to some extent. Brattis', which always had a really good meat department, survives as a butcher's shop, or meat market.

Or what if you wanted to open an appliance store, sporting goods store or an audio equipment store?

 Hardware store in former bank building, 1970s.

Now, of course, all these types of stores still exist, to be sure, and there are locally owned ones everywhere, but there's no denying that locally owned stores selling many types of items are much rarer than they used to be, and they face economic pressures from large retail chains everywhere.  This is, in fact, an increasing, not a decreasing trend.

Now, this is distinctly different from the story of agricultural land, for the most part, presented above, but it is interesting that overall in our economy, it's just tougher for individuals to own a business of any kind, of their own. Even in the classic professions there's been at least local consolidation and the individual shop is less common.  It's an interesting trend, and it shows no signs of abating.  The question would be whether that is something that truly benefits the individual, the collective whole, or either?

At any rate, the change overall has been monumental, and in agriculture it's becoming fundamental.  The long term meaning of it is unknown.  Maybe there really isn't one, in a country that shifted over from having a very significant rural population up to the mid 20th Century but which no longer does, or maybe it means a rethinking, at some point, as to what it means to be an American, where party of the foundational myth of the country is no longer realistic for most people.  Of course, many other nations have similarly now unrealistic foundational myths, but keep them.  Most Australians, for example, aren't hardy residents of the Outback.  Most Arabs aren't Bedouins.  

At any rate, in the context of this blog, here's a change from a century ago that is seemingly unacknowledged by the general public, but which certainly is huge in real terms.  I'm used to people telling me "I grew up on a ranch" or "I grew up on a farm".  In the future, that won't be heard all that much, at least if present trends continue.

Epilogue

I recently read two articles that reminded me of this recent post.

The first one was in the magazine Super Lawyers (I'm not too sure what I think of that title) which featured a short article on a Cheyenne lawyer I know a bit (not much).  I did know that his family had a ranch and that one of his older brothers ranched it.

The article was interesting in that it told an age old tale.  Turns out the lawyer found that there was no place on the ranch for him, as his two older brothers and their families were already on it.  That's not really something new, this lawyer related that he's now 68 years old.  Still it shows the general impossibility for a common person to enter this field.  He came from a ranching background, had an agricultural degree, but there was no place for him to go. So he went on to the law instead.

The second article was in the  Casper Star Tribune today, and had a headline about young ranchers now entering the profession at an increased rate, locally. The increasing age of farmers and ranchers is constantly noted in the press, and the headline would give the impression that young people were successfully taking this up as a career from outside the profession.

Well, the headline was misleading. Rather, the article was about the children of ranchers becoming ranchers, something that's hardly news.  Again, it's illustrative of the points developed above. 

The electric motorcycle acquires a big name. The Harley Davidson Livewire

I've met some people who are fanatically opposed to the concept of electric vehicles.  I don't really know why, other than that they just don't like things changing much and have an attachment to vehicles as they are.  However, even a casual observation would confirm that electric vehicles are starting to come on strong.

Now, as if anyone needs any further proof, Harley-Davidson, a company with over a century in motorcycle making experiencing, is making an electric motorcycle, the Livewire.

They aren't offering it to the public, it's a concept bike they're touring around with now. But the fact that they've done means that the heavy duty electric motorcycle can't be fare behind.

 1922 Harley Davidson with sidecar.

UW law professor receives grant for persuasive writing - Laramie Boomerang Online

UW law professor receives grant for persuasive writing - Laramie Boomerang Online

Not only did he receive a grant, he made the fairly amazing statement in his interview that if something went to trial, that indicated a failure.

Well, in looking him up I noted that his actual years in private practice were exceedingly small, one of the problems I tend to have with academic lawyers.  Perhaps he's done a lot of representation while a university professor, which quite a few university professors do, but still that comment is just flat out off the mark.

The Casper Star Tribune Colunist Dan Molyneax

As I've criticized the Casper Star Tribune from time to time, I have to give it credit where credit is due. While I don't always agree with him (I think, for example, he's wrong on Putin), he writes well, clearly, and isn't afraid of stating opinions that most people hold to themselves out of fear of holding them, if they do.  That columnist would be Dan Molyneaux.

Molyneax has guts.  In the short time he's been writing he came out with an article sympathetic to the aims of Vladamir Putin, with a clear explanation of why he feels that way, he's criticized the common idolizing of John Wayne as a hero, and on a recent Sunday he declared that Islam is not a religion of peace. All pretty bold comments really from a print columnist in a local newspaper.  Just taking on the odd memory people have of John Wayne as an American hero took guts I thought, and actually discussing the tenants of Islam at their written face value is very bold in the west. Having bold opinions is one thing, but actually stating them in the compressed amount of space a columnist has is quite another.  Molyneaux actually manages that.  And he doesn't do it in a superficial manner, in which some inflammatory national columnist do. Agree with him or disagree with him, he actually states a point and why he thinks what he does.

Again, I don't always agree with him, but I hope they keep him around.  As I thought would be the case, one recent column will met with a lot of opposition, probably about 70% of it vitriolic and not bothering to actually address his points in their disagreement..  That's the risk of being a columnist in the age of the instant anonymous comment.  I wouldn't read the comments if I were him, and I hope the Tribune doesn't regard them as a reason to set him aside. 

