December 22

1836  Texas'  First Congress established the General Land Office.

1916   The Casper Weekly Press for December 22, 1916: Wars everywhere
 

The Casper Weekly Press issued on December 22, 1916 warned that "Uncle Fears War". The papers were full of war warnings which, looking back, not only proved accurate but also can't help to call to mind that Woodrow Wilson had just been elected for keeping us out of war and yet the news was headed rapidly, and accurately, in the other direction.

In terms of other wars, the Casper paper reported that Villistas had killed 50 Constitutionalist soliders, hardly a large number by European standards but a scary one for a nation that had been worried about the direction the war in Mexico was taking for months.

In other grim news, two died in a refinery fire in Casper.  There is at least one famous refinery fire in Casper's history but it's not this one.  I can't find any details about it.

Finally the American Automobile Association, which I didn't even know existed that long ago, came out in support of a concrete highway across Wyoming. Such an improved highway remained quite a few years in the state's future at that time, but it's interesting to note how people were already pondering it.

1917  Mrs. Cody reacquires title to the Irma Hotel, in Cody.  Attribution.  Wyoming State Historical Society.

 Louisa and William F. Cody in later years.

1917   December 22, 1917: The United States Guards Authorized

Red Cross repsentatives marching with members of the New York State Guard in 1918. This is, of course, the State Guard, not the United States Guards. 

Showing a distinctly different approach to things than would be taken during the Second World War, something that will continue to be the case as we read more about Woodrow Wilson's approach to Federalism during World War One, the United States Guards were authorized on this day in 1917. They were part of the National Army, i.e. that part of the Army raised from civilians for the war, as opposed to those parts made up of the combined National Guard and Regular Army.  While they were part of the National Army, they were under the authority of the Militia Bureau (today's National Guard Bureau).  Of interest, at the same time the Federal Government was encouraging states to raise units of State Guards.

Some explanation of what these various units are or were is necessary to make much sense out of this story, of course.

The National Guard is well known to Americans, of course, and the nature of the National Guard would be evident to anyone who has been reading this blog over the past two years, as various National Guard units were called up and deployed to the Mexican border to be followed by the mass call up, and then mass conscription for odd legal reasons, of the National Guard in 1917.  As has also been seen, and a much different practice from what would occur in later years, states actively recruited for National Guardsmen right up until they were formally inducted into the U.S. Army and even proposed new National Guard units, much like they had done with the formation of state units during the Civil War.

Much different from the Civil War or even the Spanish American War, however, changes to the structure of the American military establishment following the Spanish American War had formalized its status as a reserve of the Army and caused the Militia Bureau to come about to deal with that.  The regularization of the National Guard as the state militia country wide created, in all states and in some territories the creation of those units to fill both a local militia role and to be the reserve of the Army in time of war.  In a few states this was controversial and they ended up accordingly splitting their state establishments between the National Guard and a State Guard, with the liability of the State Guard in times of war being fairly unclear.  The latter would seem to have been so liable as long as the fighting was to occur within the boundaries of the United States.  Rhode Island provides us one such example, Maryland another.  Most states did no such thing, however.

When the US entered the Great War in 1917 the National Guard, lately back from the Mexican border, was first called up and then conscripted in mass.  Indeed, it was expanded and therefore the result was that the states now lacked, for the most part, men for local militia service, should it be needed. That was one perceived problem.

A second was that, in spite of how we recall it today, the U.S. entry into World War One, while largely popular, was not entirely popular everywhere.  We've already had the example of a revolt against conscription and perhaps the war in general in Oklahoma.  To compound that, the teens were at the height of the radicalization of the American labor movement and labor was much less willing to go along with the Federal government as part of the war effort than it would be in later years.  Those who have read the newspaper entries here have seen the ones about trouble in the vital coal and rail industries, two industries that literally had the ability to completely cripple the nation.  Beyond that, the Administration of this era was highly intolerant to radical dissent and tended to see the events in Russia as if reflected in a distant mirror in the United States.

Given all of that, the Federal Government perceived there being a need for internal security forces at a national level.  To take up that role, it formed 48 regiments of United States Guards.  By the end of 1918, 1,364 officers and 26,796 men were serving in the United States Guards, stationed in the continental United States and the Territory of Alaska. 

These men were taken from the many men found unfit for service in the National Army, something which the readers of the newspapers here would also have noted, although the regulations provided that such departures from physical standards had to be "minor".  While physical standards for service were far less strict than they are now, frankly American health wasn't what the covers of The Saturday Evening Post and Leslie's might suggest.  Plenty of men were too old, infirm or in ill health so as to go to France with the National Army.  18,000 of the men who served in the United States Guards fit the category of men with a "minor" physical defect who had been conscripted but, because of their condition, could not go oversees. They were volunteers from the National Army into the United States Guards.  The balance were men whose condition precluded them from being drafted in the first instance, or who were above conscription age as the United States Guards would take able men who were above the service age.  After August 1918, when the Selective Service operated to process all incoming servicemen, a crack in the door that had existed for overage men to attempt to volunteer for the National Army was closed but they could still volunteer for the United States Guards. Some of them ended up in the 48 regiments of United States Guards maintained to keep the wolf at bay in the US itself.

 Enormous panoramic photograph of Michigan state troops, June 1917.  I've never been certain if these cavalrymen are National Guardsmen or State Guardsmen. If they're National Guardsmen, they're irregularly equipped in that they're carrying riot batons and lever action rifles, both of which would be extremely odd for National Guardsmen of this period even taking into account that prior to the Punitive Expedition some units were still privately equipped to some degree. This suggests state equipage, which was common for State Guards.

