On this date, in 1917.
Monday, January 23, 2017
The Messengers
G. Leary, age 14. $5.00 per week wages, $2.50 per week tips.
Edward Williams, $5.00 a week. No uniform. Note the classic working man's newsboy cap.
Joseph Amico, 14 years old, $5.00 per week, deliverer of shoes.
January 23, 1917.
Sunday, January 22, 2017
Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Catholic Church of the Ascension, Hudson Wyoming
Churches of the West: Catholic Church of the Ascension, Hudson Wyoming:
This Catholic Church in Hudson Wyoming was built in 1917. In a way, it shows the limitations of travel at the time, as Hudson is quite near Lander, where there is another Catholic Church. At the time this church was built in 1917, however, travel between the two towns would have been time consuming.
This Catholic Church in Hudson Wyoming was built in 1917. In a way, it shows the limitations of travel at the time, as Hudson is quite near Lander, where there is another Catholic Church. At the time this church was built in 1917, however, travel between the two towns would have been time consuming.
Wilson delivers his "Peace Without Victory" speech
Woodrow Wilson delivered his "Peace without victory" speech to the United States Senate on this day in 1917. In it he stated:
Gentlemen of the Senate:
On the 18th of December last, I addressed an identical note to the governments of the nations now at war requesting them to state, more definitely than they had yet been stated by either group of belligerents, the terms upon which they would deem it possible to make peace. I spoke on behalf of humanity and of the rights of all neutral nations like our own, many of whose most vital interests the war puts in constant jeopardy.
The Central Powers united in a reply which state merely that they were ready to meet their antagonists in conference to discuss terms of peace. The Entente powers have replied much more definitely and have stated, in general terms, indeed, but with sufficient definiteness to imply details, the arrangements, guarantees, and acts of reparation which they deem to be the indispensable conditions of a satisfactory settlement. We are that much nearer a definite discussion of the peace which shall end the present war. We are that much nearer the definite discussion of the international concert which must thereafter hold the world at peace.
In every discussion of peace that must end this war, it is taken for granted that the peace must be followed by some definite concert of power which will make it virtually impossible that any such catastrophe should ever overwhelm us again. Every love of mankind, every sane and thoughtful man must take that for granted.
I have sought this opportunity to address you because I thought that I owed it to you, as the counsel associated with me in the final determination of our international obligations, to disclose to you without reserve the thought and purpose that have been taking form in my mind in regard to the duty of our Government in the days to come when it will be necessary to lay afresh and upon a new plan the foundations of peace among the nations.It is inconceivable that the people of the United States should play no part in that great enterprise. To take part in such a service will be the opportunity for which they have sought to prepare themselves by the very principles and purposes of their polity and the approved practices of their government ever since the days when they set up a new nation in the high and honourable hope that it might, in all that it was and did, show mankind the way to liberty.
They cannot in honour withhold the service to which they are now about to be challenged. They do not wish to withhold it. But they owe it to themselves and to the other nations of the world to state the conditions under which they will feel free to render it.
That service is nothing less than this, to add their authority and their power to the authority and force of other nations to guarantee peace and justice throughout the world. Such a settlement cannot now be long postponed. It is right that before it comes this Government should frankly formulate the conditions upon which it would feel justified in asking our people to approve its formal and solemn adherence to a League for Peace. I am here to attempt to state those conditions.
The present war must first be ended; but we owe it to candour and to a just regard for the opinion of mankind to say that, so far as our participation in guarantees of future peace is concerned, it makes a great deal of difference in what way and upon what terms it is ended. The treaties and agreements which bring it to an end must embody terms which will create a peace that is worth guaranteeing and preserving, a peace that will win the approval of mankind, not merely a peace that will serve the several interests and immediate aims of the nations engaged.
No covenant of cooperative peace that does not include the peoples of the New World can suffice to keep the future safe against war; and yet there is only one sort of peace that the peoples of America could join in guaranteeing. The elements of that peace must be elements that engage the confidence and satisfy the principles of the American governments, elements consistent with their political faith and with the practical convictions which the peoples of America have once for all embraced and undertaken to defend.
I do not mean to say that any American government would throw any obstacle in the way of any terms of peace the governments now at war might agree upon or seek to upset them when made, whatever they might be. I only take it for granted that mere terms of peace between the belligerents will not satisfy even the belligerents themselves. Mere agreements may not make peace secure. It will be absolutely necessary that a force be created as a guarantor of the permanency of the settlement so much greater than the force of any nation now engaged or any alliance hitherto formed or projected that no nation, no probable combination of nations could face or withstand it. If the peace presently to be made is to endure, it must be a peace made secure by the organized major force of mankind.
The terms of the immediate peace agreed upon will determine whether it is a peace for which such a guarantee can be secured. The question upon which the whole future peace and policy of the world depends is this: Is the present war a struggle for a just and secure peace, or only for a new balance of power? If it be only a struggle for a new balance of power, who will guarantee, who can guarantee the stable equilibrium of the new arrangement? Only a tranquil Europe can be a stable Europe. There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace.
Fortunately we have received very explicit assurances on this point. The statesmen of both of the groups of nations now arrayed against one another have said, in terms that could not be misinterpreted, that it was no part of the purpose they had in mind to crush their antagonists. But the implications of these assurances may not be equally clear to all-may not be the same on both sides of the water. I think it will be serviceable if I attempt to set forth what we understand them to be.
They imply, first of all, that it must be a peace without victory. It is not pleasant to say this. I beg that I may be permitted to put my own interpretation upon it and that it may be understood that no other interpretation was in my thought. I am seeking only to face realities and to face them without soft concealments. Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand. Only a peace between equals can last. Only a peace the very principle of which is equality and a common participation in a common benefit. The right state of mind, the right feeling between nations, is as necessary for a lasting peace as is the just settlement of vexed questions of territory or of racial and national allegiance.
The equality of nations upon which peace must be founded if it is to last must be an equality of rights; the guarantees exchanged must neither recognize nor imply a difference between big nations and small, between those that are powerful and those that are weak. Right must be based upon the common strength, not upon the individual strength, of the nations upon whose concert peace will depend. Equality of territory or of resources there of course cannot be; nor any sort of equality not gained in the ordinary peaceful and legitimate development of the peoples themselves. But no one asks or expects anything more than an equality of rights. Mankind is looking now for freedom of life, not for equipoises of power.
And there is a deeper thing involved than even equality of right among organized nations. No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and accept the principle that governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property. I take it for granted, for instance, if I may venture upon a single example, that statesmen everywhere are agreed that there should be a united, independent, and autonomous Poland, and that henceforth inviolable security of life, of worship, and of industrial and social development should be guaranteed to all peoples who have lived hitherto under the power of governments devoted to a faith and purpose hostile to their own.