Of interest, Molyneaux fits into the category of clergymen correspondents, something we tend not to see a great deal of now, but which were at one time quite common.  In his case, he's an ordained Lutheran minister, which the Tribune used to note in its short note on his column, but no longer does.  Anyhow, it's nice to see the Tribune have an articulate serious columnist, no matter what a person might think about any one of his particular columns.

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Wyoming's First Tribal People

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Wyoming's First Tribal People

The Big Speech: Henry Fairlie's The Idiocy of Urban Life or The Cow's Revenge

The late Henry Fairlie was a British born essayist who wrote in the New Republic. A man of biting wit, he wrote the following essay, which is one of my favorites:

The Idiocy of Urban Life Or The Cow's Revenge.

Interesting reading, and a lot of interesting commentary in the article.

Friday Farming: Harvesting potatoes.

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Rolling Kitchen

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Rolling Kitchen

Mid Week At Work: Navy, World War One.

The Four Chaplains – “Interfaith in Action”

The Four Chaplains – “Interfaith in Action”

Seriously, Stop Refrigerating These Foods - Reviewed.com Refrigerators

Seriously, Stop Refrigerating These Foods - Reviewed.com Refrigerators



Okay, well off our typical subjects. . .



Or maybe not.  There are a fair number of things that need not be refrigerated, but people do anyway, reflecting a change in habits over time.  Interesting how refrigeration has affected our diets, and habits.

The Big Picture: Labor Party Convention, November 22, 1919

First national Labor Party convention, November 22, 1919. This photos is illustrative of the rise of socialist parties in the United States in the early 20th Century.

Friday Farming: Potato Digger

Mid Week At Work: Striking women, 1910

Painted Bricks: The end of the NCHS swimming pool

Painted Bricks: The end of the NCHS swimming pool

Everything Old is New Again. Yeoman's laws of History and Behavior and the U.S. Military Sidearm.

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Yeoman's Second Law of History.  Everything last occurred more recently than you suppose.

Here too, it doesn't matter what the topic is, it happened much more recently than you think it did.  Almost everything and every behavior is really durable, if it had any purpose in the first place.

For example, last bayonet charge?  Are you thinking World War One?  Nope, the British did one in Iraq.  Small unit, but none the less they did it.  And in the Second Gulf War.  Last cavalry charge?  Civil War?  No again, they've happened as recently as the current war in Afghanistan.  Last use of horse mounted troops?  Well. . . we aren't there.  It's still going on.  We're never as far from what we think is the distant past as we imagine.

From Yeoman's Laws of History.

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 Soldiers training with M1911 .45 ACP pistols during World War Two.

This past week, the U.S. Army announced that it is giving up on an effort to replace the M9 pistol it adopted in 1985 (basically because Congress forced it to) with another 9mm pistol.  It wants a pistol that shoots a larger cartridge.  Something in the .40 to .45 range.

The pistol that never really left.  A Greek soldier coaches a Polish soldier in the shooting of the M1911 handgun.  How exactly a scene like this comes about, I don't know, but the M1911 kept on keeping on in the hands of soldiers who really needed an effective handgun.

Instruction on the M9, the Army's current (well, one of the current) handguns, taking place in Afghanistan.

People who follow such things will recall that the U.S. Army had been using the .45 ACP cartridge and the M1911 pistol since 1911.  The Army never saw any reason to replace either, but Congress did and ultimately the Army was forced into adopting the 9mm cartridge, which was the NATO pistol standard.  The Army ended up adopting a Beretta pattern of pistol as the M9, and has been using it ever since, sort of.

Truth be known, just as with the 5.56 cartridge and the M16, there were those in the Army who were never very happy with the change, and ongoing criticism went on for a long time.  There were always efforts to paint a happy picture on the pistol situation, in spite of persistent rumors of the cartridge being inadequate and the M9 having problems, but they were basically officially denied.  Then wars happened.

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Yeoman's Thirteenth Law of Human Behavior:  The measure of the utility of something is how well it accomplishes a task, not how new it is.  Nonetheless, people tend to go with the new, even if less useful.

People tend to believe that they adopt new technology or implements because they are better or more efficient than what came before them.  Very often they are. But they aren't always.  Nonetheless, the new tends to supplant the old, simply because its new.

There are plenty of examples of this.  Some old tools and old methods accomplish any one job better than things that came after them, and some things remain particularly useful within certain condition or niches.  Nonetheless, it takes educating a person to that to keep those older things in use, because they are, well. . . older.

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For reasons that are a bit of a historical oddity, the U.S. Army has always been pistol heavy compared to other armies, and so unlike many other armies, the Army's pistol actually ends up being used in combat.  Given that, the .45 ACP began to creep back into use for special troops in the service, followed by the M1911.  Recently, the Marine Corps simply gave up on the 9mm M9 and readopted a new version of the M1911 for combat troops. The Army now appears set to do so, and in fact has been issuing variants of the M1911 to special troops for some time.  The Navy too has been issuing a .45 ACP pistol, although it's not a M1911, when conditions require it.  This follows the interesting story of the service's 7.62 NATO M14 rifle creeping back into use after decades of denying it was more effective than the 5.56 M16, although there's no indication that the M14 will replace the M4/M16, and I am sure it will not. The M1911 .45 ACP pistol may very well end up replacing the M9 and the 9mm completely. At least some big cartridge pistol will.  This basically proves the critics of the M9 and the 9mm to have been right all along.