They didn't do it alone.  The various states had to form State Guard units as, even though its rare, State Governors lacked an armed force for internal security in the event of riots or disasters.  Substitute militia units were authorized and formed in every state, drawing from the same pool, to some extent, as the United States Guards, but with less connection to the formal National Army.  They were also less regularly equipped as well, relying on old or irregular weapons.   

For the most part, these units saw no action of any substantial type at all, but there is one notable exception, the Texas State Guard, which remained constantly deployed on real active service on the Mexican border, augmenting the United States Army which carried on in that role all throughout the war.  The United States Guards did provide security in Alaska, wild and far duty at that time (the initial unit was made up of men from a waterways unit), and in controlling IWW strikes in Arizona in 1918 and 1919. They also were used to suppress a race riot in North Carolina in 1918.

After the war, the United States Guards were disbanded, with that formally coming in 1920 but with actual demobilization starting on November 11, 1918 and continuing on into 1919.  The states largely disbanded the State Guard units, but a few retained them, with states that had such units before the war being in the forefront of that.  During World War Two State Guard units were again reestablished everywhere, after the National Guard was federalized in 1940, although this did not have happy results everywhere.  No effort was made to re-create the United States Guards and no need to do that was seen.  Today, some states still retain State Guard units that augment their National Guard establishments, but most do not.

Photographs, we'd note, of the United States Guards are exceedingly difficult to find, and therefore we've posted none.  They were issued obsolete U.S. arms, like the Krag rifle, or non standard arms, like rejected Russian Mosin Nagants.  While not equipped with the latest weapons going to France, these arms were more than adequate for the role the units performed.  Uniforms were initially going to be made up of blue dress uniforms of a late pattern, which did not vary greatly from field uniforms of the late 19th Century, but this was soon rejected on the basis that it deterred enlistment on the part of the men who did not want to be identified with rejected uniforms for rejected service.

Their service is obscure, but like that provided by State Guardsmen on the Mexican boarder during the war, it was real service.  It started on this day in 1917.

1917   The Saturday Evening Post, December 22, 1917

1918  December 22, 1918. Some days the headlines are just weird.

1921  President Warren Harding signed an Executive Order that designated expanded the National Elk Refuge into, additionally, a bird refuge.

1942  It is announced that a major butane plant will be built by Continental Oil Company at Lance Creek.  Lance Creeks saw a huge boom in oil activity during World War Two.

1958  Herbert J. Brees died in San Antonio Texas.  Brees was born in Laramie in 1877, and graduated from the University of Wyoming with a BS in 1897.  He earned a LLD, a version of a JD, in 1939, very late in his Army career.

He served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Volunteer Cavalry during 1898 as a volunteer for the Spanish American War and transferred from it in to the Regular Army in 1898.  He served initially in the artillery after joining the regular Army, but thereafter served principally in the cavalry branch until his retirement in 1941.  One of this last roles in the Army was as the Chief Controller for the Louisiana Maneuvers.  Brees Field, Laramie's airport, is named for him.

1978  The Downtown Cheyenne Historic District added to the National Registry of Historic Places.

December 21

Today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

1620     The Mayflower voyagers went ashore for the first time at present-day Plymouth, Mass.  

1866  A force principally comprised of Sioux lures a force principally made up of post Civil War recruits, commanded by William Fetterman, into an ambush outside of Ft. Phil Kearny.  Fetterman was arrogant in regards to his opinions of his abilities and that of his green troops and insubordinate to some degree in regards to his weak commander, Col. Carrington.  In the resulting battle Fetterman's entire command, 82 (including two civilians) are killed in the largest post Civil War military disaster of the Indian Wars up until Little Big Horn a decade later.  The battle also results in a type of siege around Ft. Phil Kearny, just a few miles from the battlefield, where the command buttons up as a result of the disaster.

Coming just a year after the carnage of the Civil War, the defeat, which was recognized as a military disaster at the time, nonetheless did not have the huge public impact that Custer's defeat a decade later in Montana would.  Indeed, while recognized as a disaster at the time, the Sioux victory would be a significant battle in Red Cloud's War, the only Plains Indian War won by the Indians.  

Like Little Big Horn, the battle has been subjected to continual reinterpretation, and has been nearly from the onset.  As a recent article in the Annals of Wyoming (Spring 2012) reveals there were "eyewitness" accounts that were fiction from day one, and Col. Carrington started receiving criticism from the onset.  As it turns out, conventional accounts of the battle remain the most accurate, with Carrington urging Fetterman not to go beyond the nearby ridge-line, and Fetterman ignoring that order.  Fetterman's contempt for his Indian foe that day would prove disasterous.

1916   The Cheyenne State Leader for December 21, 1916: Mexican raid into Arizona threatened.
 

The terrible fire at the Inter-Ocean was still very much in the news, but we also learned that there was concern over a potential raid into Arizona by some Mexican bands.  Of course, the Wyoming Tribune had reported on this yesterday.

President Wilson's peacemaking efforts also hit the news.

1927  Ed Cantrell, Wyoming lawman, born in Bloomington Indiana.

1933 A bill to introduce a state income tax failed. Attribution.  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1938  Construction on Seminoe  Dam was completed, bu the resulting reservoir would not start being filled until the Spring.

1941  $5,077 collected in Sheridan Wyoming war relief drive. Attribution.  Wyoming State Historical Society.

