The Wyoming Tribune for September 28, 1916: Guard leaves on 26 trailroad cars, revolt in Greece, and we're a sick soft nation in 1916, apparently

The always more dramatic Wyoming Tribune noted that the Guard was "finally" off for the Mexican border, but its the other headlines that really drew attention.

I'd hardly regard the US of 1916 as sick, soft and fat, but apparently somebody did.

Cheyenne State Leader for September 28, 1916: The troops have left

In today's edition of the Cheyenne State Leader we learn that the Wyoming Guard departed the prior night, after an apparently long day of delays.

The bottom entry, I'd note, reminds us to be careful out there.

Mid Week At Work: Auto body repair

This week I'm taking a bit of a different approach to this reoccurring topic to note that I really wish I knew how to do this.

I've been spending a lot of time recently in an auto body shop, given that I've had an entire series of automobile incidents recently.  Indeed, I didn't even bother to post about the last couple of things that have gone mechanically wrong, I'm getting so used to it.

The whole experience has been aggravating, but not because of the shop, but rather because I've had up to three automobiles in shops of one kind or another at the same time.  We have what I've always regarded as a surplus of vehicles.  Four a household that had four drivers (now three, that my son is in college and not in the household) we have up to six vehicles, which just seems excessive.  Well, right now, with one of those vehicles gone with my son, and three in the shop, I"m down to two. And of those two, one is a really heavy truck that, while I'm using it around town and for short trips into the country, I can't really use it in my day job if I have to go anywhere.  It's been quite an experience.

But my experience with the automobile repair places hasn't been bad in any way.

Indeed, what it has done has sort of revived a long wish of mine that I knew how to do auto body work and really good mechanical work.

Yes, I know that's odd.

It's not that I'm going to take up a late career move from law to auto body repair.  I just admire their work.  And that of mechanics as well.  And having a lot of old wheeled stuff, I really wish I knew how to do it.

Indeed, I looked at the Casper College course catalog and saw that the offer courses in this. But, of course, their courses are designed for the young who are educating themselves for their careers.  So the cases last for hours, and are mostly during the day.

Even at that, if I were retired, I'd seriously think about taking them.  By the time I retired, I'll be too darned old to do that.  But it's something I can admire anyhow.

Check your facts, Chuck

A quote from candidate Chuck Gray:

We need to get serious about having the federal government fulfill its promise to return its federal land (which is around 50% of the state) back to the state of Wyoming, which is stated in Wyoming's Constitution and was acknowledged at the time of Wyoming's admission to the Union. When we cleared title to this land, it was acknowledged by both parties that the United States government would be a trustee which would then be disposed of in a reasonable time period. Judicial options need to be considered, as well as working with Congress--for example, Hawaii was able to convince the federal government to sell most of its lands in Hawaii. These lands should be managed effectively to help our people, rather than sitting there rotting.

Actually the polar opposite is the truth. Wyoming forever disclaimed any claim to the public domain and the Federal government never promised them to the state.

Check your facts Chuck.

Sitting there rotting?

No, providing public access, rather than being sold off to out of state interests.

Boo hiss.

Meanwhile in the Villista camp. . .

Pancho Villa attacked and apparently defeated a couple of Constitutionalist garrisons.  Or so reported the Chicago newspaper, which I now know thanks to Reddit's 100 Years Ago Today subreddit.

Villa was getting quite active again.

Today In Wyoming's History: September 27. Disasters and ships.

From Today In Wyoming's History: September 27:

1923  Thirty railroad passengers were killed when a CB&Q train wrecked at the Cole Creek Bridge, which had been washed out due to a flood, in Natrona County.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1944 USS Natrona, a Haskell class attack transport, launched.

There's something in the county memorializing the latter (the ship's wheel, in the old courthouse), but not the former.

Such an awful disaster, you'd think there might be.

The Wyoming National Guard, what was it doing and where was it going?

I posted this item two years ago on the Mid Week at Work Thread.  It occurs to me that it may very well be appropriate for the Wyoming National Guard was going through in Cheyenne these few days, a century ago:

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".

