Wyoming Myths. Sacagawea

Mural in the Montana State House by Edgar Paxson depicting Sacagawea and the Corps of Discovery in Montana.  Sacagawea's actual appearance, of course, is known only by description, but Paxon was a Montana artist particularly noted for his attention to close detail.  Having said that, she was just a teenager at this time and likely appeared younger than the female figure in this depiction.

Wyoming has an association with Sacagawea, sort of.

But not quite as close as we sometimes like to claim.

Route of the Corps of Discovery.  It wholly avoided Wyoming.

Sacagawea, the Corps of Discovery's justifiably famous guide, or pilot, or interpreter, has a real world close connection with our state in that she was a Shoshone.  Having said that, she was a Lemhi Shoshone. a name they would not have recognized.  To her band, and her times, she was a Akaitikka meaning "Salmon Eater".*  At the time of her birth in 1788 the Shoshone were widely spread throughout Wyoming, Montana and Idaho and, if you consider that their split with the Comanche had already occurred, but that the Comanche are an extension of the Shoshone people, they were widely spread indeed.**

She was born in Idaho what is now near the Idaho-Montana border.  No such border existed at the time, of course, and the Shoshone, including the Lemhi, ranged over wide territories.  Her band most likely ranged into northwest Wyoming, with it being certain of course that other Shoshone bands inhabited the area.

In 1800, at age 12, she was taken in a Hidatsa raid.  The Hidatsa are a Siouan people who are closely related to another Siouan people, the Crows.  Some consider the tribes to be the same, with the Hidatsa the parent tribe to the Crows.  It's important to note, however, that when the Sioux are referred to, its typically the Lakota and Dakota, and related groups that are meant. Indeed the Sioux and the Crows would be bitter enemies in the 19th Century, as would the Sioux and the Shoshone for that matter.

The Hidatsa were wide ranging and she was taken to a location that today is near Washburn, North Dakota. This means that the raiders had effectively traversed what is now Montana, an impressive feat for a raiding party.  The taking of captives in this manner was not unusual, and while this undoubtedly meant that the very young Shoshone girls life had taken a disastrous turn, her captivity by the Hidatsa, while real, was probably not terribly harsh.  In other words, she was a captive, but a captive with domestic duties that were likely not far removed from that of Hidatsa girls of the same age.

At age 13 she was sold to Toussaint Charbonneau as a "wife".  

Histories have sometimes addressed this in various ways, including using such terms as "non consensual wife", but there is no such thing.  Indeed, it's remarkable that even though the circumstances of her initial union with Charbonneau are well known, she's still usually routinely referred to as Charbonneau's "wife."  Effectively she was purchased as a slave, and if the niceties are stripped off of it, she was kept as a involuntary concubine at first, basically, or if you really want to strip the niceties off of it, as sort of sex slave with domestic duties, at first.  She was Charbonneau's second such slave, the first being the equally juvenile Otter Woman who was probably also a Shoshone captive of the Hidatsa.***

Edgar Paxon's depiction of Toussaint Charbonneau, notable perhaps in that its a flattering illustration.  In reality, of course, we have no period depiction for Charbonneau and his reputation has never been what can be called flattering.

In 1804 the Corps of Discovery visited Hidatsa villages in the fall in anticipation of their press across the the upper West to the Pacific the next Spring. They were in search of guides, and in that context hoped to find somebody who knew the territory. They were visited by Charbonneau, who was a French Canadian fur trapper.****  William Clark noted in his journal:

french man by Name Chabonah, who Speaks the Big Belley language visit us, he wished to hire & informed us his 2 Squars (squaws) were Snake Indians, we engau (engaged) him to go on with us and take one of his wives to interpret the Snake language.…

Spelling obviously had yet to be standardized and Clark puzzled out Charbonneau's last name.  He also used a lot of colloquialisms for the names of Indian bands.  The Snakes referred to the Shoshone, which is of course not what they call themselves (like most Indian bands, they call themselves "The People").  

It's of note, fwiw, and noteworthy without trying to be "woke", that the commanders of the Corps of Discovery did not appear bothered that  about Charbonneau's irregular situation with the two teenaged Indian girls.*****  They also didn't claim, as other writers have, that either of his girls were his "wives".  They only claimed that they were his "Squars", meaning his Indian women.  Polygamy was of course illegal in the United States, and Louisiana, the vast newly acquired territory, was within the United States, but there's no good evidence in this early entry that they regarded Sacagawea or Otter Women as wives, but rather simply his held women.  And of course Lewis and Clark were both fully acclimated to slavery, something they did not regard as abnormal nor wrong, and they had a slave with them of their own, York, who belonged to Clark and who was Clark's lifelong body servant.******

On that date in 1804 Charbonneau was contracted to be a guide that following spring and to bring one of his teenage women along with him as an interpreter.  They had no apparent early preference which one that would be.

Charbonneau apparently did, as that following week he'd bring Sacagawea into the Corps of Discovery camp and they took up residence there.  He did not bring Otter Woman.*******  Prior to the Spring she'd give birth to their son, who was named Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, who'd live into his sixties and whom would have an adventuresome life and be the subject of his own Wyoming myth.  We'll get to that one later.

Otter Woman disappeared from history.  She was left with the Hidatsa and while there are oral history references to her, the story grows thin and her fate is unknown. She likely merged into the tribe that captured her and lived the rest of her life as part of the Hidatsa, but its of note that her story does not resume when Charbonneau returned to the Hidatsa for a time after completing his role with the Corps of Discovery.

Charles Russell's painting of the Corps of Discovery arriving at the camp of her native band, which was then lead by her brother.  This reunion occurred, in real terms, only a few years after she had been kidnapped by the Hidatsa.  Note that Russel, who was keen on detail, depicts one of the Shoshone as already being armed with a rifle, which was no doubt correct.

Everyone is of course familiar with the yeoman role that Sacagawea performed for the Corps of Discovery and therefore we'll omit it here.  Suffice it to say, she became the star critical guide, and a sort of diplomatic delegate for the expedition, outshining Charbonneau who seems to have been widely disliked, although the full degree to which he was disliked can be at least questioned as he'd retrain an occasional guiding role for the US Army into the 1830s, that coming to an end when Clark died.  Prior to that, he and Sacagawea would briefly live on a farm in Missouri, where she gave birth to a second child by him, named Lizette.  The invitation to live in Missouri came from Clark.  About Lizette little is known, and she's believed to have died in childhood.

Russell painting depicting the Corps of Discovery on the lower Columbia, with Sacagawea with arms outstretched.  One of the impacts of her presence on the trip was the effect it had on Indian bands they encountered, which convinced them that their intent was not hostile.

Following the experiment with farming, the couple, which by that time they seem to have been, returned to the Hidatsa.  Sacagawea died of what was described as "putrid fever" in 1812.^ At the time, it seems that she left the security of Fort Manual Lisa, where they were living, to return to the Hidatsa in what would have been sort of a premonition of death.  It also seems that she had a daughter with her at the time, who may have been Lizette, or who may have been a subsequent child about whom nothing else was known.  Jean Baptiste was left in Missouri at a boarding school which had been arranged for by Clark.

And with Sacagawea's death in 1812, the myth starts to kick in.

Truth be known, in the 18th and early 19th Centuries deaths in the United States were not well tracked in general and they certainly weren't in the West.  Birth Certificates and Death Certificates were not issued.  Nobody made really strenuous efforts, moreover, to keep track of the deaths of Indians up until the Reservation period, which was far in the future in 1812.  That we know as much as we do with the post 1804 life of Sacagawea is testimony to how important in the Corps of Discovery, and hence notable, she really was.  Period recollections on her fate can be regarded as beyond question.

None of which has kept people from questioning it.

