Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Nebraska Senator George W. Norris's speech to the Senate, April 4, 1917.



There are a great many American citizens who feel that we owe it as a duty to humanity to take part in this war. Many instances of cruelty and inhumanity can be found on both sides. Men are often biased in their judgment on account of their sympathy and their interests. To my mind, what we ought to have maintained from the beginning was the strictest neutrality. If we had done this I do not believe we would have been on the verge of war at the present time. We had a right as a nation, if we desired, to cease at any time to be neutral. We had a technical right to respect the English war zone and to disregard the German war zone, but we could not do that and be neutral. I have no quarrel to find with the man who does not desire our country to remain neutral. While many such people are moved by selfish motives and hopes of gain, I have no doubt but that in a great many instances, through what I believe to be a misunderstanding of the real condition, there are many honest, patriotic citizens who think we ought to engage in this war and who are behind the President in his demand that we should declare war against Germany. I think such people err in judgment and to a great extent have been misled as to the real history and the true facts by the almost unanimous demand of the great combination of wealth that has a direct financial interest in our participation in the war. We have loaned many hundreds of millions of dollars to the allies in this controversy. While such action was legal and countenanced by international law, there is no doubt in my mind but the enormous amount of money loaned to the allies in this country has been instrumental in bringing about a public sentiment in favor of our country taking a course that would make every bond worth a hundred cents on the dollar and making the payment of every debt certain and sure. Through this instrumentality and also through the instrumentality of others who have not only made millions out of the war in the manufacture of munitions, etc., and who would expect to make millions more if our country can be drawn into the catastrophe, a large number of the great newspapers and news agencies of the country have been controlled and enlisted in the greatest propaganda that the world has ever known, to manufacture sentiment in favor of war. It is now demanded that the American citizens shall be used as insurance policies to guarantee the safe delivery of munitions of war to belligerent nations. The enormous profits of munition manufacturers, stockbrokers, and bond dealers must be still further increased by our entrance into the war. This has brought us to the present moment, when Congress, urged by the President and backed by the artificial sentiment, is about to declare war and engulf our country in the greatest holocaust that the world has ever known… 

To whom does the war bring prosperity? Not to the soldier who for the munificent compensation of $16 per month shoulders his musket and goes into the trench, there to shed his blood and to die if necessary; not to the broken-hearted widow who waits for the return of the mangled body of her husband; not to the mother who weeps at the death of her brave boy; not to the little children who shiver with cold; not to the babe who suffers from hunger; nor to the millions of mothers and daughters who carry broken hearts to their graves. War brings no prosperity to the great mass of common and patriotic citizens. It increases the cost of living of those who toil and those who already must strain every effort to keep soul and body together. War brings prosperity to the stock gambler on Wall street—to those who are already in possession of more wealth than can be realized or enjoyed. [A Wall Street broker] says if we can not get war, “it is nevertheless good opinion that the preparedness program will compensate in good measure for the loss of the stimulus of actual war.” That is, if we can not get war, let us go as far in that direction as possible. If we can not get war, let us cry for additional ships, additional guns, additional munitions, and everything else that will have a tendency to bring us as near as possible to the verge of war. And if war comes do such men as these shoulder the musket and go into the trenches? 

Their object in having war and in preparing for war is to make money. Human suffering and the sacrifice of human life are necessary, but Wall Street considers only the dollars and cents. The men who do the fighting, the people who make the sacrifices, are the ones who will not be counted in the measure of this great prosperity he depicts. The stock brokers would not, of course, go to war, because the very object they have in bringing on the war is profit, and therefore they must remain in their Wall Street offices in order to share in that great prosperity which they say war will bring. The volunteer officer, even the drafting officer, will not find them. They will be concealed in their palatial offices on Wall Street, sitting behind mahogany desks, covered up with clipped coupons—coupons soiled with the sweat of honest toil, coupons stained with mothers' tears, coupons dyed in the lifeblood of their fellow men. 

We are taking a step today that is fraught with untold danger. We are going into war upon the command of gold. We are going to run the risk of sacrificing millions of our countrymen's lives in order that other countrymen may coin their lifeblood into money. And even if we do not cross the Atlantic and go into the trenches, we are going to pile up a debt that the toiling masses that shall come many generations after us will have to pay. Unborn millions will bend their backs in toil in order to pay for the terrible step we are now about to take. We are about to do the bidding of wealth's terrible mandate. By our act we will make millions of our countrymen suffer, and the consequences of it may well be that millions of our brethren must shed their lifeblood, millions of broken-hearted women must weep, millions of children must suffer with cold, and millions of babes must die from hunger, and all because we want to preserve the commercial right of American citizens to deliver munitions of war to belligerent nations.

Warren G. Harding's April 4, 1917 speech to the Senate.

 Ohio Senator Warren G. Harding's speech to the Senate.

My countrymen, the surpassing war of all times has involved us, and found us utterly unprepared in either a mental or military sense. The Republic must awaken. The people must understand. Our safety lies in full realization the fate of the nation and the safety of the world will be decided on the western battlefront of Europe.