As can be seen from my entry yesterday, there's some indication the Guard entrained on September 26, 1916.  And I've reported that elsewhere, years ago.  And maybe some did leave on September 26, but I now doubt it.

Rather, in looking at it more fully, the typical Army hurry up and wait seems to have been at work.  The Guard was supposed to entrain on September 26, but the cars didn't show up or didn't in adequate numbers.  It appears, also, that the Colorado National Guard was entraining at the same time, and that may have played a role in this.  Be that as it may, I now think the September 26 date that I have used, and others do use, in in error.

What seems to have happened is that most of the Guardsmen entrained on the night of September 27, late.

But where were they going? 

That will play out here as well, but original reports in these papers said they were going to San Antonio. Then it was reported that nobody knew where they were going.

Well, they went to Deming New Mexico, which isn't far from where this all started off, in Columbus.

Rodgers didn't record Waiting For A Train until 1928, and he wasn't recording in 1916.  Too bad, this would have been a popular song with those troops.

The Cheyenne State Leader for September 27, 1916: Best laid plans?

The past couple of days the papers were reporting that the Guard would leave on September 26, but here the Cheyenne State Leader indicates that there's been some sort of delay, and the Guard was going to be leaving that day.

Did anyone leave?  Frankly, I"m not sure. The few sources I have aren't consistent.  Some report the first contingent did leave on September 26.  But this would suggest otherwise.

Elsewhere workers were discontent, and Greece appeared ready to enter World War One.

A bust in the local housing market?

Casper's real estate market has been rates as one of the ten least healthy in the United States.

No surprise there.

And there's a sense of deja vu there as well.

Along with that, there's the odd nature of depressed real state market denial.  I well remember in the 1980s, when our market was very depressed and a lot of houses went back to the banks, that well into that there were those who simply denied that this was the case until it could no longer be denied.

Having said that, it doesn't seem quite as dramatic as last time. That may be because the bottom simply hasn't fallen out of the real estate market yet.  It's subject, it seems, to sort of a delayed effect.  At first people hesitate to put homes up for sale, and then later they can't due to their being under water, and then perhaps they're forced to.  I don't know that we're to the forced to stage yet.  We could be getting there.

Indeed, over the weekend the Tribune reported on a couple of businesses and how they're doing.  Not well in a couple of instances.  The reports were interesting, however, that in one an older owner (in his 50s) felt that the petroleum sector was never coming back, a young guy in his 20s felt it would.  The difference?  Well, that guy in this 50s, two years younger than me, had no doubt seen this happen before and felt that something about the bust this time is different, and more long lasting, than lat, and that one was pretty darned long.  He could well be right.  I've already reported here on how technology has moved to where the petroleum industry may not need as many employees as it did before and during this boom.  And coal, in my view, will never be what it once was.  The one shop owner had gone from fifteen employees down to just himself.

The reason that I note that is that, somehow, real estate markets are like predator and prey populations. When the rabbit supply increases, the bobcat supply does as well, but there's a gap in it.  The rabbits start crashing before the cat's peak, which is bad for the cats post bust.  I think real estate markets tend to work that way, which if true means that we may be hearing about a declining market more in the future.

And of course this isn't just Casper.  The article claims that the market is staying stable due to retirees coming in.  Maybe, but in a statewide market I wonder.  And for that matter, Casper, of which I'm a native, always strikes me as an odd place for immigrant retirees, unless they like high winds and cold winters, which most do not.

Well, we'll see, of course, how this develops.

The first debate

Do you intend to watch it?

Douglas Enterprise for September 26, 1916: State Fair in progress, Bryan speaks.

In Douglas, where the State Fair was going on, the Guard also didn't make the news.

Bryan did, however.  He spoke there as well, no doubt doing a whistle stop tour of Wyoming.

The Casper Record for September 26, 1916: Bryan speaks, fair a success.

Far to the north of Cheyenne, one of the Casper papers reported that William Jennings Bryan spoke in town, and that the county fair had been a big success.

Nothing on the Guard.