December 18

1777  Congress declared a Thanksgiving Day following the  British surrender at Saratoga.

1871   A bill providing for the establishment of Yellowstone National Park was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.

1915 The Capital Avenue Theater in Cheyenne was destroyed by fire. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1929   Former Territorial Governor George Baxter White died in New York City.  He held office for only one month.

1933  Joseph C. O'Mahoney appointed U.S. Senator following the death of John B. Kendrick.  He would actually take office on January 1, 1934. 

1944  The Governor of Oklahoma predicted that Mississippi and Wyoming had the brightest oil related futures in the nation.  Attribution.  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1944  U.S. Supreme Court upholds the wartime internment of U.S. Citizens of Japanese extraction, which would of course include those interned at Heart Mountain, Wyoming.

1966  Fritiof Fryxell, first Teton Park naturalist, died.  Attribution. Wyoming State Historical Society.

1998  A fire Newcastle, WY, destroys four century old buildings. Attribution.  On This Day .com.

2008   Gatua wa Mbugwa, a Kenyan, delivers the first dissertation every delivered in Gikuyu, at the University of Wyoming.  The topic was in plant sciences.

2014.  Nebraska and Oklahoma filed a petition with the United States Supreme Court seeking to have leave to sue Colorado on a Constitutional basis.regarding Colorado's state legalization of marijuana.  The basis of their argument is that Colorado's action violates the United States Constitution by ignoring the supremacy nature of Federal provisions banning marijuana.

While an interesting argument, my guess is that this will fail, as the Colorado action, while flying in the face of Federal law, does exist in an atmosphere in which the Federal government has ceased enforcing the law itself.

2019  The United States House of Representatives approved Articles of Impeachment against President Donald Trump.

December 12

Today commemorates Our Lady of Guadalupe on the Catholic calendar.  The day commemorates the appearance of Mary to Juan Diego in Mexico.  The day has always been one of celebration in Mexican communities in the United States, including Wyoming, where various Catholic parishes with significant Hispanic populations have celebrated the day in a traditional fashion.  St. Lawrence O'Toole parish in Laramie, for example, has celebrated the day for decades with a dedicated Mass incorporating the inclusion of a queen and king chosen from amongst the Hispanic youth of the parish.  St. Anthony's parish in Casper includes a march from Pioneer Park, which is located near the old and new courthouses, to the church.

1860   Frank L. Houx, who became Wyoming's acting Governor in 1917 upon Gov. Kendrick's resignation,  was born near Lexington, MO.

1873  Laramie incorporated by the Territorial Legislature.

1873  Wyoming's third Territorial Legislature concluded.

1888  Herman Glafcke takes office as Territorial Bank Examiner.

1910  William Howard Taft nominated Willis Van Devanter to the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  

Van Devanter was born in Indiana and was a 1881 graduate of the Cincinnati Law School.  Like many of Wyoming's early political figures, the young Van Devanter saw opportunity in Wyoming and relocated to Cheyenne after obtaining his law degree where he became a significant practicing.  He served as the Chief Justice of the Territorial Supreme Court after being appointed to the post at age 30.  And he was Chief Justice of the Wyoming Supreme Court for four days prior to returning to private practice after Wyoming achieved statehood.  During his period of private practice he was the legal strategist for the large cattlemen following their arrest for the invasion of Johnson County.

In 1896, after becoming afflicted with Typhus, he relocated to Washington  D. C.  From 1896 to 1900 he served as an Assistant Attorney General assigned to the  Department of the Interior and was a professor at George Washington University's department of law.  In 1903 President Roosevelt nominated him to the 8th Judicial Circuit Court of Appeals, where he was serving when nominated to the United States Supreme Court.  In remarkable contrast to today, his nomination was approved by the Senate on December 15..

 
1916  Chugwater's business district destroyed by fire.  Attribution. Wyoming State Historical Society.

1917     Father Edward Flanagan founded Boys Town outside Omaha, Neb.  From our companion blog:

Boys Town Founded, December 12, 1917
 

Monsignor Edward J. Flanagan

On this date in 1917, Monsignor Edward J. Flanagan founded an orphanage outside of Omaha Nebraska which was called the City of Little Men.  Later changing its name to Boys' Town, the orphanage for boys pioneered the social preparation model for orphanages.  It still exists.

Monsignor Flanagan was Irish by birth and the son of a herdsman.  He immigrated to the United States at age 18 in 1904 and received a bachelors degree just two years later, going on to receive a MA two years after that.  He then entered the seminary in New York and completed his studies in Italy and Austria, being ordained there in 1912.  He was then assigned to Nebraska as a Priest. He became a US citizen in 1919.. His views on the care and development of orphaned children were far ahead of their time.

1919  Fourteen Spanish Flu deaths were reported in Washakie County for this week, which of course occurred during the Spanish Flu Pandemic.

The Spanish Influenza was a disaster of epic proportions which managed to impact nearly the entire globe.  While accounts vary, some accounts indicate that the flu epidemic first broke out, at least in its lethal form, in Camp Funston, Kansas.

1925     The first motel, the Motel Inn, opened, in San Luis Obispo, Calif.  Another sign of the rise of the automobile.  Prior to this, hotels had often been situated relatively near railroads, and they did not feature parking lots.

1941 British decide to abandon northern Malaya. Japanese abandon their first attempt to capture Wake. Japanese complete the occupation of southern Thailand. Japanese invade Burma. Japanese troops land at Legaspi, southeastern Luzon and advance from Vigan and Aparri.  Naval Air Transport Service is established  Germans begin house-by-house search for Jews in Paris.  U.S. Navy takes control of the ocean liner Normandie while it is docked at New York City.   UK declares war on Bulgaria. Hungary and Romania declare war on the United States. India declares war on Japan.  Adolf Hitler announces extermination of the Jews at a meeting in the Reich Chancellery.