Primarily the American Republic has entered the war in defense of its national rights. If we did not defend we could not hope to endure. Other big issues are involved but the maintained rights and defended honor of a righteous nation includes them all. Cherishing the national rights the fathers fought to establish, and loving freedom and civilization, we should have violated every tradition and sacrificed every inheritance if we had longer held aloof from the armed conflict which is to make the world safe for civilization. More, we are committed to sacrifice in battle in order to make America safe for Americans and establish their security on every lawful mission on the high seas or under the shining sun.

We are testing popular government's capacity for self-defense. We are resolved to liberate the soul of American life and prove ourselves an American people in fact, spirit, and purpose, and consecrate ourselves anew and everlastingly to human freedom and humanity's justice. Realizing our new relationship with the world, we want to make it fit to live in, and with might and fright and ruthlessness and barbarity crushed by the conscience of a real civilization. Ours is a small concern about the kind of government any people may choose, but we do mean to outlaw the nation which violates the sacred compacts of international relationships.

The decision is to be final. If the Russian failure should become the tragic impotency of nations--if Italy should yield to the pressure of military might--if heroic France should be martyred on her flaming altars of liberty and justice and only the soul of heroism remain--if England should starve and her sacrifices and resolute warfare should prove in vain--if all these improbable disasters should attend, even then we should fight on and on, making the world's cause our cause.
A republic worth living in is worth fighting for, and sacrificing for, and dying for. In the fires of this conflict we shall wipe out the disloyalty of those who wear American garb without the faith, and establish a new concord of citizenship and a new devotion, so that we should have made a safe America the home and hope of a people who are truly American in heart and soul.

U.S. Capitol at night, April 4, 1917


The Cheyenne State Leader for April 4, 1917: Conscription


By the 4th, still prior to the declaration of war, news of conscription was hitting.  An army numbering 500,000 men in strength still seemed to be the one that was contemplated, and which Wilson had indicated as anticipated in his speech.  It'd turn out to be much larger than that.

1st Battalion of the Wyoming National Guard was also being called up, it appeared.

Right away anti sedition measures were being contemplated, something that would occur and which is shocking to read about now.  We're used to thinking of the terrible example of Japanese internment during World War Two, but we've forgotten the anti sedition efforts, and even the enemy alien internment, of World War One.

The Laramie Boomerang for April 4, 1917: Troops might go overseas



War hadn't been declared yet but it began to dawn on people that war with Germany meant sending troops to Europe, something that President Wilson had indicated in his request for a declaration of war.  The news had been so full of the war being naval, and problems with Mexico, that this hadn't been obvious at first, even though it should have been.

Wilson's speech, however, grossly underestimated the number of men that World War One would require in that role.

In an act that would be shocking today, students at the Laramie High School who were 17 were being encouraged to enlist in the Navy.

And scarlet fever was back.

Monday, April 3, 2017

The long slow death of the filibuster

The filibuster became ill in March. . .

1917.

March 8, 1917, to be exact.

That's the day that the Senate adopted the cloture rule.

Prior to the cloture rule the Senate allowed for unlimited debate.  So, in a classic filibuster, a Senator could take the floor and yap as long as he could hold out, keeping a vote from occuring.

During the Wilson Administration, however, filibusters started to prevent the Senate from doing its work. The final straw came when the Senate couldn't vote on a bill to arm merchantmen.  After that, the Senate changed the rules so that debate could be cut off by a 2/3s vote of the Senate.

And that worked for a long time, but it started breaking down in recent years.  Hence the 2013 Democratic change in the rules, and the probable 2017 elimination of it in regard to Supreme Court nominations.

Well, if the Democrats didn't want this result, .they shouldn't have brought it about, either now or in 2013.

And they don't have to.

But if they don't, they might get something they really don't want.  A Supreme Court nominee who is reserved, which means more questions would be reserved to the legislative bodies . . .which liberals don't trust.

And hence, by taking this act, they'll eliminate the anti democratic filibuster, at least in part, in the name of being anti democratic.  A move they'll likely regret, assuming that Trump can get his act together with the GOP, or rather the other way around, and there's another Supreme Court nominee during the next two years.  On that occasion, a restrained nominee, and Gorsuch is hardly immoderate, won't be necessary.

And for those counting on voter outrage. . .suggesting that there are questions that should go to the voters is hardly a position that will hurt the GOP.  And this assumes that the average voter cares about cloture at all, which is doubtful.

A switch in time. . .

Sources close to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) say there’s virtually no chance he will go along with abolishing the filibuster, something he has strongly criticized in the past.
Washington Post, July 1, 2015.

What comes around. . . .

Senate Democrats took the dramatic step Thursday of eliminating filibusters for most nominations by presidents, a power play they said was necessary to fix a broken system but one that Republicans said will only rupture it further.
Washington Post, November 21, 2013

The Thorny Issue of Health Care in the United States


 Mitsubishi A6M "Zero on the Akagi getting ready to commit an act that changed health care in the United States.

It's one of our long stated Rules of History that:
Holscher's Fourth Law of History.  War changes everything


And so too of health care.

Huh?

We have been in the throws of a debate about national health care in the United States. But how did we even get here?