Grace Raymond Hebard, educator, suffragist, feminist, and mythologist.

In the early 20th Century the remarkable University of Wyoming political economy professor, Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard, took an interest in Sacagawea and, with scanty evidence, concluded that she had not died in 1812 but rather had traveled to the Southwest and married into the Comanche tribe, and then came to Wyoming after her husband was killed. These claims surrounded a woman who was known by various names, including "Chief Woman", or Porivo.

The woman in question seems to have come on to the reservation in advanced old age and to have arrived with an adult son.  White figures on the Reservation at the time, including a prominent Episcopal missionary, became fascinated with the elderly woman.^^  Of note, resident Shoshone had a difficult time speaking to her, which was a clue to her actual probable origin.  Be that as it may, her advanced aged and presence with an adult son lead the European American figures on the reservation to believe that she must be the famous female "pilot", Sacagawea, and the adult son, must be Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, apparently not aware that Jean Baptiste's life was very well recorded, including his travels abroad and ultimate death in his early 60s.  No matter on any of that, those in question wanted to believe that the figures must be Sacagawea and Jean Baptiste.

In reality, they were almost certainly surviving Sheep Eater Indians.  

The Tukudeka, or Sheep Eaters, are a Shoshone band who ranged in the mountainous regions of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.  Like the Lemhi, they were named by outsiders for their principal foods source, which in their case was Mountain Sheep.  

The Sheep Easters are the Shoshone band about which the least is known.   They always lived in what European Americans regarded as remote areas.  They were highly adapted to their lifestyle and remains of their sheep traps and other high mountain artifacts are fairly common, but encounters with them were actually very rare.  They did not routinely share their existence with other, lower altitude, Shoshones. Their encounters with European Americans were fairly rare, and they didn't have hostile encounters with them until very late in the Indian War period.  The Sheep Eater War of 1879 was the last major Indian War in the Pacific Northwest for that reason.

Sheep Eaters were a presence on the Wind River Reservation as early as 1870, when the Federal Government acknowledged them as a band entitled to the Shoshone allotment, and Shoshone Chief Washakie accepted them as a Shoshone group, but they had no high incentive to come onto the reservation voluntarily and generally only did very late, as the era of Indian free ranging was drawing down.  In spite of their enormous success in their environment, they were not numerous and generally melted into the Reservation populations when they came in, but they were different at first.  Included in their uniqueness was a linguistic one.  Their language varied from other Shoshones to an extent.

Most likely the elderly woman and her son who came in onto the Reservation and were noted by the Episcopal and Reservation figures were Sheep Eaters.  Their language was different and they just showed up.  By the time that they did, the Sheep Easter era was drawing very much to a close.  Most likely the adult man and his elderly mother decided that they couldn't make it as a solitary two.  Or some variant of that, as in the son deciding that caring for his mother in the mountains had become too burdensome.

The figures noted very much took to them, although conversing with them proved difficult.  The degree to which they adopted their view of what she was saying to fit their romantic conclusion of the rediscovery of Sacagawea or that the elderly woman.  Whomever she was, she passed away in 1884.  If she was Sacagawea, which she was not, she would have been 96 years old, certainly not an impossibly old age, but certainly an old one, both then and now.

Dr. Charles Eastman.

By 1919 the myths regarding Chief Woman had spread sufficiently that they were referenced in a 1919 account on the Corps of Discovery in a second hand way, noting that that a sculptor looking for a model of Sacagawea had learned of her 1884 death on the Wind River Reservation and her supposed status as Sacagawea.  In 1925 Dr. Charles Eastman, a Sioux physician, was hired by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to locate Sacagawea's remains.  He also learned of Porivo's 1884 death and conducted interviews at Wind River.  Those interviews, conducted nearly forty years after her death, included recollections that she had spoken of a long journey in which she's assisted white men and, further, that she had a sliver Jefferson Peace Medal such as the type carried by the Corps of Discovery.  He also located a Comanche woman who claimed Porivo was her grandmother.  He claimed that Porivo had lived at Fort Bridger, Wyoming for sometime with sons Bazil and Baptiste and that ultimately that woman had come to Fort Washakie, where she was recorded as "Bazil's mother"  It was his conclusion that Porivo was Sacagawea.

Not all of Porivo's reputed accounts, if taken fully at face value, are fully easy to discount at first, but by and large they become so if fully examined.  Long journeys are in the context of the teller, and peace medals were much more common than might be supposed.  None the less, the retold story was picked up by Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard who massively romanticized it.  Hebard's historical research has been discredited, but her 1933 book caused a widespread belief to exist that Sacagawea didn't die in her late 20s but rather in her 90s, and not in North Dakota, but in Wyoming.  That suited Hebard's Wyoming centric boosting of her adopted state, and her feminist portrayal of an Indian heroine.  It provides a massive cautionary tale about the reinterpretation of history in the context of ones own time and to suit a preconceived notion of how the past ought to be a perfect prologue for hte future.

It is, however, simply, if unknowingly, false.

And the falsity of it gives Wyoming a claim on Sacagawea that it frankly doesn't merit.  One that lead to monuments in the state to Sacagawea, to include a tombstone or over Porivo's grave that identified her as Sacagawea, which is a sort of tourist attraction.

Indeed, there's no actual indication that Sacagawea ever set foot in Wyoming.  She may have, as a young girl, as the Lemhi Shoshone ranged over the mountainous regions of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.  Be that as it may, the Lemhi Valley of Idaho is named after them for a reason.  They're not one of the Shoshone bands that distinctly associated with the state prior to the Reservation era.  Be that as it may, during the known established period of her life, we can place her in Idaho, Montana and North Dakota, in terms of regional states, but not Wyoming. . . at any time.

That does not mean, of course, that she's not an admirable and important figure.  Nor does it mean that she was not an important Shoshone figure, and the Shoshone are an important people in Wyoming's history.  Its almost certainly the case that relatives of her, but not descendants, live on the Reservation today, although that claim would be even better for the Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho.  Through her son, Jean Baptiste, she likely has living descendants today, although not ones who would identify as Shoshone.

But giving people a long and romantic life rather than a short and tragic one doesn't do them or history any favors.  In reality, Sacagawea's life was heroic, tragic and short.  She was just a girl when she was kidnapped from her family, and still just a girl when she was sold to a man a good twenty years older than she was and of an alien culture to be a type of domestic slave, kept along with another similarly youthful domestic slave he already held.  In that capacity she went across half the continent and back with an infant, and did come to be hugely admired by the members of the Corps of Discovery.  It was that respect that lead, in part, to the post expedition opportunities afford to her and Toussaint Charbonneau, who seems to have evolved into her actual husband over time.  That also lead to the education of her son at the behest of William Clark.  It didn't save her, however, form a 19th Century death, still in her twenties.

She was a remarkable young woman by all accounts, and deserves to be remembered as such, and accurately.

*Lemhi comes from Fort Lemhi, which was a Mormon mission to the Akaitikka.

**Comanche is a Shoshone word meaning "Arguer"  The argument was over the adoption of horses, and the argument took place in southeastern Wyoming at the time that the Shoshones first encountered horses.  The Comanches were the early adopters of horses.

***The details regarding Otter Woman are extremely obscure.  It's known that she was in an identical status to that of Sacagawea in 1804 and the best evidence is that she was a captive Shoshone.  There are other claims for her tribal origin, however and additional assertions as to her fate.  Like Sacajawea, her history suffers from an unfortunate association with the work of Dr. Grace Raymond Hebert who places Otter Woman in the Corps of Discovery camp in the winter of 1804 and who even has her remaining in domestic union with Charbonneau in later years, along with Sacajawea.  In reality, she seems to have simply been abandoned in 1804 or 1805.  Charbonneau's reasoning for this isn't clear, but Sacajawea was pregnant at the time that Charbonneau was hired by the Corps of Discovery.  It is clear that the Corps desired that one of Charbonneau's wives accompany them to act as interpreter, and he may have chose her due to her pregnancy, not wishing to abandon her in that condition.