 

U.S. soldiers in Vietnam.  All of the firearms that can be seen in this photograph are M16A1 rifles, a rifle that came into service due to being first adopted by the USAF for service (as the M16) in Vietnam.  The rifle supplanted the M14 over the objection of Springfield Armory, which ended up ceasing to exist in the process.  In spite of repeated efforts to fix various problems associated with it, which has resulted in the rifle remaining in service to this day, there have always been grumblings about it.



U.S. soldier of the 1st Infantry Division in Afghanistan, with an updated version of the M14 rifle.  Like the M1911, the M14 never really left the services, as it carried on in the hands of special troops before coming roaring back into service due to the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It's sort of an interesting story in context of the lessons of history.  The Army has played out this story before.

The U.S. Army went big into sidearms during the frontier era, when effective revolvers first became available.  Revolvers ended up being issued to every single cavalryman by the mid 19th Century, which was not the case for most armies, which relied much more on sabers and perhaps a long arm of some sort.  American cavalrymen, by the post Civil War frontier era, were all provided with a carbine, a saber and a sidearm.  In the field, sabers were often omitted.  Because of this, sidearms were regarded as a serious combat arm by the American military, and in spite of efforts to change that over the years, this remains the case.  American troops carry sidearms to an unusual degree.

In the mid 19th Century, cap and ball service revolvers were generally .36 or .44, with .44s being the more common issue arm in the U.S. Army (and also in the Confederate army).  .36s were used, but they were not used as much as .44s.  The .44 "Dragoon" revolver had come in the prior two decades, and it remained the standard up until 1873, at which point the Army adopted the M1873 Colt revolver in a .45 cartridge.  Why the change from .44 to .45 I don't know, as there was already a big .44 cartridge available, but that brought in the .45.  

Civil War Union Cavalryman with Colt 1860 model revolver.  This cap and ball revolver was the last of the series of successful cap and ball Colts.

The .45 as the service caliber remained in use for decades but in the late 19th Century an effort was made to replace it with a .38 cartridge and a new, double action, revolver was adopted.  It was used, along with old stocks of .45 revolvers, in the Spanish American War, but it was a failure in the Philippine Insurrection and .45 revolvers were reissued and a new one adopted.

 The 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry on the San Juan Heights. Theodore Roosevelt carried, and used, a .38 Colt revolver that had been recovered from the USS Maine in the action.

Sound sort of familiar?

Finally, a brand new .45 cartridge and a new automatic pistol were adopted in 1911. That pistol and cartridge carried right on until 1985, and it appears set to come back on it.  History repeating itself.

  

American soldiers in France with captured German 9mm P08s. The 9mm cartridge is actually a little older than the .45 ACP.

This is an interesting story, to followers of things of this type, as it shows the "history repeating itself maxim, and it's a story the US has actually lived through more than one.  The US military had a .45 sidearm and started to replace it with a lighter .38, but that failed, and the US went back to the .45.  Later in the 1980s, the US again replaced the .45 with a lighter cartridge, this time the 9mm. Granted, politics and pressure were involved with it, and an aspect of it was the adjustment of the service to increased numbers of women combined with the erroneous belief that women couldn't handle the bigger handgun.  It's not really a simple story. Yet here again, the 9mm is set to be replaced, apparently, with a .45 again.

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Yeoman's First Law of History.  Everything first happened longer ago than you suspect.

It doesn't matter what the topic is, but the first occurrence of anything is always further back in time than originally thought.  This is why certain distant dates are continually pushed back, and will continue to be. So, take whatever you like, say the first use of the horse, or the first appearance of humans in North America, and you'll find the "first" date gets more and more distant in time.  Things that were thought to happen, say, 5,000 years ago, turn out to have happened 50,000 years ago, or 500,000 years ago, as we gain better data.

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We've done that with rifles too, actually.  At the turn of the century, when smokeless powder weapons were coming in, the .45-70 single shot "Trapdoor" Springfield was replaced by the .30-40 Krag in the Army.  In the Navy and Marine Corps, however, the .45-70 was replaced by the 6mm Navy Lee, which proved too light and was soon thereafter replaced itself.  

U.S. Marines on board the USS Wyoming, equipped with Navy Lees.

Ultimately, the .30 became universal in the US military until the 5.56 came in, but then the .30 started coming back in again, with the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The point?  I suppose there really isn't one, other than that this provides an interesting way to explore the operation of some of the prime Yeoman's Laws of History and Yeoman's Law of Human Behavior.

The Big Picture: Seven Pines Battlefield. 1912

The damage one historian with erroneous conclusions can do.

Army historian of World War Two and the Korean War, S. L. A. Marshall

Historians can be enormously influential.

Many people tend to think of historians as tweedy characters, looked up in their rooms wearing thick glasses and going through piles of books. That isn't the case of course, although they do read a lot, but they do research and that research tends to get reflected in their published works. That is inevitable.

Historians aren't always correct.  More often than not, when they're not, its simply inadvertent.  Not everyone understands everything they study or see, and errors can be made.  Those errors can become very hard to correct later.  For example, the widely erroneously believed myth that cavalry played hardly any role in World War One has proven to be darned near impossible to correct, in spite of it simply being demonstrably wrong.  It might never be corrected.

