Cheyenne State Leader for December 6, 1916: Wyoming Guardsmen in New Mexico had turkey for Thanksgiving

Yes, there was other news than the turkey in New Mexico, but the Leader was following the Guard in New Mexico, which no doubt a lot of Wyomingites were very interested in.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 6, 1916: Wyoming v. Colorado argued in front of the Supreme Court.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 6:

1916  Wyoming v. Colorado, dealing with apportionment of water from the Laramie River, argued in front of the United States Supreme Court.  It would be re argued twice and decided in 1922.

As this was an original action in front of the Supreme Court, i.e., a trial, it was presented over three days, concluding on the 8th.

The opinion would be issued after rehearing, in 1922.

Woodrow Wilson delivered his State of the Union Address for 1916.

 Woodrow Wilson addressing Congress (but not necessarily on this occasion).

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS: 

In fulfilling at this time the duty laid upon me by the Constitution of communicating to you from time to time information of the state of the Union and recommending to your consideration such legislative measures as may be judged necessary and expedient, I shall continue the practice, which I hope has been acceptable to you, of leaving to the reports of the several heads of the executive departments the elaboration of the detailed needs of the public service and confine myself to those matters of more general public policy with which it seems necessary and feasible to deal at the present session of the Congress. 

I realize the limitations of time under which you will necessarily act at this session and shall make my suggestions as few as possible; but there were some things left undone at the last session which there will now be time to complete and which it seems necessary in the interest of the public to do at once. 

In the first place, it seems to me imperatively necessary that the earliest possible consideration and action should be accorded the remaining measures of the program of settlement and regulation which I had occasion to recommend to you at the close of your last session in view of the public dangers disclosed by the unaccommodated difficulties which then existed, and which still unhappily continue to exist, between the railroads of the country and their locomotive engineers, conductors and trainmen. 

I then recommended: 

First, immediate provision for the enlargement and administrative reorganization of the Interstate Commerce Commission along the lines embodied in the bill recently passed by the House of Representatives and now awaiting action by the Senate; in order that the Commission may be enabled to deal with the many great and various duties now devolving upon it with a promptness and thoroughness which are, with its present constitution and means of action, practically impossible.

Second, the establishment of an eight-hour day as the legal basis alike of work and wages in the employment of all railway employes who are actually engaged in the work of operating trains in interstate transportation. 

Third, the authorization of the appointment by the President of a small body of men to observe actual results in experience of the adoption of the eight-hour day in railway transportation alike for the men and for the railroads. 

Fourth, explicit approval by the Congress of the consideration by the Interstate Commerce Commission of an increase of freight rates to meet such additional expenditures by the railroads as may have been rendered necessary by the adoption of the eight-hour day and which have not been offset by administrative readjustments and economies, should the facts disclosed justify the increase.

Fifth, an amendment of the existing Federal statute which provides for the mediation, conciliation and arbitration of such controversies as the present by adding to it a provision that, in case the methods of accommodation now provided for should fail, a full public investigation of the merits of every such dispute shall be instituted and completed before a strike or lockout may lawfully be attempted. 

And, sixth, the lodgment in the hands of the Executive of the power, in case of military necessity, to take control of such portions and such rolling stock of the railways of the country as may be required for military use and to operate them for military purposes, with authority to draft into the military service of the United States such train crews and administrative officials as the circumstances require for their safe and efficient use. 

The second and third of these recommendations the Congress immediately acted on: it established the eight-hour day as the legal basis of work and wages in train service and it authorized the appointment of a commission to observe and report upon the practical results, deeming these the measures most immediately needed; but it postponed action upon the other suggestions until an opportunity should be offered for a more deliberate consideration of them. 

The fourth recommendation I do not deem it necessary to renew. The power of the Interstate Commerce Commission to grant an increase of rates on the ground referred to is indisputably clear and a recommendation by the Congress with regard to such a matter might seem to draw in question the scope of the commission's authority or its inclination to do justice when there is no reason to doubt either. 

The other suggestions-the increase in the Interstate Commerce Commission's membership and in its facilities for performing its manifold duties; the provision for full public investigation and assessment of industrial disputes, and the grant to the Executive of the power to control and operate the railways when necessary in time of war or other like public necessity-I now very earnestly renew.

The necessity for such legislation is manifest and pressing. Those who have entrusted us with the responsibility and duty of serving and safeguarding them in such matters would find it hard, I believe, to excuse a failure to act upon these grave matters or any unnecessary postponement of action upon them. 