Let's start off with a common erroneous assumption. And let's go back before the Affordable Health Care Act  We do not have a health care system based on the private market.

Gasp!

No, we don't.

By that, I mean this.  There's a common perception that before the AHCA good old free enterprise governed the relationship between patient and doctor, not a bunch of government regulations.

Well, maybe there weren't a lot of government regulations, although there were certainly plenty, but free enterprise and health care went out the window for the United States with Japanese torpedoes at Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Okay, that's an exaggeration, but not much of one.

There seems to be a notion that prior to President' Obama's successfully getting the Affordable Health Care Act through Congress that the government wasn't in the role of providing health care.  Not hardly.  Let's take a look at the history of it.

The History of Health Care in the United States

The government has actually been in health care at least since 1798, when it crated what became the Public Health Service.  The original act actually addressed "sick and disabled seamen" and created hospitals for them,  but that's really significant in that it was a type of Federal nautical welfare, or perhaps we might consider it Federal workman's compensation.   Anyway you look at it, that very early Congress determined not to leave seamen to the whims of fate or the free market,if they became sick or disabled.


Seal of the Public Health Service, which recalls its origins.

Of course, most people weren't seaman at that time in the country's history, and if we go back far enough, say some point in the mid 19th Century, we'd find what people seem to imagine, kind of.  That is, assuming that they weren't in military service or seamen.  Or perhaps if they weren't veterans either, as public assistance of various kinds came to veterans very early on as well. Anyhow, the that most people had was one in which the patient paid the doctor directly and that's what the doctor took.  And indeed, as fable would have it, what the doctor took was sometimes a sack of potatoes or a chicken.  That means, of course, that being a physician was not as lucrative as people imagine it is now, but we also have to keep in mind that there was little the doctor could actually do for a lot of illnesses.  Indeed, for a lot of them nobody ever saw a doctor..  And even if they did, as we'll explore in a post about a century ago, often all that could be done was to make the patient somewhat comfortable.

The first type of health insurance that most Americans were exposed to of any kind came through their employments, if they were industrial workers.  Large industrial concerns and mines began to employ doctors in the late 19th Century and it became fairly common by the early 20th Century.  Sometimes seeing the doctor was a benefit of employment or sometimes a minor amount could be paid to the company for a right to see the doctor when sick. This extended, it's worth noting, to everyone employed by the company.

That was industries way of trying to keep its employees well so they could work.  I don't mean for that to sound as mercenary as it no doubt does, as that benefited employee and employer both, but that is why it was done.

About the same time some hazardous employments, like firemen, began to pool funds for true health insurance.  This was more in the nature of the employees taking care of themselves and more closely resembles something that we have now, modern health insurance.  By the early 20th Century something else we have now, Workers Compensation, entered the picture in various forms in various states.  Workers Compensation is really a type of health insurance as well, although for some reason people commonly do not think of it that way.

And while this was occurring, medicine was improving.

By the eve of World War Two all the elements of the current system were there.  Workers Compensation for industrial workers and health insurance for private individuals who were not so employed. Still, a lot of Americans would not have any kind of coverage at all and they simply paid the doctor if they saw him.

Of course, and still worth noting, medicine at that point is not what it is now.

And then came World War Two.

During World War Two Congress regulated wages. The reason was simple.  There was a legitimate fear that the employment shortage created by the war would spur inflationary wages and inflation itself.  Having just gone from disastrous deflation during the Great Depression  there was a real desire to avoid disastrous inflation during the war.  So wages were regulated.

But benefits were not.

For most people the benefit for being employed had been your job.  The thought of additional benefits was ill defined But during the war, they came into sharp focus.  Employers quickly caught on that they may not be able to offer employees of another company higher wages, but they could offer them better benefits.

And health care as a benefit of employment was born.

An insurance based system, what's wrong with that (if anything)?

Today, 55% of Americans are covered by health insurance provided through their employer.  That means nearly half are not, but by the same token that fails to take into account people who are covered through their spouses plans in one way or another.

So, what's wrong with that?

Well, maybe nothing, but there are things that this system, created by accident during World War Two, has a hard time doing.

And one of those things is controlling costs. 

Cost of medical care have been dramatically increasing in recent years and have massively increased since World War Two.  Before anyone gets blamed for that, its important to note that other things have also dramatically increased in costs.  Technology is often the reason.  Today's medicine is so much more advanced than it was in 1945 that the change, hardly appreciated, can barely be grasped.

All sorts of conditions that were lethal (even routine diseases, a post on that is coming up) are not even regarded as particularly serious now.  Heart attacks and strokes simply killed prior to the 1970s, they very often do not now.  The list could go on and on.

And, when this occurs, at some point the advancement, no matter how expensive, becomes the accepted standard of care.

So, again taking us back to 1945, a lot of people would just have endured, or even died, of a condition that would be treated successfully, and expensively, now.

In order for a system based on insurance to handle that, it's going to have high premiums.  No doubt about it.  Paying if you get a bad cold or broken arm is one thing.  Major surgery is quite another.

And hence the problem.