1941   The Wyoming Township, Michigan, Police Department founded.

2016  Wyoming Governor Mead addressed the Joint Appropriations Committee in Cheyenne, telling them that budget cuts enacted in prior years were deep enough and not to cut further.  The committee, made up of fiscal conservatives, was largely non reactive to that, but it did have questions about the funding of the Tribal Liaison position which is funded for a reduced $160,000.  Questions were made about whether one liaison for two tribes, now that the tribes cooperation is reduced over prior years, was appropriate, and whether support for the position would remain if the Tribes were asked to fund 10% to 20% of the position.

2016  The Federal Government agreed to buy an inholding belonging to the State in the Grand Teton National Park for $46,000,000. The State had threatened for some time to sell the land if the Federal Government did not buy the 640 acres on the basis that it had to do that to maximize returns for the schools given that the grazing lease only brought in $2,000 per year.

December 10

Today is Wyoming Day

1838  Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar inaugurated the second president of the Republic of Texas.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1869  Territorial Governor John Campbell signed a bill giving full suffrage and public rights to women in Wyoming.  This was the first law passed in the US explicitly granting to women the franchise.  The bill provided that:  ""Every woman of the age of eighteen years residing in this territory, may, at every election cast her vote; and her right to the elective franchise and to hold office under the election laws of the territory shall be the same of electors."  Gov. Campbell's comment, in signing the bill into law, was:  "I have the honor to inform the Council that I have approved 'An act to grant to the Women of Wyoming Territory the right of Suffrage and to hold office.'" 


Critics, or perhaps rather cynics, have sometimes claimed that this served no other purpose other than to raise the number of citizens eligible to vote, and thereby increase the likelihood of early admission as a state, but that view doesn't reflect the early reality of this move.  In fact, Wyoming's politicians were notably egalitarian for the time and too women as members of the body politic seriously.  During the Territorial period women even served on juries, something that was very unusual in the United States at the time, although they lost this right for a time after statehood.

1869  Territorial school laws goes into effect requiring public schools to be funded by taxation.

1898  The Treaty of Paris was signed concluding an agreement to end the Spanish American War.

1906  President Theodore Roosevelt awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

1909     Red Cloud, (Maȟpíya Lúta) Oglala Sioux warrior and chief, and the only Indian leader to have won a war with the United States in the post 1860 time frame which resulted in a favorable treaty from the Indian prospective, died at the Pine Ridge Reservation.  He was 87 years old, and his fairly long life was not uncommon for Indians of this time frame who were not killed by injuries or disease, showing that the often cited assumption that people who lived in a state of nature lived short lives is in error.  After winning Red Cloud's War, a war waged over the Powder River Basin and the Big Horns, he declined to participate in further wars against the United States, which seems to have been motivated by a visit to Washington D.C in which he became aware of the odds against the Plains Indians.  He did not become passive, and warned the United States that its treatment of Indians on the Reservation would lead to further armed conflict, which of course was correct.

While his most famous actions are associated with Wyoming, Red Cloud was born in Nebrasaka which inducted him in recent years into the Nebraska Hall of Fame.

1916 Sunday State Leader for December 10, 1916: Osborne resigns as Assistant Secretary of State, Carranza will sign protocol, Funston explains ban of rivals.
 

December 10, 1916, was a peculiar newspaper day as the Cheyenne State Leader published three editions, only one of which was regular news. The others were holiday features.

In this one, the straight news one, we are told that Carranza will sign the protocol with the US. But will he really?

We also learn that Assistant Secretary of State Osborne resigned that position in order to return to Wyoming.

The news also featured a story on why U.S. Commander in the Southwest, Frederick Funston, banned religious revivals in his region of authority.

And girls from Chicago were looking for husbands.

1918  December 10, 1918. Watering in the Rhine, Welcoming the Troops Home, Massacre in Palestine, Bolsheviks worry about Russians.

Cpt. M. W. Lanham, 2nd Bde, 1st Div, waters his horse "Von Hindenburg", in the Rhine.  Ostensibly Von Hindenburg was the first American horse to drink from the Rhine.

Back home, Casperites were learning what locals and friends of locals had done during the war. . . and a big party was being planned for the returning troops.

Note making the news, a terrible massacre was perpetrated by New Zealand troops, and a few Australians, in the town of Surafend Palestine in reprisal for the murder of a New Zealander soldier.  At least 40 male villagers of that town were killed in the event.

And the Bolsheviks, a movement that had long depended upon revolutionary citizenry, made its fear of that citizenry plain when it ordered that civilians turn in their arms.  Even edged weapons were included in the decree, although shotguns were not.

1919 

December 10, 1919. Air First and a Coal Day

The prize posted by the Australian government of 10,000 Australian pounds (then the unit of currency in Australia) for the first aircraft piloted by Australians to fly from England to the Australia was claimed by the crew of a Vickers Vimy bomber, entered into the contest by Vickers.

The plane was crewed by pilots Cpt. Ross Macpherson Smith and his brother Lt. Keith Macpherson Smith, with mechanics Sgt. W. H. Shiers and J.M. Bennett.  The plane made the trip from Hounslow Heath to Australian starting on November 12, 1919.