Of course, if Otter Woman was in fact not Shoshone, but Mandan or some other tribe as has been claimed, that would also explain why she was not chosen.  

What occurred to her is not realistically capable of being known.

****Toussaint Charbonneau was probably born in 1767 and was from a town that is near Montreal.  His first name means "All Saints Day" or "All Saints".  He had been a fur trapper for an extended period of time by 1804.  His reputation has never been particularly good and for good reason.  One of the earliest records regarding him, prior to his time as a trapper, notes him being stabbed by a woman in defense of her daughter whom Charbonneau was attempting to rape.  

Charbonneau appears to be almost uniformly disliked by people who associated with him over the course of his long life.  He appears to have been temperamental.  He also seems to have a predilection for young women as he had four or five Indian "wives" during his lifetime, all of whom were teenagers at the time of their "marriages".  This includes one who was a teen at the time of his death , which is notable as he was in his 76 at the time, assuming the 1767 birth year is correct (if it isn't, he would have been 84, which seems unlikely).  The name of at least one of his wives is unknown (the name of another was Corn Woman, leaving at least one, or perhaps, unknown as to name).  It's known that two of the four or five where Shoshone, if Otter Woman was Shoshone, and one was Assiniboine.

His estate was settled by his son Jean Baptiste, which is interesting in that it would indicate that he was in some sort of contact with his son at the time of his death in about 1843, at which time he was back in North Dakota.  It's also interesting in that it would suggest that Jean Baptiste may have been his only survivor.  The existing information confirms that he had at least two children, both by Sacagawea, and may have had a third by her.  Only Jean Baptiste is known to have survived but the information about the possible third is very limited.  This is notable as his having four or five native women in domestic arrangements, with only one bearing children, would seem to be unlikely.

Charbonneau's long life is testament to his lifestyle in the wild being of a generally healthy nature.

*****Nor were they apparently bothered by the fact that the enlisted men of the Corps of Discovery indulged themselves with the favors of Indian women, making treatment for venereal disease a medical necessity for the expedition.  This was at least in part due to the fact that some Indian tribes of the period offered Indian women as favors to visitors, although I'm not noting that in regard to the Shoshone but rather to other bands the Corps encountered early in its trip across the western half of the continent. This is significant here only in noting that while Clark in particular came to really respect if not outright adore Sacagawea, the overall view of the men of the Corps was of a rather isolated and not egalitarian nature.

******York had been a slave in the Clark household and had grown up with Clark.  His post Corps of Discovery fate is poorly documented but it seems that Clark likely freed York at some point, probably a decade or so after the expedition, and due to repeated York requests that he be set free.  During the expedition he became a fairly participating member and his slave status, therefore, would have started to wear off.  He seems to have entered the freighting business upon being freed, and it further seems that Clark had granted him a status approach freedom sometime prior to actually freeing him.  York died at approximately age 60, apparently from cholera.  His death in his sixties came a few years prior to Clark's in his sixties.

*******Hebard says that Otter Woman spent the winter of 1804/05 win camp with Sacagawea and Charbonneau and was reunited with them upon the Corps of Discovery's return. She has Otter Woman going to Missouri with them and then returning to North Dakota with Lizette.

In short, it seems that Hebard disliked abandonment and death, and who likes them?  She was an important Wyoming figure and educator, and a suffragist.  Never married, a person is tempted to see in some of this a large element of projection of a period feminist sort in which not only is Sacagawea an important figure in the Corps of Discovery, but a feminist herself, with Otter Woman as an unconventional companion, associate and friend.

The reality of it was much more harsh.  Charbonneau abandoned Otter Woman upon obtaining employment with the Corps of Discovery, which at least left the pregnant Sacagawea with support.  As noted above, her pregnancy may explain why she was chosen over Otter Woman.  At least some oral histories indicate that Otter Woman later married an Indian man, and irrespective of their accuracy this is likely.  Given her slave status, Charbonneau's abandonment of her may have been a better fate for her in real terms.

^There's always a temptation to speculate about what a disease like "putrid fever" is, but in the context of the times its impossible to know.  While in a year like this one its easier to understand than others, even routine diseases could be lethal at the time and a disease like influenza was a real killer.

On an unrelated topic that fits in to this period, it might be worth noting that the actual story of Sacagawea, like that of several other 18th and 19th Century Indian women heroines, was uncomfortable for their European American contemporaries as well as for later generations, and therefore its continually recast.  Sacagawea is, like Pocahontas or Kateri Tekakwitha, an uncomfortable example of a Native American who was acculturated to more than one culture.  This was much more common among Indians than modern Americans would like to believe.

In her case, she had spent the first twelve years of her life about as isolated from the European Americans culture for an Indian as would have been possible south of the 48th Parallel and perhaps about as much as possible outside of far northern North America. This would have changed once she was with the Hidatsa, particularly upon her enslavement to Charbonneau.  It would have changed even more upon her accompaniment with the Corps of Discovery and its notable that at the time of her reunion with the Lemhi she made no apparent effort, nor did they, to rejoin them.  By that time, of course, she had a child and in the reality of the 19th Century her die may have been caste, if not by her own will.  Indeed, her fate was was at that point similar to that of the Sabean women who plead for their attackers after becoming pregnant by them in legend.

But only a few years later she was found in Missouri, a farmer's wife, with the farmer being Charbonneau.  She felt sufficiently comfortable with European American society to surrender Jean Baptiste to Clark before returning to North Dakota.  Her going back and forth between the Indian world and the European world is not seamless, but its not absent either.  This is true of many other period Native Americans including some very well known ones.

^^The Episcopal connection is what caused this thread to be written, although we'd debated doing it for years.  On one of our companion blogs, Churches of the West, a recent comment was posted about the Episcopal church in Atlantic City, with it being noted that the church had been moved from another location and that "Sacagawea" had been baptized there.

It's perfectly possible that the church had been moved from the Wind River Indian Reservation or some other locality in Fremont County, but Sacagawea wasn't baptized there.  Porivo may very well have been, given her close connection with the resident Episcopal missionary at the time.  It isn't known if Sacagawea was ever baptized, but if she was, and its quite possible that in fact this occurred, she would have been baptized as a Catholic.  Charbonneau had been baptized as a Catholic in his infancy.  It's additionally clear that Charbonneau, in spite of his lifestyle, gave his children distinctly French Catholic names and that a known descendant of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau was baptized as a Catholic.

December 30

1782  The Decree of Trenton gives the Wyoming region of Ohio and Pennsylvania to Pennsylvania.

1835  Santa Ana declared that all foreigners taking up arms against Mexico would be treated as pirates and shot.

1867  A .C. Clark of Cheyenne, a "professional pedestrian", begins a record breaking 50 mile walk without sleep or food.

1878  Camp Brown Wyoming renamed Ft. Washakie.  The change of name is remarkable in that it is the only instance of Frontier Army post being renamed in honor of a Native American.  Washakie, who was allied to the US, figured prominently in Wyoming as a Shoshone scout and was a war leader in both native wars and as the leader of Shoshone war parties in the field in support of the U.S. Army.  Washakie had a role in Crook's 1876 expeditions.  He would live in to the 20th Century, dieing in his 90s or 100s depending upon which birth date is accepted.

1905   Former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg is wounded by a powerful bomb that was triggered when he opens the gate to his home in Caldwell, Idaho. He died shortly afterwards in his own bed.  The act was a reprisal for his role in ending a mining strike.