Not only does the Interstate Commerce Commission now find it practically impossible, with its present membership and organization, to perform its great functions promptly and thoroughly, but it is not unlikely that it may presently be found advisable to add to its duties still others equally heavy and exacting. It must first be perfected as an administrative instrument. 

The country cannot and should not consent to remain any longer exposed to profound industrial disturbances for lack of additional means of arbitration and conciliation which the Congress can easily and promptly supply. 

And all will agree that there must be no doubt as to the power of the Executive to make immediate and uninterrupted use of the railroads for the concentration of the military forces of the nation wherever they are needed and whenever they are needed. 

This is a program of regulation, prevention and administrative efficiency which argues its own case in the mere statement of it. With regard to one of its items, the increase in the efficiency of the Interstate Commerce Commission, the House of Representatives has already acted; its action needs only the concurrence of the Senate. 

I would hesitate to recommend, and I dare say the Congress would hesitate to act upon the suggestion should I make it, that any man in any I occupation should be obliged by law to continue in an employment which he desired to leave. 

To pass a law which forbade or prevented the individual workman to leave his work before receiving the approval of society in doing so would be to adopt a new principle into our jurisprudence, which I take it for granted we are not prepared to introduce. 

But the proposal that the operation of the railways of the country shall not be stopped or interrupted by the concerted action of organized bodies of men until a public investigation shall have been instituted, which shall make the whole question at issue plain for the judgment of the opinion of the nation, is not to propose any such principle. 

It is based upon the very different principle that the concerted action of powerful bodies of men shall not be permitted to stop the industrial processes of the nation, at any rate before the nation shall have had an opportunity to acquaint itself with the merits of the case as between employe and employer, time to form its opinion upon an impartial statement of the merits, and opportunity to consider all practicable means of conciliation or arbitration. 

I can see nothing in that proposition but the justifiable safeguarding by society of the necessary processes of its very life. There is nothing arbitrary or unjust in it unless it be arbitrarily and unjustly done. It can and should be done with a full and scrupulous regard for the interests and liberties of all concerned as well as for the permanent interests of society itself. 

Three matters of capital importance await the action of the Senate which have already been acted upon by the House of Representatives; the bill which seeks to extend greater freedom of combination to those engaged in promoting the foreign commerce of the country than is now thought by some to be legal under the terms of the laws against monopoly; the bill amending the present organic law of Porto Rico; and the bill proposing a more thorough and systematic regulation of the expenditure of money in elections, commonly called the Corrupt Practices Act. 

I need not labor my advice that these measures be enacted into law. Their urgency lies in the manifest circumstances which render their adoption at this time not only opportune but necessary. Even delay would seriously jeopard the interests of the country and of the Government. 

Immediate passage of the bill to regulate the expenditure of money in elections may seem to be less necessary than the immediate enactment of the other measures to which I refer, because at least two years will elapse before another election in which Federal offices are to be filled; but it would greatly relieve the public mind if this important matter were dealt with while the circumstances and the dangers to the public morals of the present method of obtaining and spending campaign funds stand clear under recent observation, and the methods of expenditure can be frankly studied in the light of present experience; and a delay would have the further very serious disadvantage of postponing action until another election was at hand and some special object connected with it might be thought to be in the mind of those who urged it. Action can be taken now with facts for guidance and without suspicion of partisan purpose. 

I shall not argue at length the desirability of giving a freer hand in the matter of combined and concerted effort to those who shall undertake the essential enterprise of building up our export trade. That enterprise will presently, will immediately assume, has indeed already assumed a magnitude unprecedented in our experience. We have not the necessary instrumentalities for its prosecution; it is deemed to be doubtful whether they could be created upon an adequate scale under our present laws.

We should clear away all legal obstacles and create a basis of undoubted law for it which will give freedom without permitting unregulated license. The thing must be done now, because the opportunity is here and may escape us if we hesitate or delay. 

The argument for the proposed amendments of the organic law of Porto Rico is brief and conclusive. The present laws governing the island and regulating the rights and privileges of its people are not just. We have created expectations of extended privilege which we have not satisfied. There is uneasiness among the people of the island and even a suspicious doubt with regard to our intentions concerning them which the adoption of the pending measure would happily remove. We do not doubt what we wish to do in any essential particular. We ought to do it at once. 

At the last session of the Congress a bill was passed by the Senate which provides for the promotion of vocational and industrial education, which is of vital importance to the whole country because it concerns a matter, too long neglected, upon which the thorough industrial preparation of the country for the critical years of economic development immediately ahead of us in very large measure depends. 