But an error that's intentionally created to advance a point is another matter, and that appears to be the case with the legendary findings of S. L. A. Marshall in his still in print book Men Against Fire.

Men Under Fire reported Marshall's conclusions that only 25% of troops fired their weapons in combat during World War Two.  The finding was so influential that the Army adjusted its training and doctrine as a result, applying its newly learned lessons during the Vietnam War. The problem is that Marshall's own data didn't support his conclusions and they were wholly incorrect.

This did great damage to the U.S. Army at the infantry level.  Marshall's work was later drawn into question and discredited.  Marshall himself has received some criticism for his behavior in how he came to bully his research assistants.  But the book is still in print all these years later and it still shows up on Army recommended reading list, showing I suppose how prevalent an influential work can be once its received initial approval.  At the training level, the Army moved on after Marshall and went back training marksmanship, but not before many years of his influence had had an impact.  The Army's historical branch should withdraw the book lest it have any renewed influence, although that risk is no doubt slight. For historians, and the readers of history, the story has a lesson all of its own.

The Big Speech: The Declaration of Independance

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Friday Farming: Beetfield

The Big Speech: Ft. Bridger Treaty of 1863.

1863  Chief Waskakie singed the Ft. Bridger Treaty of 1863, which provided:

Articles of Agreement made at Fort Bridger, in Utah Territory, this second day of July, A. D. one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, by and between the United States of America, represented by its Commissioners, and the Shoshone nation of Indians, represented by its Chiefs and Principal Men And Warriors of the Eastern Bands, as follows:

ARTICLE 1.

Friendly and amically relations are hereby re-established between the bands of the Shoshonee nation, parties hereto, and the United States; and it is declared that a firm and perpetual peace shall be henceforth maintained between the Shoshonee nation and the United States.

ARTICLE 2.

The several routes of travel through the Shoshonee country, now or hereafter used by white men, shall be and remain forever free and safe for the use of the government of the United States, and of all emigrants and travellers under its authority and Protection, without molestation or injury from any of the people of the said nation. And if depredations should at any time be committed by bad men of their nation, the offenders shall be immediately seized and delivered up to the proper officers of the United States, to be punished as their offences shall deserve; and the safety of all travellers passing peaceably over said routes is hereby guaranteed by said nation. Military agricultural settlements and military posts may be established by the President of the United States along said routes; ferries may be maintained over the rivers wherever they may be required; and houses erected and settlements formed at such points as may be necessary for the comfort and convenience of travellers.

ARTICLE 3.

The telegraph and overland stage lines having been established and operated through a part of the Shoshonee country, it is expressly agreed that the same may be continued without hindrance, molestation, or injury from the people of said nation; and that their property, and the lives of passengers in the stages, and of the employes of the respective companies, shall be protected by them.
And further, it being understood that provision has been made by the Government of the United States for the construction of a railway from the plains west to the Pacific ocean, it is stipulated by said nation that said railway, or its branches, may be located, constructed, and operated, without molestation from them, through any portion of the country claimed by them.

ARTICLE 4.

It is understood the boundaries of the Shoshonee country, as defined and described by said nation, is as follows: On the north, by the mountains on the north side of the valley of Shoshonee or Snake River; on the east, by the Wind River mountains, Peenahpah river, the north fork of Platte or Koo-chin-agah, and the north Park or Buffalo House; and on the south, by Yampah river and the Uintah mountains. The western boundary is left undefined, there being no Shoshonees from that district of country present; but the bands now present claim that their own country is bounded on the west by Salt Lake.

ARTICLE 5.

The United States being aware of the inconvenience resulting to the Indians in consequence of the driving away and destruction of game along the routes travelled by whites, and by the formation of agricultural and mining settlements, are willing to fairly compensate them for the same; therefore, and in consideration of the preceding stipulations, the United States promise and agree to pay to the bands of the Shoshonee nation, parties hereto, annually for the term of twenty years, the sum of ten thousand dollars, in such articles as the President of the United States may deem suitable to their wants and condition, either as hunters or herdsmen. And the said bands of the Shoshonee nation hereby acknowledge the reception of the said stipulated annuities, as a full compensation and equivalent for the loss of game, and the rights and privileges hereby conceded.

ARTICLE 6.

The said bands hereby acknowledge that they have received from said Commissioners provisions and clothing amounting to six thousand dollars, as presents, at the conclusion of this treaty.

ARTICLE 7.

Nothing herein contained shall be construed or taken to admit any other or greater title or interest in the lands embraced within the territories described in said Treaty with said tribes or bands of Indians than existed in them upon the acquisition of said territories from Mexico by the laws thereof.

Done at Fort Bridger the day and year above written.

James Duane Doty,

Luther Mann, jr.,

   Commissioners.

Washakee, his x mark.

Wanapitz, his x mark.

Toopsa+owet, his x mark.

Pantoshiga, his x mark.

Ninabitzee, his x mark.

Narkawk, his x mark.

Taboonshea, his x mark.

Weerango, his x mark.

Tootsahp, his x mark.

Weeahyukee, his x mark.

Bazile, his x mark.

In the presence of—

Jack Robertson, interpreter.

Samuel Dean.