I speak of this, not because of any desire to exalt an abstract political principle which has always been held very dear by those who have sought to build up liberty in America but for the same reason that I have spoken of the other conditions of peace which seem to me clearly indispensable-because I wish frankly to uncover realities. Any peace which does not recognize and accept this principle will inevitably be upset. It will not rest upon the affections or the convictions of mankind. The ferment of spirit of whole populations will fight subtly and constantly against it, and all the world will sympathize. The world can be at peace only if its life is stable, and there can be no stability where the will is in rebellion, where there is not tranquillity of spirit and a sense of justice, of freedom, and of right.
So far as practicable, moreover, every great people now struggling towards a full development of its resources and of its powers should be assured a direct outlet to the great highways of the sea. Where this cannot be done by the cession of territory, it can no doubt be done by the neutralization of direct rights of way under the general guarantee which will assure the peace itself. With a right comity of arrangement no nation need be shut away from free access to the open paths of the world's commerce.And the paths of the sea must alike in law and in fact be free. The freedom of the seas is the sine qua non of peace, equality, and cooperation. No doubt a somewhat radical reconsideration of many of the rules of international practice hitherto thought to be established may be necessary in order to make the seas indeed free and common in practically all circumstances for the use of mankind, but the motive for such changes is convincing and compelling. There can be no trust or intimacy between the peoples of the world without them. The free, constant, unthreatened intercourse of nations is an essential part of the process of peace and of development. It need not be difficult either to define or to secure the freedom of the seas if the governments of the world sincerely desire to come to an agreement concerning it.
It is a problem closely connected with the limitation of naval armaments and the cooperation of the navies of the world in keeping the seas at once free and safe. And the question of limiting naval armaments opens the wider and perhaps more difficult question of the limitation of armies and of all programs of military preparation. Difficult and delicate as these questions are, they must be faced with the utmost candour and decided in a spirit of real accommodation if peace is to come with healing in its wings, and come to stay.
Peace cannot be had without concession and sacrifice. There can be no sense of safety and equality among the nations if great preponderating armaments are henceforth to continue here and there to be built up and maintained. The statesmen of the world must plan for peace and nations must adjust and accommodate their policy to it as they have planned for war and made ready for pitiless contest and rivalry. The question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind.
I have spoken upon these great matters without reserve and with the utmost explicitness because it has seemed to me to be necessary if the world's yearning desire for peace was anywhere to find free voice and utterance. Perhaps I am the only person in high authority amongst all the peoples of the world who is at liberty to speak and hold nothing back. I am speaking as an individual, and yet I am speaking also, of course, as the responsible head of a great government, and I feel confident that I have said what the people of the United States would wish me to say.
May I not add that I hope and believe that I am in effect speaking for liberals and friends of humanity in every nation and of every program of liberty? I would fain believe that I am speaking for the silent mass of mankind everywhere who have as yet had no place or opportunity to speak their real hearts out concerning the death and ruin they see to have come already upon the persons and the homes they hold most dear.
And in holding out the expectation that the people and government of the United States will join the other civilized nations of the world in guaranteeing the permanence of peace upon such terms as I have named I speak with the greater boldness and confidence because it is clear to every man who can think that there is in this promise no breach in either our traditions or our policy as a nation, but a fulfillment, rather, of all that we have professed or striven for.
I am proposing, as it were, that the nations should with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world: that no nation should seek to extend its polity over any other nation or people, but that every people should be left free to determine its own polity, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful.
I am proposing that all nations henceforth avoid entangling alliances which would draw them into competitions of power; catch them in a net of intrigue and selfish rivalry, and disturb their own affairs with influences intruded from without. There is no entangling alliance in a concert of power. When all unite to act in the same sense and with the same purpose all act in the common interest and are free to live their own lives under a common protection.
I am proposing government by the consent of the governed; that freedom of the seas which in international conference after conference representatives of the United States have urged with the eloquence of those who are the convinced disciples of liberty; and that moderation of armaments which makes of armies and navies a power for order merely, not an instrument of aggression or of selfish violence.
These are American principles, American policies. We could stand for no others. And they are also the principles and policies of forward looking men and women everywhere, of every modern nation, of every enlightened community. They are the principles of mankind and must prevail.
Saturday, January 21, 2017
Poster Saturday: Pour La France.
I understand what this poster was for, "Combat gold for Victory", but my gosh its odd.
Senator Bebout reads the tea leaves
Yesterday, after the Inauguration, Senator Bebout announced that he was killing the proposed public lands transfer constitutional amendment by refusing to assign it for consideration. That's his option as President of the Senate.
He acknowledged, in doing that, the full force of public opinion, although he maintained that the whole effort was misunderstood.
To the extent it is misunderstood, and that wouldn't be misunderstood much, it would apparently be by our Senators and Congresswoman back in Washington D.C., who still appear to be clueless on this. Faced with a public revolt, Bebout took the wise and politic route and sidetracked it before the legislature and individual legislators had to pay a price for refusing to listen to the public. Located more remotely, we haven't seen any similar reactions out of D. C. yet. But that may be coming . . . if people like holding their seats.
He acknowledged, in doing that, the full force of public opinion, although he maintained that the whole effort was misunderstood.
To the extent it is misunderstood, and that wouldn't be misunderstood much, it would apparently be by our Senators and Congresswoman back in Washington D.C., who still appear to be clueless on this. Faced with a public revolt, Bebout took the wise and politic route and sidetracked it before the legislature and individual legislators had to pay a price for refusing to listen to the public. Located more remotely, we haven't seen any similar reactions out of D. C. yet. But that may be coming . . . if people like holding their seats.
The Sunday State Leader for January 21, 1917. US Withdrawing from Mexico
The plant to withdraw from Mexico hit the press, along with a prediction that Villa would fill the vaccum.
Wyoming Guardsmen got high praise however.
And the Legislature was looking at Blue Laws.
Friday, January 20, 2017
Small Arms of WWI Primer 001: Rifle Modèle 1886 M93 "Lebel"
Part of the series we started doing on weapons of the 1910s, given on our focus on that era. The WWII era "Lebel".
I'll confess that I know very little about French weapons, other than they're odd looking.
Today In Wyoming's History: January 20. The Legislature sends Prohibition to the voters.
People tend not to think of Wyoming in the context of Prohibition, but the state was part of the big sweep that lead to it. Indeed, while the story lays in the future from this post, Wyoming would push prohibition over the top with Sen. Francis E. Warren's vote in favor of the Volstead Act.