May I not urge its early and favorable consideration by the House of Representatives and its early enactment into law? It contains plans which affect all interests and all parts of the country, and I am sure that there is no legislation now pending before the Congress whose passage the country awaits with more thoughtful approval or greater impatience to see a great and admirable thing set in the way of being done. 

There are other matters already advanced to the stage of conference between the two houses of which it is not necessary that I should speak. Some practicable basis of agreement concerning them will no doubt be found an action taken upon them. 

Inasmuch as this is, gentlemen, probably the last occasion I shall have to address the Sixty-fourth Congress, I hope that you will permit me to say with what genuine pleasure and satisfaction I have co-operated with you in the many measures of constructive policy with which you have enriched the legislative annals of the country. It has been a privilege to labor in such company. I take the liberty of congratulating you upon the completion of a record of rare serviceableness and distinction.

Monday at the Bar; Courthouses of the West: Sublette County Courthouse, Pinedale Wyoming

Courthouses of the West: Sublette County Courthouse, Pinedale Wyoming:

This is the Sublette County Courthouse in Pinedale, Wyoming.  The courthouse is the seat, for Sublette County, of the two courts of Wyoming's 9th Judicial District.

I'm unsure of the vintage of this courthouse, but I'm guess it dates to at least the 1950s, although I could be in error.   The court is in a Federalist style.

The USS West Virgina Ordered.

The USS West Virginia was ordered for construction.

The USS West Virginia, San Francisco, 1934.

She would be launched on November 19, 1921.

Laura Stockton Starcher elected mayor of Umatilla, Oregon.

The suffragist era came to Umatilla, Oregon with a vengeance when Laura Stockton Starcher was elected mayor, defeating her incumbent husband, though write in votes and, additionally, women further took the majority of the town council seats.

Their administration proved to be a progressive one.

Jarbridge Stage Robbery.

While the last train robbery was yet to come (and would come in Wyoming) the last stage robbery found itself occurring on this date in 1916.

On this day a two horse mail wagon was robbed, and the driver killed, so that the stage could be robbed, resulting in a very brief $4,000 gain to the thieves.  The advance of technology intersected with the antiquated nature of the crime as one of the perpetrators was convicted on the bases of his palm prints, the first person in the United States to meet their fate by that means.

Ben Kuhl, whose palm prints would convict him.

The location of the robbery, Jarbridge Nevada, was remote in the extreme and was nearly in Idaho.  Snowy weather aided the criminals in their endeavor.  The luck of the criminals, three in number, soon ran out however and they were rapidly apprehended.  One turned state's evidence, and Kuhl received the death sentence which as later commuted to a live sentence.  He was released in 1945.

Signs of the times from the New York Times (the times being 1916)

On today's 100 Years Ago Today Subreddit we learn a couple of interesting things.

 Horse drawn fire engine, New York City, 1916

One is that the head of New York City's fire department was proposing to convert the last horse drawn engine companies to automobiles.  Most already had been in NYC, but 700 fire horses remained with an average age of 13, apparently.

End of an era.

Secondly we learn that a study at Columbia University had found that it was perfectly possible to work your way through university.  Interesting to see that concern then, when many fewer attended it and they tended to be from classes with means as a rule.  Clearly the times were truly changing.

 Columbia library, 1915.

The study listed various jobs finding that shoveling snow lead the pack but posing as an "art model" came in second, although only one woman opted for that job.  Of various occupations listed, one curiously labelled one was "companion", which was a role performed by one female student.  Quite a few women worked as stenographer and typists which, although we hardly think of it that way now, were jobs that were actually new to women.

Female typist, 1917.  In this case the typist is 15 years old.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Boston Avenue United Methodist Church, Tulsa Oklahoma

Churches of the West: Boston Avenue United Methodist Church, Tulsa Oklahoma

This is the Boston Avenue United Methodist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The church combines Gothic features with Art Deco features, reflectingits construction in 1929.

The Cheyenne State Leader for December 3, 1916. Carranza sets to take on Villa and Teachers take on booze.

On Sunday December 3, readers in Cheyenne were perhaps a bit relieved to find that Carranza's forces seemed to be rallying, perhaps meaning that National Guardsmen at the border wouldn't be finding Villistas crossing back over into the United States.

At the same time, teachers came out in favor of Prohibition. 