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: What, Automobiles in Yellowstone!

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: What, Automobiles in Yellowstone!

Interesting entry on this topic.  We've blogged about the amazing change in rural transportation in the early 20th Century ourselves, but not in this context..I suspect that many people can't imagine the real differences in early auto transportation as compared to the current era, and the extent to which that made things which can seem fairly easy and routine now, extraordinary and difficult.

Mid Week at Work: Chicago Mounted Police, 1907

Newfoundland Regiment at the Somme | 1870 to 1918

Newfoundland Regiment at the Somme | 1870 to 1918

GhostsofNorthDakota.com - North Dakota's Ghost Towns and Abandoned Places : GhostsofNorthDakota.com

GhostsofNorthDakota.com - North Dakota's Ghost Towns and Abandoned Places : GhostsofNorthDakota.com

Making it personal: Lex Anteinternet: Es ist nichts, Es ist nichts...

Lex Anteinternet: Es ist nichts, Es ist nichts...: Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Today in the history of mounted warfare  And so it began. Tuberculitic Gavrilo Princip, ...

June 28, 1914, was a Sunday.

So, putting a personal spin on this, if you subtracted whole to the year 1914, and lived in that century, how would this news have realistically impacted you?  That is, if your life played out in a reasonably predictable manner, with hindsight.  That's not always an easy thing to do, as things have changed very much.

But, if you lived a century ago, would this have amounted to much more than sad news to you? When would you have even learned of it?  I'm posting this on June 30, and I'd guess I would have known by Monday June 29, 1914, but I certainly wouldn't have thought the world on the verge of one of the great wars of human history, on that following Tuesday.

 Tragedy of all types carried on, the August 1, 1914 killing of French Canadian Reservist Antoine Nottar by a Sergeant of the 5th Highlanders.

The Big Picture: Susquehanna Bridge

Es ist nichts, Es ist nichts...

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Today in the history of mounted warfare

 And so it began.

Tuberculitic Gavrilo Princip, on this day, assassinated Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and his wife lighting the fire that would kill millions in the next four years.

The Construction Crew

Yesterday morning when I went to work, a construction crew from the city was moving a heavy planter and doing work with front end loader where a car had recently crashed into an old planter (how on earth that happened I had not a crew).  They were doing a quick efficient job, early in the morning before traffic could crowd the street or parking lot.

When I cross the street something occurred to me, remarkable in this era only in that I noted it.  Every single member of the construction crew was a young woman.  Probably none of them were over 30 years of age, and not one man was on the crew.

This isn't really remarkable, except that it wasn't all that long ago when women construction workers were a real rarity. Heavy construction with heavy equipment, such as this, was certainly almost all male, not all that long ago.  Indeed, a couple of years ago some heavy construction crews downtown were both all male, and all Hispanic, reflecting a traditional situation in which these jobs often went to immigrant men.

Well, not this crew.  An interesting sign of how times have changed.

Friday Farming: U.S. School Garden, World War One.

Goats In The City? Making A Case For Detroit's Munching Mowers : The Salt : NPR

Goats In The City? Making A Case For Detroit's Munching Mowers : The Salt : NPR

Mid Week At Work

Instant Communications and the Erosion of Leisure?

Recently I worked on a Saturday, like most Saturdays.  I think I left work that day about 3:00.

I don't "push" my email to my cell phone, like a lot of other people do.  I don't do this intentionally, as I don't have the discipline not to check it.  The only time that I do that is when I'm on the road.

The prior day, a client had called me with an emergency.  I called the opposing attorney, who was not there, and left a message and followed up with an email. All I could do, under the circumstances, late on a Friday.

After I left work on Saturday, my client emailed me twice.  Once to inform me that the problem still existed, and then to inquire why I hadn't yet solved it.  Only 24 hours had gone by, most of it in a weekend.

The following day, the opposing attorney emailed me, which I didn't realize as I don't check my work emails while I'm in town, and not in my office, as a rule.  But he apparently does.

I'm sure this isn't unique to the law, but its bad all the way around.  Twenty four hour a day communications has risen to the level of a 24 hour work expectation.  This means that, at some level, peoples lives now are more their work than ever, and they are what their professions are, with no other life that cannot be invaded.  As trends go, people like to cite to instant communications as an advancement, but I doubt it really is.  Time for the personal life is gone.

We see now where over half of all Americans are disenchanted with their employment and in high stress occupations this is particularly so.  I can't help but thing people leaving their Iphones on all the time contribute to that.  Well, don't do it.  It'll wait till Monday.

The Big Picture: Florida East Coast Hotel Co. Fishing Camp, Long Key, 1912

Russo-Japanese War: The 18,000-mile voyage | 1870 to 1918

Russo-Japanese War: The 18,000-mile voyage | 1870 to 1918

Some Gave All: In 'The Agony of War,' a life of trouble, a moment...

Some Gave All: In 'The Agony of War,' a life of trouble, a moment...: In 'The Agony of War,' a life of trouble, a moment of immortality | NOLA.com

Wyoming State Bar - Wyoming State Bar - Musings of an Old Country Lawyer

Wyoming State Bar - Wyoming State Bar - Musings of an Old Country Lawyer

It’s Official: The Boomerang Kids Won’t Leave - NYTimes.com

It’s Official: The Boomerang Kids Won’t Leave - NYTimes.com

Or so says The New York Times.