1916   The Cheyenne State Leader for December 30, 1916: Discussions breaking down.
 

In spite of an accord having been signed last week, this week it looked like the agreement with Mexico might be going nowhere.

1918  December 30, 1918. "Zero Weather" predicted for Cheyenne, Rosa Luxemburg urges a name change for the German Spartacus League in Germany, Goshen County Sheriff held on suspicion of murder.

While this blog still does not seek to become a century ago today in retrospective blog, as we're still tracking stories important to the our overall theme, and the end of World War One and the events flowing from it are part of that story, here we have one.

And it's one that jam packed with myths that are probably so thick that disabusing them is impossible.  The story of Rosa Luxemburg and the Spartacus Rebellion in Germany of 1919, which was coming to a head, by which we mean a bloody end.

Rosa Luxemburg, who is almost 100% incorrectly remembered by history.

With Germany in revolution and the Socialist government struggling to simultaneously put it down and to deal with the collapse of the state that had made the armistice with the Allies necessary, Rosa Luxemburg, misunderstood member of the German Spartacus League and one of its founders, urged the the consolidation of all of the non Social Democratic German radical Socialist parties into a new party to be called the Communist Party of Germany, somewhat ignoring the fact that there was already a radical left wing German party called the Communist Party which was a participant at the conference at which she was making the proposal.

Luxemburg, who will reappear here in a few days, is a quixotic figure.  She had long been a left wing figure in Europe and is romanticized today by the Communists pretty much for the same reason that movie fans romanticize James Dean. . . she died prior to her career really getting started and therefore can be all things to all people.

Luxemburg was a Polish Jew by ethnicity and a citizen of the Russian Empire by birth.  She'd grown up, before going to university in Switzerland, in Russian Poland and was the daughter of a father who was interested in liberal causes and a mother who was very religious.  She had no familial or perosnal history with Germany whatsoever but rather chose Germany as a place in which she wished to live sometime after obtaining a doctorate, very unusual for a woman at the time, in Switzerland.  She had obtained permission to live in Imperial Germany only by contracting a fraudulent marriage with Gustav Lubeck, the son of a long time friend, in order to circumvent German laws and she became a permanent resident of Germany sometime in the early 1900s.

In Germany she was a member, originally, of the Social Democratic Party which prior to World War One housed all of the left of center German political class and which was secure in its radiclalism by the fact that it didn't have a real chance to exercise power.  Probably not ironically, however, as she was a Pole, not a German, she was influential in that time in the formation of the Polish and Lithuanian Social Democratic Party.

Prior to World War One it can be argued that her politics evolved. She was a radical in her socialistic views but ran counter to almost all of those who would later lionize her. She was an opponent of Polish nationalism as she did not believe in Polish (or any) self determination, a policy that would run counter to Lenin's stated beliefs but which did fit conventional communist beliefs.  She was also, however, dedicated to social democracy and serious about not suppressing the votes of non socialist parties.  She came to be an open critic of Lenin and of the German Social Democratic Party.  By this point in time she was really a member of the Independent Social Democrats which were part of the first post war German coalition for a time until they pulled out due to their radical beliefs.  She opposed the Spartacus uprising in 1919 but naively supported none the less.  On this day, she proposed that the various parties of the left that were in the Spartacus League unite as the Communist Party of Germany, in spite of their already being a German communist party, and in spite of the fact that her views really did not match well with those that genuine communist held.

Her role would not go well for her.

Locally, while Germany was aflame, there was going to be "Zero Weather" in Cheyenne, which didn't mean what it sounded like.  The Goshen County Sheriff was being held in connection with a killing and Congress was working on a bill for anticipated homesteading discharged soldiers.

1921.  Prohibition agents conducted a raid in Rock Springs.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1942  A Riverton couple eccentrically converted 10,100 nickles into two war bonds.  Attribution. Wyoming State Historical Society.

1974  Teapot Dome added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1978  Teno Roncolio's technical last day as Wyoming's representative.  He resigned a few days in advance of Dick Cheney being sworn in, but he had not run for reelection so the resignation was likely merely to slightly advance his last day in office prior to January 1.

2008  The Yellowstone earthquake swarm continues adding an additional 23 quakes.

Elsewhere:  

1916  Grigori Rasputin Murdered.

 

Russian mystic and controversial friend of the Imperial household, Grigori Rasputin, murdered.  This isn't, of course, a Wyoming story, but as it was part and parcel of what would become the Russian Revolution which lead ultimately to the long Cold War with the Soviet Union of which Wyoming was part, we've noted it here.

Rasputin was such a controversial figure during his lifetime, and lived in a land that remains so mysterious to outsiders today, that almost every aspect of his life is shrouded in myth or even outright error. To start with, contrary to what is widely assumed, he was not a monk nor did he hold any sort of office of any kind within the Russian Orthodox Church.

Rather, he was a wondering Russian Orthodox mystic, a position in Russian society that was recognized at the time.  His exact religious beliefs are disputed and therefore the degree to which he held orthodox beliefs is not really clear.

He became a controversial figure due to his seeming influence on the Emperor and Empress, who remained true monarchs at the time, and therefore his influence was beyond what a person might otherwise presume.  Much of this was due to his ability to calm or influence bleeding episodes on the part of the Crown Prince who was a hemophiliac.  Ultimately concerns over his influence lead to his being assassinated although even the details regarding his death are murky.

He was 47 years old at the time of his death.

1919   Lincoln's Inn in London admits its first female bar student.

2009   The last roll of Kodachrome film is developed by Dwayne's Photo, the only remaining Kodachrome processor at the time.

October 31

Today is Halloween

1782  A Court established at Trenton, New Jersey that Pennsylvania owned the Wyoming Valley but that the claims of Connecticut settlers to land titles should be honored  Ownership of the Wyoming Valley, after which the State of Wyoming was named, had been disputed between the two colonies, now states.

1822 Mexican Emperor Agustín de Iturbide dismissed the Mexican Congress to attempt to rule via  a junta.

1831  John W. Hoyt, Wyoming's Third Territorial Governor, born in Ohio.

1888  Stewart v. Wyoming Cattle Co. was argued in front of the United States Supreme Court.  The case involved an action brought by the British owned and Edinburgh Scotland headquartered Wyoming Cattle Ranch Company against John T. Stewart, a citizen of Iowa over alleged misrepresentations in the sale of horses and cattle.

The decision read:

Stewart v. Wyoming Cattle Ranch Co., 128 U.S. 383 (1888)

Stewart v. Wyoming Cattle Ranch Company
No. 52
Argued October 31, November 1, 1888
Decided November 19, 1888
128 U.S. 383
ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED

STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEBRASKA

Syllabus

Although silence as to a material fact is not necessarily, as matter of law, equivalent to a false representation, yet concealment or suppression by either party to a contract of sale, with intent to deceive, of a material fact which he is in good faith bound to disclose, is evidence of, and equivalent to, a false representation.

Instructions given to a jury upon their coming into court after they have retired to consider their verdict, and not excepted to at the time, cannot be reviewed on error, although counsel were absent when they were given.

Affidavits filed in support of a motion for a new trial are no part of the record on error, unless made so by bill of exceptions.

The case is stated in the opinion of the Court.
MR. JUSTICE GRAY delivered the opinion of the Court.