On this day, a century ago, the Legislature, which was predicted to pass a pro-Prohibition bill, did:
Today In Wyoming's History: January 20:
1917 Legislature passed an act submitting an act for a constitutional amendment that would allow people to vote on prohibition. Attribution: On This Day.
The introduction of the bill had been widely predicated by the Cheyenne newspapers, in the form of predicting some bill. That it would have taken the form, in 1917, of a proposed amendment to the state constitution is a bit of a surprise, but that would have served the dual purpose of making anything that passed really difficult to get rid of and, additionally, sort of passing the buck to the voters, as such an amendment requires the voters to approve it.
Which they didn't.
I'm not certain how it played out, but if the regular process took place, the voters rejected the measure that following fall. Wyoming was the last state in the Rocky Mountain region to adopt Prohibition and the proposed amendment did not become law.
Which might have been a sign of things to come. While the state did pass Prohibition into law voluntarily, and in fact pushed it over the top nationally, it took to violating it nearly immediately. Indeed Western Wyoming would become a bootleg liquor center, with wine being fermented in the Italian sections of Rock Springs and, ironically, heavily Mormon Kemmerer becoming a location for the distillation of high quality bootleg whiskey made with locally grown grain.
As outlined by Phil Roberts in an excellent article in Annals of Wyoming recently, Prohibition did break the back of the saloon trade in Wyoming, which in the end was a good thing. When alcohol returned in the 1930s it was stepped in over time, and with a new system which we retain today. That system, oddly enough for "free enterprise" Wyoming, runs all alcohol through the State Liquor Warehouse, which is the wholesaler for Wyoming, with no legal exceptions.
Prohibition would have the unfortunate impact of killing off a lot of local breweries, including those in Wyoming. This has changed only recently, although there are quite a few small breweries now and even two distilleries.
A bottle of Wyoming Whiskey. Something the legislators of 1917 would probably not have appreciated seeing at the time.
Vice President Marshall receives California Electoral Vote, January 20, 1917
Vice President receiving the official California votes.
Why it was received so late, I have no idea. And why the Vice President received it I don't know either, other than this was the same day that Admiral Dewey's funeral occurred on and I suspect that President Wilson was at that.
Admiral Dewey laid to rest.
Admiral George Dewey, who died on January 16, 1917, was laid to rest on this day.
Dewey was critical to the US's rise to power as a naval power during the Spanish American War. In some ways the results of that rise were about to play out on an even bigger world stage.
The escort here is an Army and Navy one, with his coffin born on a caisson.
Dewey was critical to the US's rise to power as a naval power during the Spanish American War. In some ways the results of that rise were about to play out on an even bigger world stage.
The escort here is an Army and Navy one, with his coffin born on a caisson.
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Today Mostly Fact – Not Much Fiction
From Wyoming Fact and Fiction, a difficult question:
Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Today Mostly Fact – Not Much Fiction: The news dominating Wyoming right now - The Legislature is in session, I hope to visit in the next couple of weeks and sit in on some ...
Military Small Arms of the 10s: Small Arms of WWI Primer 014: Canadian Ross Rifle Mark III.
I've been dealing, of course, with the 10s a lot recently.
Well, always actually.
But more specifically, starting in March, I started dealing with 1916 a lot, and now with 1917. And more specifically than that, while I've been trying to give a lot of contemporary events from a century ago, a lot of those events were military events.
So, I may provide a few details on the weapons of the period, which were making a lot of noise, literally and figuratively, and for no particular reason, I'm starting here, as it was an easy video to find.
Yes, this doesn't have much to do with any store we've followed closely, except slightly with the Irish Canadian Rangers, but I'll add more details on that later.
Admiral Reginald Hall of the Royal Navy reveals the Zimmerman Note to Edward Bell . . .and the telegram makes it to Mexico City.
Royal Navy Admiral Reginald Hall, who was involved with British signals intelligence in World War One, after the British spent a couple of days pondering what to do with the information, revealed the contents of the Zimmerman Telegraph to Edward Bell, Secretary of the U.S. Embassy in the UK. Bell at fist refused to believe the note was genuine but then became enraged upon changing his mind.
Admiral Hall.
Hall would informally present the contents of the telegram to American Ambassador Walter Hines Page the following day. Arthur Balfour would formally give the deciphered and translated text to Hines on February 23, who reported the same to Woodrow Wilson.
Ironically the first news of the telegram was provided to the United States, albeit informally, on the same day that it arrived in Mexico City. Given the nature of wire communications at the time, it didn't arrive in Mexico City until February 19.
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Secretary of War Newton D. Baker informs Maj. Gen Frederick Funston that the US withdrawing from Mexico.
The caption says it all.
Newton D. Baker.
Frederick Funston.
Well, I suppose it might not if you don't know who Frederick Funston was. He was the commander of American forces in the Southwest and in overall charge of the forces then in Mexico, contrary to it being John Pershing, whom people typically imagine to have been in overall charge. Pershing was the commander in the field, and Funston was his superior.
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Confessions of a Writer of Westerns: Writing Short
Confessions of a Writer of Westerns: Writing Short: Books seem to be getting smaller, at least that is what I have been reading. Many traditional publishers, in their author note sections, ar...
Wednesday, January 17, 1917. Joint Mexican American Committee Concludes
The Joint Committee between the US and Mexico concluded its business. With the agreement of December 24, 1916 having been made, with Carranza having refused to sign it, and with events overcoming the United States that would give Carranza the result he wanted anyway, there was no more work to be done.
Porfirio Diaz in full military costume. The collapse of his rule lead to the long civil war in Mexico.
Some have stated that the mere existence of the Joint Committee was a success in and of itself, and there is some truth to that. The committee worked for months on an agreement and came to one, and even if Carranza would not execute it as it didn't guaranty the withdraw of American forces, the fact that the country was now hurtling towards war with Germany made it necessary for that to occur without American formal assent to Carranza's demand. By not agreeing to it, the US was not bound not to intervene again, which was one of the points that it had sought in the first place. Events essentially gave both nations what they had been demanding.
![Gen. Carransa [i.e., Carranza]](https://cdn.loc.gov/service/pnp/ggbain/14600/14619r.jpg)
Even if that was the case this step, the first in the beginning of the end of the event we have been tracking since March, has to be seen as a Mexican Constitutionalist victory in the midst of the Mexican Revolution. At the time the Commission came to the United States it represented only one side in a three way (sometimes more) Mexican civil war that was still raging. Even as Carranza demanded that the United States withdraw his forces were not uniformly doing well against either Villa or Zapata. Disdaining the United States in general, in spite of the fact that Wilson treated his government as the de facto government, he also knew that he could not be seen to be achieving victory over Villa through the intervention of the United States, nor could he be seen to be allowing a violation of Mexican sovereignty. His refusal to acquiesce to allowing American troops to cross the border in pursuit of raiders, something that the Mexican and American governments had allowed for both nations since the mid 19th Century, allowed him to be seen as a legitimate defender of Mexican sovereignty and as the legitimate head of a Mexican government.