Fairs were apparently held later in the year at this time.

The Laramie Republican for September 26, 1916: Villa moves north.

One of the Laramie papers also managed to miss the entraining of the Guard, even though Laramie is only fifty miles from Cheyenne.  It reported Villa moving north, however.

Wyoming Semi Weekly Tribune for September 26, 1916: Wyoming Guardsmen to Entrain

The Wyoming Semi Weekly Tribune, which was published by the Wyoming Tribune, oddly did managed to note that the Guard was going to entrain today, even though its daily paper had omitted that news.

Entrain, I'd note, is a verb we don't use much anymore.  But it would have bee quite a bit more common then.

The Cheyenne Leader for September 26, 1916: Rousing farewell planed for Guard.

The less dramatic Cheyenne State Leader reported that there would be a rousing farewell for the Guard in Cheyenne.

The State Fair also had opened, much later, I'd note, than it does today.

Wyoming Tribune for September 26, 1916. Villa on the move, Pershing promoted

On the day of the anticipated move of the Wyoming National Guard the Wyoming Tribune, always somewhat dramatic, reported Villa advancing toward American troops, Pershing promoted, and even cannibals in gross acts, but nothing about the Guard on the front page. 

It wanted every county represented at the State Fair, however.

The Punitive Expedition: The Wyoming National Guard departs for the Mexican border (or not). September 26, 1916

The Wyoming National Guard departed Wyoming for service on the Mexican border, according to some sources.  That this was to occur was reported several days ago in the local press, and there had been heightened action in Mexico over the past week showing that Villa was still very much an active player in Mexico.

 Some of those Guardsmen.  Members of Company C, raised from Park County Wyoming, 1916.

Because this was a significant event in the context of what we're looking at here, as well as in the history of the state, we're going to be looking at a few newspapers again from this and the following days to see how they treated the story.

And in doing that we are going to question whether this date is actually the correct one.  It's cited by some, but the period newspapers suggest it might have been the first day of a lot of waiting around expecting to entrain, in true military fashion.

Strife over the Tribal Court

 

 Poor photograph of the Wind River Indian Reservation Tribal Court.

I'm a member of the Wind River Reservation's bar so it pains me to see some strife over the future of the Court.

For a very long time, indeed since I think it became an independent tribal court after no longer being a BIA court, the Tribal court has been just that.  The court for both of the Tribes, the Shoshone and the Arapaho, on the  Wind River Reservation.  Both tribes managed their affairs jointly through a Joint Business Council.

But the Arapahos withdrew from the council within the last couple of years and now a suit has been filed in which it argues that the BIA must deal separately with it.  It also seeks to establish its own courts.  Basically, it wants complete administrative separation and for the Federal government to treat the Arapaho tribe separately.

Making the situation worse, the Arapahos constitute 70% of the Wind River's population, but the Joint Business Council, which is now all Shoshone, has kept on keeping on as the recognized tribal government nonetheless.  And they haven't been shy about it.  They simply are treating the Arapaho absence as temporary.

This dredges up old problems on the Reservation.  I noted a little of the history on the page I have on this blog on Tribal Court jurisdiction when I noted that the Reservation was created in 1863 for the Shoshones, at their request, and didn't become the home for the Arapahos until 1878, something that was supposed to be temporary.  At that time the Northern Arapahos were a very small tribe, and actually an enemy of the Shoshones, but now they outnumber them.

I have to admit that they have a point.  The official policy of the US is to encourage Tribal sovereignty and therefore they are a sovereign nation.  If they don't want to participate in a joint administration, I guess they don't have to.  But how there can be two separate bodies administering the same lands, let alone two separate courts, is difficult to grasp.

Theodore Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. September 26, 1916

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Mary's Catholic Church, Clearmont Wyoming

Churches of the West: St. Mary's Catholic Church, Clearmont Wyoming:

This is St. Mary's Catholic Church in the small town of Clearmont, Wyoming. This Mission church is served by the Catholic Parish in Buffalo, Wyoming. Clearmont itself is a small ranching town. The church was built in 1919.