The original action was brought by the Wyoming Cattle Ranch Company, a British corporation having its place of business at Edinburgh, in Scotland, against John T. Stewart, a citizen of Iowa. The petition contained two counts. The first count alleged that the defendant, owning a herd of cattle in Wyoming Territory, and horses going with that herd, and all branded with the same brand, and also 80 short-horn bulls, and 700 head of mixed yearlings, offered to sell the same, with other personal property, for the sum of $400,000, and at the same time represented to the plaintiff and its agent that there had already been branded 2,800 calves as the increase of the herd for the current season, and that the whole branding of calves and increase of the herd for that season would amount to 4,000, and that, exclusive of the branding for that year, the herd consisted of 15,000 head of cattle, and that there were 150 horses running with it, and branded with the same brand; that, had the representation that 2,800 calves had been branded been true, it was reasonable from that fact to estimate that the whole branding for that year would be 4,000 head, and that the whole herd, exclusive of the increase for that year, was 15,000 head; that the defendant, when he made these representations, knew that they were false and fraudulent, and made them for the purpose of deceiving the plaintiff and its agent, and of inducing the plaintiff to purchase the herd, and that the plaintiff, relying upon the representations, and believing them to be true, purchased the herd and paid the price.
The second count alleged that the defendant had failed to deliver the bulls and yearlings as agreed.

At the trial the, following facts were proved:

The defendant, being the owner of a ranch with such a herd of cattle, gave in writing to one Tait the option to purchase it and them at $400,000, and wrote a letter to Tait describing all the property, and gave him a power of attorney to sell it. He also wrote a letter describing the property to one Majors, a partner of Tait. A provisional agreement for the sale of the property, referring to a prospectus signed at the same time, was made by Tait with the plaintiff in Scotland, a condition of which was that a person to be appointed by the plaintiff should make a favorable report. One Clay was accordingly appointed, and went out to Wyoming, and visited the ranch . Certain books and schedules made by one Street, the superintendent of the ranch ,were laid before him, and he and the defendant rode over the ranch together for several days. Clay testified that, in the course of his interviews with the defendant, the latter made to him the false representations alleged in the petition, and requested him to rely on these representations, and not to make inquiries from the foreman and other persons, and that, relying on the representations, he made a favorable report to the plaintiff, which thereupon completed the purchase. The plaintiff also introduced evidence tending to prove the other allegations in the petition. The defendant testified that he never made the representations alleged. The jury returned a general verdict for the plaintiff in the sum of $55,000, upon which judgment was rendered, and the defendant sued out this writ of error.

No exception was taken to the judge's instructions to the jury upon the second count. The only exceptions contained in the bill of exceptions allowed by the judge and relied on at the argument were to the following instructions given to the jury in answer to the plaintiff's requests:
"14. I am asked by the plaintiff to give a number of instructions, a portion of which I give, and a portion of which I must necessarily decline to give. My attention is called to one matter, however, and as I cannot give the instruction as it is asked for, and as the matter it contains is, as I think, of the first importance, I will state my own views upon that particular point."

"I am asked to say to the jury, if they believe from the evidence that, while Clay was making the inspection, Stewart objected to Clay making inquiries about the number of calves branded of the foreman and other men, and thereby prevented Clay from prosecuting inquiries which might have led to information that less than 2,000 calves had been branded, the jury are instructed that such acts on the part of Stewart amount in law to misrepresentations."

of cattle, and the number of horses, and the condition of the ranch ,and the number of calves that would probably be branded; if the company sent him there as an expert for the purpose of determining all those things for itself and for himself, and relied upon him, and he was to go upon the ranch himself, and exercise his own judgment, and ascertain from that, without reference to any conversation had with Stewart, then it would make no difference. But while he was in pursuit of the information for which he went there, Stewart would have no right to throw unreasonable obstacles in his way to prevent his procuring the information that he sought and that he desired. If the testimony satisfies you that they did go there together, while Clay was making efforts to procure the information which he did, and while he was in pursuit of it, and while he was on the right track, Stewart would have no right to throw him off the scent, so to speak, and prevent him in any fraudulent and improper way from procuring the information desired, and, if he did that, that itself is making, or equal to making, false and fraudulent representations for the purpose in question. But if Stewart did none of these things, then, of course, what is now said has no application."

"In reference to that point, I feel it my duty to say this to the jury: that if the testimony satisfies you that after all the documents in question that have been introduced in evidence here went into the hands of the home company in Scotland, where it had its office, and where it usually transacted its business, if it was not satisfied with what appears in those papers, and if it did not see proper to base its judgment and action on the information that those papers contained, but nevertheless sent Clay to Wyoming to investigate the facts and circumstances connected with the transaction, to ascertain the number". In determining whether Stewart made misrepresentations about the number of cattle or the loss upon his herd or the calf brand of 1882, the jury will take into consideration the documents made by Stewart prior to and upon the sale -- namely the power of attorney to Tait, the descriptive letter, the optional contract, letter to Majors, schedules made by Street, provisional agreement and prospectus, and his statements to Clay, if the jury finds he made any, upon Clay's inspection trip, and if the jury find that in any of these statements there were any material misrepresentations on which plaintiff relied, believing the same, which has resulted to the damage of the plaintiff, the plaintiff is entitled to recover for such damage."

If the jury find from the evidence that Stewart purposely kept silent when he ought to have spoken and informed Clay of material facts, or find that by any language or acts he intentionally misled Clay about the number of cattle in the herd, or the number of calves branded in the spring of 1882, or by any acts of expression or by silence consciously misled or deceived Clay, or permitted him to be misled or deceived, then the jury will be justified in finding that Stewart made material misrepresentations, and must find for the plaintiff, if the plaintiff believed and relied upon the representations made by the defendant."

The judge, at the beginning and end of his charge, stated to the jury the substance of the allegations in the petition as the only grounds for a recovery in this action; and at the defendant's request, fully instructed them upon the general rules of law applicable to actions of this description, and gave, among others, the following instructions:". In order to recover on the ground of false representations, such false representations must be shown to be of a then existing matter of fact material to the transaction, and no expression of opinion or judgment or estimation not involving the assertion of an unconditional fact can constitute actionable false representation, and in such case the jury must find for the defendant on the first count in the petition."

" In order to justify a recovery, it must be shown by proof that the plaintiff's agent relied upon the alleged false representations and made them the ground and basis of his report, but that he was so circumstanced as to justify him in so relying upon and placing confidence in said representations, and if it appears that he had other knowledge or had received other representations and statements conflicting therewith sufficient to raise reasonable doubts as to the correctness of such representations, then there can be no recovery on the first count."

The judge, of his own motion, further instructed the jury that they were to decide upon the comparative weight of the conflicting testimony of Clay and of the defendant, and added:
"It seems to me that the first count must hinge upon that one point, because if there was no statement made by Stewart to Clay with reference to the number of calves that were branded during this trip of inspection of the ranch, then it seems to me that the whole theory which underlies the claim of the plaintiff must be an erroneous one."

Taking all the instructions together, we are of opinion that they conform to the well settled law, and that there is no ground for supposing that the jury can have been misled by any of the instructions excepted to.

In an action of deceit, it is true that silence as to a material fact is not necessarily, as matter of law, equivalent to a false representation. But mere silence is quite different from concealment. Aliud est tacere, aliud celare -- a suppression of the truth may amount to a suggestion of falsehood. And if, with intent to deceive, either party to a contract of sale conceals or suppresses a material fact which he is in good faith bound to disclose, this is evidence of and equivalent to a false representation, because the concealment or suppression is in effect a representation that what is disclosed is the whole truth. The gist of the action is fraudulently producing a false impression upon the mind of the other party, and if this result is accomplished, it is unimportant whether the means of accomplishing it are words or acts of the defendant or his concealment or suppression of material facts not equally within the knowledge or reach of the plaintiff.