But is that really an unprecedented trend, or a return to the historical norm?

We're used to the idea that children grow up, "move out of the nest", and go on to lives of their own.  And any right thinking parent wants a child to have his or her own life as an adult, to be sure.  And it's always been the case that the young tended to move on to that life. As Genesis tells us regarding marriage; "For this reason, a man shall leave behind his father and mother, and he shall cling to his wife; and the two shall be as one flesh."

But is the phenomenon of  a person being at home into their adult years, if unmarried, really all that odd and distressing.  Not really.

We've addressed it here, but men and women leaving home before their married, while certainly not uncommon, wasn't all that usual if they stayed in one location.  In eras with thinner resources, which is most of human history, young men and young women tended to stay at home with their parents until they were married, unless they moved away for work or for some other reason.  That was pretty much the norm.

There were a variety of reasons for that, a lot which had to do with resources or ready resources.  Prior to the post World War Two era, it just wasn't that easy to live independently on your own.  Cooking meals, washing clothes, etc. took a lot more effort in prior eras, and attempting it on your own often wasn't easily possible.  The same technological revolutions that made it possible for women to have jobs outside the home, made it possible for men and women to live singly on their own easily.

Up until now, that is, apparently.

What we're seeing is probably due to a contraction of resources, even though we live in the richest era in human history.  Just as with our story on homesteading of the other day, the cost of living on your own has increased for the young.  It's increasingly difficult for them to find work, and housing costs continue to be prohibitively high for many, maybe most.

And, of course, there's an aspect of this story that has to do with family, and perhaps that's a good thing.  At some point in the 1950s or 1960s people became accustomed to "youth rebellion", but that isn't the historical norm either.  We're seeing, it would seem, a return to an era when children strongly identified, even as adults, with their families.  Social commentators who can recall only back to 1960 or so might lament that, but I don't know that they really should.

A legal Gerontocracy?

There's a bill pending in Wyoming's legislature which proposes to remove the mandatory retirement age for the judiciary, which is presently 70 years old.

The cited reason for this bill, which has passed at least one reading in the house, and which I guess will pass, is that the sponsoring legislators were distressed by a relatively recent retirement of a Wyoming Supreme Court justice, whom they regarded as a legal treasure.  Of course, that cited basis is somewhat insulting to the newly appointed justice, but apparently they aren't so worried about that.  They claim, at any rate, that Wyoming's mandatory age 70 retirement means that great legal minds are being deprived from continuing on in the judiciary because of an arbitrary retirement age.  Fans of such legislation also tend to note that people are living, and working, much longer than they used to.

They ought to rethink it.

All of the cited basis for the legislation may well be true.  But equally true are a hosts of physical and social reasons why this is a bad idea.

First of all, I'm not stating that people shouldn't work past age 70 if they want to. That's their own business, if they work in the private sector.  But in the public sector, and particularly in a position of great importance in which the worker was appointed by the Governor, it's another matter entirely.

Most people, even now in our modern age, do not escape the ravages of time. We all hope to, but very few of us really do.  The impacts of age and infirmity impact different occupations differently.  It's rare, for example to find a 40 year old rig hand, they're just too old, just as its rare to find a 40 year old professional football player. The body cannot handle it.  For mental occupations, however, 40 years old might be young.  A 40 year old Governor is extraordinary rare.  Barrack Obama, Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy were all regarded as young Presidents, where as they'd otherwise be regarded as middle aged men during those same time periods.  A 40 year old judge is not uncommon, but still fairly rare.  A judge appointed at age 40 will have been practicing law for about 15 years, not a particularly long legal career, and just five years past the point where most practicing lawyers regard a lawyer as proficient.  I've known quite a few lawyers who were still practicing law at age 70, or even 80.  So what's the problem?

Well, one of  the problems is, for a cerebral occupation, some people's minds will begin to go starting in their 50s, but it will not really set in until their 60s.  Quite a few people, so many that's its regarded as a massive public health crisis, begin to suffer from dementia in their 70s or 80s.  Generally, a high percentage of people who suffer from these conditions have a bare inkling when the problems commences, but they have no real idea that they've slipped into it.  It might not be so obvious to others recently.

Indeed, I've experienced that personally.  My mother has fronto temporal dementia.  She cannot live on her own, at age 86, and has not been able to for two years.  But she seemingly remained sharp enough up until about age 80.  Oh, there were signs, but not so much that I was willing to believe them.  Her decline, in the end, came on extremely rapidly and very traumatically.

Surely this is not a problem for an older judge, correct?  After all, it's been pointed out, there's a process to remove a sick or disabled judge.  Well, in order to invoke that process, the judge has to be noticeably sick or disabled, which is not like flipping a switch.

Indeed, I have a couple of lawyer friends, now in their 60s ,who have remarked to me on more than one occasion how their memories were just shot.  One is practicing, the other is not.  The one who is not was frank that he had to quit, as his memory just couldn't match the requirements of the work.  Prior to that he had given up adversarial proceedings, as his memory was no longer suited for it.  That's admirable, but even today I can only barely tell that this is his condition.  I can, but only barely.  I can also, with the lawyer that remains in practice, and has no intention of retiring.