That doesn't really surprise me, and indeed strikes me as natural.  I'm not a teetotaler but its rather obvious that alcohol creates a flood of societal problems, quite a few of which teachers have to deal with daily. 

Along those lines, it amazes me that in our current era we've not only come to regard the concerns that lead to Prohibition as being quaint and naive, but we're out trying to legalize ever intoxicant we can.  Related back to the concerns of the teachers in 1916, just this past week a 19 year old died in this town of, it appears, complications due to the ingestion of an illegal drug.  It would seem that the intoxicants that  are legal now are quite enough really.

Poster Saturday: Italian Red Cross Matinee.

Injured players get full pay for their contracts in baseball.

On this day in 1916 the National Commission in baseball ordered that injured baseball players get full pay for the duration of their contracts.  Prior to that the injury clause in their contracts allows clubs to suspend players after fifteen days.  The Players League had pressured for the change.

The Cheyenne State Leader for December 2, 1916. American Troops Ready to Stop Bandit Villa.

Things were starting to look increasingly dangerous on the border.

The Laramie Republican for December 2, 1916: Maybe there's nothing to worry about on the border.

Residents of Laramie would have been less disturbed by border news today than those in Cheyenne would have been.

The Casper Weekly Press for December 1, 1916: White Slavery and Boom on in Casper

While the Cheyenne papers warned of bodies burning in the streets of Chihuahua and Villa advancing to the border, as well as the ongoing horrors of World War One, the Casper Weekly Press hit the stands with tales of white slavery.

White slavery, for those who might not know (we don't hear the term much anymore) was basically the kidnapping of young women and forcing them into prostitution.

Headlines like this are easy to discount, and seem lurid, fanciful, and sensationalist, but in reality they give us a view into the hard nature of the past we'd sometimes completely forget.  White Slavery, i.e., the kidnapping of women and the forcing them into prostitution, was actually a bonafide problem, and to some extent, it remains one.

I've spoken to one now deceased woman who escaped an attempt to kidnap her on a large East Coast city when she was a teen and who was convinced that she was almost a victim of such an effort.  And it wasn't all that long ago that it was revealed there was an Hispanic white slavery ring in Jackson Wyoming, where very young Mexican teenage girls were being brought up to that Wyoming resort town as prostitutes, working in an underground economy there focused on single Mexican laborers.  That one was discovered, oddly enough, through the schools.  Still, the evil practice, fueled by money and drugs, is with us still, although with advances in technology, and just more knowledge on such things, it wasn't what it once was, thankfully.

We don't want to romanticize the past here, so we've run this, although with all the news on bodies burning in the streets, etc, we probably can't be accused of romanticism anyhow.

Meanwhile an oil boom was on in Casper causing housing shortages.

Page two of the Casper Weekly informed us that a Ford had become a necessity.  If it wasn't quite true at the time, it soon would be.

The Wyoming, a store apparently took a shot at Prohibitionist by advertising that they had "everything a Prohibitionist likes."

The Wyoming Tribune for December 1, 1916: Carranza prepares to fight at the border

Just a few days ago the news was reporting that US forces would be able to withdraw from Mexico and an agreement with Carranza was on the verge of being signed. Today the Tribune was reporting fears that Villa would advance to the US border.

And former Governor Osborne, presently U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, we're told, was contemplating running for the Senate.

The Cheyenne Leader for December 1, 1916: Grim scenes in Chihuahua

Aerial view of Motor Truck Group, Ft. Sam Houston, Texas, Major F.H. Pope, Cavalry, commanding, December, 1916

Movies In History: Flyboys, The Red Baron and The Blue Max (and The Great Waldo Pepper).

Sometimes the only purpose a movie serves is to remind you how good an earlier movie actually was.

Drama in the air, biplanes, war, romance. . . how could you go wrong?

Well, apparently you can. At least if Flyboys and The Red Baron are any guide.

Let's start off with a really good film fearing all of this, however.  The Blue Max.

The Blue Max was a 1966 movie featuring George Peppard as Lt. Bruno Stachel, a German commoner who is elevated to officer rank as a pilot during World War One.  It's based on a novel by the same name, which I have not read.  Stachel finds himself elevated out of the trenches, out of the enlisted ranks and into both the infant Luftwaffe and to the company of German nobility, the latter of which he does not mix well with.  Highly competitive and not entirely likeable, Stachel's story is well developed and the film does a nice job of exploring a world that was being killed by World War One.  The title of the film is taken from Stachel's pursuit of the Prussian award for valor, the Pour le Merit, an award that was given to quite a few German aviators during World War One.