Over time, it's been absolutely necessary for insurance premiums to to increase, just as insurance itself has pretty much replaced the private payer.  Almost nobody goes in for major medical treatment and pays for it out of their pocket as almost nobody could afford to do it.

So we do not have a free enterprise system in health care at all, we have an insurance based one, and we did before the Affordable Health Care Act.  The cost of treatment is largely based on what health care providers can justify to insurance companies and the deals those companies can strike, or force, with the physicians.  

Where the free enterprise system almost enters the picture is at the consumer end. That is, where employers (mostly) and individuals purchase health care insurance.

That's restrained, however, by the fact that it has long been the case that each state controls who can write in their states. Therefore, health care insurance companies, which insure on the basis of "pools" of insured (all insurance does that) is limited by the size of their state's pool, and their state's demographics.  States with large populations have carriers that can spread the risk, but they may also have larger groups of people with specific expensive conditions.

The Affordable Health Care Act enters the picture

So, enter the Affordable Health Care Act.

Now, its long been the case that there are a lot of Americans who simply have no health insurance at all and therefore have much reduced access to health care.  The Federal government has long picked up quite a few of these folks, however, at the treatment end as ultimately the Federal Government is the carrier of last resort in emergencies. As untreated conditions can become emergencies the Federal Government picks up quite a bit of coverage on this end, but in bad circumstances. Anyone who doubts this should pay a visit to a city emergency room.  You'll find them full, quite often, with people who are there with bad colds and the like. The uninsured receiving emergency care.  And I don't say that lightly.  Those can indeed be emergencies.

The sense, anyhow, is that this insurance based system isn't working.  And that has been the sense for quite some time.  

Now, it should also be noted that other industrialized nations have been through this evolution, and it often is.  The United States is the only industrialized nation, and more accurately the only first world nation, that doesn't have some sort of nationalized health care system.  Different countries arrived at that point at different times, and I don't know the history for most of them.  I'll only note that the famous example of the British National Health Care system came right after World War Two.  But I'd also note that the British Labour Party, which brought it in, has always been far to the left of the American Democratic Party.

Anyhow, that doesn't automatically mean  that we should to that.

Well, anyhow, what have we done.

Well, we did the Affordable Health Care Act, which has received the popular moniker "Obamacare". The GOP has been promising to repeal it since it was enacted, and President Trump promised to "repeal and replace" Obamacare with something.  Notably, those two things aren't the same. If you simply repeal it you go back to the status quo ante, with a period of pretty dramatic disruption (maybe).  If you replace it, you basically accept that President Obama got it right, but didn't get it all right.  

Hence, I suppose, why the Republican run at repealing and replacing it just failed. The Democrats feel that the Affordable Health Care Act is basically fine.  The hard right in the Republican Party feels its a Socialist abomination (its not Socialist, however).  The rest of the GOP has been stuck with this as a right wing rallying cry and doesn't really quite know what to do.

So, indeed, what to do?

So where were we?

Well, before we look at that, we probably ought to look at where we were first. Was the system before the Affordable Health Care Act working?

Maybe, but not really all that well.  Lots of people weren't covered by anything. See the ER comment above.

Okay, before we move on, on that, let's first concede that American health care isn't and wasn't bad.  Part of the debate, quite frankly, is like the "free college" debate that Bernie Sanders sponsored in the last general election.  The United States, we noted at the time, actually sends more of its population to university than almost any nation on earth including those who have high public sponsorship of education. And the system, which is based on a four legged stool (chair?) of public assistance, student investment via debt, student investment via parental support, and student investment through work, has the advantage of having student investment in their future.  Investment by the subject isn't a bad thing.

And the European models also have the background that the labor/employer struggle in Europe was much more radical than that in the US.

So is this just a lot of complaining?

No, it isn't.  And a lot of the reason is health care costs.

Health care costs have climbed about 110% since 1990.  Health insurance premiums have necessarily climb with that cost increase.  So, carriers are caught in a bind in which they must increase premiums to keep up with costs.  People quit buying insurance when they can no longer afford it, even if they appreciate it, as at some point other things are more immediate.  All insurance, after all, is a species of gambling.  The carriers are betting the odds you won't get sick, and you are betting the odds you will.

So, on this system, if we go back to it, what can we do to address that?

I suppose before we go there, we should ask the question that normally isn't, should we even bother?

At one time the answer to that would have been mostly no, although it's clear that there's almost never been a time in American history when the government didn't worry about this some.  Starting in 1798 it worried about in regards to seamen. It worried about it in regards to veterans, and there have been other groups over time.  Something is at work  here, a least a little bit. And while a person can cast it in economic terms, what it basically amounts to is that the government, and the people, have always felt that if people couldn't take care of themselves, medically, well maybe we ought to do it for them.  It is, basically, a Christian incentive.  Its the same one, notably, that caused massive welfare efforts in Scandinavia or massive education efforts in Ireland. We basically feel that there are areas where we ought to step in and help. And that's basically a Christian motivation, although not everyone involved in Christian by any means nor is it the case that everyone even recognizes the roots of this impulse.

Anyhow, back to the old, pre AHCA system and trying to tweak it.

You can try to do something on the cost end, and indeed carriers already do.