As will be seen, even though the war in Mexico raged on, events were overtaking the US and Mexico very quickly. The Constitutionalist government was legitimizing itself as a radical Mexican de jure government and would quickly become just that. Revolutions against it would go on for years, but it was very quickly moving towards full legitimacy. And the United States, having failed to capture Villa or even defeat the Villistas, and having accepted an effective passive role in Mexico after nearly getting into a full war with the Constitutionalist, now very much had its eye on Europe and could not strategically afford to be bogged down in Mexico. A silent desire to get out of Mexico had become fully open. The rough terms of the agreement arrived upon by the Committee, while never ratified by Carranza, would effectively operate anyway and the United States now very quickly turned to withdrawing from Mexico.
Alvaro Obregon, whose competence and study of military tactics lead to the defeat of Pancho Villa and his Division del Norte. He'd ultimately become present of Mexico following his coup against Carranza. Obregon would serve one term as president of Mexico, and was elected to a second term to follow his successor Calles, but he was assassinated prior to taking office.
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Related threads: The Mexican Revolution.
Monday, January 16, 2017
Lex Anteinternet: Civil Holidays. Their observance, or lack thereof. A Wyoming Equality Day observation.
This is an old post that I've bumped up in this fashion on at least one prior occasion.
Lex Anteinternet: Civil Holidays: Leann posted an item on her blog about Columbus Day, urging Congress to consider changing it to Indigenous Peoples Day . I
I was reminded of it as it's both Martin Luther King Day nationally and Wyoming Equality Day in the state, but outside of state and Federal employees, it's not observed much here. That doesn't mean its not observed at all, but not much. To the extent it is observed it tends to be observed almost ethnically or politically. Indeed, people were slow to get to the office today and I had two employees ask me "Is this a holiday?" It is, but not one that anyone takes off.
I'm not sure of what to make of that. But I do know that if civil holidays aren't observed by employers there not really holidays. That may sound harsh, but that's the reality of it. It's just a day at work without mail. In some cases, like Veterans' Day, its a day where things might be observed in some fashion; a lot of businesses give breaks to veterans and the movie channels run war movies non stop, but still, a holiday that businesses don't take off isn't a real holiday.
And that's a shame.
If these days are important, well, they should be observed. But unless the government affirmatively requires them to be taken off, most will not be. Only the self employed who are very secure about their place in the world is going to observe some of them. But in the United States, which has an aggressive attachment to concepts of free enterprise in the current era, a legal effort to require that business stand down would not go anywhere and would instead be controversial.
And, indeed, this has spread even to weekends, which used to be very widely observed, or at least Sundays were. Even around here, in a region that notoriously has not had blue laws, it used to be almost impossible to get much more than basic grocery services on Sundays. As a kid I recall you could not find an open gas station here on a Sunday. On the 4th of July weekend you had to buy your gasoline early if you intended to go anywhere, or you were going nowhere.
I'm not sure the change has been for the good.
January 16, 1917. Admiral George Dewey dies
George Dewey, a hero of the Spanish American War and the only U.S. officer to ever hold the rank Admiral of the Navy died at age 79 on this date in 1917. He had been an officer in the U.S. Navy since the Civil War but obtained fame during the war with Spain during which his fleet took Manila Bay, securing the Philippines for the United States.
Dewey as a Captain while with the Bureau of Equipment.
Dewey was a Naval Academy graduate from the Class of 1858. He saw very active service during the Civil War with service on a variety of vessels. He married Susan Goodwin after the Civil War and had one son, George, by Susan in 1872, but she died only five days thereafter leaving him a widower with a young son. He none the less shortly received sea duty, retaining it until 1880 when he was assigned to lighthouse administration duty, a serious assignment at the time. His son was principally raised by his aunts and would not follow the military career of his father, becoming instead a stock broker who passed away, having never married, in 1963. Dewey himself asked for sea duty again in 1893 as he felt his health was deteriorating with a desk job. He was therefore assigned, at the rank of Commodore, to command the Asiatic Squadron in 1897.
Seeing the war coming and receiving what were essentially war warnings from Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt in the weeks leading up to the Spanish American War, he based himself at Hong Kong, the British possession, and began war preparations from there. His fleet was ordered out of harbor at Hong Kong only shortly before the declaration of war with Spain as the British, knowing that the war was to come, did not want a belligerent power in their ports, which they were effectively doing in the run up to war. His squadron was therefore well situated, if not completely re-outfitted, to attack Manila Bay only a few days later, on April 30, 1898 after war had been declared. In a one sided victory which cost only one American life (of course the "only" wouldn't mean much to that sailor) Spanish naval power in the Philippines was essentially eliminated in the battle. As a result he became a household name and a great American hero of the era.
Seeing the war coming and receiving what were essentially war warnings from Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt in the weeks leading up to the Spanish American War, he based himself at Hong Kong, the British possession, and began war preparations from there. His fleet was ordered out of harbor at Hong Kong only shortly before the declaration of war with Spain as the British, knowing that the war was to come, did not want a belligerent power in their ports, which they were effectively doing in the run up to war. His squadron was therefore well situated, if not completely re-outfitted, to attack Manila Bay only a few days later, on April 30, 1898 after war had been declared. In a one sided victory which cost only one American life (of course the "only" wouldn't mean much to that sailor) Spanish naval power in the Philippines was essentially eliminated in the battle. As a result he became a household name and a great American hero of the era.
Heroic painting of Dewey in the Battle of Manila in the Maine State House.
Dewey married for the second time (second marriages were somewhat looked down upon for widowers) in 1899, this time to the widow of a U.S. Army general. The marriage to Mildred McLean Hazen would be a factor, amongst several others, in keeping him from running for President in 1900, which was a semi popular position with some people and which he entertained. His second wife was Catholic and the marriage had been a Catholic ceremony, which angered Protestants at a time at which it remained effectively impossible for a Catholic to run for that office. In 1903 he was promoted to the rank of Admiral of the Navy in honor of his Spanish American War achievement making him the only U.S. officer to ever hold that rank.
The extent to which Dewey was a huge hero at the time cannot be overestimated. That he would seriously be considered as a Presidential contender, and seriously consider running, says something about his fame at the time. His promotion to a rank that is matched only to that held by John Pershing in the U.S. Army, and which of course Pershing did not yet hold, meant that he was effectively at that time holding a rank that exceeded that granted to any other American officer during their lifetime and which has never been exceeded by any Naval officer since. A special medal was struck bearing his likeness and awarded to every sailor or marine serving in the battle, a remarkable unique military award. That he is not a household name today, and he is not, says a lot about the fickle nature of fame.