The film features a nice collection of aircraft built for the story, which in some ways are as much the stars of the film as the actors. Period aircraft were not available so they built them for the film.  Fortunately, I suppose, aircraft of that period were relatively simple.

This is an excellent film.  In terms of material details, in regards to aircraft, its superb.  It's good also in regard to German uniforms, which were a mix for aviators.  It's one of the few films regarding World War One aircraft that demonstrate how filthy of job it was, given that the engines of the period spewed oil back on the pilots.  A film history buff could pick a few complaints with the use of British small arms for German ground troops, but as that's a secondary aspect of the film, it shouldn't really detract much and it was common at the time.  Otherwise, it's excellent in every way.  It's by far the best modern World War One aviation film every made.

Before moving on to the lesser films, we should mention The Great Waldo Pepper, which is a film in which Robert Redford plays the title role, a barnstormer in the 1920s.  The barnstorming era is romantically remembered, but off hand this is the only film I'm aware of that features it.  Again, the story is a good one, the planes are also the stars, and the material details are excellent.  Concerning those planes, quite a few of them from this 1975 film were made for The Blue Max, so the accuracy of the aircraft shouldn't surprise us, perhaps.

And then there's the others.

Recently I've been posting a lot on the year 1916, so it's only appropriate that both Flyboys and The Red Baron would be on television.  For really lightweight entertainment, I guess their okay, but only barely so.

Flyboys is a 2006 film featuring James Franco in an early role as a pilot joining the French military in a squadron loosely, and I do mean loosely, based on the Lafayette Escadrille.  It's pretty bad.

This is the first film of which I'm aware that CGI was used for the aircraft.  A viewer who is familiar with The Blue Max will be disappointed as the aircraft look fake, at least to the experienced eye.

The story is fake, to the knowledgeable viewer, and more than a little odd.  For example, one of the American pilots in this squadron is portrayed as highly religious and sings Onward Christian Soldier as he flies into battles.  This story takes place in World War One, not World War Two, and therefore there isn't an intelligible religious element to the story.  I.e, the Germans were Christians too and no matter what you think of their cause they weren't being lead by Hitler (indeed, their sovereign, Kaiser Wilhelm, would disdain Hitler in exile).

For some odd reason, in addition, every German fighter in this film is a Fokker Triplane  Weird.  And they're all painted red save for the black one flown by a real baddy.  This contrasts with The Blue Max which correctly shows that German squadrons flew a real mix of aircraft and those aircraft tended to be painted in all sorts of different ways, all within a single squadron.

The only saving grace, really, to the story is the portrayal of a French farm girl by the improbably named French actress Jennifer Decker.  She does a nice job in a story that's otherwise a mess.

Even worse, is the 2008 film The Red Baron, which is currently showing on Netflix.  A German made film, but in English, it's best just flat out skipped.  The basic plot could be summarized as; young boy dreams of flying his whole life (improbable given that aircraft had existed for only eleven years when WWI broke out), becomes flyer, flies in a noble airborne game of chess, falls in love with nurse who exposes him to war, became anti war.

Bleh.

A lot of this strikes a person as sort of an excuse to try to make a film that really romanticizes a German officer who was really deadly at his craft and make him into sort of anti war hero in the process.  Well, Manfred Von Richthoffen wasn't awarded the Blue Max as he was an airborne pacifist.

This makes of this film also seem to have been compelled to take the concept that the war in the air was chivalrous, a somewhat doubtful or at least overdone proposition, a bit further than the bounds of reality will tolerate.  Every modern World War One aviation film does this to some extent, and the proper extent is likely that depicted in The Blue Max, but this one is really over the top in these regards.  Developing a personal relationship, for example, between Manfred Von Richthoffen and Canadian pilot Roy Brown is really a bit much.

So, skip Flyboys and The Red Baron and rent The Blue Max and The Great Waldo Pepper instead.

The Cheyenne Leader for November 30, 1916: A National Guard Casualty

Only meriting a small entry at the bottom of the page, we learn on this day that Wyoming National Guardsman Pvt. Frank J. Harzog, who enlisted from Sheridan, died in Deming of encephalitis.  He was to be buried at Ft. Bliss, so he wold never make it home.

Too often soldiers who die in peacetime are simply forgotten; their deaths not recognized as being in the service of the country. But they are.  Indeed, the year after I was in basic training a solider who was in my training platoon, a National Guardsman from Nebraska, died in training in a vehicle accident.  A Cold War death as sure as any other.