It may come to a shock to many but very rarely on anything actually expensive to carriers pay the full bill. Rather, much more often, they negotiate a lower fee. This is the absolute rule, by the way, with workers compensation. Workers compensation never pays the full bill on anything significant but instead reduces it down.

This is frustrating to physicians, but it also means that the real cost of anything significant is often not really known very well. This is well known to attorneys, however, as defense lawyers have argued for years that the proper measure of damages for injuries resulting in medical care should be the amount paid, while plaintiffs lawyers have always argued its the amount billed.  Right now, the billed argument is the one that has been prevailing.  The lesson is that prices can and are lower under certain circumstances.

Which doesn't mean they are low.

And which does mean that there's a bit of a struggle over every bill, with the carrier doing their part to lower them. That hasn't kept premiums from climbing, however.  It may mean, however, that they haven't climbed as much as they could have.

This brings up the topic of price controls, but Americans are not going to go for that, at least not unless its part of a different package entirely. So I'll leave that there.

Indeed, we have to admit that part of the pricing situation is insurance created, but  under the law of unintended consequences. Carriers do, by and large, have the money to pay.  Regular people wouldn't.  That means that prices can be up there, just not much more up there than they already are. At least for right now.  And of course the price of things for doctors is likewise expensive.

Well, if nothing much more can be done there, what about on the insurance end.

There's definitely something that can be done on that end, and it has been suggested.  Let insurance carriers in this area compete across state lines.

It may come as a surprise to many people but health insurance carriers do not compete across state lines.  Indeed, very few types of insurance compete across state lines. Rather, carriers are individual licensed for different types of coverage in individual states. 

That means that some states have very small insurance pools.  A state like Wyoming or Alaska, for example, doesn't really have an adequate population base to guaranty much competition in health insurance.  If you let carriers cross state lines, it would create a completely different situation and it would almost certainly lower rates.

Would it lower them enough?  That's hard to say.  Anything I said on it would be a guess.  But, guessing, I'd guess it might lower premiums by 1/3d.

But 1/3d might not be enough to really fix the problem.

Well, what other things can be done around the margins, then, with the current system?  Or, as we didn't have the system that I'm speaking about any longer, what else could be done if we went back to the old system we had prior to the AHCA? 

Not much.  I could think of a few things to experiment with, but they'd be experiments, and the results would be doubtful.  About the only one I can think of that might have much of an impact, although it might also be very much subject to the law of unintended consequences, would be to expand coverage by public institutions and programs where there is a relationship with the insured. For example, every college and university in the US has a "student health" department already.  Perhaps that could be expanded in some fashion for students enrolled in any one institution, with a provision that if they ceased to be enrolled they could re-enroll in their parents plan.  The military service has a program called "Tri Care" that covered teh families of military personnel, and perhaps that sort of thing could be expanded, where it hasn't been already, to the families of public employees.  Maybe these are good ideas, and maybe they aren't, but its something that could be looked at. But that's about it.

Would it make much of a difference.  Maybe, but maybe not. And maybe only temporarily.

So if that's not going to do the trick, what else?

The AHCA

Well, we've tried the AHCA. Maybe the GOP grousing is just that, complaining, and its really all fine?

Is it success?  It doesn't particularly appear to be.  Indeed, most Democrats don't even seem to really take that position.

Premiums continue to rise and while it has expanded coverage, coverage isn't universal. 

The AHCA, just like the attempt at "repealing and replacing it" are basically private carrier based systems with the Federal government being the carrier of last resort.  So, it doesn't address the problems that caused the premium rise, which is, after all, the thing we're really trying to address.

It does, however, create some brand new problems, and that's why it likely ought to be heavily modified.  Maybe the system would work better if that was done.

One thing it did was to totally unrealistically, but kindly, legislate "you can't look at my preexisting condition" as an item for enrolling in insurance. That's kind, but massively stupid.

Insurance is completely based on risk.  And as noted, it's a type of gambling.  Writing into an insurance law that a preexisting condition can't be considered, ad a basis for rejection for private insurance, is like writing a life insurance policy law that would say you can't consider a person's terminal diagnosis at the time they buy a policy.

This is, necessarily, going to have to be considered by carriers one way or another.  It actually rewards some who have ignored their health at the expensive of everyone else and it pretends that the entire problems in costs outlined above do not exist.

Another thing the AHCA did is adopt the liberal insanity that human beings must have sex and can't control that any more than they can control breathing.

The entire history of human beings up until the last couple decades is evidence of the opposite. While liberals in our society believe that the only thing that prevents premature births in anyone over 13 years of age is chemical temporary sterilization or abortion, it wasn't up until those two things became common that loose behavior became epidemic.  While there have always been accidental pregnancies the overwhelming majority of births up until fairly recently were within marriages.  Overwhelming.

This is another topic but it gets both into the law of unintended consequences and human behavior.  The cheap availability of contraceptives has actually boosted the number of children out of wedlock as the connection between sex and pregnancy became disassociated in the public's mind.  Indeed, in the entertainment industry they have no relationship at all, and its very rare for that industry to concede that sex can result in babies.  But it does.