Dewey in 1903.
The extent to which Dewey was a huge hero at the time cannot be overestimated. That he would seriously be considered as a Presidential contender, and seriously consider running, says something about his fame at the time. His promotion to a rank that is matched only to that held by John Pershing in the U.S. Army, and which of course Pershing did not yet hold, meant that he was effectively at that time holding a rank that exceeded that granted to any other American officer during their lifetime and which has never been exceeded by any Naval officer since. A special medal was struck bearing his likeness and awarded to every sailor or marine serving in the battle, a remarkable unique military award. That he is not a household name today, and he is not, says a lot about the fickle nature of fame.
Armour's meat packing calendar from 1899, Dewey medal, as it is commonly known, on lower left corner.
There's no denying that Admiral Dewey's death had a certain fin de siecle feel to it, particularly when combined with the passing of Buffalo Bill Cody, which happened the prior week, and also in combination with the death of another famous person which was about to occur. It is not that Dewey and Cody had similar careers or that they'd become famous for the same reason, but there was a sense that the transition age which began in the 1890s and continued on into the early 20th Century was ending. Both Cody and Dewey had careers that started at about the same time. Both were Civil War veterans. If Cody became famous well before the 1890s, which he did, it was also the case that in some ways the full flower of his Wild West Show came during that period. Indeed, Cody had modified his show after the Spanish American War to feature the "Congress of Rough Riders", building on the romantic notions that the term "Rough Rider" conveyed. That term, of course, had come up during the Spanish American War to describe members of the three volunteer cavalry regiments raised during that conflict, never mind that only one of them, the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, saw service in the war and that it was in fact deployed dismounted.
Dewey receiving Roosevelt on board the Olympia, 1909.
Indeed, the actual Spanish American War had been a fully modern war, much like the Boer War was, and which saw the US attempting to belatedly adapt to that change. The Navy was really better prepared for it than the Army. That contributed to the peculiar nature of the era, however, with combat being much like what we'd later see in World War One but with the service still having one foot in the Civil War era. By the war's end, of course, the US was a global colonial power, whether it was ready to be or not, and that was a large part of the reason that Dewey was such a celebrated figure. His actions in the Philippines had significantly contributed to the defeat of a European colonial power, albeit a weak and decrepit one, and which helped to make the US a colonial power, albeit a confused and reluctant one. The passing of Dewey and Cody seem, even now, to have the feel of the people who opened the door stepping aside to let they party in, just before they go back out.
Dewey in retirement, 1912.
The United States ratified the treaty of sale for the Danish West Indies . . .
on this day in 1917.
The sale had been arranged in 1916 and a treaty signed by the Danish Minister and U.S. Secretary of STate on August 4, 1916. The U.S. Senate approved the treaty making the transfer on September 7, 1916. But this was not without considerable controversy in Denmark and it was scheduled for a referendum in Denmark, which was held, passing the sale, on December 14, 196. On December 22, 1916 the Danish Parliament approved the treaty. Woodrow Wilson ratified the treaty on this day in 1917. Ratification exchanges would occur the following day and the treaty proclaimed on January 25 by the United States and March 9 by King Christian X. The warrant for payment would be made on March 31, 1917, and the exchange of ownership occured on April 1.
The sale had been arranged in 1916 and a treaty signed by the Danish Minister and U.S. Secretary of STate on August 4, 1916. The U.S. Senate approved the treaty making the transfer on September 7, 1916. But this was not without considerable controversy in Denmark and it was scheduled for a referendum in Denmark, which was held, passing the sale, on December 14, 196. On December 22, 1916 the Danish Parliament approved the treaty. Woodrow Wilson ratified the treaty on this day in 1917. Ratification exchanges would occur the following day and the treaty proclaimed on January 25 by the United States and March 9 by King Christian X. The warrant for payment would be made on March 31, 1917, and the exchange of ownership occured on April 1.
Sunday, January 15, 2017
T. K. Whitaker as a model for Wyoming?
Irish politician T. K. Whitaker died this past week.
He would note be well known, or indeed known at all, to Wyoming's politicians. But maybe he ought to be. He was a conservative politician whose economic reforms revolutionized the Irish economy. As one of the columnists for the Irish Times related the other day:
Ireland's post independence economic policy was based on the one thing it had, farm ground, and the economy was based on protectionism from 1932 on. It had an inward looking economy, which is admittedly different from Wyoming's but the way Whitaker approached the economy should be instructive to us nonetheless.
The key to that was Whitaker's realization that the Irish economy created a situation where there was no economic evolution or growth at all Ireland completely missed out on the post World War Two European economic boom. In part this was almost intentional in that Irish politicians wanted to keep Ireland Irish, which in their view meant protecting the near agrarian lifestyle that seemed to define Ireland. Whitaker, a conservative, wanted to preserve that too but he also realized that perpetually hemorrhaging its young population was not going to achieve that goal. Whitaker worked on slowly changing the economy to open it up to industry which in turn lead to the Celtic Tiger era of the 1970s-2000s and the Celtic Phoenix economy since 2007. That stemmed the loss of the young.
A person can debate, of course, whether Whitaker's goal was really realized. Ireland, like other countries that go into sudden wealth, hasn't handled all of it well and its culture has been done some damage. Some nations, such as Norway, have handled such transitions better than others. But his legacy cannot be ignored and provides a lesson.
Just this past week Governor Mead address the hemorrhaging of Wyoming's young. This has been something I've heard politicians speak about since I was young, and I'm older than Governor Mead, a bit. Living in Wyoming long term is not easy and it involves a conscious choice of choosing to live here over better economic prospects elsewhere. It also means living in an economy that somewhat mirrors Ireland's in that the soul of the state is in agriculture, no matter what the Legislature may believe, but it is not possible for average Wyomingites to enter that field. Like Ireland, you have to be born into the land to work it, usually.
I'm not suggesting that we should abandon agriculture in any fashion, and Ireland did not. But Whitaker realized that the traditional Irish economy was depleting the country of its young. Wyoming has over the years emphasized an economy built almost exclusively on mineral extraction. That brings people in, usually temporarily, in boom cycles and takes a lot of people out, including natives, during bust cycles.
Moreover, because the economy is so heavily based on the extractive industries it puts the state's young in a difficult situation in which they have to determine if they want to enter that industry themselves, which many do not wish to do so, or one of the industries that supports the extractive industries in some fashion, or leave. That's a harsh thing to have to decide. Quite a few people spend their entire careers until retirement living elsewhere and then coming back by which time, frankly, they aren't really the Wyomingites they were when they left. You can't really work in Los Angeles for 40 years and come back the same person, with the same likes, and some concerns. Indeed, that's not really even fair to your adopted state which supported you in your livelihood and which maybe has some claim on you when you retire.