The case of Laidlaw v. Organ, 2 Wheat. 178, is much in point. In an action by the buyer of tobacco against the sellers to recover possession of it, there was evidence that before the sale the buyer, upon being asked by Girault, one of the sellers, whether there was any news which was calculated to enhance its price or value, was silent, although he had received news, which the seller had not, of the Treaty of Ghent. The court below, "there being no evidence that the plaintiff had asserted or suggested anything to the said Girault calculated to impose upon him with respect to the said news and to induce him to think or believe that it did not exist," directed a verdict for the plaintiff. Upon a bill of exceptions to that direction, this Court, in an opinion delivered by Chief Justice Marshall, held that while it could not be laid down as a matter of law that the intelligence of extrinsic circumstances which might influence the price of the commodity, and which was exclusively within the knowledge of the vendee, ought to have been communicated by him to the vendor, yet at the same time, each party must take care not to say or do anything tending to impose upon the other, and that the absolute instruction of the judge was erroneous, and the question whether any imposition was practiced by the vendee upon the vendor ought to have been submitted to the jury.

The instructions excepted to in the case at bar clearly affirmed the same rule. The words and conduct relied on as amounting to false representations were those of the seller of a large herd of cattle, ranging over an extensive territory and related to the number of the herd itself, of which he had full knowledge or means of information not readily accessible to a purchaser coming from abroad, and the plaintiff introduced evidence tending to show that the defendant, while going over the ranch with the plaintiff's agent, made positive false representations as to the number of calves branded during the year and also fraudulently prevented him from procuring other information as to the number of calves, and consequently as to the number of cattle on the ranch.

In giving the fourteenth instruction, the judge expressly declined to say that if the defendant prevented the plaintiff's agent from prosecuting inquiries which might have led to information that less than 2,000 calves had been branded, such acts of the defendant would amount in law to misrepresentations, but, on the contrary, submitted to the jury the question whether the defendant fraudulently and improperly prevented the plaintiff's agent from procuring the information demanded, and only instructed them that if he did, that was making, or equal to making, false and fraudulent representations for the purpose in question.
So the clear meaning of the sixteenth instruction is that the jury were not authorized to find material misrepresentations by the defendant unless he purposely kept silent as to material facts which it was his duty to disclose, or by language or acts purposely misled the plaintiff's agent about the number of cattle in the herd or the number of calves branded, or, by words or silence, knowingly misled or deceived him, or knowingly permitted him to be misled or deceived in regard to such material facts, and in one of these ways purposely produced a false impression upon his mind.

The defendant objects to the fifteenth instruction that the judge submitted to the jury the question whether the defendant made misrepresentations about the number of cattle, and about the loss upon the herd as well as about the calf brand of 1882. It is true that the principal matter upon which the testimony was conflicting was whether the defendant did make the representation that 2,800 calves had been branded in that year. But the chief importance of that misrepresentation, if made, was that it went to show that the herd of cattle which produced the calves was less numerous than the defendant had represented, and the petition alleged that the defendant made false and fraudulent representations both as to the number of calves branded and as to the number of the whole herd. So evidence of the loss of cattle by death beyond what had been represented by the defendant tended to show that the herd was less in number than he represented.

The remaining objection argued is to an instruction given by the judge to the jury in response to a question asked by them upon coming into court after they had retired to consider their verdict. It is a conclusive answer to this objection that no exception was taken to this instruction at the time it was given or before the verdict was returned. The fact that neither of the counsel was then present affords no excuse. Affidavits filed in support of a motion for a new trial are no part of the record on error unless made so by bill of exceptions. The absence of counsel while the court is in session at any time between the impaneling of the jury and the return of the verdict cannot limit the power and duty of the judge to instruct the jury in open court on the law of the case as occasion may require, nor dispense with the necessity of seasonably excepting to his rulings and instructions, nor give jurisdiction to a court of error to decide questions not appearing of record.

Judgment affirmed.

1890  A butcher in Merino was arrested for stealing cattle.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1903  The Battle of Lightning Creek occurred in Weston County Wyoming when Sheriff William Miller and a party of men under his leadership, having already arrested twelve Sioux in the area for hunting violations, engaged in a firefight with Sioux under Chief Charley Smith.  Miller, Deputy Louis Falkenberg and Chief Smith died in the battle.  Nine Sioux men alleged to have participated, and twelve women, were later arrested by Crook County Sheriff Deputy Lee Miller, but they were released for lack of evidence.

1916   The Wyoming Tribune for October 31, 1916: Wyoming Guard returning?
 

On the last day of October, the Wyoming Tribune was reporting rumors that the Wyoming and Colorado National Guard would be returning to Wyoming to muster out.

A big Russian offensive in the war was big news, and the Tribune was campaigning for the Republican candidates.

1918 October becomes the deadliest month of the 1918 Flu Epidemic in the US.

Amongst those who would be infected by the disease was my great aunt Ulpha, who did not die immediately of it, but who was so weakened that she would never recover, and would die a few years later.

1918  Countdown on the Great War, October 30, 1918: French reach the Aisne, Central Powers collapse in the Balkans, Revolution in Hungary, the war stops in the Middle East

1.  French forces reached the Aisne River.

2.  In the Balkans the Italians and French took Shkoder Albania, while the Serbs took Podgorica, Montenegro.

3.  Combat stopped in the Middle East with the formal surrender of the Ottoman Empire.

In Cheyenne they learned of the Ottoman's quitting. . . and also the residence problems of the former Governor Osborne.

They learned the same in Laramie. . . where nurses were being called due to the flu and the next conscription cohort was being notified.

4.  Hungarian revolutionaries seized public buildings and King Charles IV was forced to recognize the success of the coup.  Austro Hungaria as a political entity was effectively over.

1922  Anthony Raich of Kemmerer is granted a patent for a Lunch Pail.

1938 The day after his "War of the Worlds" broadcast had panicked radio listeners, Orson Welles expressed "deep regret" but also bewilderment that anyone had thought the show was real.

1941 U-552 sinks USS Reuben James (DD-245), the first US ship lost in WW II, although the ship, which was assigned to escort duty and was based at Hvalfjordur, Iceland, was not in a declared war from the US prospective. The sinking is memorialized in a Woody Guthrie song, set to the tune of Wildwood Flower. The sinking itself was a case of mistaken identity, as the ship's profile was essentially identical to some US ships transferred earlier to the British. The crew of the U-552 didn't realize for several days that they had sunk an American vessel, and only learned of that by way of a British radio broadcast.

Have you heard of a ship called the good Reuben James
Manned by hard fighting men both of honor and fame?
She flew the Stars and Stripes of the land of the free
But tonight she's in her grave at the bottom of the sea.

Tell me what were their names, tell me what were their names,
Did you have a friend on the good Reuben James?
What were their names, tell me, what were their names?
Did you have a friend on the good Reuben James

Well, a hundred men went down in that dark watery grave
When that good ship went down only forty-four were saved.
'Twas the last day of October we saved the forty-four
From the cold ocean waters and the cold icy shore.

It was there in the dark of that uncertain night
That we watched for the U-boats and waited for a fight.
Then a whine and a rock and a great explosion roared
And they laid the Reuben James on that cold ocean floor.

Now tonight there are lights in our country so bright
In the farms and in the cities they're telling of the fight.
And now our mighty battleships will steam the bounding main
And remember the name of that good Reuben James.

1942  Birth of Wyoming educator and politician, Tom Walsh (death January 1, 2010), in Thermopolis Wyoming.

1942.  Residents of the town of Parco voted to change the name of the town to Sinclair.

1942 Production of new typewriters ceased in the United States as manufacturers had switched over to war materials.

1945  Wyoming Game and Fish agents Bill Lakanen and Don Simpson were shot and killed responding to a report of poaching in the Rawlins, Wyoming area. They are two of five Wyoming Game and Fish employees to be killed in the line of duty.  Their case is particularly unique as there was at least a suspicion that their killer, a native German known to be sympathetic with recently defeated Nazi Germany, and there had been some earlier reports of interior radio traffic in the general region (a very broad area) directed towards German receipt regarding the weather, a fact useful to submarines.  This, however, was not proven to be anything, and the FBI did not track down the source of the alleged broadcast.  The suspected killer was never found, but was believed to be inside a cabin located where the Game Wardens were killed.