Because it does, and because in the public mind its gone from an acknowledged risky conduct in some circumstances to some sort of public right, there's come to become a public concept that there's a public right to birth control. That's nuts.

It's not the only area that's nuts, but its one of them.  There's no reason that a publicly forced health care system should have to provide anything to people in regards to sex, except maybe in the case of catastrophic illness associated with it. Otherwise, hey, you chose to proceed so proceed at your own risk.  

Eliminating coverage under the AHCA for things of that type would go to reduce costs.  If you drop coverage for pregnancy or preventing it, and drop required coverage for anything that's not catastrophic, or at least serious, the costs go way down.  Taking that approach would raise liberal and feminist hackles, but it might make the AHCA capable of working.

Maybe.

Nationalizingng Up the System.

Any other approach begins to get you into the really radical, from the American prospective, but the norm for most of the world's. True nationalized health care.

Americans generally don't like the concept of a really sweeping state run system, but if the systems above don't work, and no system at all isn't an option, that's what's left.

There's a bunch of different ways to do this, but probably the one that would work the best in the US is a system like the Canadian one, which Canadians, in spite of claims down here in the US, really like.  Basically, it's sort of like a giant state administered Workers Compensation system. 

You could do that any number of ways, but the best way would probably be to have everything administered by respective states. So there would be fifty systems, not one, but they'd be easily transportable.  If it was a directly administered state system, you'd probably have to tax nationally for it but have it run by the state.  Alternatively, it could be done by private carriers that bid for entire state, as the insured pool.  That may be more efficient.

In order to make such a system work in a country as large as our, it would have to exclusive where it applied, but also limited in coverage.  Sick with the flu and have costs over, let's say, $250?  You are covered.  Want birth control pills.  You aren't.  Wisdom tooth need to be removed?  You are covered.  Want your boobs inflated?  You aren't.

Of course, nobody is going to propose such a system any time soon. And doctors would really hate it, as effectively there'd be price control, which amounts to wage control, at the Federal level.  A person can get into that, but it is the case that simply being a physician is expensive.  Some make large sums of money, but some don't, and that often varies by specialty.  That would be a problem.

And one of those problems is that medical malpractice insurance is expensive.  It's likely that the insurance for pharmaceutical companies is very expensive. That's because doctors and drug companies are targets for lawsuits.  The point here is that if you drive their returns down, you have to think about driving their costs down.  That can likely be done through damage caps and the like, but lawyers hate that idea.  But that's likely part of it.  I.e., you can't ask surgeons who were making seven figure incomes to come down to the bottom half of six figures and not give them something back in return, and reducing exposure to liability would seem to be part of that.

Do we need to do anything at all?

To the extent that President Obama succeeded in this debate it appears to be that it's now accepted that the Federal Government must have a role in this area.  Indeed, it appears to be the case that large segments of the GOP, including the President, accept that the Federal Government has some role in providing health care (which in fairness it was already doing prior to the AHCA) and that Americans have a Federally protected "right" to health care.

Do they?

Well, if it's accepted at the Federal level, they will, and maybe now do, but it's worth noting that the Federal Government now is in all sorts of things that have created entitlements that really ought to be questioned pretty heavily.  Consider the Federally supported Free and Reduced Lunch program that provides, well, free and reduced cost meals to school children. Yes, we want school children fed, but let's be honest. This program started off to help the really desperate, but if you live an area where its every been in the news, and its been in the news here, its regarded as a right by a lot of people now, including a lot of people who are not recipients.  While this example fits into the crabby "when I was young" type of example, the truth is that when I was young parents who didn't send their kids to school fed, and with lunch, needed to have a really good excuse. Sever poverty was a good excuse, and somebody would have taken care of it, but any other excuse would ultimately have caused a visit from the authorities.  In my view, this program has lapped over the bounds of tax funded charity into something else, and thereby isn't really fair to the taxpayer.

Now, none of the health care proposals that have been floated seriously operated such that they had full Federal funding, but the reason the right wing Republicans balked is that they simply feel that the government has no role.  At least their honest about that, whether you agree with them or not.  The rest of the GOP and all of the Democrats feel otherwise.

This is a trickier topic than it might seem at first, as there are clearly areas where the Federal government shouldn't be playing a "health" care role.  The big one is in regards to sex and reproduction.  Democrats in particularly just go all giddy about this and claim that it's absolutely the case that the Federal government ought to blasting out birth control pills for free or via insurance the way that a AC-130 blast out ammo, because in their view everyone who is an adult or nearly an adult can't control their lustful thoughts and has no responsibly for them.  But, in a more thought out system, there's no rational reason to require one group of people to subsidize another's sex.  None.  Particularly when we consider that some people have serious moral objection to abortifaciants, which include at least some birth control pills.

AC-130. . . the Democratic model of health coverage in the reproductive arena.

Otherwise, however, it may be the case that we've now reached a competitive point where health care has become so expensive, while also being so effective, there's no alternative but for national governmental action, of some sort.  The alternative might be to let people suffer and die, which isn't a just alternative.