As I'm not a T. K. Whitaker so I don't know what that economic change would fully entail, although I've given my views of it before. I'm sure, however, that it entails looking outside the box at what we have and what we don't. But when we've said that before, we've largely done nothing.
He would note be well known, or indeed known at all, to Wyoming's politicians. But maybe he ought to be. He was a conservative politician whose economic reforms revolutionized the Irish economy. As one of the columnists for the Irish Times related the other day:
In Giuseppe de Lampedusa’s great novel, The Leopard, a conservative 19th-century Italian aristocrat is shocked to find his beloved nephew is running away to join the revolutionaries. But the nephew famously explains: “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”
Whitaker sponsored reforms that revolutionized the Irish economy with the goal of keeping the Ireland of the past. He didn't quite succeed as his reforms sparked more change than he anticipated, but in some ways, he was a huge success. Ireland went from being a country that, as late as the 1950s and 1960s, was hemorrhaging its young population at a stunning rate to being one where its Irish expatriates have been returning home for a long time. Ireland, which has a relatively small population by European standards, lost 500,000 people from 1945 to 1960.TK Whitaker was the greatest of Ireland’s conservative revolutionaries. He wanted things to stay as they were and, in a culture ravaged by mass emigration, people to stay where they were. He grasped the great paradox of his time: that Ireland could not be stabilised without radical change. He did not imagine just how deep the transformation would be. But he had the intellectual authority, the political skill and the quiet charisma to force a sclerotic state to alter the way it thought about itself.
Ireland's post independence economic policy was based on the one thing it had, farm ground, and the economy was based on protectionism from 1932 on. It had an inward looking economy, which is admittedly different from Wyoming's but the way Whitaker approached the economy should be instructive to us nonetheless.
The key to that was Whitaker's realization that the Irish economy created a situation where there was no economic evolution or growth at all Ireland completely missed out on the post World War Two European economic boom. In part this was almost intentional in that Irish politicians wanted to keep Ireland Irish, which in their view meant protecting the near agrarian lifestyle that seemed to define Ireland. Whitaker, a conservative, wanted to preserve that too but he also realized that perpetually hemorrhaging its young population was not going to achieve that goal. Whitaker worked on slowly changing the economy to open it up to industry which in turn lead to the Celtic Tiger era of the 1970s-2000s and the Celtic Phoenix economy since 2007. That stemmed the loss of the young.
A person can debate, of course, whether Whitaker's goal was really realized. Ireland, like other countries that go into sudden wealth, hasn't handled all of it well and its culture has been done some damage. Some nations, such as Norway, have handled such transitions better than others. But his legacy cannot be ignored and provides a lesson.
Just this past week Governor Mead address the hemorrhaging of Wyoming's young. This has been something I've heard politicians speak about since I was young, and I'm older than Governor Mead, a bit. Living in Wyoming long term is not easy and it involves a conscious choice of choosing to live here over better economic prospects elsewhere. It also means living in an economy that somewhat mirrors Ireland's in that the soul of the state is in agriculture, no matter what the Legislature may believe, but it is not possible for average Wyomingites to enter that field. Like Ireland, you have to be born into the land to work it, usually.
I'm not suggesting that we should abandon agriculture in any fashion, and Ireland did not. But Whitaker realized that the traditional Irish economy was depleting the country of its young. Wyoming has over the years emphasized an economy built almost exclusively on mineral extraction. That brings people in, usually temporarily, in boom cycles and takes a lot of people out, including natives, during bust cycles.
Moreover, because the economy is so heavily based on the extractive industries it puts the state's young in a difficult situation in which they have to determine if they want to enter that industry themselves, which many do not wish to do so, or one of the industries that supports the extractive industries in some fashion, or leave. That's a harsh thing to have to decide. Quite a few people spend their entire careers until retirement living elsewhere and then coming back by which time, frankly, they aren't really the Wyomingites they were when they left. You can't really work in Los Angeles for 40 years and come back the same person, with the same likes, and some concerns. Indeed, that's not really even fair to your adopted state which supported you in your livelihood and which maybe has some claim on you when you retire.
As I'm not a T. K. Whitaker so I don't know what that economic change would fully entail, although I've given my views of it before. I'm sure, however, that it entails looking outside the box at what we have and what we don't. But when we've said that before, we've largely done nothing.
Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Unknown, Lander Wyoming
Churches of the West: Unknown, Lander Wyoming:
This building obviously was built as a church, but no longer is used as one. I don't know what its use is today.
This building obviously was built as a church, but no longer is used as one. I don't know what its use is today.
Saturday, January 14, 2017
Is President Elect Trump seriously insulting John Lewis?
President Elect Trump would do well to remember that he was unpopular with the voters. The voters basically, for the most part, didn't like him. They disliked Hillary Clinton more. Part of the story of Trump's election isn't necessary that he won but that the Democrats lost.
I don't know what the situation is in John Lewis' district. I know that he's 76 years old and has a legitimate background in the Civil Rights era. I also think that Mr. Lewis' refusal to attend the inauguration and calling Trump "illegitimate" is childish, but by the same token a President responding is worse.
Trump may not have the credit with the GOP on everything he thinks he does. Since the election the GOP has tried to get behind him for obvious reasons. But whether this will fully continue is yet to be seen. Nebraska's Ben Sasse, who for many in the GOP was a last ditch "never Trump" alternative has come out in Lewis' defense and already some in Congress are showing more independence in bucking and questioning Trump than might be expected. A few more ill advised comments like this and he might find himself being effectively a lame duck right out of the box, except where Republicans in Congress can use him.
John Lewis stated recently that he wasn't going to the inauguration and that Trump was an illegitimate President. Some of Lewis' comments recently have struck me as a bit childish, and this is one, but its not like he has to go, and its not like people who feel differently need react.
Trump did.
On Twitter.
Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to......mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk - no action or results. Sad!There are some things you don't do, and this is one of them.
I don't know what the situation is in John Lewis' district. I know that he's 76 years old and has a legitimate background in the Civil Rights era. I also think that Mr. Lewis' refusal to attend the inauguration and calling Trump "illegitimate" is childish, but by the same token a President responding is worse.
Trump may not have the credit with the GOP on everything he thinks he does. Since the election the GOP has tried to get behind him for obvious reasons. But whether this will fully continue is yet to be seen. Nebraska's Ben Sasse, who for many in the GOP was a last ditch "never Trump" alternative has come out in Lewis' defense and already some in Congress are showing more independence in bucking and questioning Trump than might be expected. A few more ill advised comments like this and he might find himself being effectively a lame duck right out of the box, except where Republicans in Congress can use him.