Cpt. Smith was killed test piloting a Vickers Viking seaplane in 1922.  Lt. Smith became a Vickers executive and an airline industry figure, dying of natural causes in 1955 at age 64.

Elsewhere, questions began to come up about the nature of diplomatic officer Jenkin's kidnapping even as Republicans continued to press for action of some sort against Mexico.  And as the mine strike ended, kids in Casper were let out of school due to lack of coal for heat.

1920 Woodrow Wilson receives the Nobel Peace Prize.

1941 Guam surrenders to a Japanese landing force after a two day battle. Japanese aircraft sink HMSs Prince of Wales and Repulse, South China Sea. Japanese naval aircraft bomb Cavite Navy Yard, Manila Bay. Japanese troops begin landings in northern Luzon. USS Enterprise aircraft sink sub I-70..

2010  Sothebys auctions a flag attributed to the Seventh Cavalry and used at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

2011 Wyoming experiences a total eclipse of the moon.

December 6

1866   Colonel Henry B. Carrington and Captain William J. Fetterman surrounded by Sioux and Cheyenne warriors and engaged them briefly, before being able to return to Ft. Phil Kearny.

1869  A bill on territorial suffrage was amended before passage to grant the franchise at age 21, as opposed to 18.

1886 Joyce Kilmer, American poet, author of Trees, born. He was killed while serving in the US Army in World War One, in 1918.

 I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

1904  President Roosevelt, in his annual address to Congress, issued the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, stating:

All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.

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

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

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

1918  December 6, 1918. Crossing the Rhine, Crossing the Atlantic, Crossing the English Channel, Villa back, U.S. ponders getting even with Mexico, Caspar Collins a tank, German Crown Prince Nervous, Billings girl suggests Black Crows wrong.

American soldiers crossing the Rhine by Ferry, December 6, 1918.

American soldier in France registering as he board a ship back to the United States.  Note the soldier on the left wearing the heavy mackinaw.

African American troops in England gather to board ships back to the United States.  December 6, 1918.  Some of these soldiers appear to be wearing trench coats which would indicate that they are officers (there were black units with black officers in World War One), or that they have received British issue.  The woman with the basket is helping hand out wheat and chocolate Red Cross candy bars.

American soldiers from units assigned to the British Expeditionary Force on post war leave in England.  December 6, 1918.

 Newpaper reaaders in Casper learned that the late Lt. Caspar Collins might have a tank named after him, although the message that naming a tank after a soldier who became separated from his support in combat could have been questioned.

 A "Pretty Young Woman" in Billings and Northern Wyoming suggest that yes, you do need money even if "you look like that".

Laramie readers learned that there was a move afoot to boycott Mexican oil to teach "Germanized" Mexico a lesson.

1919  December 6, 1919. Rumors of War.

Germany had failed to comply with all of the provisions of the Versailles Treaty by this date, and as a result, a protocol was issued addressing it, and the German government asked to sign it.  To this date, they had not.

Here's what the protocol stated:

At the moment of proceeding to the first deposit of ratifications of the Treaty of Peace, it is placed on record that the following obligations, which Germany had undertaken to execute by the Armistice Conventions and supplementary Agreements, have not been executed or have not been completely fulfilled:  

(1) Armistice Convention of November 11,1918/5 Clause VII; obligation to deliver 5,000 locomotives and 150,000 wagons. 42 locomotives and 4,460 wagons are still to be delivered;
(2) Armistice Convention of November 11, 1918, Clause XII; obligation to withdraw the German troops in Russian territory within the frontiers of Germany, as soon as the' Allies shall think the moment suitable. The withdrawal of these troops has not been effected, despite the reiterated instructions of August 27, September 27 and October 10, 1919;
(3) Armistice Convention of November 11,1918, Clause XIV; obligation to cease at once all requisitions, seizures or coercive measures in Russian territory. The German troops have continued to have recourse to such measures;
(4) Armistice Convention of November 11, 1918, Clause XIX; obligation to return immediately all documents, specie, stocks, shares, paper money, together with plant for the issue thereof, affecting public or private interests in the invaded countries. The complete lists of specie and securities carried off, collected or confiscated by the Germans in the invaded countries have not been supplied;
(5) Armistice Convention of November 11, 1918, Clause XXII; obligation to surrender all German submarines. Destruction of the German submarine U.C. 48 off Ferrol by order of her German commander, and destruction in the North Sea of certain submarines proceeding to England for surrender;
(6) Armistice Convention of November 11, 1918, Clause XXIII; obligation to maintain in Allied ports the German ~arships designated by the Allied and Associated Powers, these ships being intended to be ultimately handedover. Clause XXXI; obligation not to destroy any ship before delivery. Destruction of the said ships at Scapa Flow on June 21, 1919;
(7) Protocol of December 17, 1918, Annex to the Armistice Convention of December 13, 1918; obligation to restore the works of art and artistic documents carried off in France and Belgium. All the works of art removed into the unoccupied parts of Germany have not been restored;
(8) Armistice Convention of January 16, 1919/6 Clause III and Protocol 392/1 Additional Clause III of July 25, 1919; obligation to hand over agricultural machinery in the place of the supplementary railway material provided for in Tables 1 and 2 annexed to the Protocol of Spa of December 17, 1918. The following machines had not been delivered on the stipulated date of October 1, 1919. 40 "Heucke" steam plough outfits; all the cultivators for the outfits; all the spades; 1,500 shovels; 1,130 T.F. 23/26 ploughs; 1,765 T.F. 18/21 ploughs; 1,512 T.F. 23/26 ploughs; 629 T.F. 0 m. 20 Brabant ploughs; 1,205 T.F.o m. 26 Brabant ploughs; 4,282 harrows of 2 k. 500; 2,157 steel cultivators; 966 2 m. 50 manure distributors; 1,608 3 m. 50 manure distributors;
(9) Armistice Convention of January 16, 1919, Clause VI; obligation to restore the industrial material carried off from French and Belgian territory. All this material has not been restored;
(10) Convention of January 16,1919, Clause VIII; obligation to place the German merchant fleet under the control of the Allied and Associated Powers. A certain number of ships whose delivery had been demanded under this clause have not yet been handed over;
(11) Protocols of the Conferences of Brussels of March 13 and 14, 1919; obligation not to export war material of all kinds. Exportation of aeronautical material to Sweden, Holland and Denmark.  