Several years ago I tried a case against a lawyer that very clearly was suffering from some sort of mental decline in his advanced age.  He was in his 70s.  His clients must not have noticed it, and the Court certainly did nothing about it.  His representation of his clients was bizarre to some degree.  And many years ago I had a case against a lawyer who ultimately withdrew from representing his client, who actually was so infirm he fell asleep during a deposition.  In none of these cases did anyone step in to cause the lawyer to step down.  I don't think, by and large, that average people necessarily grasp that a lawyer's skills are declining, and I'm not sure that any of their colleagues are willing or able to do anything about it.

All of that, of course, is from private practice, which people have a right to keep doing. But in a public trust would things be much different?  I doubt it.  And if they were, it'd be at the point where things were so bad that the only thing we'd later remember about that judge is that he had to be removed for mental infirmity. 

And that's just the most obvious case.  Being a judge is actually a fairly grueling line of work, at least for trial judges.  I've tried cases in which the judges became severely ill, but because there was an ongoing trial, they kept on keeping on. They really had no choice.  For older judges, with a greater list of ailments, this would be an increased problem.  Time off the bench means that nobody is there, or in a trial setting, perhaps a court commissioner, a part time judge, is there.  However, Wyoming's voters recently declined to allow a constitutional amendment that would legalize the practice of allowing commissioners to sit on the bench if the judge remains in the county, so that's a limited option.

And, frankly, perhaps its just not in society's interest to have lawyers in their 70s and 80s sitting on the bench, or perhaps particularly on the  Wyoming Supreme Court.  Critics would note that this is already the practice on the Federal bench, but on the trial level, the Federal court's mostly rely on very set law, or on state law.  On the appellate level it can be argued that the examples we have may not really support keeping judges on until, basically, they die.

The law really belongs to the people in the end.  There's a great deal to be said about stability in the law, but sometimes that stability can be a negative stability.  Judges that come on to the court as a species of reformer, either conservative or liberal, end up remaining on the court as a bulwark against change.  At the U.S. Supreme Court level the practice has been to appoint ideological judges who are relatively young, with the idea of cementing the movement o the day in the courts.  It only partially works as the judges end up staying, in some instances, for 30 or 40 years.  That's good, and bad, but do we really want it at the local level?

The Wyoming Supreme Court is not the U.S. Supreme Court, and no great issues of the Federal Constitution will come in front of it.  A lot of important local issues will, however.  If the retirement age is removed, this will mean that the justices, who are often in their 50s, may be on the bench for 30 years.  That's a long time to have a potentially fixed set of ideas in control.

Indeed, on the score, the U.S. Army of World War Two provides an interesting example.  Going into World War Two the Army had a large number of elderly generals.  George Marshall, the senior general of the Army, determined, with the expansion of the Army in 1940, to forcibly retire almost all of them.  It's sometimes erroneously believed that he retired all over 50, he did not, but the impact of his actions had that practical result.  The Army, therefore, went into the war with young generals, some actually only in their 30s.  Why?  Not because the older ones were infirm, it's just that their thinking didn't evolve during an era of mechanized war.  It was fixed in an earlier era.  There's be no reason to expect judges would be any different.

 George S. Patton at age 59. He and MacArthur were unusual for US field commanders in that they were retained even though they were over 50 years of age in 1940.  Patton is believed to have suffered from some temperament problems, however due to head injuries sustained as a younger man, and what his condition would have been like in his 60s and 70s is open to question.

Indeed, keeping the Army example up and going forward, the Army of the 50s, 60s, and 70s reflected the fact that a lot of those World War Two officers did not go when they could have, and should have. The Army changed its retirement policy during the war to allow retirement after 20 years, but many hung on to the required retirement age of 60, and that reflected itself in our strategic thought for a long time.  It will be noted that in at least one war of the 1960s, we did not do so well.

 Major General James Gavin, a legendary airborne general, in his mid 30s.

Every time a position like this is opened up for somebody of advanced age, it's closed for somebody of a younger age. If judges are allowed to add another decade or so to their service, ti means that some who would have become judges will not.  It would not be possible for those judges to really make the career adjustment for a variety of reasons later.  Quite a few Wyoming judges in recent years have been in their 40s.  Given another decade of practice would the same individuals still opt for the bench?  A lot of Wyoming judges are appointed in their 50s.  Those individuals will not be opting for the bench in their 60s.

Indeed, while I like all the judges I know in their 60s, the argument can almost be made to adopt the Army's current policy and require the judges to retire in their 60s. Army jurist, like other soldiers, must retire at age 60s, well before Social Security eligibility.  That does insure that all of the up and coming jurists have a place.  I don't know that this same policy would be good for Wyoming, but I can see an argument for 65, or even 63.  Yes, it's young, and perhaps too young. But it also would mean that retiring jurists would make space for lot more younger judges, and there'd be more who were judges over time.  That seems like a good idea to me.

Finally, for those who are able and want to remain working, it allows, or perhaps forces, their talents to be applied elsewhere, which may be to everyone's benefit. Some retired judges have gone on to late interesting and valuable careers.  One became a famous baseball commissioner, for example.  One Wyoming district court judge in recent years went on to be a valuable appointed office under Governor Freudenthal.  There are other roles they can play.