Road Hazards
Yesterday, on my way to work, I had to divert my Jeep down at a busy intersection in order to drive around Tom the Turkey.
Tom is a local celebrity. He's a great big tom turkey, a turkey Lothario, and he's mean. He's also stupid and hangs around on busy streets continually. I have to drive around him frequently, as to many others.
Only a few minutes before that, I had to slow to a near stop to miss antelope that were down by the college. They've added the southern part of the college grounds and the municipal golf course to their winter range.
On the way home, I had to nearly come to a screeching halt near the same place as a herd of antelope again crossed the road. By this time the sun was going down and the light poor, and given where they were, they were not easy to see.
When I got home I had to run to the grocery store. I took one the bypass roads to do it, a very busy one, and was confronted with a buck deer standing in the road. Just standing there. Again, I missed it, but I was lucky that nothing was behind me as I slowed from 40 mph down to about 20 mph before it moved.
I came back the same way, and antelope bolted across the road. A pickup barely missed one.
All of this was in town.
I like wildlife, although as a stockman and hunter I don't have the Disney view of wildlife so common amongst the urban naive. But something needs to be done. This has gone from a few head of antelope that eccentrically hung out near the college to entire large herds. The antelope are now using a large area as winter range and there are a considerable number. Deer have penetrated fairly far into the town.
Somebody is going to get killed.
Tom is a local celebrity. He's a great big tom turkey, a turkey Lothario, and he's mean. He's also stupid and hangs around on busy streets continually. I have to drive around him frequently, as to many others.
Only a few minutes before that, I had to slow to a near stop to miss antelope that were down by the college. They've added the southern part of the college grounds and the municipal golf course to their winter range.
On the way home, I had to nearly come to a screeching halt near the same place as a herd of antelope again crossed the road. By this time the sun was going down and the light poor, and given where they were, they were not easy to see.
When I got home I had to run to the grocery store. I took one the bypass roads to do it, a very busy one, and was confronted with a buck deer standing in the road. Just standing there. Again, I missed it, but I was lucky that nothing was behind me as I slowed from 40 mph down to about 20 mph before it moved.
I came back the same way, and antelope bolted across the road. A pickup barely missed one.
All of this was in town.
I like wildlife, although as a stockman and hunter I don't have the Disney view of wildlife so common amongst the urban naive. But something needs to be done. This has gone from a few head of antelope that eccentrically hung out near the college to entire large herds. The antelope are now using a large area as winter range and there are a considerable number. Deer have penetrated fairly far into the town.
Somebody is going to get killed.
Poster Saturday: Patria
The headlines, sort of, were invading theaters fairly regularly by this time.
This film was a fifteen part serial released on this date in 1917. The plot involved espionage and intrigue as Japanese spies seek to steal the Channing "Preparedness" fortune and then invade the United States through New York while allying themselves with Mexico. The feastibility of the Japanese invading through New York, or indeed at all, was apparently not an issue for the script writers but it is odd that a film based on an enemy alliance with Mexico would have come out during that period of time in which a German diplomatic note proposing just that was sitting in the U.S. Embassy in Berlin.
Patria Channing, with the assistance of U.S. Secret Service agent Donald Parr, foil the plot.
The film, which was financed by William Randolph Hearst , was investigated after World War One to see if it might have been German financed propaganda based upon a scheme discovered to have been proposed to influence movies by a German propagandist whose articles appeared in Hearst's papers, which was similar to the plot of the movie, but presumably this was found to be a mere coincidence.
The film, which was financed by William Randolph Hearst , was investigated after World War One to see if it might have been German financed propaganda based upon a scheme discovered to have been proposed to influence movies by a German propagandist whose articles appeared in Hearst's papers, which was similar to the plot of the movie, but presumably this was found to be a mere coincidence.
Friday, January 13, 2017
Meryl Streep, The Arts, Katie Nolan, Sports, and Leisure as the basis of Culture
I didn't watch the Golden Globe awards.
And not just this year.
I never watch them.
So, as a result, I missed the entire Meryl Streep makes comments alluding to Donald Trump thing.
Now, let me note that given as I have not watched them, I'm not commenting on what she said. As people who've read my prior comments here know I generally don't grasp why people listen to entertainers or sports figures on any issue. Their job is entertaining and generally, while there are exceptions, I don't find their commentary particularly illuminating on anything.
That doesn't mean, in my view, that they should simply shut up. People in a democracy have a right to speak, no matter how ill informed or vapid their comments may be. And, I'd further note, that Donald Trump, about whom she was commenting, came up partially due to the entertainment industry and hence there's a certain peculiar element to this.
What I take to be the case is that Streep, apparently, was condemning a comment Trump made about a crippled person who appeared in opposition to him at one of his rallies. As I didn't follow Trump that closely during the election and never thought he stood a chance, I'm not even prepared to comment on that. If he said such things, that's terrible and he shouldn't have.
And, going to where I will comment, he ought to stop all this Tweeting. It's embarrassing and not dignified and he should knock it off or at least be restrained. Governor Matt Mead has a Twitter account and he's restrained. Perhaps Trump could take Tweeting lessons from fellow Republican Mead.
Anyhow, that aside, sometimes you find really interesting and illuminating commentary even where it's not really intended to be. Such as here:
This is commentary, in jest (but I suspect not entirely in jest) by Katie Nolan of Garbage Time.
Now, for those of you who do not know, Garbage Time is a sports, mostly football, commentary program that was designed to run, apparently, in "garbage time." According to Wikipedia the term means:
Garbage time is a term used to refer to the period toward the end of a timed sporting event that has become a blowout when the outcome of the game has already been decided, and the coaches of one or both teams will decide to replace their best players with substitutes.
Okay, so that's what Garbage Time is and that's what Nolan has named her show.
Now, long time viewers here know that I don't really know much about professional sports and I'm particularly ignorant on football, which I don't like. How, therefore, would I know about a show even called Garbage Time?
Simple enough. I fly United.
United Airlines, as viewers here also know, runs a series on its planes, and on the Internet, called The Big Metal Bird. It's clever and I like it. The host is Katie Nolan. I wouldn't have known that Katie Nolan hosts and is well known because of Garbage Time, but YouTube does and as a result of having linked in all the Big Metal Bird episodes I did here Garbage Time now shows up in my suggested viewing links on YoutTube. I rarely view one, as I don't know anything about the topics the show addresses.
But I did view this one because of the title. And, while I'm not getting into the Streep/Trump flap, there's something here worth nothing. Go and view the video.