A certain number of the above provisions which have not been executed or have not been executed in full have been renewed by the Treaty of June 28, 1919, whose coming into force will ipso facto render the sanctions there provided applicable. This applies particularly to the various measures to be taken on account of reparation.
Further, the question of the evacuation of the Baltic provinces has been the subject of an exchange of notes and of decisions which are being carried out. The Allied and Associated Powers expressly confirming the contents of their notes, Germany by the present Protocol undertakes to continue to execute them faithfully and strictly.
Finally, as the Allied and Associated Powers could not allow to p'ass without penalty the other failures to execute the Armistice Conventions and violations so serious as the destruction of the German fleet at Scapa Flow, the destruction of U.C. 48 off Ferrol and the destruction in the North Sea of certain submarines on their way to England for surrender, Germany undertakes:
(1) A. To hand over as reparation for the destruction of the German fleet at Scapa Flow: .
(a) Within 60 days from the date of the signature of the present Protocol and in the conditions laid down in the second paragraph of Article 185 of the Treaty of Peace the five following light cruisers:  

Konigsberg,
Pillau,
Graudenz,
Regensburg,
Strassburg.  

(b) Within 90 days from the date of the signature of the present Protocol, and in good condition and ready for service in every respect, such a number of floating docks, floating cranes, tugs and dredgers, equivalent to a total displacement of 400,000 tons, as the Principal Allied and Associated Powers may require. As regards the docks, the lifting power will be considered as the displacement. In the number of docks referred to above there will be about 75 per cent. of docks over 10,000 tons. The whole of this material will be handed over on the spot;  

B. To deliver within 10 days from the signature of the present Protocol a complete list of all floating docks, floating cranes, tugs and dredgers which are German property. This list, which will be delivered to the Naval Inter Allied Commission of Control referred to in Article 209 of the Treaty of Peace, will specify the material which on November 11, 1918, belonged to the German Government or in which the German Government had at that date an important interest; 

C. The officers and men who formed the crews of the warships sunk at Scapa Flow and who are at present detained by the Principal Allied and Associated Powers will, with the exception of those whose surrender is provided for by Article 228 of the Treaty of Peace, be repatriated at latest when Germany has carried out the provisions of Paragraphs A. and B. above;  

D. The destroyer B. 98 will be considered as one of the 42 destroyers whose delivery is provided for by Article 185 of the Treaty of Peace;  

(2) To hand over within 10 days from the signature of the present Protocol the engines and motors of the submarines U. 137 and U. 138 as compensation for the destruction of U.C. 48;  

(3) To pay to the Allied and Associated Governments before January 31, 1920, the value of the aeronautical material exported, in accordance with the decision which will be given and the valuation which will be made and notified by the Aeronautical Inter-Allied Commission of Control referred to in Article 210 of the Treaty of Peace. In the event of Germany not fulfilling these obligations within the periods laid down above, the Allied and Associated Powers reserve the right to take all military or other measures of coercion which they may consider appropriate.

There Versailles Treaty was complicated to start with, and things clearly hadn't been going smoothly in Germany.  The question now was what to do about it, and the threatened solution was military.

This of course followed the ongoing difficulties with Mexico.  The U.S., for its part, hadn't signed the Versailles Treaty, but it still had troops on occupation duty in the country.

Rumors of war were definitely not going away.  It would be enough to make a person want to curl up with a good book and forget the news of the day.

1929  Fort D.A. Russell renamed Fort F.E Warren after the late Wyoming Senator F. E. Warren.

1941  Wyoming Senator Harry Schwartz stated that war with Japan was unlikely.  Given the state of relations between the United States and Japan, which were strained to the limit, and in which the Federal government regarded war as likely to break out at any time, Schwartz's opinion seems more than a little optimistic, although he certainly wasn't the only one to hold it.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1941  President Roosevelt sent a telegram to Emperor Hirohito reading:

Almost a century ago the President of the United States addressed to the Emperor of Japan a message extending an offer of friendship of the people of the United States to the people of Japan. That offer was accepted, and in the long period of unbroken peace and friendship which has followed, our respective nations, through the virtues of their peoples and the wisdom of their rulers have prospered and have substantially helped humanity.

Only in situations of extraordinary importance to our two countries need I address to Your Majesty messages on matters of state. I feel I should now so address you because of the deep and far-reaching emergency which appears to be in formation.

Developments are occurring in the Pacific area which threaten to deprive each of our nations and all humanity of the beneficial influence of the long peace between our two countries. These developments contain tragic possibilities.