Even with all of that, I suspect that this bill will pass.  People don't like to contemplate the grim realities of later life much, and like to pretend it won't occur.  And people really don't look out much for the younger age groups as a whole, even though people like to claim they do.  My prediction is that this bill will pass, and as a result, the judiciary will be lost to many fine individuals who would have made good judges, and we'll eventually have the embarrassing sceptical of somebody having to be removed for infirmity.

Epilog:

From the June 5, 2013, New York Times.

  ALBANY — At 74, Justice Sidney F. Strauss loves his job and has no desire to stop working. But at the end of 2014, he may be forced into his golden years by a mandatory retirement rule.

“Fifty years ago, when the life expectancy was 61, if you said, ‘You want to work to 76?’ They’d say, ‘You should live so long,’ ” said Justice Strauss, a State Supreme Court judge in Queens. “But as long as I am physically and mentally capable of doing this, I want to keep doing this.”

Each year, judges across New York and the rest of the country grudgingly hang up their robes because of these rules, many of which were inscribed in state constitutions well before the eras of penicillin, cholesterol drugs and hip replacements. More than 30 states and the District of Columbia have an age limit on jurists, according to the National Center for State Courts: 70 is the limit in many states; in Vermont, it is an optimistic 90.

In New York, judges have to retire at either 70 or 76, depending on their courts. But this year, a reprieve seems possible.

The Legislature has been considering a bill that would amend the State Constitution, if approved by voters, to extend the retirement age to 80 for hundreds of judges statewide, including the chief judge of the Court of Appeals, Jonathan Lippman.

Goodness.  Law belongs to the public, and a person loving their job has little to do with that.  Moves such as this effectively mean that people can live in some judicial districts had have the same judge presiding over it their entire lives. That hardly seems fair, or wise.  People may, due to improved healthcare, live to very advanced years, but does that mean that they should get to treat the office of judge as a personal possession for those long lives?

Epilog

Earlier this week I posted an item from the Federal Court list serve on the 70, that's right 70, Federal judges who are still serving on the Federal bench in some capacity who are veterans of World War Two.

I suppose differently, but that of course means that these gentlemen way up there in years.  I mentioned this to a couple of people, and received a couple of different reactions.  Frankly, having had to deal with the problems my mother's dementia creates for her, and therefore by extension us, has caused me to really, really doubt the wisdom of allowing somebody to work in this capacity for so long, and I wasn't the only one.  My mother thinks she's fine, and if she were a Federal judge, she'd probably be refusing to retire.  She certainly is in exceptional health for a person her age, except for mentally.

One reaction was a shocked "why would a person do that" which a teenager expressed to me.  "You could retire and do whatever you wanted."  Frankly, I feel that way too, although at age 51 I'm beginning to see how it becomes the case you can no longer do whatever you'd want. Still, I had that question myself.

A question of that type was one of the things the interviewer asked the various judges. Here's one of the answers?

Q. What makes you continue to serve on the bench?
A. I was appointed for life and I’m going to serve out my term. … it’s a performance of a duty, the same as I was doing when I was in Europe. I’m very big on duty, I was given a duty by President Nixon, and I have done my damnedest to carry it out for the 40 years I’ve been here.

Well, okay, but that perhaps demonstrates why these appointments probably ought to have a cap for retirement on them.  Nixon was a while back there.

Another jurist just enjoyed doing the job:

Q. You’ve kept up an active workload as a judge. For those who don’t have a lifetime appointment, what is that keeps you judging at this time of your life?
A. Well, I respect the court, and I’m interested in what I’m doing, what I have been doing over the years, so I’d like to continue doing as much of that as I’m physically capable of. Well, it’s partly just the satisfaction of doing this kind of work. If I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t have stayed on as long as I did, because I could have retired or gone elsewhere many years ago. This is just what I like to do most.

I like that answer a lot better, quite frankly, although it still bothers me that a person can occupy a limited special occupation for so long.

 Judge Leo Glasser provided this reasoning:

Q. Why do you continue to work full-time on the bench?
A. Well, to begin with, I love the law. The United States District Court is without any doubt the greatest court in the world, in the sense that it deals with everything from admiralty to zoning – every conceivable aspect of the law. Also, if senior judges all decided to go fishing, I think the federal judiciary would be in a great deal of difficulty. I don’t remember the percentage of federal cases that senior judges deal with, but it’s substantial. We perform a significant service to the judiciary, and to the country by extension.

 Judge Arthur Spatt's view was similar, implicitly.

Q. Why do you continue to work as a judge?
I carry a full load, absolute full load, same as my regular colleagues. This is the most extraordinary judicial position. …  I have both civil and criminal cases. I have diversity cases, where a citizen of one state is suing a citizen of another state. Every kind of case, whether it is an automobile accident or an action on a promissory note or a contract. I am so fortunate to be able to have this judgeship. … It’s as stimulating  as  the first day I was in it. Every case presents new things, innovative things, interesting things, challenging things.

I can't say that any of this changes my view. Rather, in some ways it reenforces it.   The job doesn't really belong to an individual the way other jobs do, but rather to the country as a whole.  It does charge that person with a duty, but does that duty include occupying it until death?  I don't think so.  Perhaps a larger duty exists to allow it to be occupied by a younger generation at some point. And no matter how much a person might enjoy it, enjoying it wouldn't seem to be a justification for continuing to occupy it.