Stuck in the road

So, anyway, no matter how you look at it, it would appear that we're at a fork in the road and even though Congress has largely decided to sit in the road and hope a truck doesn't come along, it will.  If we stick with the AHCA we may be cruising for it to break down.  The GOP certainly thinks so and a lot of Democrats are admitting it needs fixing.  If we go back to the old insurance based system more and more people are likely to be forced out of it and we'll need to fix that too, with some of the fixes being pretty radical.  The most radical fix of all would be to go to a system modeled on Canada's, which would work, but which would be hated by most conservatives in the country and most physicians as well.

It's enough to give you a headache.

But that won't be covered.

Pacifist Demonstrate in Washington D. C., April 3, 1917


And occupy the steps of the Capitol as they do so.

Working in the ice cream cone bakery.


John Myers, 14 years old, Oklahoma City. An after school job.  April 3, 1917.


And a 12 year old, who was working there full time.

Lex Anteinternet: Woodrow Wilson addresses a Joint Session of Congre...

 Opinions on Wilson's speech, posted here yesterday:
Lex Anteinternet: Woodrow Wilson addresses a Joint Session of Congre...: Woodrow Wilson went before a special joint session of Congress on this day in 1917 to ask for a Declaration of War against Germany. G...
All in all, not a bad speech in context.  I was surprised an immediate vote on war didn't follow, and indeed, when I originally posted it and went to the next days newspapers, I'd assumed it had.

If you have comments, please add them to the original thread.  I'd love to read them.

The Cheyenne State Leader for April 3, 1917: US to declare war today (actually, it wouldn't).


The Cheyenne State Leader was predicting that war was going to be declared today.  They hadn't counted on Senator LaFollette delaying the vote.

President Wilson was reported as asking for a 500,000 men army. . . a fraction of what would prove to be needed in the end.  Wyoming was ready to contribute.

The Lodge scuffle of yesterday hit the Cheyenne news.

It appeared that two companies of the Wyoming National Guard were to start off the impending war guarding the Union Pacific. . . things would soon change.

The Laramie Boomerang for April 3, 1917: Senator LaFollette a Traitor?


Given the stories I've been focusing on, this one is a bit off topic, but I couldn't resist the headline declaring "Battling Bob" LaFollette a traitor for using a parliamentary move to delay the vote on President Wilson's request for a declaration of war. Seems a bit much.

The scarlet fever outbreak in Laramie seemed under control.

Winter wouldn't leave.

The Wyoming Tribune. April 3, 1917: War Action Blocked


"Battling Bob" LaFollette used a procedural move to keep the vote on Wilson's request for a Declaration of War from occurring. The vote would of course occur. Something like that was a mere delay.

Governor Houx was pleading that the state a "contingent of rough riders" to the war.  Of course, given the way the war news was reading, a person might debate if that was to fight Germany or Mexico.  But anyhow, Wyoming was looking to supply cavalry.

West Point was going to follow the Navy's lead and graduate the 1917 class of officers early.

The Casper Record. April 3, 1917: Villa is to Fight US if War with Germany



Hmmm. . . . interesting speculation on what our relationship with Mexico, or in this case one segment of Mexico, would be if war was to be declared.

And young men were being urged to joint up to fight on the high seas.

The price of sheep, important to Wyoming, was up.  And Casper was getting a new big office building as part of the World War One boom and an ice processing company.

Anyone know what building that is, by the way?  Whatever it was, it's no longer there.

The scuffle Senator Lodge had yesterday hit the headlines, giving the typesetters the rare chance to use the word "biff".

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Woodrow Wilson addresses a Joint Session of Congress and ask for a Declaration of War Against Germany


Woodrow Wilson went before a special joint session of Congress on this day in 1917 to ask for a Declaration of War against Germany.

Gentlemen of the Congress:

I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making.

On the 3d of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and after the 1st day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean. That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial Government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft in conformity with its promise then given to us that passenger boats should not be sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were meagre and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe-conduct through the proscribed areas by the German Government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle.

I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to the humane practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the at tempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been built up, with meagre enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded. This minimum of right the German Government has swept aside under the plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons which it could use at sea except these which it is impossible to employ as it is employing them without throwing to the winds all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the world. I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of noncombatants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people can not be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.

It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion.

When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of February last, I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavour to destroy them before they have shown their own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all. The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual; it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents. There is one choice we can not make, we are incapable of making: we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life.

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it, and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end the war.

What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable cooperation in counsel and action with the governments now at war with Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to those governments of the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so far as possible be added to theirs. It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible. It will involve the immediate full equipment of the Navy in all respects but particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the enemy's submarines. It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States already provided for by law in case of war at least 500,000 men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training. It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well conceived taxation....

While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world what our motives and our objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not believe that the thought of the nation has been altered or clouded by them I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the 22d of January last; the same that I had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the 3d of February and on the 26th of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth ensure the observance of those principles. Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.

We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their Government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools. Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbour states with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs.

A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honour, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honour steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.

Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual attitude towards life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian people have been added in all their naive majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a league of honour.