The people of the United States, believing in peace and in the right of nations to live and let lives have eagerly watched the conversations between our two Governments during these past months. We have hoped for a termination of the present conflict between Japan and China. We have hoped that a peace of the Pacific could be consummated in such a way that nationalities of many diverse peoples could exist side by side without fear of invasion; that unbearable burdens of armaments could be lifted for them all; and that all peoples would resume commerce without discrimination against or in favor of any nation.

I am certain that it will be clear to Your Majesty, as it is to me, that in seeking these great objectives both Japan and the United States should agree to eliminate any form of military threat. This seemed essential to the attainment of the high objectives.
More than a year ago Your Majesty's Government concluded an agreement with the Vichy Government by which five or six thousand Japanese troops were permitted to enter into Northern French Indochina for the protection of Japanese troops which were operating against China further north. And this Spring and Summer the Vichy Government permitted further Japanese military forces to enter into Southern French Indochina for the common defense of French Indochina. I think I am correct in saying that no attack has been made upon Indochina, nor that any has been contemplated.

During the past few weeks it has become clear to the world that Japanese military, naval and air forces have been sent to Southern Indo-China in such large numbers as to create a reasonable doubt on the part of other nations that this continuing concentration in Indochina is not defensive in its character.

Because these continuing concentrations in Indo-China have reached such large proportions and because they extend now to the southeast and the southwest corners of that Peninsula, it is only reasonable that the people of the Philippines, of the hundreds of Islands of the East Indies, of Malaya and of Thailand itself are asking themselves whether these forces of Japan are preparing or intending to make attack in one or more of these many directions.

I am sure that Your Majesty will understand that the fear of all these peoples is a legitimate fear in as much as it involves their peace and their national existence. I am sure that Your Majesty will understand why the people of the United States in such large numbers look askance at the establishment of military, naval and air bases manned and equipped so greatly as to constitute armed forces capable of measures of offense.

It is clear that a continuance of such a situation is unthinkable. None of the peoples whom have spoken of above can sit either indefinitely or permanently on a keg of dynamite.

There is absolutely no thought on the part of the United States of invading Indo-China if every Japanese soldier or sailor were to be withdrawn therefrom.

I think that we can obtain the same assurance from the Governments of the East Indies, the Governments of Malaya and. the Government of Thailand. I would even undertake to ask for the same assurance on the part of the Government of China. Thus a withdrawal of the Japanese forces from Indo-China would result in the assurance of peace throughout the whole of the South Pacific area.

I address myself to Your Majesty at this moment in the fervent hope that Your Majesty may, as I am doing, give thought in this definite emergency to ways of dispelling the dark clouds. I am confident that both of us, for the sake of the peoples not only of our own great countries but for the sake of humanity in neighboring territories, have a sacred duty to restore traditional amity and prevent further death and destruction in the world.

1973 Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as vice president.

December 3

1762   France ceded to Spain all lands west of the Mississippi.

1866  Nelson Story and his hands arrive in the Gallitin Valley thereby completing the first cattle drive from Texas to Montana.  The drive in its final stages was completed against order from the Army, after he passed Ft. Phil Kearney, due to Indian hostilities.  His men engaged in fights with the Indians along the way. The result of his efforts was the establishment of a successful Montana ranch a good four years prior to another drive of this type.

1867  The first soldier to be interred at the Ft. D. A. Russell Cemetery was.

1877  Former Wyoming Territorial Governor John Campbell appointed American Consul at Basel, Switzerland.

1888  Ella Watson applied for the WT brand.  Her application was rejected.

1890  School was canceled in Rawlins due to insufficient water for the school's boiler.   Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1899  A fire at Ft. Washakie destroyed three buildings.  Ft. Washakie was still an Army utilized installation at that time, as well as being the seat of government for the Wind River Reservation, which it still is.

1901  US President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a speech to the House of Representatives asking the Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits".

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

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

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

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

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

1918  December 3, 1918: Americans in Germany, Wilson to Europe, Women out the workplace door.

Col Charles Howland and staff, Germany, December 3, 1918.  Note the Chaplain, far left.

12th Division at Camp Devens, Massachusetts, December 3, 1918.  Part of the National Army, it wold be demobilized by the end of January 1919.

The news of the day was pretty typical for the immediate post war.  One item to note, however. Strikers employed by a railway in Ohio were demanding that the railway fire its women employees.  Chances are that the women were wartime hires and the men wanted them to go, now that the war was over, and their conscripted colleges would be returning.  The railway apparently had ignored a prior promise to let them go.

And Wilson's troubles with some members of Congress were becoming more and more evident.

1919  December 3, 1919. The Carlisle News Hits the Press. 

Banner headlines appeared in the local press on this day in 1919.

It was a sad end, as we related yesterday.

And already it was noted his wound was not fatal.

And so this phase of the story concluded.

1924  Oil strike near Lovell.

1944 It was reported that a serviceman from Tensleep had asked for his mother to send coffee.  Attribution, Wyoming State Archives.

1979  A Western airlines  737 bound for Sheridan landed by mistake at Buffalo.

2014  Colorado's Governor Hickenlooper apologized to the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes for Colorado's actions leading to the November 29, 1864 Sand Creek Massacre.

November 30

1782 Britain recognizes US independence.

1803 Spain cedes Louisiana to France, including, of course, that part which is now Wyoming.

1810 Oliver Fisher Winchester born.

1856  Martin's Cove survivors arrive in Salt Lake City. 

This event, often sort of off hand stated as having happened in the dead of winter, actually, as this date attests, occurred much earlier and for a much briefer period of time than imagined. The handcart company was in fact detained at Martin's Cove for only five days.