1996 The State of Wyoming's lease on Ft. Bridger concludes.  The following day the property passed into the ownership fo the Fort Bridger Historical Association..

1999 Samuel Knight chosen as Wyoming's Citizen of the Century by  the University of Wyoming's American Heritage Center.  Knight was a long time and influential geology professor at the University.

2007 A 4.0 earthquake occurred 93 miles from Riverton.

September 25

1066  Harold II of England defeats an invasion by Harald Hardrada of Norway, at Stamford Bridge near York.  Amongst the dead were King Harald, who had lead an adventurous Viking life, and Tostig, King Harold's brother who had sided with the Norwegians.  This battle is overshadowed by the Battle of Hastings, but in this battle, just a few weeks earlier, King Harold Godwinson defeated King Harald Haardaada, the King of Norway

King Harald was a tall man for the era, and when he asked King Harold "How much of England will you give me." Harold famously replied "Six feet, as you are bigger than other men.".  That's what he got.

What's this have to do with anything, you might ask?  Well, Harold's forced march to Stamford bridge with Saxon levies, followed by the battle, is sometimes cited as fatiguing his troops, who then had to turn around shortly thereafter and march to Hastings.  Some recent scholarship has questioned that, but that assertion has been made.  The Norman victory lead to the introduction of feudalism in England, which produced the Common Law as we know it, including the Common Law as used in Wyoming's courts.

1493     Christopher Columbus set sail from Cadiz, Spain, with a flotilla of 17 ships on his second voyage to the Western Hemisphere.

1789     The first United States Congress adopted 12 amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification. (Ten of the amendments became the Bill of Rights.)

1909  August Malchow, the "Wisconsin Kid", of Havre Montana defended his world welterweight crown at the Methany Hall in Thermopolis.  The fight was against "Kid Erne" of Lewistown.  In  his professional career Malchow would go on to fight three more bouts, two of them also in the Methany Hall, with both of those being victories (one being a technicality, as it was a draw).  He would go on to loose in Sheridan in 1910 and he died in 1915 at age 30.

1912  USS Wyoming, BB-32, commissioned.

1916   Wyoming Tribune for September 25, 1916: Villa seeking alibi for Columbus Raid. Guard to go to San Antonio.
 

A dramatic Monday newspaper.

Villa looking for an alibi for Columbus.

The Guard to go to San Antonio.

Austria was without bread, and prohibitionist were submitting a bill to the Legislature to deprive the populace of booze.

1918  The Flu shares pride of place with the Great War and Villa, September 25, 1918.

The Spanish Flu, which would kill more Americans in 1918/19 than combat in Europe would, was now sufficiently newsworthy that it was making the front page day after day.  On this day, readers of the Casper paper woke up to find that as many as 30,000 cases of the particularly deadly and virulent flu strain had run through Army camps.

They also learned that Villa had returned to full violence in his war against Carranza.

In more positive news, Germany appeared to be collapsing.

Cheyenne's readers had equally disturbing news, including a claim that the Germans had returned to worshiping pagan gods in their desperation, a rather extreme claim to say the least.

1933  Memorial to June Downey, important early professor with widely varying interests, unveiled at the University of Wyoming.  In addition to writing poetry, teaching English, later psychology, and being a department head, she wrote the schools Alma Mater.

 Where the western lights' long shadows
Over the boundless prairies fling
And the mountain winds are vocal
With thy dear name, Wyoming.
There it is brown and yellow
Floats in loving loyalty,
And the College throws its portals
Open wide to all men free.

Refrain:
And so our songs we bring.
Our Alma Mater sing,
To her our hearts shall cling,
Shall cling forever more.

Yonder we can see it standing,
Circled by purple hills,
While the flaming fire of sunset
Every Western window fills;
'Tis the College! Ah, we know it!
Shrine of many joys and tears,
And the rays that light upon it
Are prophetic of its years.

1956     The first trans-Atlantic telephone cable went into service.

1963  John F. Kennedy spoke at the University of Wyoming.  His address:

Senator McGee--my old colleague in the Senate, Gale McGee--Governor, Mr. President, Senator Mansfield, Senator Metcalf, Secretary Udall, ladies and gentlemen:

I want to express my appreciation to you for your warm welcome, to you, Governor, to the President of the University, to Senator McGee, and others. I am particularly glad to come on this conservation trip and have an opportunity to speak at this distinguished university, because what we are attempting to do is to develop the talents in our country which require, of course, education which will permit us in our time, when the conservation of our resources requires entirely different techniques than were required 50 years ago, when the great conservation movement began under Theodore Roosevelt--and these talents, scientific and social talents, must be developed at our universities.

I hope that all of you who are students here will recognize the great opportunity that lies before you in this decade, and in the decades to come, to be of service to our country. The Greeks once defined happiness as full use of your powers along lines of excellence, and I can assure you that there is no area of life where you will have an opportunity to use whatever powers you have, and to use them along more excellent lines, bringing ultimately, I think, happiness to you and those whom you serve.

What I think we must realize is that the problems which now face us and their solution are far more complex, far more difficult, far more subtle, require a far greater skill and discretion of judgment, than any of the problems that this country has faced in its comparatively short history, or any, really, that the world has faced in its long history. The fact is that almost in the last 30 years the world of knowledge has exploded. You remember that Robert Oppenheimer said that 8 or 9 out of 10 of all the scientists who ever lived, live today. This last generation has produced nearly all of the scientific breakthroughs, at least relatively, that this world of ours has ever experienced. We are alive, all of us, while this tremendous explosion of knowledge, which has expanded the horizon of our experience, so far has all taken 'place in the last 30 years.

If you realize that when Queen Victoria sent for Robert Peel to be Prime Minister-he was in Rome--the journey which he took from Rome to London took him the same amount of time, to the day, that it had taken the Emperor Hadrian to go from Rome to England nearly 1900 years before. There had been comparatively little progress made in almost 1900 years in the field of knowledge. Now, suddenly, in the last 100 years, but most particularly in the last 30 years, all that is changed, and all of this knowledge is brought to bear, and can be brought to bear, in improving our lives and making the life of our people more happy, or destroying them. And that problem is the one, of course, which this generation of Americans and the next must face: how to use that knowledge, how to make a social discipline out of it.

There is really not much use in having science and its knowledge confined to the laboratory unless it comes out into the mainstream of American and world life, and only those who are trained and educated to handle knowledge and the disciplines of knowledge can be expected to play a significant part in the life of their country. So, quite obviously, this university is not maintained by the people of Wyoming merely to help all of the graduates enjoy a prosperous life. That may come, that may be a byproduct, but the people of Wyoming contribute their taxes to the maintenance of this school in order that the graduates of this school may, themselves, return to the society which helped develop them some of the talents which that society has made available, and what is true in this State is true across the United States.

The reason why, at the height of the Civil War, when the preservation of the Union was in doubt, Abraham Lincoln signed the Land Grant College Act, which has built up the most extraordinary educational system in the world, was because he knew that a nation could not exist and be ignorant and free; and what was true 100 years ago is more true today. So what we have to decide is how we are going to manage the complicated social and economic and world problems which come across our desks-my desk, as President of the United States; the desk of the Senators, as representatives of the States; the Members of the House, as representatives of the people.

But most importantly, as the final power is held by a majority of the people, how the majority of the people are going to make their judgment on the wise use of our resources, on the correct monetary and fiscal policy, what steps we should take in space, what steps we should take to develop the resources of the ocean, what steps we should take to manage our balance of payments, what we should do in the Congo or Viet-Nam, or in Latin America, all these areas which come to rest upon the United States as the leading great power of the world, with the determination and the understanding to recognize what is at stake in the world--all these are problems far more complicated than any group of citizens ever had to deal with in the history of the world, or any group of Members of Congress had to deal with.