One of the things that has served to convince us that the Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting communities and even our offices of government with spies and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, our peace within and without our industries and our commerce. Indeed it is now evident that its spies were here even before the war began; and it is unhappily not a matter of conjecture but a fact proved in our courts of justice that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the country have been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and even under the personal direction of official agents of the Imperial Government accredited to the Government of the United States. Even in checking these things and trying to extirpate them we have sought to put the most generous interpretation possible upon them because we knew that their source lay, not in any hostile feeling or purpose of the German people towards us (who were, no doubt, as ignorant of them as we ourselves were), but only in the selfish designs of a Government that did what it pleased and told its people nothing. But they have played their part in serving to convince us at last that that Government entertains no real friendship for us and means to act against our peace and security at its convenience. That it means to stir up enemies against us at our very doors the intercepted note to the German Minister at Mexico City is eloquent evidence.

We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that in such a government, following such methods, we can never have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured security for the democratic governments of the world. We are now about to accept gage of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretence about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.

Just because we fight without rancour and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.

I have said nothing of the governments allied with the Imperial Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our right and our honour. The Austro-Hungarian Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified endorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore not been possible for this Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the Ambassador recently accredited to this Government by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; but that Government has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other means of defending our rights.

It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity towards a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck. We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early reestablishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between us -- however hard it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts. We have borne with their present government through all these bitter months because of that friendship -- exercising a patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impossible. We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions towards the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy, who live amongst us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it towards all who are in fact loyal to their neighbours and to the Government in the hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few.

It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts -- for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.
Congress did not vote on the matter on that day.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Off Topic: Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, Quebec

Churches of the West: Off Topic: Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, Quebec


My mother, with the Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre in Quebec, behind her.

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge strikes constituent Alexander Bannwart


 Lodge in 1909

In a rather unusual event, 67 year old Senator Henry Cabot Lodge struck his constituent, Alexander Bannwart, on this day. The event took place in Lodge's office.

What exactly occurred is disputed.  What is not is that Bannwart, a former minor league baseball player and present manager, and two companions stopped in the office of their Senator, Lodge. Bannwart had his fellows were pacifist and they came to complain about the impending American entry into World War One.  Heated words were exchanged, and then shoving, and Bannwart was struck by Lodge.  Police soon arrested Bannwart.  Reports indicated that Lodge determined not to press charges against Bannwart, but then with what little detail we have, it would have perhaps made more sense if Bannwart had pressed charges against Lodge.  Perhaps the shoving by the 36 year old Bannwart was of a more serious nature than the existing reports indicate, particularly given their respective ages, and perhaps Lodge was simply defending himself.

Bannwart is often reported in these matters as being simply a minor league baseball player, but in fact he'd been a successful manager in the Colonial League.  He was a 1906 Princeton graduate, having come to the United States as a boy. 

Lodge voted for U.S. entry into the war. An event not surprising, given that Lodge was a Republican and a close associate of Theodore Roosevelt.

Members of the Norton Harjes Ambulance Corps, American Red Cross, in a captured German trench at Soissons. April 2, 1917.


The Wyoming Tribune: Prelude to The Declaration of War. April 2, 1917


Saturday, April 1, 2017

Scott Joplin, the "King of Ragtime Writers", died at age 49


Ragtime composer Scott Joplin, no doubt the greatest of all ragtime composers, died on this day in 1917.  Hid death of syphilis, from which he'd been suffering due to dementia for a year as a result of, closed out the ragtime era.


Joplin's music was hugely popular in its day, and he may remain the only ragtime composer widely known today.  At least a few of his more popular tunes remain well known, including The Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer, the later of which revived in popularity during the 1970s due to the move The Sting.


The use of Joplin's music in The Sting was ironic in that it was quite out of context. The film, set during the Depression, takes place in an era well after Joplin's own era had closed.  As it was his death in 1917 came on the cusp of the jazz revolution.


Joplin was born in Texas and learned to play piano as a boy.  When ragtime hit in the 1890s he was well situated, and very ambitious, so as to be able to exploit the sound.  He was highly talented and relocated to various urban areas, spending his final years in New York.


New York Governor Charles Seymour Whitman speaking to an audience at New York City revival of evangelist Billy Sunday, April 1, 1917.


Mr. Whitman arriving.

This was apparently in connection with the opening of a tabernacle by Evangelist Billy Sunday in New York City. 

Poster Saturday: Are You in ths?


Apparently a World War One era poster commissioned by Lord Baden Powell, the creator of the Boy Scouts.

Best Posts of the Week of March 26, 2017

The best posts for the week of March 26, 2017:

Autocephalous? Eh? A Sunday Morning Scene Post.

 
Assumption of the Theotokos Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Denver

Budgeting in the era of Trump: Getting a grasp on the local via the proposed budget. Philosophy, Subsidiarity, Distributism, Socialism, Wisonism, FDRism, . . . oh my! Or, did we really mean that when we said it?

 

 FDR Handbill.
and trying to determine what's causing it, other than the GOP refusing to hold hearings on Judge Garland.
 Neil Gorsuch

The Cheyenne Sunday State Leader for April 1, 1917: The President Calls For You. Volunteer to Enlist Now in the National Guard