Of course, saying "only five days" presents that, in part, from a modern view.  The handcart company was travelling shockingly late in the year.  Travelling by handcart was an arduous affair under any circumstances and was poorly provided for by this point in their journey. Wyoming is subject to blizzards much earlier than early November and Martin's Cove itself is fairly high altitude at approximately 6,000 feet.

The number of Mormon immigrants that died at Martin's Cove during their storm enforced delay is actually not know, but at least 145 members of the 500 person company died en route to Salt Lake, although not necessarily all of them in this singular event.

1869  Woman's suffrage bill sent to the Territorial House.

1914  International  Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union #322 chartered in Casper.

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

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

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

Thanksgiving Day, 1916
 

November 23 was Thanksgiving Day in 1916.  Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation to that effect on November 17, 1916.

By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation

It has long been the custom of our people to turn in the fruitful autumn of the year in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for His many blessings and mercies to us as a nation. The year that has elapsed since we last observed our day of thanksgiving has been rich in blessings to us as a people, but the whole face of the world has been darkened by war. In the midst of our peace and happiness, our thoughts dwell with painful disquiet upon the struggles and sufferings of the nations at war and of the peoples upon whom war has brought disaster without choice or possibility of escape on their part. We cannot think of our own happiness without thinking also of their pitiful distress.

Now, Therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do appoint Thursday, the thirtieth of November, as a day of National Thanksgiving and Prayer, and urge and advise the people to resort to their several places of worship on that day to render thanks to Almighty God for the blessings of peace and unbroken prosperity which He has bestowed upon our beloved country in such unstinted measure. And I also urge and suggest our duty in this our day of peace and abundance to think in deep sympathy of the stricken peoples of the world upon whom the curse and terror of war has so pitilessly fallen, and to contribute out of our abundant means to the relief of their suffering. Our people could in no better way show their real attitude towards the present struggle of the nations than by contributing out of their abundance to the relief of the suffering which war has brought in its train.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington this seventeenth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and sixteen and of the independence of the United States the one hundred and forty-first.

It must have been a stressful one for a lot of people.  War was raging in Europe and a lot of Wyomingites were serving on the border with Mexico.  The local economy was booming, and there were a lot of changes going on in the towns, but due to the international conflict.

1918  November 30, 1918. Americans enter Germany for the first time, Villa threatens Juarez, Wyomingites get Reserve Plates, Teenage Bride Mildred Harris Chaplin rumored to be planning a visit home, No beer for New Years.

The first Americans to cross into Germany, November 30, 1918.  1st Division.  Wormeldauge Luxembourg to Winchrenger Germany.

On this date in 1918 the U.S. Army entered Germany from Luxembourg.

Gen. Campbell King, left, in Luxembourg on this date in 1918.  King was Harvard educated before attending becoming a lawyer in Georgia.  He entered  the Army in 1897 as a private and was commissioned an officer in 1898.  He was a Major entereing World War One and was breveted the rank of Brigadier General and served as Chief of Staff of the Third Army.  He retired as a Major General in 1932 and lived until 1953.  The officer on the right is an unidentified Marine Corps officer.  Note the much darker uniform and the different pattern of overseas cap, with that type being the type that would later become the service wide pattern after the war.

Headquarters for the occupation force remained, on this day, in Luxembourg itself.

Cheyenne residents read Gen. Pershing's address to his troops and the Governor was demobilizing the Home Guard.

And Wyoming was introducing its coveted "reserve plates" for motor vehicles, in which you could get the same license plate number every year (at a time in which you received new plates every year. . . which was the case at least into the 1970s).

In the other Cheyenne paper readers learned that yes, Villa was threatening Juarez again. So he'd returned from near defeat back to threatening and was back on the very top of the front page yet again. . . just as he had been prior to World War One.

Mildred Harris Chaplain at approximately this time. Her stardom was in ascendancy at the time but her life was is in turmoil.  She's married much older Charlie Chaplain at only age 16, something that would have wrecked both of their careers in and of itself in the present age, under the false belief that she was pregnant.

Cheyenne was hoping for a visit, we also learned, from Mildred Harris, now Mrs. Mildred Chaplin, who had turned 17 years old only the day prior.

In Casper the headline, like on many other papers, dealt with Woodrow Wilson's decision to lead the American peace delegation, something that was not a popular decision with Congress.  Casperites also read of the terrible massacre of the Jews in Lemberg (Lvov) by the Poles.

Casperites also were reading of the disbandment of UW's military training unit.

Casperites also read, in the other paper, Pereshing's Thanksgiving day address.

They also read that the Kaiser was that no longer.

And suds for New Years would be no longer as well. The committee that had suspended brewing as of the first of the year declined to rescind its order now that there was peace.

Boxing match in Archangel Russia between enlisted U.S. and French servicemen, November 30, 1918.

1920  Bureau of Reclamation commences construction of electric power plant at Buffalo Bill Dam.

1927   First day of Fremont County Turkey Show in Lander.  Attribution, Wyoming Historical Association.

1943  The price of coal from Rock Springs was raised $.20 per ton, a fairly substantial climb in that era.  Coal was an extremely vital source of fuel in this time period, although petroleum oil was supplanting it in many ways.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1946  Barbara Cubin, Congresswoman from Wyoming, born in Salinas California.

2012  Wyoming Whiskey releases the first batches of its bourbon whiskey.  The product is the first legally distilled whiskey to be made in Wyoming.  It's not the first whiskey to be distilled in Wyoming, however, as Kemmerer was a center of illegally distilled whiskey during Prohibition.