Did you watch it?
Okay, if you did, you heard Streep say:
Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners and if we kick them all out you'll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts which are not the arts.
Hmmmm.
That comment is really worth breaking down.
First of all, I'd note, when I heard that "Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners" I immediately thought of the Vanderpumps. I'm not a football fan and I've never watched a MMA contest but if having television be all football and MMA matches is the price I have to pay to send the Vanderpumps back home, or preferably to Aleppo, bring it on.
My second thought was, well, . . . . Streep may not be over rated, but that sort of comment does come across as something being said by a self impressed pretentious snot.
Let's be honest to start with. A lot that's put out by Hollywood, or any other moving picture endeavor, isn't art. So, if football and MMA aren't art, well, probably Friends and The Big Bang Theory, let alone the whole Grownups franchise, certainly aren't either.
Which is an important point, as it Streep's comments, and indeed a lot of the concepts about film as art, misunderstand its relationship to leisure, which is not only significant, but frankly paramount.
Let's start first however, with the concept that film is art.
Some film is clearly art. Every David Lean film is art in moving pictures. Some John Ford films, and I'd argue in particular The Searchers, is art. But is all film art. . . well. . . . I doubt it.
Is Grownups art? Are the appriximately 4,000,000,000 tear jerker football movies art? What about The Hangover? No, none of these are art. What they are is entertainment, allegedly, but they aren't art. And there's a lot more Hangover's filmed than Lawrence of Arabia's.
Indeed, in recent years there have been so many trash films made that they simply overwhelm those which might be considered as art. Bad films, low budget films, and the like, have always been made, and there are scads of examples going all the way back, but it's also the case that since external controls on the contents of movies have been largely removed they have tended more and more towards blue films even in allegedly family offerings. A piece of crap like Grownups would have been a piece of crap if it had been filmed in the 1950s, but it wouldnt' have had a running series of jokes about boobs in it. Even doubtful propositions from the 50s and early 60s that edged on being quasi scandalous don't compare to the regular fare today, much of which is complete and total junk.
The fact that junk, the run of the mill, the bland, and the vapid grossly outnumbers art says something, however, and that needs to be taken into account. Movies are entertainment. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Which takes us on to sports. Quite frankly, there is art in sports and while Katie Nolan is joking, anyone who has truly watched sports has seen athletic art in motion. A person has to be pretty dead to art if they find no art in Pele's soccer playing of old, or Sugar Ray Robinson's boxing, or Jim Brown's football field performance. Seriously, there's more art in Jim Brown on the field in the 1950s than there is in the entire series of Friends. But we have no delusions that sports are entertainment.
And entertainment is for leisure.
Josef Peiper, the German philosopher, claimed that leisure was the basis of culture, and there's good reason to believe him correct. In this context, leisure isn't doing nothing, it's doing something, but what it isn't doing isn't is simply toiling. If we think about it, cultures that have appreciated arts had the leisure to produce and enjoy them. And you wont' find one of those culture that didn't also have sports. Sports have been with us in every society that produced anything cultural and are, frankly, part and parcel of culture.
This doesn't mean that a person has to appreciate or participate in some fashion in every sport. But it does mean that those people who take shots at sports in their entirety based on their concept of worthwhile cultural endeavors are taking shots at themselves. People this year who go to see a film like Manchester By The Sea and who believe that its a fine work of art ought to realize that the same culture that produced it produced NASCAR. Now, I'm not a NASCAR fan, but I also am not so naive to believe that NASCAR fans ought to be dragooned into a viewing of Manchester By The Sea. Nor am I so naive to believe that there aren't a lot of NASCAR fans who will see Manchester By The Sea as well.
All of this is perhaps all the more relevant in the era in which we find ourselves. It wasn't always the case that a wide gulf between "art" and everything else was believed to exist, although that sort of snobbery has been around for a long time. While I haven't studied it and therefore can't claim expertise on it, a lot of the current snobbish attitude of the type expressed by Streep seems to have had its origins, potentially, in the teens and twenties when the hardcore left was on the rise and its never left since. One of the real hallmarks of radical leftism is that it had sort of a perverse Puritanical view of a lot of things in its early days, and really debased views on other things. Suffice it to say the sort of eggheady psuedointelletuals who sat around and pondered Marx in the 1920s wasn't exactly in your sporting set.
In contrast, there was a time not all that long before that, and indeed concurrent with that, that the highly educated, and those with refined educations at that, regarded the appreciation of sports as an aspect of culture. University students risked their lives playing football in an era when only a small percentage of Americans attended university and those who did were all destined for high paying employment as a rule. The well to do often participated in the equine sports. Hunting had a broad popularity across classes. The authors of the agrarian defense I'll Take My Stand based part of their argument on a Southern culture which emphasized leisure and field sports (conveniently ignoring, I'd note, that Southern Blacks weren't participating in that much).
Perhaps this is making much out of Streep's ill advised snobbish comment, but maybe not. One of the things that sociologist have worried about in regards to modern life is the decline in leisure. This can be argued in more than one way on whether this observation is real or not. But irrespective of that in the general population, it seems quite true in the Middle Class. Returning to politics, I suppose, part of this last election was a signal on the part of that class that they've basically had enough of everything and want a not all that long ago past back, if they can. Being a snot about what those people like is not only arrogant, but incredibly naive.
Today In Wyoming's History: February 13, 1917. The Wyoming Legislature appropriated $750 to move Jim Baker's cabin from Carbon County to Cheyenne.
Today In Wyoming's History: February 13: 1917 Baker was a frontiersman who came West working for the American Fur Company. He was later Chief Scout for Gen. Harney out of Ft. Laramie. In 1859 he homesteaded at a location that is now within Denver Colorado. He held a commission in the Colorado State Militia during the Civil War. He relocated to a site near Savery Wyoming in 1873 and homesteaded there. He continued to ranch in that location until his death in 1898, although he did serve the Army as a scout occasionally in the 1870s.
Friday Farming: Blog Mirror: Food For Thought By Returning To Farming's Roots, He Found His American Dream
Food For Thought
By Returning To Farming's Roots, He Found His American DreamThe USS Milwaukee wrecked.
Back on December 14, 2016, we ran this item about an event that occurred on December 14, 1916:
Lex Anteinternet: The Submarine H3 runs aground, leading to the ulti...: The U.S. submarine the H3, operating off of Eureka California with the H1 and H2, and their tender the USS Cheyenne, went off course in heav...
On this date in 1917 the USS Milwaukee, a cruiser, was beached and wrecked during the efforts to refloat the H3.She'd ultimately break up and was a loss.
The wrecked USS Milwaukee.
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