If you feel that the Members of Congress were more talented 100 years ago, and certainly the Senators in the years before the Civil War included the brightest figures, probably, that ever sat in the Senate--Benton, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and all the rest-they talked, and at least three of them stayed in the Congress 40 years--they talked for 40 years about four or five things: tariffs and the development of the West, land, the rights of the States and slavery, Mexico. Now we talk about problems in one summer which dwarf in complexity all of those matters, and we must deal with them or we will perish.

So I think the chance for an educated graduate of this school to serve his State and country is bright. I can assure you that you are needed.

This trip that I have taken is now about 24 hours old, but it is a rewarding 24 hours because there is nothing more encouraging than for those of us to leave the rather artificial city of Washington and come and travel across the United States and realize what is here, the beauty, the diversity, the wealth, and the vigor of the people.

Last Friday I spoke to delegates from all over the world at the United Nations. It is an unfortunate fact that nearly every delegate comes to the United States from all around the world and they make a judgment on the United States based on an experience in New York or Washington; and rarely do they come West beyond the Mississippi, and rarely do they go to California, or to Hawaii, or to Alaska. Therefore, they do not understand the United States, and those of us who stay only in Washington sometimes lose our comprehension of the national problems which require a national solution.

This country has become rich because nature was good to us, and because the people who came from Europe, predominantly, also were among the most vigorous. The basic resources were used skillfully and economically, and because of the wise work done by Theodore Roosevelt and others, significant progress was made in conserving these resources.
The problem, of course, now is that the whole concept of conservation must change in the 1960's if we are going to pass on to the 350 million Americans who will live in this country in 40 years where 180 million Americans now live--if we are going to pass on a country which is even richer.

The fact of the matter is that the management of our natural resources instead of being primarily a problem of conserving them, of saving them, now requires the scientific application of knowledge to develop new resources. We have come to. realize to a large extent that resources are not passive. Resources are not merely something that was here, put by nature. Research tells us that previously valueless materials, which 10 years ago were useless, now can be among the most valuable natural resources of the United States. And that is the most significant fact in conservation now since the early 1900's when Theodore Roosevelt started his work. A conservationist's first reaction in those days was to preserve, to hoard, to protect every non-renewable resource. It was the fear of resource exhaustion which caused the great conservation movement of the 1900's. And this fear was reflected in the speeches and attitudes of our political leaders and their writers.

This is not surprising in the light of the technology of that time, but today that approach is out of date, and I think this is an important fact for the State of Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain States. It is both too pessimistic and too optimistic. We need no longer fear that our resources and energy supplies are a fixed quantity that can be exhausted in accordance with a particular rate of consumption. On the other hand, it is not enough to put barbed wire around a forest or a lake, or put in stockpiles of minerals, or restrictive laws and regulations on the exploitation of resources. That was the old way of doing it.

Our primary task now is to increase our understanding of our environment to a point where we can enjoy it without defacing it, use its bounty without detracting permanently from its value, and, above all, maintain a living balance between man's actions and nature's reactions, for this Nation's great resources are as elastic and productive as our ingenuity can make them. For example, soda ash is a multimillion dollar industry in this State. A few years ago there was no use for it. It was wasted. People were unaware of it. And even if it had been sought, it could not be found--not because it wasn't here, but because effective prospecting techniques had not been developed. Now soda ash is a necessary ingredient in the production of glass, steel, and other products. As a result of a series of experiments, of a harnessing of science to the use of man, this great new industry has opened up. In short, conservation is no longer protection and conserving and restricting. The balance between our needs and the availability of our resources, between our aspirations and our environment, is constantly changing.

One of the great resources which we are going to find in the next 40 years is not going to be the land; it will be the ocean. We are going to find untold wealth in the oceans of the world which will be used to make a better life for our people. Science is changing all of our natural environment. It can change it for good; it can change it for bad. We are pursuing, for example, new opportunities in coal, which have been largely neglected--examining the feasibility of transporting coal by water through pipelines, of gasification at the mines, of liquefaction of coal into gasoline, and of transmitting electric power directly from the mouth of the mine. The economic feasibility of some of these techniques has not been determined, but it will be in the next decade. At the same time, we are engaged in active research on better means of using low grade coal, to meet the tremendous increase in the demand for coal we are going to find in the rest of this century. This is, in effect, using science to increase our supply of a resource of which the people of the United States were totally unaware 50 years ago.

Another research undertaking of special concern to this Nation and this State is the continuing effort to develop practical and feasible techniques of converting oil shale into usable petroleum fuels. The higher grade deposits in Wyoming alone are equivalent to 30 billion barrels of oil, and 200 billion barrels in the case of lower grade development. This could not be used, there was nothing to conserve, and now science is going to make it possible.

Investigation is going on to assure at the same time an adequate water supply so that when we develop this great new industry we will be able to use it and have sufficient water. Resource development, therefore, requires not only the coordination of all branches of science, it requires the joint effort of scientists, government--State, national, and local--and members of other professional disciplines. For example, we are now examining in the United States today the mixed economic-technical question of whether very large-scale nuclear reactors can produce unexpected savings in the simultaneous desalinization of water and the generation of electricity. We will have, before this decade is out or sooner, a tremendous nuclear reactor which makes electricity and at the same time gets fresh water from salt water at a competitive price. What a difference this can make to the Western United States. And, indeed, not only the United States, but all around the globe where there are so many deserts on the ocean's edge.

It is in efforts, I think, such as this, where the National Government can play a significant role, where the scale of public investment or the nationwide scope of the problem, the national significance of the results are too great to ignore or which cannot always be carried out by private research. Federal funds and stimulation can help make the most imaginative and productive use of our manpower and facilities. The use of science and technology in these fields has gained understanding and support in the Congress. Senator Gale McGee has proposed an energetic study of the technology of electrometallurgy--the words are getting longer as the months go on, and more complicated-an area of considerable importance to the Rocky Mountains.

All this, I think, is going to change the life of Wyoming and going to change the life of the United States. What we regard now as relative well-being, 30 years from now will be regarded as poverty. When you realize that 30 years ago r out of 10 farms had electricity, and yet some farmers thought that they were living reasonably well, now for a farm not to have electricity, we regard them as living in the depths of poverty. That is how great a change has come in 30 years. In the short space of 18 years, really, or almost 20 years, the wealth of this country has gone up 300 percent.

In 1970, 1980, 1990, this country will be, can be, must be--if we make the proper decisions, if we manage our resources, both human and material, wisely, if we make wise decisions in the Nation, in the State, in the community, and individually, if we maintain a vigorous and hopeful 'pursuit of life and knowledge--the resources of this country are so unlimited and science is expanding them so greatly that all those people who thought 40 years ago that this country would be exhausted in the middle of the century have been proven wrong. It is going to be richer than ever, providing we make the wise decisions and we recognize that the future belongs to those who seize it.

Knowledge is power, a saying 500 years old, but knowledge is power today as never before, not only here in the United States, but the future of the free world depends in the final analysis upon the United States and upon our willingness to reach those decisions on these complicated matters which face us with courage and clarity. And the graduates of this school will, as they have in the past, play their proper role.

I express my thanks to you. This building which 15 years ago was just a matter of conversation is now a reality. So those things that we talk about today, which seem unreal, where so many people doubt that they can be done--the fact of the matter is, it has been true all through our history--they will be done, and Wyoming, in doing it, will play its proper role.

Thank you.

1997   Guernsey State Park designated a National Historic Landmark.  Attribution:  On This Day.